May 27, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Acts 2: 10-11 + 1 Corinthians 12: 3-7, 12-13 + John 20:19-23

It was probably a long wait; the kind of wait I spoke of last week. It was probably a wait made all the longer because they did not know how long they might wait, nor did they really know what they were waiting for. They just waited, and they waited together. That waiting and that staying together resulted in some powerful and significant changes in those who waited together.  Fear and its power over them was gone. Timid, inarticulate fishermen went fishing again but not for fish. Made bold by a promise kept this unlikely group begins to say and do some unlikely things. They have been ambitious for themselves. They have doubted, denied, and been nowhere to be found when loyalty to their friend might put them at risk. He speaks to them of peace, and they draw swords. But they stayed together and they waited.

What happened to them was not something anyone could have imagined. If the story we tell from Acts of the Apostles was not so familiar, it would be hard to believe. Peter who couldn’t get anything right before now has it all together and isn’t afraid to say. But they are in Jerusalem and we are in Norman. They lived more than two thousand years ago.

We’re living in 2007. If all that stuff really happened, why does the world look the same? Why is there so much religious and ethnic rivalry and obvious hatred? Why is this church born with such promise so easily reduced to quarreling factions arguing over trivial things? Why does it sometimes look like a side-show or a flea market? If signs of the Spirit and those born in that Spirit meant the end of different languages and all the self-consciousness that comes from linguistic and cultural difference, what’s going on today with our walls, our barbed wire fences and racism? Why is there any racism at all? Why do we continue to make distinctions between Jew and Greek or Arab and Palestinian, between slave or free, woman or man; distinctions that favor one at the expense of the other. Why is there so little peace or comfort, or solace? Why do we refuse to forgive or be reconciled? Is Pentecost just a day that comes to close the Easter Season?

What part of this earth’s face as been renewed is a very good question. We have some serious work to do here. If that Spirit really did come, and if this church was born because of it, we’re not finished with the mission these apostles began. Instead of forgiveness and healing, we hang on to hurts and open old wounds. Instead of making peace, we make more terrorists with our bombs. When one sure sign of the Spirit’s presence is the end of a language barrier, and people from every part of the known world become one, what are we doing to the face of this earth except working against that Spirit and its power. The self-righteous accuse poor immigrants from which they are descendants of being “illegal” while they cheat on their taxes and rob the pension funds of helpless employees. I keep wondering who’s illegal here?  We have work to do. Trivial and shallow lives are not compatible with this Holy Spirit. No one will ever accuse the celebrities of sports or Hollywood of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Yet our children idolize them, follow their every greedy escapade, minimize their lust filled lives, and imitate their style, their dress, and contribute to their inflated incomes.

We have work to do.

When will it begin?  When will we no longer need to read about signs of the Spirit’s in the past because they are unmistakably present? I would propose that the answer is: When we open ourselves to change. When we embrace diversity and celebrate its expressions. When we choose forgiveness rather than revenge. When we take peace seriously because it is always a matter of justice. When the comfort of others is our first concern and we find our own comfort in bringing them solace. When human hearts seek God first, and when a decision or opportunity comes along, we wonder first what God wants of us before what we can get out of it. These, and wonders like them will be signs of the Spirit’s presence, and then the face of this earth will really be renewed. We have work to do.

May 17, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Acts 1: 1-11 + Ephesians 1: 17-23 + Luke 24:46-53

You have just heard the final words of Jesus which Luke records for us.

Because the description of the occasion is so fascinating, I’ll bet half of you would be puzzled and pressed to repeat his final command or his last wish. Artists in every age have painted the Ascension with clouds and feet and up stretched arms, with open mouthed disciples looking up at him. But hardly anyone remembers what he said as the scene closes. For Luke in his two volumes, it is a moment of transition and revelation. He records the last instruction simply and directly. “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” In the language of Luke, that means: “Stay together and wait.” Over time it has come to mean:

“Stay in the church (stay together) and be patient.”

We have gleaned all kinds of commandments, rules, does, and don’ts out of the bible, but this one always seems to slip by un-noticed, but it’s there plain as day. For many of us, this is one of the toughest commandments: waiting We don’t practice it very well, and judging from attendance figures and a few other indicators, some have decided not to “stay in the city” as this translation instructs.

I recently read that we can easily spend up to a quarter of our lives waiting at stop lights, sitting in airport terminals, standing in line at the post office, the grocery store, doctors’ and dentists’ office. Waiting on “hold” while some voice without a body tells me that my call is important has convinced me that I have no purgatory left after recently calling my credit card company and listening to every song the Carpenters ever recorded an entering my 14 digit numbers.

We don’t like this even though we can joke about it when we are not doing it. Waiting is not our best virtue, but I believe that our identity as followers of Christ is shaped by it. “Wait” is what Jesus said to his disciples, but it was not what they wanted to hear. We would rather be proactive. It is not just children who what to know if we’re there yet? Being told to stay put and wait undercuts our self-sufficiency and suggests that we’re not quite ready – that something is lacking. But Jesus says: “Wait.” He tells us we’re not ready, that what is missing is the Spirit and we can’t do anything without His Spirit.  et the waiting is difficult, and so we tire of it and want to take control: do it our way, do it now, and be quick.

People who are good at waiting have a lot to teach us. I think of mothers pregnant with life who wait and hope. I think of how they are transformed by that waiting – transformed into loving nurturing mothers. I think of old people, home bound, waiting in nursing home hallways. I think of how they are transformed by that waiting into martyrs: witnesses to the patience and suffering of Christ and how they teach us about weakness, powerlessness, and simplicity.

We have much in common with the disciples of Luke and Acts. We want power, and we seem to be saying: “Lord, is this the time when you will establish the kingdom we expect?”  But Jesus says “wait.” But that waiting is not a meditative, reflective rapture. The appearance of an angel clears that up immediately. To wait upon the Lord is for the purpose of renewing our strength, not hanging around waiting for Christ to return. We are to go into the city – stay together – be church, be one.

There we shall watch and pray and in doing so we discover that God is at work. A great theologian (Karl Barth) suggests that a hand clasped in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.

He also notes that the time between the ascension of Jesus and the return of Jesus is a “significant pause” in which the primary job of the Church is to wait and pray, “Come Holy Spirit.”

At the ascension the world did not look much like a new paradise. To all appearances, it was pretty much as it was when he came. If anything for those who followed him it was a bit worse as rumblings of a persecution began. But after a little waiting and a little prayer, followers became leaders, converts became missionaries, the healed became healers, and nothing was the same.

They stopped looking up to heaven, and began to look at each other, and got on with the business of being church and being love. As mothers tell us when the time comes, “it’s worth the wait.”

May 13, 2007 At Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts 15: 17-2, 22-29 + Revelation 21: 10-14, 22-23 -5 + John 14: 23-29

The struggle and the controversy we study in Acts of the Apostles did not end with the decision of Peter. It was resolved for that time in that place,

but it continues here and now with the same intensity and urgency. The discernment of what is required to be a member of the Christian Community continues. The principals established back then in Jerusalem are still valid for us, the details less applicable. No longer is it a matter of circumcision, and how and where we wash pots and pans according to the Mosaic Law. What cut through all of that was an awareness that prompted by the Holy Spirit that Jesus was revealing and offering a relationship, and that in the strength of that relationship, one would be known, recognized, and claimed by God and the Savior Christ Jesus. Our God is a God of relationship. The unique element that sets Christians off from every other religion is the Trinity — an expression of that God of Relationships. Our relationship with God exists because of his love, and our response which is our spirituality must be a response or a return of that love.  Anything else is unhealthy, just as it would be in any relationship. It is not about fear, nor is about rewards or getting everything you want — that’s not mutual love.

Being in love with God means doing everything necessary to make the relationship grow and prosper. Once you make that kind of relationship your own, then there is no other choice than to live the Gospel completely not because God wants it and we’re afraid of what will happen if we don’t, but because it is right to do so.

If what Jesus reveals and proposes for us is a loving relationship with God, then we ought to be able manage that by the same means we maintain our relationships with others we love and others who love us. If you think it’s good and right to spend time with your husband or wife, with your children or your parents, or your best friends, would it not be the same with God? I wonder how many marriages would last or how many families would stay together is they got an hour a week of your time. Many work, and they work hard to give and provide for their loved ones, but God gets what is left over – and sometime only on occasion after every other “obligation” is taken care of. Minimalism is not the stuff that makes a relationship, and asking what I will get out of it is a sure path to being out of it.

Our diluted version of being Christ like gives us every reason to sit with these readings today and wonder once more what it takes to recognized as a follower of Jesus and claimed by God His Father. It takes more than knowing the Ten Commandments. It means living them and the Beatitudes as well.  Jesus wasn’t fooling around when he said: “Love your enemies.” He didn’t hide the fact that those who were his own would look foolish and be made fun if not even killed.

What they sorted out back there in Jerusalem were the “life rules” that the community must follow in order to be what it is called to be. These shape the attitudes and behaviors of those who truly believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Their mouths were always to carry words of peace and not take up arm. They were asked to live simply and to consider each other’s needs. They were also to not have troubled hearts and live without fear. In a nutshell, that is the Gospel message, and if we take it seriously, it will have a tremendous impact on how we live. But there is a problem to be resolved. We treat each other badly. We sacrifice innocent lives. We seek money and power destroy the environment, develop land and natural resources for our personal gain, exploit the poor and ask God to bless our wars. We promote capital punishment, refuse to moderate our sexual behavior, turn our back on the poor and the sick while never raising a question on how much to spend for our “security”. We abuse and neglect animals, ignore our spiritual lives,

celebrate sacraments when convenient and disregard the voice of our church. What’s worse, we do this and still feel as though we are right with God.

Perhaps as we move toward Pentecost through these Easter Sundays, we might take a hard and good look at how we measure up to the Gospel, ask what we have put before God and what we have preferred over the Holy Eucharist. Pentecost is coming. Indicators of that Spirit’s presence in the lives of Christian people are public and unmistakable.  Our faith and its consequences are not private matters. Being loved and loving in return changes everything.

May 6, 2007 At Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts 14:21-27 + Revelation 21: 1-5 + John 13:31-35

He has just made it around the table washing their feet. As he began, he silenced the quick talking Peter who objected at first, and after that they all kept quiet and watched as he went from one to another. It has been a lesson that salvation is a gift from God, and it must be accepted on God’s terms. Judas has gone, and now he settles down to make sure they understand that what is about to happen is about glory, not defeat, and about God, not just about him.

He gives a commandment, not as though it was an “order”, but a commandment in the covenant sense: a “rule” or way of life in which they will find their identity and by which they will be recognized. It is a commandment that is both old and new. It repeats a verse of the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus which directs that they should love one’s neighbor as one’s self. Yet it is new because now this love will be proof of one’s love for God.

This love forsakes violence and is modeled on the self-offering of Jesus on the cross. This love goes far beyond feeling or passion, because this love is based on mutual communication between persons and it is manifest in deeds, not in words Dorothy Day speaks of this love and calls it a “harsh and dreadful thing”. She sees this love as a relationship tried and tested by fire. It is the fire of perseverance that she refers to: the fire of fidelity. It has nothing to do with feeling good. It has everything to do with doing good.

What Jesus reveals to those who would gather at table with him is that we cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love each other, we must know each other. This truth, this theme weaves its way in and out of his expression and his experience. He speaks again and again of knowing the Father and of knowing each other. For only in that “knowing” can His love be found. And so, we know him in the breaking of the bread, and we know each other in the breaking of the bread.

With the insight that only a lover could have, a poet of our time captures the challenge of this love: “Love does not just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.”  Think of that image for a moment. It takes work to be and stay in love. Just like bread which must be kneaded and worked which must rest and rise, our love cannot simply be left like a stone. Perhaps what we are called to be in this age and in this culture of fast-food and instant pleasure is bread bakers: people willing to work, to knead, to mix, to wait, to watch, to warm, and ultimately savor what can happen when love like yeast is worked into the dough of this world. Jesus must have thought of that when he left himself with us and lifted a piece of bread and said: This is my Body.