"Divine Order", May 13, 2012

John 15:9-17 Acts 10:44-48 Boundaries are important and are all around us. Floating lines marking the lanes in a swimming pool to prevent swimmers crossing into one another, or to separate the deep end from the shallow. Lines on a basketball court identifying what is in-bounds and what is out. Rivers and Mountain ranges which mark the separation of States and Countries. Boundaries provide definition and security, creating identity and order. We are taught order, one, two, three, four, five, as basic building blocks to all we will ever know. As we learn different languages, we always begin learning: Uno, duos, thres, quatro sinq; Un, du, troi, cat, sinc, cis; Eins, zwei, drei, fier, funph. We learn order, to understand progression, and differences and ways of knowing. But what if, all that we learned in this life, all the created orders and boundaries, had been learned as the parameters of life we need to reject and overcome? A means to the end of discerning where there have been voids in our order. Where limitations and boundaries control, where ends restrict and divide that we are challenged to surpass. This morning we are given only the punchlines to these passages, assuming we understand the context. Centuries before the Roman Empire, in the primordial stories of Genesis, Abraham was given commandment by God of what foods are clean and unclean, kosher and non-kosher. Different from vegetarian and non-vegetarian, Kosher ordering segregated reptiles, shellfish and certain birds, as well as animals with cloven foot or toes, as unclean; versus those with a hoof and fins were clean and good. In the days of the Apostles, following the Resurrection, Simon Peter was told to go to Caesarea. After a long journey Peter went up to the rooftop and had a dream. In this dream, a great sheet was let down from heaven, as a dining room table cloth, on it were all the creatures of the earth. In response to which Peter rejected what was offered as unclean, while a voice from heaven declared what God has made is not for you to decide, and this happened three times. After the third vision, a knock came at the door of the house where they were staying, and the companions of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius led Peter away to Cornelius own home. Now just as there were boundaries separating different foods, there were religious laws that segregated who you could talk to and whose home you could enter. But being invited, Peter went into Cornelius home. Cornelius, the Centurion of Rome declares he had a vision in which he was to send for Simon Peter and he did. Simon Peter begins what is one of the most eloquent of sermons ever preached, that Peter now perceives there is no separation between clean and unclean, Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free. While Peter's companions are astonished at what he is saying, Cornelius and his household are baptized in the Holy Spirit. Peter asks the question which the Ethiopian Eunuch had asked in last week's reading, Is there any reason why these should not receive Water Baptism? The great irony was that the early church understood there was and is an ordering: Jesus was Jewish, Jesus called Jewish Disciples, each disciple had been baptized in water, and later following Easter's resurrection on the day of Pentecost, the one's Jesus had chosen received a Baptism of the Holy Spirit. There was a Baptism of Water as believers chose to be disciples with tangible earthly elements, and later, if chosen by God the disciples were Baptized with the Holy Spirit as a spiritual kind of confirmation. This spiritual baptism, the gifting of the Holy Spirit was what distinguished the Confirmed from the Baptized infants in faith, the ordained from common believers. Here, the order was wrong! Gentiles, Not Jews but Romans, a Centurion of the Emperor no less, had been given the gift of the Holy Spirit! Had God made a mistake? To suggest that God could make a mistake was blasphemy! So how and why had this Cornelius received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and he did so before receiving the Church's Water Baptism? Peter's solution, which everyone acquiesces to accept is that he should be baptized with water. The painful reality is that in the church today, we practice baptism with water NEVER expecting that there could be, let alone would be a baptism of the Holy Spirit as well. The historic understanding of this is simply that baptism is for everyone, Jew or Gentile. But, what if the point of this experience is that not only is our Ordering, our segregations not the DIVINE ORDER, but that in every person there not only could be, but is a Baptism of the Holy Spirit? Not only an in-borne gift, but a time of spiritual awakening, a questioning of priorities and commitments, which then commissions them as Apostles serving others? The problem with the church is that we always attempt to concretize experience. We had an experience once, so we endeavor to create practices that force the Holy Spirit's hand. Jesus said, This is my commandment: “That you love one another.” In the turbulence of the 1960s, with Race riots in Watts and Harlem, with sit-ins and protests at the Presidential Campaigns, with fire-engine hoses and attack dogs turned loose on people for riding buses together through Alabama and Mississippi, the Beatles sang “All You Need IS Love”. FAR more than a blessing “Can't we all just get along” to love is a commitment to care about this other person. We take “friendship” for granted. On Facebook, any acquaintance of and acquaintance can “friend” us, sharing photos and thoughts and relationships. Throughout our lives, we worship and work to go from being part of the masses and crowds which followed Jesus, to actually being a disciple, obeying his word. Yet, according to the Gospel of John, on the night of the Last Supper before Jesus' betrayal and arrest and trial and crucifixion, in the Upper Room with his disciples, after washing their feet, after breaking bread with them and after sharing the cup, after sharing in communion with Jesus, he called them friends. How powerful if we actually treated one another as Jesus treated his friends. Aristotle claimed there were three kinds of friends. There are friends who are useful to us. Who for business or political reasons we want to keep close. There are friends whose company we find pleasurable. The third kind, the best kind of friends, are friends whom we enjoy as friends. These are formative friends. Their company effects us, keeping us out of trouble and forces us to consider what otherwise we would miss. These are friends we allow into intimate contact to know us without pretense as we are. What I find intriguing in the Gospel of John, is that according to the DIVINE ORDER, it is not Jesus' friends who become Jesus' disciples, but his disciples who become his friends. We long to be his disciples, to follow where he leads. According to the Gospel lesson, after Jesus had befriended the disciples, after their spending three years together, learning from his teaching and admonitions, they celebrated communion together where he washed their feet, he broke the bread and gave them the cup, Judas walked out of them, and only after all that, Jesus invites the disciples to a different kind of intimacy as friends, a trust where nothing is withheld, where there is absolute caring. The Divine Order is not the Order we routinely follow, not the logical progression, Divine Order is continual digging deeper, trusting more.

"Unless Someone Guide Me" May 6, 2012

John 15:1-8 Acts 8: 26-40 When you read the Bible, do we listen to the story, entertained by the characters and plot, or do we read the Bible looking for ways to process our circumstance and condition in life? When you read the Bible...You do find time regularly to read the Bible, don't you? This is not a guilt trip. There is no attendance requirement regarding worship, there is no financial tax levied for paying offerings, we want believers to want to come to worship as each have needs, to give as we are able. However, as human creature, just as we need to breathe, just as we need eat and drink, so also we each have a spiritual need to reflect on life seeking if not understanding at least empathy to know we are not alone. Our lives are far too busy, too scheduled. Yesterday, I listened to several, who described that after a busy week caring for others, doing our jobs, were at a Breakfast at 8:45 to listen to Martha's witness as a woman who had survived Civil War in Sudan and immigrating to America. What I found especially poignant was her reflection on how for all the years of survival, years of living as a refugee, years of making your way into a new world and new culture, for many there had been denial of feelings and repression of self, which for many survivors had led to depression and anger, guilt and loss of identity. I listened and watched, as these same people who had come so early, left to attend a funeral, then left that funeral to attend a Memorial for another friend, and left that for other engagements of our days. We each have a human spiritual need for sabbath. Not necessarily adhering to a law of staying put from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, or from the chiming of the bell at 9:30 Sunday morning until the preacher drops their hand at the Benediction, but time to reflect, and regular space in our lives to pray. Call it meditation, call it Tai Chi, call it your devotional time, “decompression to prevent depression”, your “Me-time”, your time walking the dog or going for a run, not going golfing to compete, to socialize or to perfect pour game but maybe standing at the Tee and walking a whole bucket full of balls. We each need regular opportunities to pour out all we have taken in. We happen to exist in one of the most incredible places in all the world, our lives are richly blessed, yet we are so busy, running from crisis to crisis, adhering to our schedules, being at the right place at the right time, we fail to notice who we are, what we are becoming, where we are, and just how blessed we are. We are refugees running from ourselves. We have adopted an attitude of survival of living from day to day, because to consider more might overwhelm us. I in no way want to minimize the horrors others have endured. We have not had to live with the terror of being afraid where you step, or what you touch blowing up. We routinely take off our shoes to ride on airplanes, rather than running away from the sound of planes for fear of being shot or bombed, let alone the idea of taking off our shoes because the ground beneath us is “holy”. But denial of self and repression of feelings in order to survive, these have become the norm throughout the world. We pray and read the Scriptures, in order to listen to ourselves, to listen for God, to know that there is something, and someone more grand and larger than ourselves, allowing our lives to be redeemed. The passage from Acts is about one who is reading the Bible to try to redeem their circumstance, to try to understand. Where so often the Bible deals with a beggar, three lepers, a boy with convulsions, who are difficult for us to identify with, this passage is about a person with great responsibilities and great stresses. The identification of this person as needing healing is that they have had to give up family for their career, they have been humiliated and subjugated, yet have worked and dedicated their lives to service which has given them certain authority and reputation and title. What is implied is not a racial separation, by identification as an Ethiopian Eunuch, but this is one from the farthest corners of the earth, who has come seeking wisdom in Israel. To be a Eunuch, a Priest of the Candace means that before puberty this child had been chosen to serve others. This child was designated as one who would serve women, and live among women of prestige and wealth. To ensure that this child had no thoughts of himself, no desire for women, no ability to reproduce, he was CASTRATED before ever becoming a man. Not only had this one lived life in service to others. All their life they would have been teased and tormented, flirted with knowing that no longer was he able to respond as a man. From far distant lands, this Eunuch of Ethiopia had heard of the mighty acts of God, was intrigued and wanted to worship to believe. As one of great power and authority, this one had the ability to travel, to come to Israel,... but once again having been castrated, not only could he never be circumcised in order to convert to Judaism, according to the Books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus being a eunuch he could not be allowed into the Temple as one unclean. Yet, according to the Book of Isaiah, all things are possible. According to Isaiah, even the eunuchs are welcome at the Mountain of God. So this eunuch wonders, which is true? When the Bible seems to disagree, which do we believe Deuteronomy and Leviticus, or Isaiah? How do we know what to believe? Do we just make it up for ourselves? Do we seek answers that make us feel better, or is there truth? Suddenly, there was Phillip. This is a wonderful story. Imagine being in Washington DC or Manhattan, a foreign dignitary is riding in the back seats of his limousine or SUV, it is a beautiful morning like this so the windows are rolled down, and the dignitary is reading allowed. Researching this, it seems our routine of quietly reading to ourselves only began about a 150 years ago. That throughout the Ancient world, even up until the mid 1800s, people who could read, read aloud. This only became a problem when more and more people learned to read, and their reading became a distraction to one another. SO this Limousine is driving down Columbus Circle or Riverside Drive, with the windows open as the dignitary is reading aloud, when someone comes running up alongside the car, and asks “Do you understand what you are reading?” And the door opens and allows the person on the street to climb in. The response of the Dignitary is not to be insulted, not to take offense. But instead to respond, “How can I understand without someone to explain?” Often I hear people describe that “I tried reading the Bible once.” Like trying to read War and Peace. While just as thick and complicated, this is not a novel to digest and take to Book Club. Instead, to read a chapter, or a story, and pause to examine, to apply to wonder about. In this case, Phillip validates this one as a child of God. Yesterday following the Memorial, someone who was a lifelong Catholic commented, the Preacher described Chuck and Marg would invite people to come with them to worship... wonder why they never invited us? Immediately someone extends a welcome that they could convert. At which we stopped together, and said, there is no need for conversion, in this house of God, at this table, You are welcome. It is like the Eunuch asking Phillip, so there is water here, is there reason why I may not be baptized? When as clergy we are trained at Seminary, we are taught the rules of Ordination. Regarding Baptism there are few restrictions, but they are significant. A person is baptized only once in their lifetime, and we baptize into the church into the living community of faith, so it is not necessary to baptize the dead. Yet every minister I know has some story about stretching the boundaries, often it is knowing the baby had died in-utero and as the baby is born, before the chord is cut, the minister baptizes, because it is what the family needs. My favorite story was of an 80 year woman in the church who came to me saying my daughter needs help. When I was pregnant with her 60 odd years ago,I was taken to the hospital because they could not find the baby's heartbeat. The priest was called, who administered last rights, yet two days later the baby was born healthy and strong. Subsequently the priest refused to baptize her because he had already done so, in anointing my belly. All she wants is to be able to receive communion with her family, but she cannot do so having not been baptized. At which point we remembered the story of the Eunuch, and the pastoral question “Here is water, can she not be made whole, can she not be baptized?”