PERFECTION - A homily

 [The following is the homily I delivered on February 19, 2017 at Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota.]

“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”

Leviticus 19:1

“For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.”

1Corinthians 3:17

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5:48

 BE HOLY!  YOU ARE GOD’S TEMPLE!  BE PERFECT!

 
These are tough things to hear.  It makes one sort of wonder if this would have been a good Sunday morning to sleep in.

When we hear things like this, we are tempted to turn the volume down and relegate them to the border-land of pious platitudes where we nod our heads “yes” while inwardly taking comfort that we will never cross that border in our lifetime.

We’re not holy.  We’re not perfect.  In our world holiness and perfection are more the Ideal than the Real.  So please, God, don’t tell us to be something we’re not – something we can’t be – something we don’t want to be.

Nobody likes someone who thinks he’s holy or who thinks she’s perfect.  Besides, I didn't sign up for this.

The problem is God is not offering this as a benign suggestion but rather as a fervent command: 
 

Be Holy!  Be Perfect! Be my Temple!

God is commanding us to be that place in the world of our creating where it can encounter the world as intended by God.  So let us consider the world of our making; the world that came into being the day Adam and Eve took a bite out of the forbidden; that world which periodically bites back. 

In this alternative world reality dictates:

 

·         There are a lot of bad people who’ll take what you have if you’re not looking out for yourself.
 

       ·         The poor are losers, who live off the hard work of others.

 

·         You don’t want uninvited, undesirable foreigners coming across your land.  Kick them out 

       and keep them out!

·         You better take what you can while you can because if you don’t, someone else will. 

·         If the facts are not to your liking, make up alternate facts.

·         People with disabilities better not get in the way or get too head-strong.  If they do, make fun of them, mimic them to show how sad and pathetic they are because they need us more than we need them.

·         Use the law to find ways to avoid paying people you hired.  It makes you look smart.

·         If people hit you, hit them back hard. Better yet, if you think someone deserves to be punched go ahead do it.  They more than likely have it coming. 

·         Don’t treat your enemies nicely.  They’ll just think you’re weak.  Fight fire with fire and put your enemies in their place, preferably six feet under.

·         If someone tries taking something from you, fight back and make them pay. 

·         Don’t be a wimp.  Don’t forgive and don’t forget. 

·         God loves winners and hates losers.  If I’m winning, it’s because God likes me.  If you lose, well… you must be doing something wrong, because God doesn’t like losers.

 

This is the alternate world of our creating. 

Today, this is the world we encounter when we walk out these doors; where unrighteousness is made to look right – where being unjust is justified. It might not be ethically correct, morally correct, or politically correct, but for a lot of people including many Christians it’s just telling it like it is.

Is this really telling it like it is or merely an expression of our periodic devolution into willful ignorance and intellectual blindness?

We can choose to see the alternate world of our making as the only reality there is or we can engage in God's mission of redeeming it to the reality that it ought to be.  There is no middle ground between the holy and the unholy or between the perfect and the imperfect. [See Luke 16:26 from the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.]

In our Leviticus reading this morning God tells us how to care for the poor and foreigner in our land, to provide for them, and not steal in any way, shape or form, to pay those we hire on time, to refrain from lying,  to treat the disabled with respect because God is on their side, and to be just.  For God says, “I am the Lord – your God;” meaning, we have a claim on God just as God has on us. 

We’re in a covenantal relationship – a very deep and intimate relationship of mutual responsibility with our God. To be holy means to be other and requires us to act as we ought to act.  We are to speak the truth and do justice to the poor and the powerful, alike. We are to love our neighbors and our enemies as ourselves because in doing so God is loved.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we are told to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.  Perfection, according to Jesus, is how we are to confront the imperfections of our world.   If one were to sum up what Jesus is saying it would be this.  “Don’t fight fire with fire.” Rather, deprive it of its oxygen – smother it with love.

Jesus doesn’t just say there are bad people; he says there are evil people.  Jesus is not denying the reality of those who act from self-righteous indignation and justified injustice. 

He’s defying it.   He’s saying there’s a far more effective way of responding to it than succumbing to this world's methodical machinations.

Yes, there’re people who will hit us in the face- steal our coats - make us walk in a direction we weren’t going and don’t want to go. 

Yes, there are people who will treat us badly, persecute us simply because we follow Jesus and are devoted to a God of love.

The perfection Jesus is talking about is simply this – the constancy of God’s love in all situations. 

It is that simple, that challenging, that demanding, and that perfect.  And Jesus is saying is  we are made of this love and made for this love. 

Above all, this love of God that we are part of is strong:

·         Strong enough to take a hit.

·         Strong enough to give the shirt off one’s back to someone who steals one’s coat. 

·         Strong enough to walk an extra mile down a path we didn’t choose. 

·         Strong enough to see my brother or sister, a child of God, in the face of those considered my enemy.  

·         Strong enough to pray for those who would persecute us. 

That’s the perfection of our heavenly Father, that’s what God sees in us - perfection.  It’s possible. It’s doable and it’s scary.  This is the kind of holiness and perfection that will humble us and leave us with an unquenchable hunger for God’s righteousness and justice.

And yes, we signed up for this when we entered into a baptismal covenant with God, to become part of the Body of Christ, God’s Temple, in the World: 

“Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?”
 

“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?’

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

To which we all responded in some form or another:  “I will with God’s help.”   

We renew our commitment to this covenant every time we go to communion:  “Sanctify us also that we may faithfully… serve you in unity, constancy, and peace…”

We are called to be a holy and perfect people, the very temple of God in the world because this is how our God imagined the world to be; this is how our God made us; this is how our God sees us:  A holy, perfect temple - God's dwelling place in this world. 

This is who we are!   

 

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

Until next time, stay faithful.

WORSHIP AND THE DIVESTITURE OF POWER

"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.  Amen"

From the Lord's Prayer

Every theistic religion has a form of worship.   Regardless of what day it is, there is usually one day of the week that people take time, the world over, to go to a temple, a mosque, a synagogue or a church to worship.  As most of you know, I'm a Christian and an Episcopalian by denomination, along with claiming to be a faithful agnostic.  Contradiction, irony, and paradox abounds in my life and, from what I can tell, abounds in life in general. 

I like going to church.  I really do.  I probably have attended more services than most simply because I'm an organist, and after almost 50 years of being an organist, playing for multiple services on a weekends in the past, for funerals, weddings and special services, you'd think I'd be "churched-out,", but I actually go home after playing for the service in my home church and listen to two more services on Sunday afternoons, Trinity Wall Street in New York and the National Cathedral in Washington D.C..  I love being an Episcopalian.  I love its open and inclusive attitude, its sincere motivation to put the Gospel in action through its embrace of diversity and love for all people.

I love our services, the music, the liturgy, most sermons/homilies, and the prayers.  I go on YouTube and listen to Evensongs from England or listen to my recorded collection of Evensongs and other sung Anglican liturgies. I like listening to the music of the church by candlelight, sometimes laying on my couch and drifting off as a quiet, invisible participant in a universal state of worship with all the saints, the heavenly hosts, the planets and all the stars that are singing in the voices of the choirs I'm listening to or the organ that is playing.  I can easily get lost in all the wonder, love, and praise that is being expressed in those recorded moments.

I realize that my preferential worship experience is not everyone's cup of tea.  There are many, many forms and ways to worship.  Whatever gets one lost in one's sense of wonder, love, and praise is valid in my book. If golfing or fishing on a Sunday morning sincerely gets you there, good for you. 

I am, however, going to explain my worship preference and what it does for me and why I think it is relevant in the world we live today and how its serves the divestiture of power. To that end I feel need to explain liturgical worship, or what might be referred as a formalized, scripted worship experience.   The term, liturgy, literally means the work of the people or in other words, public service and its roots can be traced back to ancient Athens and Rome were people of stature were expected or required to perform certain duties on behalf of the people.  These duties were largely ritualized acts associated with ancient festivals and the like.   Most theistic religions have some form of liturgy that define acts of praise and supplication; when songs are sung, prayers are said, and other rituals like Holy Communion are performed.  These can be loosely or highly defined depending on the theism or its denomination. 

Liturgy is largely understood, today, as format.  I prefer highly structured, thought-through services as opposed to loosely structured ones.  There are positives and negatives to both forms but I find in more liturgical services; that is, within the context of formal prayer and praise and in the rituals of sign and sacrament being offered a deep sense of longing and letting go being expressed. 
  

LONGING

 

"My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."  Psalm 84:2

It's hard to explain this sense of longing I sometime feel when I'm in a state of worship.  To be honest, I don't often have the luxury of feeling this longing when I'm participating in a worship service as an organist or as the homilist and the organist for the day.  I'm too busy thinking what I need to do next.  That is why I take time to go online and participate in Trinity's and the National Cathedral's services because I don't want to think about what's next.  I just want to be in the moment. 

When I'm at these places in person and with my family, I experience a pull that is best described as a longing.  There is a familiarity in worship that is hard to describe - a deep sense of lost knowing - that I sometimes encounter - a feeling of presence that is both near and far - of now and yet to be. 

  

Formalized liturgical services affords worship this familiarity - no matter where one is at.  You recognize a commonality with the people seated in the same place.  Whether you know them or not, you have a sense of knowing them through a shared worship experience.  This longing is a positive experience.  It means I feel a connection unlike any other connection.  It is the connection that occurs when one is in a liminal environment - a thin place - as Celtic spirituality would call it.  It is as if one is experiencing the thrill of anticipation, the excitement of being on the verge of something about to happen - something at hand, but not quite yet.  I call this experience the nearness of God.  This longing occurs as I prepare for worship, sitting in the church, whether in silence or listening to the pre-service music.

 

For myself, I know of no other place that does this for me, other than a church.  I am sure this is true for those who attend a temple, mosque, or a synagogue as well.  These are all liminal places - places on the verge of encounter with the source of our being.

 

In high liturgical Christian worship, all of the senses are engaged.  Sight, smell, sound, taste and touch are present.  The totality of our sensual selves is involved in this longing for the living God.  All of this outward display, if done sincerely, drives us inward to the source of our being; to the living presence of God beating in our hearts. 

LETTING GO 

"Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee"  Psalm 55:22

In thinking of religious singularity, the biggest obstacle in attaining it is our inability to let go. We don't let go naturally, in my experience, and religion, as a whole (in the way I define religion) doesn't really get us there unless the religion is theistic in nature. Secular religion has a tough time of letting go. [Atheists, by now you know I consider you theistic.]   

The question is what, exactly, are we letting go of?

Power, of course,  but what does that mean?  Why should we let go of power?  How does that help us as a species, since most of our evolutionary history has been acquiring power in order to survive?

In my pondering the evolution of religion, which for the most part centered around acquiring, generating and appealing to power, there occurred a gradual shift in the understanding of power itself. The pursuit of power became more than a necessity for survival, it led to conquest and empire,and the pursuit of power for power's sake as self aggrandizement.  As it did, the concept of the divine, the gods, became embroiled in this human pursuit.  If your side won, your god or gods were powerful and cared about you.  If your side lost, your god or gods were weak or had abandoned you.

It is interesting that the Christian and Judaic Bible reflects this evolutionary process, particularly, the Hebrew scriptures. Where we see this shift in understanding of power is in the prophets and in the Psalms. It is particularly pronounced and underscored in a shift in the attitude towards worship. In Psalm 51 and Isaiah 57 we are told that God no longer desires burnt offerings to garner atonement for sin and favor with God, that God requires the contrite heart and humble spirit. 

Although these two places in scriptures are the only places that reference this directly,  it is implicit in most of what the Psalms and the prophets are saying.  It represents a seismic shift in the understanding of worship and the sense of power.  It comes through a recognition that power has its limitations; that, in human terms, the use of power beyond the necessity to survive can and will likely lead to abuse; that the acquisition of power for power's sake corrupts and as Lord Acton said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." 

After the destruction of the first Temple and the Babylonian captivity, the God of Abraham was not seen as abandoning his people.  On the contrary,  God was understood to go with them into captivity, as he had when Israel went to Egypt and became enslaved by the Egyptians.  In fact, I maintain the Passover story was largely embellished and took on new meaning during this formative period of Judaism.   Power became suspect and best left to God rather than in the hands of humans. In fact, Judaism from that moment on took a wary view of regal power.  The Davidic throne became more a metaphor for the ideal rule of God than something to be realized.  

Our public, communal worship services, however, reflect this divestiture of power, of ascribing to the Lord, strength and honor.  The structure of public worship walks us through a divestiture of power. Divesting power is a bit like housekeeping; putting out the garbage, putting things in order; putting ourselves in perspective with our God and our fellow human beings. 

It re-establishes the primal religious impulse of needing each other while shedding new light on the differentiating paradigm of  religion - a light that sees difference and diversity as a gift and a blessing as opposed to being a challenge and a threat.  This can only be properly done if we give up the desire to be powerful for power's sake, to turn our desires and will over to the power that is God - to let go of that which makes us feel powerful in the human sense of power, the grudges we hold,  the anger we won't let go of, the fear that prompts us to seek control, the hatred that enables us to dismiss the importance of the those we dislike and deem the enemy.  Cynicism, negativity and sarcasm gives us a sense of control and power and motivate us to use power to control and dominate others.  It is hard to let go of such negativity on our own and worship helps us to do so.

I can say that because I've had more than my fair share of moment when I was being negative.  I also know that worship melts such negativity down to a manageable size.  One really can't worship and be negative at the same time.  This is were formal liturgies help, in my experience.  You might be having a bad day on some Sunday morning and haven't quite shaken the feeling off before arriving at church, but once the service starts and you begin to participate in the liturgy, you find yourself forced to admit you're being negative.  If you don't, that will be the longest hour ever spent fuming and you'll have wished you stayed in bed.

LITURGICAL WORSHIP

The  Eucharistic liturgy of the Episcopal Church begins with prayer. Prayer is a big part of any Episcopal service and they are well-crafted and verbally economic.  They say a lot with a few words.  It is through prayer, largely, that Christians and monotheists, in general, divest power and turn it over to God.  The essence of prayer is to let go and let God.  Prayer is far more than a want or wish list. Rather it is a submission where we as individuals and collectively divest ourselves of the need to control every aspect of our lives to the mercy and grace of God.  Prayer, in this sense, is a paradoxical act of liberation through submission no matter what the situation we find ourselves in.  In prayer we are liberated from the impulse to control and exercise power over our lives and the lives of others. 

In liturgical worship services, this occurs formally in various payers called collects, in the confession of sins, in saying the Our Father or Lord's Prayer and ultimately it is enacted in partaking of Holy Communion.   The Christian Eucharistic liturgy is primarily made of two parts, the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of Holy Communion.   The liturgy of the Word is the larger part of the service and begins with praise and acts of worship directed towards God and then moves towards the scripture reading appointed for the day.  Almost all liturgical churches share the same or very similar lectionaries (scheduled readings) that assign four readings for each day of the year.  This include readings from the Hebrew scriptures, the Psalms, the Epistles of the New Testament and the Gospels and then a commentary called a homily or a sermon in which the preacher ties the readings or a portion of the readings to our daily experiences - a time of meditation and reflection that should make us think rather than tell us how to think. 

Then follows a creed of some form or fashion.  As you know, I'm not a fan of creeds that begin with "I believe..."  or "We believe..."  Beliefs are tricky business and can lead to idolatrous worship which in monotheistic religion is something to be avoided.  In my understanding, a craven image is not just a mere statue but a description that is set in stone or etched in indelible ink.  Metaphor is a close as one can get to a description of what we identify as God without getting into the realm of the idolatrous.  I believe God, I don't necessarily believe "in" God as a this or a that, which sounds like a topic for another post.  I respect other people saying the creed, will stand while it is being said and will lead it if I'm officiating in a service because I recognize its importance for some who feel disorientated if its not being said, but I generally don't say them.

Having said that, I see no need to protest its being said, but I personally feel creeds are dangerous and misleading.  In my opinion they assert far too much as being God's truth than can be rightfully said in any language and anything that forces people to say something without their being able to fully comprehend its implications seems ethically, if not morally wrong. In my opinion, faithful theistic worship would avoid making people take a theological position they can't possible understand as a necessity to their inclusion in the Body of Christ, the Church, as it enforces a concretization of belief as absolute truth, and ideological beliefs of any kind, in my opinion, should never be treated as being synonymous or on par with faith.  For me saying an apostolic creed is a mild distraction in an otherwise spiritually liberating experience.  I use the time it is being said to remind myself that we can never, on this side of life, comprehend the incomprehensibility, the immensity of God.   Now trying to put that into words would be a statement of faith worth saying.

This is followed in the Episcopal Church by the prayers of the people.  These take on many forms, but they are intended to cover a lot of bases; the world  and its leaders, the church and its leaders, the imprisoned, the sick, the unemployed, those specifically who requested the prayers of the church, those who have died, those who are celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and then there is a brief moment for anyone to add other petitions or thanksgivings, which people frequently do. 

This is followed by a joint confession of sins and absolution.  Sin is another topic I will eventually getting around to spouting off about, but the intent of confession is above all to let go of the garbage we've accumulated throughout the past week - that which gets in the way of our relationships with others; the things we do and the things we didn't do, and thus gets in the way of our relating to God.  In other words,the carbon residue of our playing with fire throughout the week, stoking the fires of anger, impatience, an intolerance and the heat we are recipients of; fire of anger, impatience, and intolerance others give us.  The absolution is the moment of wiping the slate clean, clearing out the creosote of entrenched opinion from the flues of faith.  I think it would be more an effective experience if the absolution was said by everyone, as we are required to ask for forgiveness as we forgive, but the traditional approach works for me also.

In most modern liturgical churches we take a short break to greet each other with the peace of Christ.  In my small congregation, this involves everybody greeting everyone else.  It's one of the advantages of being small. 

The highpoint of Holy Eucharist is the moment of Holy Communion itself.  There are many views as to what Holy Communion signifies.  In my opinion, the relevance of Holy Communion is not so much that it magically or supernaturally forgives sins as a re-enactment of an atoning sacrifice, but rather that in this liminal environment where we are divested of pretense and power, we encounter the intimacy of Christ's body as we become that body in the sharing of bread representing Christ's body and drinking wine representing Christ's blood as a sign an symbol of his presence in our world and in our lives.  In doing so we recognize that we are part of one another in the broad spectrum of the cosmos known as the Body of Christ. It's that intimate, that imminent, and that immense. And  if done mindfully, it gives me a sense of responsibility towards the people I'm sharing communion with and a responsibility to the world in which I live. 

In the Episcopal church we invite anyone who wishes to share in this intimacy to do so whether they are Christian or not.  In this encounter, anyone who comes forward and partakes of this sacrament becomes one with us and by being one with us they become one with our common source, God.   We Episcopalians are not gatekeepers.  We're not about keeping anyone, including little children (especially little children) from approaching Christ - the presence of God in humanity.   This is our calling.  To do otherwise is to exercise power we don't have and should not want.  We may have the keys of the kingdom and the temptation may be to lock people out, but I think it safe to say that being given the keys of the kingdom is more about opening doors then locking them tight; more about taking the risk of inclusiveness than practicing exclusiveness, more about letting go than holding back and building walls.

For most of my life I belonged to a Christian denomination that practiced closed communion or what they now refer to as "close communion."  To me it was sinful practice, an insult to the body and blood of Christ who in the being of Jesus gave his life in love for the world.  The attempt to make something more holy - more meaningful through exclusion is nothing more than using power to control the love of God.  It cannot be done and any attempt to do so is wrong and sinful.

 
WORSHIP AS A WAY OF LIFE

What Sunday worship - the Christian Sabbath - does for me is give me time to power-down in order to power up for the days ahead.  Powering-up, however, is not about trying to push through the days ahead as it about allowing God's presence in my life to come through and seeking God's presence and making that connection to the world I encounter.  In that sense worship becomes a way of life - a way of being.  It's not about acting holy or pietistic.  I  doubt that I can even do that. I have periodically exhibited my rougher edges and edginess.   Rather worship as a way of life is following the narrow path of inclusiveness.  Yes - you heard me correctly.  The narrow path is paradoxically a path that seeks God in all things, seeks the beauty of holiness in all things; one that tries to avoid the expansive path of self aggrandizement, seeing one's self as the measure of all things, including God.  The path of inclusiveness is not as easy nor is it as warm and fuzzy as it sounds. 

There are times when this becomes a real challenge, like the times we're living in right now.  In the anxious anticipatory times we are currently living, uncertainty is being fostered by the creation of an "alternate" certainty that does not ring true. Fear has been tapped as a power source to promote selfishness on both a national and personal level, where using the threat of destructive power is being presented as a constructive means for paving the way for economic growth, national security, world peace, and personal success.  In a very short period of time we are seeing where this is leading to:  The rise of xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and fear of the other in general.  The temptation is to fight this growing inferno with fire; to meet the strength of selfish interest with the strength of selfish interest in a clash of opinionated anger wars that could and will very likely to lead to physical violence if not resolved.  

Such times as these require that theisms of all types step up to the plate and puts power into proper perspective.  It requires that we who worship do so fervently as a means of keeping our desire and the temptation to utilize power in a "get-my-own-way" manner in check.  We need TRUTH and we need to speak TRUTH to power, not in a show of force but with the force of love. 

Again, this can sound so passive, so impotent in the face of the often belligerently idiotic "fire-cracker"rhetoric we're constantly being exposed to, but truth spoken from a position of love can put out fires quicker than anything I know. The strength of love is not only true power, it is clean power and its not easy to handle because it requires putting aside selfish interests, making sure that those who espouse the wrong use of power are being addressed from a position of being loved.

Such a love not only has the strength to step forward and present the face of truth but has the strength to step back and let go and let God in order to prevent us from falling into the temptation of taking matters into our own hands.  This is neither a passive nor is it an aggressive approach.  It is a faithful approach. 

Worship develops this approach, because worship brings a sense of the liminal to all situations; where hope is anticipated and on the verge of realization.  It begins with an aware prayerfulness (as in watch and pray). It does not rush to judgment as judgment is tempered by honest confession (assessment) about one's self.  Worship brings the moment into the realm of scripture where it can be questioned and analyzed, and thought through.  Worship seeks Holy Communion with all that is, bringing it face to face with our common creator, God.


Until next time, stay faithful.  



WORSHIP AS KENOSIS - Part IV - Jesus and Kenosis

"And when Jesus had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when evening was come he was there alone."   Matthew 14:23 [AKJV]

It might strike some of you odd that I start a post on Jesus and kenosis with an obscure verse like this rather than Philippians 2. This verse is easily overlooked because it is squeezed between two of Jesus's famous miracles, the feeding of the five thousand and his walking on water.  The reason I chose to start this discussion with this verse is because in the midst of all the great things Jesus is said to have done, it shows him as the human being he is - tired, worn out, in need of getting away and recharging.

A TWO-TRACK CHRISTOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

There are two theological tracks to choose from when discussing Jesus and kenosis. Simply put, both tracks can be summed up in the concept of Jesus as the Christ being True God and True Man.  The most popular and most orthodox track is the one based on Philippians 2 - what is referred to as High Christology or high-descending Christology.  For the purpose of this post, I'll call it Track One.

TRACK ONE

In Track One. Jesus empties himself of his divine nature to become one of us. The New Testament largely supports this view.  The Gospel of John, as I have explained in numerous posts, not only supports it but largely generates it and takes it to its highest level - Jesus as the only-begotten Son of God, through whom all of creation came into being.  In this track Jesus, as True God descends to become True Man, while never letting go of being True God. 

This perspective is pretty much ingrained in Christian thinking today.  In mainline, more liturgical churches, we say creeds which underscore this view in almost every service offered: " For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven." (Nicene Creed).  It's hard to escape that theology without feeling heretical, but I think its wrong theology and increasingly irrelevant in today's world. 

Being an Episcopalian, however, I'm not one to throw things away.  Rather, I prefer to dust the apostolic creeds off, put them in a tarnish proof bag and shelve them for the time being.  You never know when they might come in handy.  But I think in the world we live in today, we would do well to revisit Jesus and entertain a healthy skepticism about beliefs in general.  The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry has encouraged us to  engage in a new Jesus Movement.  I think that is wise advice, which brings me to Track Two.

TRACK TWO

The Synoptic Gospels, particularly the teachings of Jesus, in the light of the Hebrew Scriptures, offer a different perspective, which is referred to as low-ascending Christology in some circles.  I will refer to it as Track Two.  In this more obscure view (considered by some heretical), Jesus is totally human in every sense of the word, just like you and me, and God chooses him.  In a manner similar to God choosing Abraham to be the father of the Chosen People,  Jesus is chosen to be his identified son; as God's point-man for redeeming humanity to its rightful place.

In Track Two, Jesus divests himself, not of his divinity, but rather the human proclivity to seek power and glory in order to let the power and glory of God shine through his humanity and bring about a new vision of humanity in the service of others.  In the end, as I have stated in my last post, Jesus so empties himself of power, of his own will, that the only thing left in his dying breath is the very the essence of our humanity, the breath of God, the very image of God that we are all made in.  In this track, Jesus's resurrection is a spiritual resurrection, as Paul indicates in 1 Corinthians 15:42-25.  Jesus is restored, Jesus is resurrected in the full image of God - Jesus is one with God.  In this sense, Jesus becomes true to God - realized God - while never letting go of his and our true humanity. 

What makes the difference between these two perspectives is that while Track One is an attempt to show how deeply God loves us by sending his only begotten Son to die for us, it's almost impossible to see Jesus as something to emulate because Jesus isn't really one of us from the beginning - he becomes one of us.  There's always that nagging thought that Jesus was able to do what he did because he was God, not because he was human.  In Track One Jesus is the perfect human, a sinless human, a spotless human whose only handicap is that he put on our skin. Read the Gospel of John, and you'll see that Jesus is portrayed as figuratively walking about a foot or two above the ground. 

How do you follow that act? 

You don't.  In fact, you can't. 

The only thing you can do is believe it. 

And let's be honest, if there was ever a time to question beliefs promoted as facts, now's the time.

Track Two looks at Jesus completely differently.  In Track Two Jesus is our exemplar. He is one of us because he starts, ends, and is raised as one of us.  Track Two is how I believe the first followers of Jesus understood Jesus.  In fact, they called him the Way, someone you could follow.


THE SPONTINAITY OF GOD

 

 

We rarely, if ever, talk about God as being spontaneous. I don't believe the word, spontaneous or a similar concept, is ever used in the Bible, even though God is portrayed as being spontaneous from time to time.  The problem is we like to think of God as always having a plan - the master-mind and master-manipulator of the universe, but the bible also tells us that we cannot fathom the mind of God.

 

When I hear preachers, theologians, and regular Christian folk talk about God having plan, I can't help but smile.  We like the idea that God has a plan.  Everyone should have a plan about something.  Right?

God having a plan means we should be able to figure God out if we can figure God's plan out.   The reason I smile is because, God being God, doesn't need a plan.

 

God is the plan. 

 

And here's what I mean by that:

 

Start reading the Bible from Genesis, chapter one, verse one.  God is spontaneous in the very first verse of the Bible.  Was there a plan when he created the world?  Was there a plan when he created Adam and then later had to create Eve to help Adam out?  Was there a plan when she ate of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?  Track One says yes, Track Two says perhaps, but not necessarily. If there is a plan, its not one can predict and it speaks to God's constancy rather than God's consistency

 

One thing is to see a pattern, but is a pattern really a plan?  

Think for a moment:  Why Eve?  Why Abram?  Why Moses?  Why Paul?  Why Jesus?  Why these particular people?

Once we start trying to figure out God's plan we run into all sorts of theological quandaries. We feel compelled to explain why these individuals were chosen, and we are tempted to come up with reasons and say something of their exceptional nature.  All of a sudden, we start feeling the trap of predestination.

Such quandaries are put to rest once we understand the spontaneous nature of God.  There is an ambiguity in the choices God makes and I suggest that this ambiguity is important in understanding the love of God in our lives and in the lives of the people we read about in the Bible. 

True Love is spontaneous, unpredictable while being constant, and unwavering in its reliability. Above all else, God is love, and as the ancient hymn "Ubi Caritas" says, "Where true charity and love dwell, God himself is there." The presence of God, as Love is all around us and in us. 

You may be thinking by now, what has spontaneity of God have to do with the kenotic state of Jesus? In studying scripture, a pattern I see is that God works very close to where people are at; where we're at.  God rarely interferes but is constantly involved in what we're doing. 

I see God gently guiding and shaping  the flow and contours of our own human progression, both as individuals and human history as a whole.. There is always a sense of choice and spontaneity in the realms of the human and the divine.   There is a great deal of latitude within the immensity of God and this is why it is important that we understand the role of spontaneity of God in the kenotic state of Jesus as you will hopefully see and come to appreciate.

 

 



THE KENOTIC STATE OF JESUS

 

 

So I invite you to journey with me on an adventure into Christology's Track Two. We start with choices.  God chose Jesus to be his son. 

Before going further, I think it fair to ask how can anyone say that with any degree of certainty? 

One can't. 

The fact is one could say there was a mutual choice in Jesus becoming identified as God's son. One might also ask why am I not capitalizing "Son?"    Personally, I think there's a good a reason to capitalize the term "Son" when applied to Jesus, but I want to be careful in differentiating between the Track One view of Jesus being considered God's only-begotten Son and Jesus being the exemplar son, an example and template for all of God's children. 

As far as God choosing Jesus to be his son, this can be deduced from the earliest Christian writings; the Epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Mark.  Paul, being the earliest Christian writer says nothing of Jesus birth other than he was born of a woman and born under the law [Gal.4:4]. 

This is a curious statement that gets overlooked because the context starts with the word, "In the fullness of time God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law..."  When we hear the word "sent" the orthodox mind immediately thinks, sent from heaven, but that is not at all clear in Paul's writings.  It could also mean that Jesus was sent forth into ministry at the fullness of time.

Then we have the earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark.  There is no mention of Jesus's birth in Mark.  Jesus show up on the redemption stage literally out of the blue.  Jesus introduction in the earliest Gospel of Mark merely states:

"And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan. And straightway, coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened ,and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  Mark 1:9-11 [AKJV]

That's it.

Chapter One of Mark is mimicked in almost identical terms in Chapters 3 of  the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew.  What is interesting in these accounts is that apparently Jesus did not know he was God's son until after being baptized, why else would God have to tell him that he is his son?   This has all the appearance of a choice and revelation.  It is also in keeping with God's modus operandi of picking someone who, for all appearance, is an average Joe like Abraham.

In Mark, Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized, to be changed, and God does just that by declaring him to be his son.   The inner conversations that occurs in most like events in the Bible were likely experienced as private visions, intuition and/or revelation  that are spoken aloud in all of scripture for us to understand the workings of God's inner dialogue with our thoughts.  How Jesus came to see God as his Father, as our Father, is explained in mythical or mystical terminology and presented as real time events that anyone could have witnessed if they had been there. The irony of allegory, metaphor, and myth is that in order to understand them, one has to treat them as real events to get at their meanings, which are often hidden in one's visceral feelings towards what is being told.  Detach from them and one loses their meaning.

The fact is, nobody today was present when Jesus was baptized.  The writer of Mark was not present.  At best it is a story related by others some forty to fifty years after its occurrence.  The point is (and it is a very important point) that in Mark we see God choosing Jesus to be his son and throughout the rest of the Synoptic Gospels we see Jesus choosing to see God as his Father, the Father of us all.  This was not a new theological perspective, but rather an old theological perspective brought to new light in the person of Jesus.

This revelation, this insight. or intuition about being chosen to be God's exemplar child results in Jesus being driven into the wilderness, which I see as a metaphor for life.  Most ancient theisms have their heroes or gods or demi-gods experience some sort of similar challenge or test that affirms who they are.  Jesus being sent into the wilderness follows this pattern, but is given a unique twist that often is underappreciated. The wilderness is where Jesus engages in a kenotic process of emptying himself of any delusions he has about his self and who he is.

In the case of Jesus, he does not come to the conclusion that he is the Son of God; as in, he is the fullness of God in the flesh.  He is content to let God say that of him and to embrace it without proof. In the end, Jesus defines his true kenotic Self in relation to God as his Father in terms of his being the Son of Man, to be the everyman exemplar chosen by God. 

In fact, a close reading of the temptation story in the Gospel of Luke shows that Jesus resisted the temptation to test if God really was his Father.  The court of heaven's appointed adversary, Satan, tests Jesus on three fronts and two levels:  The three fronts are, the drive to survive, the desire to succeed, and defying faith in favor of certainty regarding what God says. The two levels in which these temptations are carried out are on a physical/mental and mental/spiritual levels.

In essence, Satan is employing the same test/temptation that was given to Eve to exert personal will over the will of God.   Whereas Eve succumbs to her desire to be like God, thus testing whether God's word is valid, Jesus does neither.  Jesus has the advantage of scripture to rebut Satan's temptations and tests.

 

The point of this story is that Jesus is wrung out of any desire for personal power or personal glory. I maintain the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness was originally a Track Two story. If Jesus was God's only begotten Son from birth, from the very foundation of the universe, the temptation would have been considered a waste of time, a mere show. In Track Two these events have real teeth, and Jesus as a pure human chosen to be the exemplar of all God's children really sweats, really doubts, really gets hungry, really loses sleep, really suffers in silence and is really tempted to think about himself and his own needs.

It is not until he resists the temptation to utilize the power of God for his own benefit, that he is shown becoming faint and losing self.  It is then, in this cracking up state, that the real power of God comes shining through in form of angels ministering to Jesus.  As the late song writer Leonard Cohen put it, it's the cracks in our lives that let the light shine through.  Jesus is no different in that regard.

Jesus being sent into the wilderness is one of two major kenotic experiences in Jesus's life. In that experience, Jesus empties himself of all pretentions of self as to who he is or could be to allow him to identify with all other selves, all the children of God that are. Throughout his ministry, Jesus excluded no one as a child of God.   The second is also a wilderness experience; being alone in the darkness of night in the Garden of Gethsemane or the Mount of Olives.  There, at the end of his active teaching and preaching ministry, Jesus finds himself alone facing, once again, the temptation to do something for himself, to cling to the life he so much loves, and once again he empties himself of the drive to survive and the desire to succeed.  There he empties himself of his last drop of willpower to be open to all that God is.

The question that arises in all of this kenotic undertaking of Jesus is what led him, or better put, what allowed him to do it.  Yes God chose Jesus to be his son, the exemplar child for all of us, but if he is our exemplar, what are we to make of him and our lives?   And what does this have to do with worship?

WORSHIP

Let's begin with worship.  There are many forms of worship.  Regardless of the form or method there is one word that stands out when it comes to worship - giving; as in,  giving praise, giving honor, giving glory, and giving thanks.  The other side of worship is what we get out of it, peace of mind, forgiveness, communion with God and our neighbor, etc.   This is what we think of when we go to church or perhaps temple and synagogue. 

There is a another part to worship, another part of giving that is rarely mentioned, at least in Christian circles, and that is devotion.

Worship as devotion is perhaps the deepest form of worship.  By devotion, I am not talking about reading little devotional tracts or saying routine prayers, rather, by devotion I am talking about a way of life, worship as a way of life.  Devotion demands a giving up of our selves, our sense of personal power and will.  Devotion requires creating an inner space that reflects the constancy of God's love. 

Jesus was devoted to God in a way that emptied himself, to make room in his heart, to make the rough places plain.  I see Jesus in a constant state of devotion, a constant state of worship as kenosis.  Kenosis is not just emptying oneself, but emptying for a purpose, emptying to make room, emptying to create a space for God  and for humanity to dwell within.  Jesus shows us this way.  Jesus, himself, needed time for himself, away from the multitudes, to go up into a high place, alone, in the dark to be devoted to the very source of his being, to empty himself of the baggage that he acquired in the healing of those who came to him, to empty himself of the ignorance he encountered, the arrogance that met him, to make room for those who did such things, to make room for those who said nothing. 

In track Two, Jesus is depicted as a work in progress from the moment of his baptism to the day of his resurrection.  He is our example, and we need this example today more than ever.  We need to be devoted to God as Jesus was devoted to God, to let humanity dwell in us as it did in Jesus.   We need to be open to God's spontaneity - God's creative love in our lives - to mimic it.   To that end or to accomplish that end, Jesus advised, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.


PERFECTION THROUGH KENOSIS

To be honest I often misquoted Matthew 5:48.  As an ardent Track One Christian in my earlier days - where Jesus was totally God from the dawn of time, I quoted this verse as if Jesus was talking about himself, "Be ye perfect as I am perfect."  In Track One Christology, that would be honest mistake but it is not what Jesus said. 

What Jesus said (to quote the Authorized King James Version) is, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."  I have to thank my parish priest for correcting me.  I'm glad he did because it deepens what Jesus was talking about. 

Putting this text in its context, one recognizes it as coming at the end of Jesus's teaching about loving one's neighbors and one's enemies as oneself.  This is the perfection of our Father in heaven - making room for all that is and loving that which God loves - everything. 

The entire Sermon on the Mount could be a teaching about kenosis because it turns all of our most firm ideas and ideologies about reality upside down.  As Christians we readily agree with all these teachings on an intellectual level, but most of us struggle with seeing them as being practical in our workaday existence.  It begins with redefining blessedness or leading a blessed life.  It makes us face the harsh realities of life, spiritual poverty, suffering and mourning, being the object of persecution and hatred in a different light, seeing them as a way to empty ourselves of pretense by embracing the factualness of their existence in the midst of God's love for those who go through such ordeals and those who put others through such ordeals. 

It's not a popular idea.  It never has been and is not likely to become one anytime soon, but it is what we who, identify ourselves as followers of Jesus are called to do.  It must become our devotion, our way of life.  It is why I prefer the title of agnostic rather than believer.  I'm an agnostic for Jesus, for God.  It's not what I know or what I believe, but rather that I try to maintain faith, hope, and love in spite of what I think I know and believe. 

It's not easy and I am not anywhere near getting close to accomplishing any of it.  On my best days, I try to emulate Jesus (if I'm mindful enough); as work in progress.  In general, I see myself like everyone else;  my friends, my neighbors,  and my enemies.  As best I can tell, we're all works in progress, and speaking for myself, I have to admit I screw this up on a regular basis because despite what I think I know and think I believe, none of it really matters if it gets in the way of seeing the divine presence in all that is and trying to make room for it all in the small chambers of my heart.

The only way I can imagine getting to close to this is to practice devotion in the form of kenosis, to daily empty the garbage of  my self in order to make room for the Self I identify as God that is found in all things.   To accomplish that, I frequently find myself finding a corner in my house to sit quietly and let my thoughts tumble by. 

At times, some of them glisten and I have to listen for a bit and then let it go to see if it comes back later on.  If it does, it might end up in one of these posts. 

I pray, not regularly or in prescribed way or in the neurotic sense of trying to get God to do something or stop something.  I pray when I become aware I need to empty the garbage - the inner garbage that I have collected.  I pray when I'm asked, at the time I'm being asked or I'll forget. I pray trying to remember the names of people who've asked for prayer or who I'm mindful of needing it.  I pray for those I don't know, but who I can feel need prayer, need God's presence, which I know is there for them  - mentioning  them reminds me that God is not only there for them, but also for me and the people I love. I pray for the events that disturb me, the people that disturb me -  and after I've done a fair amount of venting  -  I try to bring them into my heart where I can embrace them because it does my heart good to do so after I cleared the trash of my venting away- seriously. 

There seems to be a spiritual wisdom in the practical advice, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."  I think that's a saying Jesus might have come up with.  Hmmm...  At any rate the best place to do that is in one's heart. I totally get why Jesus needed to get away to let go and let God, to empty out in order to make space for what comes around the corner.  That's where worship comes in to help us get our hearts' priorities straight, which will be subject of my next post.

Until next time, stay faithful.  

THE LENS OF THE CROSS - A homily

“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  [1Cor.1:18]

For us who are called to follow Jesus, I would suggest that the cross is a lens through which we see the power of God, the power of love, working through the person of Jesus.   As I thought about what Paul wrote, a hymn came to mind that is more associated with Lent than Epiphany, but one which I feel sheds some light on what Paul wrote.

So I invite you to briefly meditate with me on a hymn written in 18^th century by the Father of English hymnody, Isaac Watt who wrote:

                                    When I survey the wondrous cross where

 the young Prince of Glory died,

 my richest gain I count but loss,

 and pour contempt on all my pride. 

What do we see when we look at the cross – those we see in our churches and hanging on the walls of our homes? 

 Most of the crosses we see today are made of polished metal or wood - some gilded and encrusted with jewels making it difficult to imagine the rough- hewn wood used to execute traitors, rebels, thieves and murderers on – the cross that Jesus was crucified on.

When we see the cross of Jesus, do we wonder about the injustice in the world that it represents?

When we see the cross, do we see the people we crucify – the people we misjudge, the people we feel the world would be better off without; the bad people who we feel deserve what they get?   Do we see them on Jesus’s cross?

Do we see the people who misjudge and think ill of us?  Do we see our enemies on that cross?

Do we see ourselves on that cross, as the failures we sometimes are for the wrongs we have done and the good we have left undone– for our lack of forgiveness and mercy we are called to do? 

Do we see the people we love, our family members, our friends and our neighbors? 

When we survey that wondrous cross – do we see Jesus?  Because in Jesus we’re all there – all of us – all that is – is on that cross – right there with Jesus.  Because of Jesus, that instrument of torturous death created as cruel tool of human justice becomes the symbol of transforming love in the unfathomable humanity of Jesus.  For on the cross, the very human Jesus did something extraordinarily human. 

Let me say that again, on the cross, the very human Jesus did something extraordinarily human. 

The Gospel of Luke tells us that in the midst of his agony, in the midst of his despair, in the midst of feeling abandoned by the very God he loved as his Father, in the midst of feeling unforgiven, he forgave.  He forgave his tormentor, his enemies, those who hated him, those who mocked him, those who crucified him, and those who abandoned him.

There, in the brokenness of his body, in the brokenness of his contrite heart, and there, in the humility of his emptied spirit, he offered and made a space for all of us and for the God he loved as Father to dwell in unity.   There in that broken, contrite, and humble space he forgave all there is to forgive, and in that eternal moment of unrelenting, undying forgiveness, he restored the relationship between humanity and divinity – between God and mankind.  [Hebrews 10]

So Isaac Watts writes:

Forbid it Lord, that I should boast

                                    save in the cross of Christ my God;

                                    all the vain things that charm me most,

                                    I sacrifice them to his blood.

When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Let this cup pass from me, yet not my will, but your will” there was no booming voice from heaven telling Jesus what to do.  Unlike Adam and Eve in another garden, Jesus didn’t seek power through knowing.  Jesus emptied himself of any sense of power, including the power of his own will. 

And Jesus’s prayer was met with silence – a silence that spoke of choice.

Like us, Jesus always faced a choice – a choice he had from the moment he was sent into the wilderness to be tempted, a choice he had in every step of his ministry – the choice to turn away, to think of number one or to face those who approached. 

Some Jesus scholars have made the intriguing suggestion that when Jesus took his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane or the Mount of Olives he was considering making an escape through the wooded area under the cover of darkness.  The Gospels tells us the disciples were armed and ready for a fight, but Jesus’s struggle was fought  in prayer.  

It was a very human moment, no matter how one looks at it, and it was a very pivotal moment in the redemption narrative. In fact, the story of redemption, the story of salvation hinges on the choice Jesus made that night. The Gospels tells us when he heard the footsteps of those seeking his arrest, instead of running Jesus turned to meet them as he always turned to meet those who approached. He met them in the peace of God.  With every step of his journey into the love of God, Jesus emptied himself of his own will, seeking only to love God by loving that which God loves – the whole of creation.

It is clear that Jesus did not want to die and we can deduce from the psalmist and prophets that God never willed his death or anyone’s death as some sort of blood sacrifice to pay the price of sin.  [Genesis 22, Psalm 51:17, Isaiah 57:15]

In the final analysis, we can say with confidence that Jesus died because Jesus loved.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet

                                    sorrow and love flow mingled down!

                                    Did e’re such love and sorrow meet

                                    or thorns compose so rich a crown?

So what did God see when he looked at the cross that Jesus died on?

God, as our heavenly Father, saw his hope and faith in the goodness of the humanity he created affirmed in the love of Jesus, and in Jesus’s all too human suffering and love, God saw creation restored to its rightful place – a creation made right with God – humanity reflecting the very essence of God - Love.

In Jesus, God sees God. For God is love. 

Through the love of Jesus God sees all of us. Jesus died as one of us – as us – out of love for our heavenly Father who he trusted beyond any certainty of an outcome. [Philippians 2]

In the deathly silence he felt on the cross, Jesus chose to forgive. In Jesus’s forgiveness, God forgives all - And God raised Jesus up and in Jesus, God raises us all.  In Jesus, God saw death’s threat to hold back love, destroyed. 

In the death of Jesus, the power of God’s love for humanity was affirmed in the humanity of Jesus's love for God.

When we survey the wondrous cross of Jesus being brought down the aisle of this church, do we feel the draw; do we hear the call to follow that cross to where ever it leads us – to follow Jesus?

When we see the cross do we feel the strength of God to stand firm in the face injustice and meet it with the face love and the peace of God?

When we see the cross are we reminded to forgive as we have been forgiven – to raise up as we have been raised?

Like Jesus, we have choices each and every day on how to live our lives.  We can see this mortal coil, as William Shakespeare put it, as the be all and end all of all there is to life and live as if there is no tomorrow  -  Or we can see life through the lens of Jesus wondrous cross and say with Isaac Watts:

                                    Were the whole realm of nature mine,

                                    that were an offering far too small;

                                    Love so amazing, so divine

                                    demands my soul, my life, my all.