An Unknown God or an Ignored God?

6 Easter a         May 21, 2017 

Acts 17:22-31       Ps. Ps. 66  

1 Peter 3:13-22     John 14:15-21               

Lectionary Link

At the Arlington National Cemetery there is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  The unidentified remains of fallen soldiers are buried there.  So we know that the soldiers actually lived and fought in battles but in the days before DNA identification their remains could not be identified.

When St. Paul went to Athens he found himself in conversation with philosophers who were Epicureans and Stoics.  And as a good tourist in Athens, St. Paul visited the Areopagus on Mars Hill to visit the famed sites.  If you go to Athens you have to visit the Parthenon, right?

Among the statues on Mars Hill, St. Paul focused upon an particular altar with an inscription: To an unknown god.  What is this?  Is this a philosophical joke?  Was there a god who was lost in action and became unidentified?  Didn't this unknown god have a story?  The other gods and goddesses of the Greek had the myths that were well known in the writings of the poets.  How could there be an unknown god?

Since the Greeks were always seeking something new, maybe this was an altar to the god who still might be revealed and known.

Whatever the origin of this altar, St. Paul took the opportunity to share something new about God as God became known in Jesus Christ.

St. Paul told them that their poets had an important insight when they wrote that human beings were divine offspring.

This is in agreement with the Genesis story: Adam and Eve were offspring of God, made in the divine image.

If men and women are offspring of God, then something of God must be hidden within humanity.  What is it within humanity that can allow us to discover God?  What is it within us that allows us to be able to say that we know God?

Since humanity has scripture, has writing and since we have use language, this trait is the strongest point of likeness with God.  In the Gospel of John, it is written that Word was in the beginning of human experience as we know it and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  But Word also came to define the entire material world.  The Word was made flesh and dwelled with us.  This is the confession about Jesus Christ.  He was God's Word being made human experience in such a way that image of God could become known to us in a very special and particular way.

How is it that something remains unknown to us?  Something remains foreign to us unless it is translated into our experience.  God can be present and remain unknown unless someone can translate the meaning of God to us.  St. Paul wanted the people of Athens to know that Jesus Christ was the person who was cosmically bi-lingual.  He spoke the life of God and he knew and spoke the words of human experience.  So in Jesus Christ, the life and identity of God became known in a new and special way.  Jesus Christ translated the life of God into human experience, and what did Jesus translate to us about God?

Jesus Christ affirmed that men and women are indeed God's offspring.  We are God's children and because we are God's children, we can discover our divine likeness.  And when we do, we will never feel like abandoned orphans.

Jesus told his friends, You are not orphans.  You are still children of God who is present and known even when you can't see God.  Why?  The likeness of God has arisen in you as an inner Advocate.  This inner advocate is a coach, a distiller of peace and one who affirms and comforts us.  When mom and dad leave their the baby in the next room, it does not mean mom and dad are absent from the baby.  The love and caring presence of parents follows a child everywhere.  So too, Jesus encouraged his friends to discover and enter into a relationship with this inner Advocate, the Holy Spirit who is the continuing presence of God in each person.

And what do we say to children who are struggling with relationship?  Use your words.  Your words create meaning, understanding and relationship.  Our words are our spirits and they are our life and so we need to use our prayer words to discover and understand our relationship with God who can be known within us as an inner Advocate.  Love is to be our practice with God and each other.  And how is love best known?  By keeping the commandments.  Commandments are not just arbitrary rules written in words; the commandments are the body language of love and justice.  What does love look like in practice?  It looks like the behaviors of love and justice.  Keeping commandments is making the Word of God flesh in the actual behaviors of our lives.

Is God unknown to us today?  If God is an unknown God for us, it probably means that God is the God who is ignored by us, because we don't want to bother to know.

Do we have God locked into the unknown status in our lives?  Is God unknown and ignored by us.  If we do, then we have not activated the likeness of God that can be found, known and practiced in our lives.

You've heard the expression, "It takes two to tango."  In our relationship with God, it takes two willing parties.  St. Paul and Gospel writers tell us that God is a very willing party to know us and God sent the "bi-lingual" Jesus to introduce us to a meaningful knowledge of God.

Let us read the Gospel as an invitation to develop a meaningful knowledge of God as it has been lived and shown to us in the life of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Sunday School, May 21, 2017 6 Easter A

Sunday School, May 21, 2017              6 Easter A

Themes:

How do we share good news with other people?

Do we just tell them about ourselves?

Do we try to find out about other people and find agreement with people?

St. Paul went to the place that was thought to be the “smartest” city on earth, the city of Athens, Greece.  Athens was made famous by the famous philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

St. Paul’s good news was telling people that they could know themselves as sons and daughters of God.

In Athens, he reminded them that one of their poets had written that men and women are divine children.

Then St. Paul shared with them how Jesus came as God special son to help us know that we too were sons and daughters of God and that we are a part of God’s loving family.

Jesus told his disciples that he would not leave them to be like orphans. 

What is an orphan?  An orphan is someone who has lost his or her parent.

Jesus promised his disciples that they would not be orphans even after  he left this world.

How would the disciples know that they were God’s children?

Jesus promised that they would have within them, the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit would be an advocate.  An advocate is like a coach, teacher and cheer leader and Jesus said that we can know that inside of us we have someone who is giving us encouragement all of time.

We practice worship and prayer so that we practice and learn to hear the encouragement of God’s Holy Spirit inside of us to give us assurance that we are children of God, our heavenly parent.  We are not orphans because God is our heavenly Father.

Sermon

Did you know that you live in many places at one time?

  But if I am right here, how can I live in many places at one time?

  Where do you live?  What is your address?  So you live in the home with an address?

  But you also live in a town or city.  What is your city?

  You also live in a county.  What is your county?

  You also live in a state.  What is your state?

  You also live in a country.  What is your country?

  You also live in a hemisphere?  What is your hemisphere?

  You also live in a world?  What is our world called?

  You also live in a solar system.  What is the big star that is in the center of our solar system called.

  You also live in a galaxy.  What is our galaxy called?

  You also live in a universe.

  But you also live somewhere else even bigger.

  St. Paul, “Wrote that we live and move and we have our being in God.”  So God is our biggest address, because God made the world.

  We just don’t live in places; we also live with people.

  Who do we live with?  Our families.  What is your family name?

  We live with residents of our city.  We live with residents of our state.  We live with residents of our country, our hemisphere and our world.  Some people think that there are other planets in the universe that have intelligent life too.  And we live with being that we cannot always see; the Bible calls those being angels.

  And finally, we live with God.  God is a Father of the greatest and biggest family of all because God made us all.

  Jesus told his friends that even though he was going away, he would not leave them without a family.  He said he would leave them in the family of God.  And how would they know they were in the family of God?  He would be with them and inside them.

  Jesus said that he would send the Holy Spirit to let them know that they were in God’s family and to let them know that God was with them always.

  So today can you remember your biggest address?  Where do we live?  In God.

  And what is the biggest family that we belong to?  The family of God.

  Let us thank God today for being members of such a great family.  And how did Jesus tell us we should live in God’s family?  We should live with love for one another.  Can you remember that?  Good.

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

May 21, 2017: The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Gathering Songs: Seek Ye First, Jesus Stand among Us,  Let Us Break Bread Together, I Want to Walk

Liturgist: Alleluia, Christ is Risen.

People: The Lord is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: Seek Ye First (Blue Hymnal  # 711)

1-Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you; Allelu, alleluia.  Refrain: Allelluia, alleluia, alleluia, allelu, alleluia.

2-Ask, and it shall be given unto you, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and the door shall be open unto you; Allelu, alleluia.  Refrain

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.   Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Alleluia

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the Acts of the Apostles

The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him-- though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For `In him we live and move and have our being';

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 66

Come and listen, all you who fear God, *and I will tell you what he has done for me.

I called out to him with my mouth, * and his praise was on my tongue.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Litanist:

For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!

For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!

For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!

For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!

For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!

For work and for play. Thanks be to God!

For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!

For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!

For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.

   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus said to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.  "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Father Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.

Since God is so great and we are so small,

We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.

We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and

     resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.

We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is

     welcome.

We believe that Christ is kind and fair.

We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.

And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy.

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.

For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.

For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.

For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.

For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.

For the forgiveness of all of our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Youth Liturgist:          The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

People:                        And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering

Offertory Song:  Jesus Stand Among Us, (Renew! #17)

1          Jesus stand among us, at the meeting of our lives, be our sweet agreement at the meeting of our eyes; O, Jesus, we love You, so we gather here, join our hearts in unity and take away our fear.

2          So to You we’re gathering out of each and every land.  Christ the love between us at the joining of our hand; O, Jesus, we love You, so we gather here, join our hearts in unity and take away our fear.

3          Jesus stand among us, the breaking of the bread, join us as one body as we worship Your, our Head.  O, Jesus, we love You, so we gather here, join our hearts in unity and take away our fear.

                                            

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of our birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(All may gather around the altar)

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory

 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Alleluia.  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia!

Words of Administration

Communion Song: Let Us Break Bread Together (Blue Hymnal, # 325)

1-Let us break bread together on our knees; let us break bread together on our knees; when I fall on my knees, with my face to the rising sun, O Lord, have mercy on me.

2- Let us drink wine together on our knees; let us drink wine together on our knees; when I fall on my knees, with my face to the rising sun, O Lord have mercy on me.

3- Let us praise God together on our knees; let us praise God together on our knees; when I fall on knees, with my fact to the rising sun, O Lord, have mercy on me. 

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;

We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.

And His Presence has been known to us.

We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers

    and sisters in Christ.

Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the

     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,

As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: I Want to Walk As a Child of the Light,  (Blue hymnal, # 490).

1.         I want to walk as a child of the light, I want to follow Jesus.  God set the stars to give light to the world.  The star of my life is Jesus. 

Refrain:  In him there is no darkness at all.  The night and the day are both alike.  The Lamb is the light of the city of God.  Shine in my heart Lord Jesus.

2.         I want to see the brightness of God.  I want to look at Jesus.  Clear sun of righteousness, shine on my path, and show me the way to the Father. Refrain

Dismissal:   

Liturgist: Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.

People: Thanks be to God!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

God as Expanding Container of All

6 Easter a         May 25, 2014    

Acts 17:22-31       Ps. Ps. 66  

1 Peter 3:13-22     John 14:15-21   

Lectionary Link            

  Sometimes when we read the Bible we can be led to some misreadings if we try to visualize with spatial verification the perceptual cosmology of ancient times.  This perceptual cosmology involves a flat earth, a dome sky over which the sun and moon and stars pass each day as they pass under the flat earth each day to return again on the dome sky screen above.  And if you could take a trap door through the top of the domed sky, you would arrive at the abode of God in the “highest” heaven.

  One can appreciate the perceptual truth of the past; in fact we still embody this perceptual truth of the past every time we say the sun rises and sets.  But those ancient perceptual truths have to be internalized to interior heavenly space to have significant spiritual significance for us to today.

  And we can find other biblical models and metaphors to evoke insights for us about the reality of God in our life.

  One of my favorite metaphors comes from a phrase which the writer of the Acts of the Apostles attributes to St. Paul when he was trying to evangelize the Athenians.  Athens was perhaps the intellectual center of the World.    The Hellenistic culture was spread worldwide by the conquest of the most famous student of Aristotle, Alexander the Great.  The remnant of the Hellenistic culture was still present in the Roman World of Jesus and the early church, as a common Greek dialect remained as the lingua franca of the world and this Greek, left over language, became the language of the New Testament.

  The phrase which St. Paul reportedly borrowed from the Greeks to make contact with the philosophically minded Athenians is this:  In God we live and we move and we have our being.

This is a phrase which I would like to explore as providing us with some significant insight about God.  In our day of the pragmatic requirement of truth, sometimes theology and statements about God don’t seem to have any pragmatic value or function.  What difference does an insight about God have for you and me today?

  In God we live and move and have our being.  I think to understand this is to have our lives and life actions altered and changed forever.

   In this view of God, we can understand God as the ultimate Container.  God as the ultimate Container means that everything else is contained and is interior to God.

  But this container is not a hard and firm and static container.  It is an ever expanding container.  God as the greatest Container of all is also an expanding Container.  Why is it necessary for God as the ultimate Container to be an expanding container?  Because everything which exists within God has degrees of freedom which contributes to the actual expansion of the fullness of the divine.  And it has to be this way if we want to embrace a notion of genuine freedom.

  If God is not an expanding container whose boundaries are somehow fixed, it would mean that God would know the future and the possible as actual.  And that would mean determination and predestination; If God knows the future as a present time actual, then such knowledge would implied a fixed universe.  The entire universe might as well be a robot.

  But an expanding God who contains all actually is being affected by how all free beings are acting.  So, our prayers do actually make a difference.  It does matter what we do.  This view of God honors a genuine freedom in this world.  And which of us doubts genuine freedom?  It is so genuine that at times it seems quite obvious that the bad guys are winning.  Freedom is genuine because there is present at the same time so much conflict and competition between human systems and the systems of nature.  Why else would lighting strike cause fires which burn homes and earthquakes sometime have massive destructive effects in human populated areas?

  This massive expanding Container of God within whom we live and have our being, can be so expansive that we can seem like impersonal fragments within such vastness.

  But the Gospel of John gives us the personal touch of the divine.  Who is Jesus?  He is God in human form contained by his Father.  The Son is contained in the Father and the Father is evident in the Son.  We are not rattling around in a massive impersonal bucket of bolts.  We posit a Personal Containing Parent within us from whom we have come.  If personality is what we regard to be the very best of humanity, then for God to be greater than we are, God at the very least would have to be hyper-personal, or personal to the superlative degree.  And so Jesus came to show us that we are personally contained by a very great parenting Personality, indeed, in whom we live and move and have our being.  And this Parenting Personality has not left us orphans.

   The writer of John’s Gospel understood that the life of Jesus was an announcement to the world that we are not abandoned by an unknown and aloof super-impersonal Being.  We are contained by a great Energy of Creativity and Freedom.  We are inspired by God who is pure freedom and pure creativity to use our freedom and creativity in the very best possible way, because you know what?  Our freedom contributes to the future state of an expanding God who responds to our freedom.

  Indeed we are not omnipotent in our freedom, but our freedom is very significant.  And this is the pragmatic truth of living and moving and having our being in God.

  People who are committed to other views of God will say, that if God is expanding then God cannot be perfect because a perfect being does not and cannot change.

  Let us redefine perfect as that which is greatest and the greatest can change as a genuine response to freedom.  And God’s greatness and perfection does not suffer, since God does not have a significant rival; God’s only rival is the Divine Self in a future state.  God’s greatness of the past is only compared with God’s greatness of the future.

  This notion of God helps us to embrace our true freedom in this world.  The great Containing God tries to lure us to excellence, love and justice, even as we have the freedom to resist the lure of God.

   In God we live and move and have our being.  This is a very pragmatic and vital truth for you and I and it can deliver from the cruelty of fatalism.  We are only partially determine; let us embrace the partial freedom which we do have with a new determination, because as we live and move and have our being in God, we in some small but significant ways, determine the Divine Self.  And that is the excitement that you and I can know from this Gospel of being sons and daughters of God, with spiritual DNA.  Amen.