Truth with Boldness, Justice with Compassion

Truth with Boldness, Justice with Compassion

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion. (BCP, p.230)

Faith, Love, Truth, Boldness! The essence of what it means to be a child of God. As Psalm 100 proclaims, “God has made us and we are God’s! We are God’s people and the sheep of God’s pasture.” God has created us in love and with faith that we will boldly proclaim God’s Truth, by our words and especially through our actions, in our world today. God’s intended result of these gifts is proclaimed by Jesus in the prayer he taught his disciples: help make “God’s Kingdom come, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

This Earth is important to God, just as all creation is important to God. If this were not so, I believe God would not have sent Jesus into the world so that “the whole world might be saved.” (John 3:16) So what does this mean to us, to you and me and the whole world, all people, today during a pandemic and at a time when the world is in dire need of bold truth and compassionate justice?

As I read through my social media feeds and read and watch the news my heart aches for the need for justice, and an even greater need for compassion in our world. It is so easy for most of us to feel our own anger, fear and hurt and so difficult for most of us to see or feel the anger, fear and hurt of the other. We find it easier to feel righteous anger at those whose experiences in life and opinions and beliefs are different than ours. We find it easier to respond with sound bites and thoughtless memes than to open our hearts to listen to their hearts. How, for example, do I, who believe that the Confederate Battle Flag should never fly on public property, hear the person who believes it is a necessary part of his or her history? How does the person who believes the Covid-19 Virus is a hoax, hear the one whose wife just died of the virus? How do we reconcile the need for racial justice with the importance of qualified, trained and compassionate law enforcement officers who truly protect and serve us all?

God’s bold truth proclaims that we are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, that you are as important as I and that in God’s sight, no person is an other. God’s bold truth also means that communication is not always easy, that we must listen as well as speak, not just wait for the other person to quit talking so we can speak again. As Bear Bryant once said to the University of Alabama football team, “Boys, if this was easy, we wouldn’t have enough uniforms.”

We have a long journey ahead of us as a Nation. It will not be an easy journey, but it is a journey we must take if our nation is to continue as “One Nation under God.” I believe it is the most important journey we will ever take, a journey that involves loving God, our neighbor and ourselves, equally. Remember the words of St. Paul, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”(1 Cor. 13:4-7) The best example of this I have seen lately was the cooperation between the Protesters and Law Enforcement two weeks ago in Albertville during the march for peace and justice for George Floyd and for racial justice. I believe this was truly an example of boldly proclaiming God’s justice with compassion.

“Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands; serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song. Know this: The Lord himself is God; he himself has made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise; give thanks to him and call upon his Name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his faithfulness endures from age to age.” Psalm 100

And the People said, “Amen!”

God out of the Box

God out of the Box

All human beings have beliefs about God. These beliefs range from absolute literal beliefs in the scriptures of one’s religion, whatever that religion may be, through mythological understandings to agnosticism to atheism. Whatever our particular belief about God, we all put God in a box, we all see God as smaller or different than God really is. By keeping God small God is more comfortable, more manageable, more like us. For those of us who are believers, the box usually limits God to our human and therefore partial understand of God and creation. As St. Paul writes in his first letter to the church at Corinth: ^“for now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

On the upcoming Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate God’s escape from the box. “When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” Fire can be warming and comforting. It can also be uncontrollable and dangerous. (Acts 2:1-4) The Holy Spirit is the fire that only God controls and we are swept up in it, to be controlled by God rather than God being controlled by us. The fire of the Holy Spirit burns down all of our boxes. Acts Continues, “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in their own native language. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power. (Acts 2:5-8)

God’s deeds of Power, the Marvelous acts of God! Pentecost releases God’s power, Pentecost releases us to see a larger God than we can ever imagine. The Hebrew Prophet Joel, some 400 years before the birth of Jesus recognized this power when he proclaimed,

“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon the slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy." (Joel 2:28-29)

800 years earlier Moses proclaimed to Joshua, when questioned about “inappropriate prophets, Eldad and Medad: “Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!" (Numbers 11:29)

That Spirit was again released at Pentecost and we see that Holy Spirit in Christians, and in Jews like Joel and Moses, we see it in Muslims and Buddhists and people of other faiths and of no faith at all. For none of us can control or box in the Spirit of God. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 227)

Do Not Doubt But Believe

Do Not Doubt But Believe

Easter Day continues as the disciples, except for Thomas, gather again in the “Upper Room.” Perhaps they gather to hide out of fear that they may be next, or out of confusion, sadness or disbelief and doubt. (see John 20:19-29)

And then, the impossible happens: Jesus came and stood among them. Then He said,’ Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” Jesus gives them the Spirit of God: fear turns to courage, sadness turns to joy, and doubt and confusion become belief and confidence.

And with that gift of God’s Spirit, Jesus also sends them out to do what he has been doing: to heal, to teach, to forgive and to give new life to all of God’s.

This is exciting for the disciples, so exciting that when Thomas shows up they trip over themselves to share the good news with him, to announce to him that, "We have seen the Lord." Certainly they expected Thomas to be as excited as they were, but Thomas’ response is about what I believe mine would have been: “right, sure you have, what is wrong with all of you, you’ve got to be kidding.” Thomas then proclaims, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." Again, I don’t blame Thomas. I suspect many of us would have reacted the same way. As most of us are aware, the story doesn’t end here. The Gospel continues. . .

“A week later his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’”

Reading closely, we see that Thomas did not put his fingers into the nail holes, nor did he put his fist into the wound in Jesus’ side. No, when given the same information, the same gift the others had received, he simply proclaimed what all proclaim when confronted with the living Christ, “My Lord and My God!” Jesus then blesses Thomas, and then through Thomas blesses us and sends us out to do what Jesus was doing: to heal, to teach, to forgive and to give new life to all of God’s people.

Almighty and everliving God, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the Body of your Son, and heirs of your eternal kingdom. And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord. To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen. (A Sending Prayer after Holy Communion: Book of Common Prayer, p.366)

Three Days that Changed the World

The Sacred Triduum and a Pandemic

I sit at my desk in the middle of the Sacred Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter) as well as the beginning of Passover and in the middle of humanity’s fight against forces of nature (Covid-19 Virus) we have not been able to control. Recently I have spent a great deal of time reflecting about life, including death, about family, friends and even enemies and about what is truly important. A lot of this time has been spent outdoors, either “playing in the dirt” around my home or hiking and kayaking alone (or at least six feet away from my outdoor friends.)

Passover for the Jews, like the Easter Triduum for Christians, celebrates deliverance from death into life. At Passover, the angel of death passed over the homes of the Jewish slaves in Egypt saving the lives of the oldest children. Likewise, the betrayed and executed Jesus, whom Mary Magdalene thought was the gardener, was found alive on Easter Day, bringing light and life back into the world.

Truly this is a strange Holy Week, a strange Passover and a confusing time to be alive: a time of anxiety, frustration, anger, blame and fear.  This is a time of proclaiming, my side is better than your side, my leaders are better than your leaders, I’m right and you are wrong. We cannot control all that is happening, our feelings a raw and on the surface and it takes very little to push us, all of us, over the edge.

The good news of Passover, the good news of the Holy three days which climax with Easter is that they too were times when human beings had no control of the events which were changing their lives forever, and yet, and yet, good news came from bad, freedom came out of slavery and life came out of death. These changes did not happen at once, they did not happen when those involved wanted them to, but the people found that even in the midst of sorrow, loss and death, God was faithful. The found that God walked with them and that God’s people were there for each other. Sometimes God had to drag them kicking and screaming to be there and, no question, God is dragging us kicking and screaming to be there as well.

As we journey deeper into death during this Pandemic may the Passover life and the Easter light guide us to open our hearts, minds and spirits to one another and may the words Jesus borrowed from the Hebrew Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy change our lives:

“This is the first and Great Commandment, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength. The second is like it; love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mark 12:29-31)

Soon and very soon, we will join together and proclaim, “Alleluia Christ is Risen, the Lord is Risen indeed!”

Breath and Life in Difficult Times

We are certainly living in uncertain times, times unlike any most of us of seen in our lifetimes. The Covid-19 Virus, now a Pandemic has literally encircled the world. People have gotten physically sick, people have died and many people around the Globe live in fear for their health and even their lives. Additionally, most of us feel anxious; we are confined to our homes, only leaving for essentials, such as food, medicine and toilet paper. Nursing Homes are on lockdown, schools are closed for the remainder of the school year, businesses are shuttered or running as shadows of their former selves and medical professionals are overworked and under supplied.

Additionally, millions of people have lost their jobs or been furloughed without pay and today is April first and rents are due and mortgages need to be paid. What do we do and where do we go for help. Psalm 121:1-2 encourages us with a similar question, and an answer: “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Yes, we who trust in the Lord will always go to God for help, comfort and Guidance. We will also use the abilities, knowledge and wisdom given to us by God: we will look to physicians, scientists, our elected officials at all levels of government and the civil servants who work for them. We will also love and care for one another in every way possible.

Over the centuries human beings have faced many crises: plague, famine, war, invasion  terrorism and exile. In the sixth century BC, between 597 and 586 Jerusalem was besieged by the Babylonians, the city and the Temple destroyed, the leaders and educated people taken to Babylon and most of the poor left in Jerusalem with little resources to live on. As God often does, God called a prophet to encourage, comfort, strengthen and assure the people, both in Babylon and Jerusalem that God had not forgotten them, that God would see them through, give them hope and bring them back to health and life. That Prophet was Ezekiel and he wrote out God’s charge to him and God’s hope for Judea.

“The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord. . . .” Ezekiel 37:1-14

I believe this is a message we need to hear today and I believe there are many prophets proclaiming this message, in “thought, word and deed.” Churches and individuals, schools and community organizations are providing food and temporary shelter for those out of school and work. Landlords are helping as much as they are able to give people rent relief. Federal, state and local governments are working to provide stimulus packages, increased unemployment income and much needed supplies and equipment for hospitals and medical personal.

All is not running smoothly, we don’t agree with every decision made by our leaders, but we are all in this together, not just in the United States, but we are truly a global society, a global economy and we will only solve this problem working together. Neither was life running smoothly in Ezekiel’s day: Jerusalem was dead; the bones were lifeless and useless. God promised that the bones would be covered with muscle and skin, and just as at the creation, the ‘breath of God’ would enter them and they would live, the nation would live. Remember that the Hebrew word for breath is also the world for spirit, so God put God’s breath, God’s Spirit into the Nation and it ‘lived and knew that God was and is the Lord.’

I believe that is what is happening today, that God is breathing the Holy Spirit into our world, into each nation and its people. I believe this is true for all of us, of people, from every nation, every race and religion and no religion. God is the God of all, and God sent the Son into the world so that the whole world might be saved.

This is the time to believe that these bones will live, and that they will live because we will do our part to protect ourselves and our loved ones and those in the community. We will stay away from people until we are sure that it is safe to resume normal, whatever that will mean, activities. If there is any good we can do to help others to live we will do it with love.

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found. Amen.  

The Breath of God

Source of Grace, Love, Forgiveness and Life

Our lives are gifts from God and are filled with many things: family and friends, jobs and professions, successes and failures, heart songs and heartache, sin and forgiveness, life and death. During the season of Lent leading up to Easter we have to opportunity, perhaps even the necessity to reflect on these many emotions and experiences. The following prayer helps me and many others put all things into perspective.

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer p. 219)

As we examine our lives with the help of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, we see that God cares about our joys and our sorrows, our sins and successes, our life, death and new life (resurrection).  I share a portion of Ezekiel 37:1-14, the Valley of the Dry Bones, and of John 11:1-45, the Raising of Lazarus, to shine a light on God’s care and love for us as we journey from life to death to resurrection with all that entails for us and for our families.

“The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. . . Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord. . . and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. . .” (Ezekiel 37:1-14) The Holy Spirit, the Breath of God surrounds God’s people through life and death and back to life again. We now go with Jesus to Bethany.

“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. . .and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. . . then Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go! (John 11:1-45)

“Lazarus, come out!” “Unbind him and let him go!” Jesus’ words to Lazarus, Jesus’ words to Lazarus’ friends and family are Jesus’ words to us as well. He calls us out from death: from death to our fears, our sins, our disappointments and our failures as well as our physical deaths. We are surrounded by and filled with the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, our chains are broken and we are set free to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.” (Book of Common Prayer p.305)

Jesus’ Temptations, The Coronavirus and What’s Important

Jesus’ Temptations, The Coronavirus and What’s Important

Possessions, Power, Praise

Or

Family, Friends, Creator, Community

Most of us have known for a long time how fragile life can be, not only for individuals, but for our community, the nation, the nations of the World and the Planet itself. Natural disasters like hurricanes, fires and floods have shut down economies, and destroyed lives and property around the world. Wars and terrorism have done the same in parts of our world. Many of us are also concerned about Climate Change and its effect on the global food supply and the continued and sufficient supply of clean water. We think about these events and possibilities and pray for those affected and for the wisdom to help each other recover from these disasters, make necessary changes to our life style and for the grace to love one another so that wars may cease.

But, I have to admit that I naively never considered that a virus originating on a continent thousands of miles away would infect and kill people around the world, stretch our health care system and food supply chain to the breaking points, shut down the global economy putting people out of work around the world, cause financial markets to tumble and increase the political divisions within our own country.

Having said all this, I want to look at Jesus’ Temptations in the wilderness as a window through which we may find the strength to weather the crisis, remember what is important to us and all the peoples of the earth, all of God’s Children, and find the silver lining behind this very, very dark cloud.

The story begins in Luke 3:21-22 when Jesus is baptized by John and the Holy Spirit descends upon him and a voice from heaven declares, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus is then “lead by the Spirit in the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil.” I believe Jesus’ time in the wilderness was used by the Holy Spirit to allow Jesus to focus, meditate and pray about why God had sent him into the world, what was important in life, what his mission was to be and whether he would accept it (remember he was fully human as well as fully God). The three temptations were his “final exam” before “graduation” and beginning his new job, his mission and ministry.

The story continues in Luke 4:1-13 with these temptations: turn the stones to bread; receive the glory and authority and the possession of all kingdoms simply by worshiping the world the flesh and the devil; jump from the pinnacle of the temple, proving God’s power in him: temptations to possessions, power and praise. These are not unlike the temptations we face as we search, struggle and strive to find what is important in our lives. We too are tempted by “the world, the flesh and the devil.”

I see in this time of Pandemic, a wilderness, not unlike the wilderness Jesus found himself in. I see a physical wilderness and a spiritual wilderness. I see anxiety and fear, disappointment, frustration and physical loss including loss of life. I see the loss of jobs, incomes, loss of investment value for some and worries of not being able to pay the mortgage or rent or feed one’s family for others. I also see partisan politics and anger toward those who have more than we do and fear of those who have less. I believe we are all asking the questions: will we make it through this? How long will it last? How long will it take to recover? What will the world be like when this is over?

Let’s begin as Jesus did, by reflecting, mediating, praying and asking ourselves: what is important to me now?  Are possessions, power, praise my focus and goal, or are family, friends, Creator and community more important. As the Caterpillar Tractor Company advertised years ago, “There are no simple solutions, just difficult decisions.” This was true for Jesus and it is true for us as well. We all, obviously, need a place to live and food to eat and a decent job to pay for this things. We also need a health care system that is prepared, provisioned and well supplied to care for all of us. Like Jesus we also need a vision of who God created us to be, how God created us to live, and a vision of the interconnectedness of the World.  As we said in the 1960’s, “we are all passengers on Space Ship Earth.” Yes there is the International Space Station, but for most of the Seven Billion of us there is no place else to go.

Since we are bound together, whether we wish to be are not, perhaps this Crisis will give us that wilderness experience that will help us learn to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” even those neighbors with whom we disagree about history and politics, economic systems or anything else under the sun. Can we use this time to help those in need, to maintain connections with family, friends, our communities, even if we have to do it for awhile by phone, or Skype or Zoom or standing six feet apart at the Grocery Store. Can we use this time to see the world as a community, a very small community in which one can travel from the United States to Europe to Asia in a matter of hours? Can we use this time as an opportunity to learn that those with whom we disagree about global politics love their country and the world just as much as we do?

I leave you with a poem by Wendell Berry shared on Facebook this morning by my friend Lisa Hodgens.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

May we all be free and may we all be connected. “May the peace of God that passes all understanding be with you now and forever. Amen.