Seven Last Words of Jesus from the Cross

Good Friday   A   April10, 2020       

Gen 22:1-18        Ps 22

Heb.10:1-25        John 18:1-19:37

Lectionary Link It is a tradition on Good Friday to use the Last 7 Words of Christ from the Cross as the theme for mediation on this day.  I think as we look at these words that are gleaned from the various Passion Accounts in the Four Gospel, we can find that these words represent some of the central Christian values.  These words can be transferred from the Passion Narratives into the actual events of our lives and world today. The First Words of Jesus from the Cross:  Jesus said, "Father Forgive them, for they know not what they do."  In our haste we would probably say that they knew darn well what they were doing.  And we would say, that ignorance is no excuse.  To err and to be ignorant is very human but to forgive is divine.  One of the greatest errors of being human is the sin of revenge. Human society at its worst  is caught in a web of paybacks.  Revenge creates a domino effect  that

continues to magnify revenge and the damage, UNTIL one person does not return evil for evil but stops and says, "I forgive you. I will stop the cycle of revenge."  For humanity to rise above the law of the claw, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, forgiveness must happen.  Jesus forgave, he stopped the domino effect of violence, and he asks us to do the very same difficult thing.  

The Second Word Christ from the Cross: "Jesus said to the second thief who repented: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in  Paradise."  Many people put off repentance and conversion because they think that they are too far gone.  They think their habits are too deep to over come.  There is no hope.  But Jesus honors every turn toward the good no matter how young or old we are.  At anytime that we turn towards God's mercy; in that moment we have taken a step toward Paradise.  Paradise is to turn toward what is good and right.  And lest we minimize our own willful acts of lawlessness, we need to remember that God is the only one big enough to give someone a clean slate at any moment of life.    God has the power of clemency and pardon. 

The Third Word of Jesus from the Cross: When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Women, behold your Son?  And he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!"   The fifth commandment is Honor your father and your mother.  Jesus, in his darkest hour fulfilled this commandment.  He obeyed his father in heaven and he fulfilled his destiny.  And he entrusted the care of his mother to one of his disciples.  Caring for our aging parents is a big task in our society and it is something that we must always work at to improve the care of elderly parents.  The disciple friend of Jesus was willing to step in to take care of Mary.  We as a society need to be willing to step forward to care for needy parents and those who are made vulnerable by the aging process. 

The Fourth Word of Jesus from the Cross: And about the ninth hour, Jesus Cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, Lama sabachthani."  which means, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"  Have you or I ever found ourselves questioning the fate of our lives, saying, why me God? Why me? Where are you God?  Pain, evil, suffering, misfortune,

ridicule, sense of failure, loss, and grief  all of these occasions can leave us feeling forsaken.  God’s Power, God’s Love do not seem to fit the capriciousness of human affliction.  Jesus in his Passion came to doubt and uncertainty about God's plan.  Jesus understood but understanding didn't take the pain and isolation away.  Evil is unnatural, and that is why we must always cry out against evil.  When we cry out in pain, it does not mean that we lack faith, it means that we have faith in the normalcy of freedom from pain.  We must in faith protest the conditions of this world that deviate from the wonderful normalcy of health, freedom from pain and having enough to eat. 

The Fifth Word of Christ from the Cross: Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, "I thirst."  Hunger, thirst, sickness and pain, all the bodily needs of humanity cry out with Christ on the Cross, and Christ cries out with all human need and want.  We have the opportunity to help quench the need and thirst of Christ in our world, everytime that we see someone in need and reach out to help.  Remember that the presence of Christ is found in the lives of people who are in need.   

The Sixth Word of Christ from the Cross: When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished."  Ultimately, pain and suffering have a friend in death.  Death is a friend to those who suffer terminally.  Let us remember the terminally ill tonight, that they might have the grace to say with Christ, "It is finished."  Let us live our lives in a state of preparation so that we might be ready to be finished with life when our day comes.  

The Seventh Word of Christ from the Cross: Then Jesus crying with a loud voice, said, "Father unto thy hands, I commit my spirit." Jesus jumps into the abyss of death, but in faith he knows that his father will catch him and preserve him in an unspeakable way.  May we too, have faith to jump into the hands of a loving God at the hour of our departure, trusting in God’s ability to preserve of a way that no one else can.   

The Eighth Word is not the Word of Christ, but your word and mine as we stand today at the Cross.  As we kneel in silence, let our prayers be expression of faith that the worst of the world and of our life will be redeemed to us.  And let us offer prayers of thanksgiving for what Christ has done for us.  Amen.

Pillars of the Church: Eucharist and Service

Maundy Thursday   April 9, 2020

Ex. 12:1-14a       Ps. 78:14-20, 23-25

1 Cor 11:23-32      John 13:1-15

 Lectionary Link

Tonight we highlight two pillars of the Christian Church.  Eucharist and service.  Eucharist was a practice very early in the church.  St. Paul said that he received instruction about the Eucharist from the Lord.  He never met Jesus.  He was not at the Last Supper.  Certainly as a Jew, he would have participated in many Passover meals.  The Eucharist includes practices which show derivation from elements of the Passover Meal, but it is distinctively different.  Passover is once a year; Eucharist is on every Sunday.  Passover is an "in the home" family meal; Eucharist is meal that unites people from many families.  As Christians we understand Eucharist to be a command of Jesus for us to do when we meet.  Since Christianity became so prolific, Eucharist lost connection with being an actual meal.  The early Christian gathered to share Eucharist as a way to be present to each other and to care for those who did not have enough to eat.  By eating together, it was a way of making sure that everyone who gathered was getting enough to eat.  The Eucharist had a very practical purpose of care for the early churches and this aspect is lost except when the Eucharist results in also feeding those who do not have enough.  Can we appreciate the genius of the command of Jesus to eat when they gathered in remembrance of him?  In our cultures of excess, we've lost some of the practical sign value of the urgency of the Eucharist for those early communities.  Most every Episcopalian has more than enough food, so we don't have to attend Eucharist to "get" food.  We should not forget the connection of the Eucharist with real food for hungry people.  Sometimes people who need to gather for their well-being are more likely to gather.  We hope that the pandemic will work some reverse psychology upon us; when we're told that we can't gather, we perhaps will appreciate the privilege to gather when permission returns.

The second pillar of this night is the mandatum novum, the new commandment.  Love one another as I have loved you.  How did Jesus exemplify that love?  By washing his disciples' feet.  Hence, foot washing has become a Maundy Thursday ritual.  And suddenly people don't go to the Maundy Thursday service because they are shy about exposing their feet.  Many will spend money for pedicures but suddenly are very modest about their feet at church.  What is symbolic about the foot washing?  Jesus, the main boss, was a servant.  Jesus was training a motley crew that sometimes makes one think about sleepy, dopey, and the other of the seven dwarves.  John and James asked to be the greatest and sit next to Jesus in his administration.  Judas was the treasurer and an embezzler and a betrayer.  Peter was a proud braggart who at crunch time denied knowing Jesus.  Thomas was a doubter.  Andrew was a skeptic about Jesus' ability to feed the crowd.  Nathanael who may have also been Bartholomew, said about Jesus, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" 

These are the guys that Jesus called his friends.  He knew they could be petty and egotistical.  Jesus washed their feet.  And by this he was saying them and to everyone, "Guys, friends, people the only way you can survive as a community is to check your egos at the door.  I'm not too good to wash your feet.  You are not too good to do anything that serves your brother or sister.  And if you are going to survive, the secret is service.

We live in the Maundy Thursday reality today.  St. Mary's was born and survives because we gather for Eucharist (even if we are hindered in the moment).  The mathematic equation for St. Mary's in the Valley is this:  St. Mary's=the sum total of all of the acts of service offered by those who have called St. Mary's their home.  It's as simple as that.  We are the sum total of our service.

Tonight, I would like to thank everyone for their service which has created the reality of St. Mary's.  You and many others have done much more than just wash feet; you have offered all of the kinds of service which comprises our existence as a parish.  We remember all who have served in the past and all who serve now to help us continue to meet and gather.

May God help us continue to be Maundy Thursday Christians by gathering to obey the Lord's command to offer Eucharist and to serve each other in the love of Christ.  Amen.

Power in Weakness

Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday Cycle A   April 5, 2020

Is.45:21-25     Ps. 22:1-11

Phil. 2:5-11    Matthew 26:36-27:66
Lectionary Link

I've entitled my reflections today on Passion Sunday, "Power in Weakness."  I do so to ponder the insights we receive from the writings of St. Paul who quite often offered the poetics of contradiction when he wrote about the cross of Jesus Christ.

"When I am weak, then I am strong.  Christ is God emptied of the Divine even to the point of death, death on a cross.  I determined to know nothing among you but Christ, and him crucified.   Christ has been made all things to us, even death and our sin.  I will not glory in anything except the cross of Christ."  Paul was fixated on the Cross of Christ and he spoke in very contradictory poetic terms about the significance of the cross of Christ.  He believed the cross of Christ, though visibly exhibiting the surrender of God to human death, was in fact an event of great power and glory.  This poetic contradiction is the foundation of the Christian tradition, in which we live and find our family identity as heirs.

Today, in the middle of the widespread pandemic, we find ourselves in the condition of weakness.  These tiny little beastie viruses have the power to bring the strong and powerful to death.   And knowing the power of these unseen tiny virus beasts, we are brought to our knees of human weakness.

Those with political power, with great knowledge and great wealth have been made to partake of the equality of weakness in face of this great plague.

The powerful cannot send their armies quick enough to avert the disaster.  The powerful cannot hire their lawyers to sue or delay this virus.  Those who have power who are used to giving orders have been left publicly in lying denial of this foe who leaves us in weakness.  Those with great wealth cannot secure a bargain with the coronavirus to avert its effects.  Those with the power of knowledge, political position and wealth are not used to being in the position of weakness and many of them are not handling it very well or realistically.  We see many of our leader acting and speaking with great denial because those with little practice in being weak, do not know how to be weak.  We need to look to the survival techniques in life and history of those forced into the power of being weak, yea the slaves and subjugated women of past history, the homeless and the practiced poor who by situation have had to practice the power of survival in the conditions of weakness.

The Passion Accounts came to writing in all four Gospels, so we know how important they were.  But they also came to writing after the theology of the cross of St. Paul.

St. Paul wrote, "I am crucified with Christ, but I live, yet not I, for Christ lives within me."  St. Paul believed that in identity with the cross of Christ one could discover the mystical power to die to the selfish Self.  And dying to this selfish Self was a great power to slay that which is unworthy within us.  This is the mystical path that St. Paul had initiation in and a path which he taught to others.  He taught the mystical ability to be weak, and in this weakness manifest the very power of God's Spirit.

Can we appreciate the total contradictions of Pauline mysticism?

The Passion Gospels put into story form the theology of the cross of St. Paul by presenting the event of the Cross as the power of God's Providence.  In the eyes of the logic of human history, a holy exemplary person who wrongly suffers capital punishment, seems to be an event of defeat for what is good and right and holy.  But the rise of a group of people inspired by resurrection appearances of the Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, make the history of the cross of Jesus into the Providence of the power of God to use the event of weakness to uncanny effect and consequences.

Today, as the entire world is faced with the cross of the coronavirus weakness, how can we with eyes of faith pierce and experience the power of weakness?

Many are not yet willing to submit in acceptance of the weakness forced upon the world.  Defiant religious leaders believing their specialness in God's eye, feel they are exempt from the effects of this plague.  And I say to them, accept the weakness of God on the cross and die to the sense of being more exceptional than others in the non-discriminant effects of this virus.

What power are we discovering in this weakness?  All sick must be care for.  All people unable to work have to have financial compensation.  In short, this great experience is forcing upon us the holy power and notion of sacrifice.  Those who are strong must help the weak.  Those who are healers, must apply health to all.  Those who are wealthy must adjust the economic structures to provide a way for all to maintain and survive.

The power of weakness is forced upon us to embrace in this plague.  It is the power of sacrifice, laying down our lives in manifold ways for each other.  This is the power of the cross of Christ; this is the power of the mysticism of the Cross of Christ discovered by St. Paul and by all who wish to voluntarily take on the power of sacrifice, rather than have it forced upon us.

The Passion of Jesus Christ hits us with poignant relevancy today.  We are given the invitation to the manifold power of sacrifice that is needed to bring us to the eventual resurrection of a human world that will be invited to go forward with the preeminence of the power of sacrifice even in the post-pandemic era.  The post-pandemic era invites us to a resurrection of being different forever in our understanding of the power of sacrifice.

Friends, the Passion of the Christ, invites you and me into a renewal into the power of Sacrifice.  With God's help, we will embrace this power in our weakness today.  Amen. 

Lord, If You Had Been Here, Coronavirus Would Not Have Happened

5 Lent a        March 29, 2020

Ez. 37:1-14     Ps. 130 

Rom. 6:16-23    John 11:1-44     

Lectionary Link

One of my assumptions about the appearance of the Gospels, is the success of the Jesus Movement.  The Jesus Movement and the early home church social phenomenon was so successful that "institutionalization" began to occur.  Institutionalization happens in any organization that is successful and is comprised of members who really believe in the mission of the organization to the point of perpetuating the message and keeping it alive.

The Gospels were generated because of institutional success.  While the Gospel recount the life of the root event of the Jesus Movement, Jesus Christ, they arose after other writings.  We know that they occurred after the writings of St. Paul.

St. Paul was the chief theologian of the early church.  He wrote letters about church order and discipline, but also about the theological importance of Jesus and the justification of a truly universal church, including of the Gentiles.  St. Paul also generated the most significant poetic metaphors for the mystical experience with the Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.  And St. Paul did not ever actually see Jesus of Nazareth

Members of the early church were initiates in a spiritual path of Christians who shared different kinds of experiences of the Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit.  St. Paul and other leaders instructed these Christian initiates into this mystical path.  Paul provided an entire poetry to speak about this experience.  He provided a theological history to connect the Jesus Movement as a significant innovation in the Judaic traditions.  It was so innovative that many in the synagogues believed that went too far abroad from prescribed Judaic ritual practice.

By the time the Gospels were written, the success of the early churches required programmatic teaching of incorporating the mystical teaching, practice and theology of Paul into presentations of the life of Jesus.

John's Gospel was the latest Gospel serving as a hiding of spiritual meaning and practice within the presentation of words, deeds and life example of Jesus of Nazareth.

What did Paul write about us?  He said that we lived within the state of death of sin.  Why?  The wages of sin is death.  No matter how we consider mortality, it is anchored in the reality of death.  Human life comes with the experience of death.  But St. Paul also wrote that we could experience another kind of life even as our physical lives careens towards death.  We could experience the Holy Spirit and the life of Risen Christ, as a down payment or as an assurance of eternal life, or as the writer of John called it, "abundant life."

So, Christians who experienced the premonition of eternal life in the experience of the Holy Spirit still knew that they were going to experience physical death.  How could this ambiguity be presented in a Gospel teaching?

We have the brilliant story of Lazarus, a friend of Jesus, one of whom it is said was loved by Jesus.  And Jesus loved and was loved by the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha of Bethany.

Lazarus is the one who died but who is brought to life again by Jesus Christ.  But Lazarus would die again.  Of course.  So,  what is the teaching purpose of the Lazarus story?

Each of us is like Lazarus.  We live under the basic human condition of sin and what is that?  It is knowing that we will physically die.  Yet even in this state of being defined by life's duration ending in death, we can experience another kind of life, resurrection life, eternal life, Holy Spirit life.  And experiencing this resurrection life does not exempt our bodies from physical death.

This is brute Christian realism.  The experience of the Holy Spirit, the mystical experience with the Risen Christ as our spiritual identity does not deny or exempt our bodies from death.  But it means that physical death will not define us as a final boundary of our life.  Why? Because while we live in our bodies we can know Jesus Christ, the Risen Christ as the Resurrection and the life.

We can know that Jesus is weeping at how profound we experience the loss of life of each person in our cherished lives within our bodies.  But we, in our state of death, can experience this inner assurance of living beyond our bodily life.  And this is the narrative for the eternal image of hope that is within every person in this world.  This eternal image of hope within us needs the narrative of the resurrection to release it into the hopeful practice of faithful lives.

Can we appreciate the sheer genius of how this story of Lazarus encapsulates the profound mystical theology and practice of St. Paul?

The coronavirus has brought into focus the state of death which we all live in.  It heightens our sense of mortality.  It results in our mourning of the death of people.  And so, we today affirm that Jesus is resurrection and life; Jesus affirms personal continuity beyond our deaths.  And knowing this, we can live differently.

We today can know ourselves to be like Lazarus, friend of Jesus, loved by Jesus, but living in the state of the death of sin.   We can know the apparent delays of Jesus, which represent the probable conditions of freedom in our world.  "Jesus, if you had been here, the coronavirus would not have occurred."  The conditions of freedom means that often good things, health and resolution are delayed because not everything runs according to our own desired personal schedules.

But you and I, living within the state of the death of sin, with many apparent delays in positive outcomes; we can know resurrection life because of the encounter with the Risen Christ who says to us like Martha of old, "I am resurrection, and I am life."  Within each of us, we can know this abundant life.  So while we live on perpetual delay of the perfection that we so desire for everything, we can experience the totally compensating resurrection life of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And if you and I can pierce the inner meaning of the Lazarus story; we have been initiated into the spiritual mystical program of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Blindness and Darkness. Sight and Light

4 Lent A        March 22, 2020

1 Sam. 16:1-13   Ps. 23 

Eph. 5:1-14     John 9:1-38      

Lectionary Link

We are blessed to be reading from the Gospel of John during Lent.  The Gospel of John includes some interesting features. The Gospel writer has a penchant for presenting the conversion from literal seeing to inner or spiritual seeing.

The Book of Signs found within the Gospel of John are wisdom narratives of Jesus of how the encounter with Christ enables me to be able to make this switch from literal understanding to spiritual understanding.

The physical in the Gospel of John is used as a metaphor for the spiritual.

Two weeks ago, we read about Jesus telling Nicodemus, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless one is born from above, or born again."

In our Gospel reading for today, the issue is about blindness and seeing.  Physical blindness is presented as a metaphor for those who are blind and cannot see the kingdom of God.  The Gospel writer lives in the new paradigm of those who have encountered the Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, and they have come to see the kingdom of God.  They have been cured of their blindness.

The Pharisees and religious leaders are presented as those who remain blind because they are unable to perceive the new paradigm of God's inclusive love for all people, yes even the Gentile people.

There are two kinds of blindness.  There is physical blindness which is a significant impairment.  But we know that people who are blind can live truly enlightened lives.

The other kind of blindness is the kind of blindness which all seeing people experience.  It is the blindness caused by "darkness."  In the Pauline writing we read, "Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light...."

Darkness is the condition of not being able to see well because of one's environmental surrounding.  The progression in enlightenment means that we have gone through many conversions from darkness to new light, and new seeing.

Followers of Jesus and Christians in many ages who experienced the new seeing because of encounters with Jesus and the Risen Christ, still continued in societies and situations which still practiced slavery and the subjugation of women.  How can we say that they were truly enlightened by Christ?

What this indicates to us is that the work of creation, the work of enlightenment, the work of seeing the fullness of the ideals of the kingdom of God as the full practice of love and justice is not yet finished.  There is no time to criticize or blame people of the past for not living out the fullness of enlightenment.  But we should not delay the full practice of love and justice once we have seen.

Who caused this blindness, his sins or his parents sin?  It is very easy to play the victimization game by presuming to know exact causation.  What did Jesus say?  This man was not blind because of his particular sins or his parents', but for the work of God.   The work of God is always the future when we are offered new seeing, new conversion and new birth into better living.  The Risen Christ is more concerned about our future going forward than what caused the way we were in the past.

And the lesson for us today, is that there is new recovery from the environments of darkness in which have often found ourselves living.

Another saying of Jesus in the Gospel of John is, "I am the Light of the World."  Christ is the light who shines in the darkness of the failing paradigms in which we have been trapped.

As we now live in the midst of the most pronounced pandemic in our life history, it may seem like we are covered with darkness.  But what could the Light of Christ be showing us during this time of crisis?

It is showing us that in good times and in crisis, we are still together.  The worsening situation has forced upon us the demand to care for each other as connected neighbors, in ways in which we have not been doing.  It often seems that we have been living out a "survival of the fittest" mentality in letting the strong, rich and powerful dominate the world's resources.  And this have left many people without enough.  And now the coronavirus is no respecter of person, of class, race or socio-economic-educational status or nationality.  This evil virus is requiring of us to become enlightened by the Risen Christ and recover from the blindness that we have practiced to the needs of other.  Resources are going to have to be reallocated to take care of everyone.  Doing this may be good practice for the times when the crisis is not so dire.

Today you and I are invited to be born from above and see the kingdom of God as a call for us to prove that we love God by loving our brothers and sisters with significant care.  And if we can become enlightened with the practice of care during this time of need, what will we be able to do in better times when we care for each other with the same intensity.

While the coronavirus may seem to be covering our lives with the blindness of darkness, let us see the Risen Christ who is now calling us to the enlightened care of each other as the best model for the paradigm of the kingdom of God becoming the practice in the kingdoms of this earth.  Amen.

Worship in Spirit and Truth

3 Lent  A              March 15, 2020

Ex.17:1-17           Ps.95:6-11     

Roman 5:1-11         John 4:5-42

Lectionary Link

The Gospel communities of Jesus Christ developed community beliefs and practices during the decades which followed the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  They were communities found in the cities of the Roman Empire which were experiencing urbanization and so the home churches proved to be inviting extended family for persons arriving into cities.   The churches found that their message of the Risen Christ replicated itself in spiritual experience and this spiritual experience became the new citizenship expression of the churches.  And Jews, Gentiles, men, women, slaves and their owners, Samaritans, zealots, Pharisees, Saduccees, members of the community of John the Baptist began to comprise the membership of the churches.

The early churches practiced an inclusive diversity; this practice of diversity did not characterize the former practice of the synagogue and the Temple for Jews during the actual time of Jesus.

So the early church needed to present the origin of the practice of diversity of membership within the life of Jesus.  And so we have this discourse of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well.

The story highlights the long history of divisions even within the ancient territory that once made up Israel.  Long ago, the land of Israel became divided between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.  They had separate lines of monarchs.  The Northern kingdom was overrun by the Assyrians and many inter-married with the conquerors thus assimilating with their captors.  The religious people of the kingdom of Judah, maintained their ethnic purity and the people of the northern kingdom became "enemies," even though these enemies had their own form of Torah religion.  Their Torah indicated that Mount Gerizim would be the holy place for their Temple.  So there was a division between Gerizim and Jerusalem.

But what had happened by the time the churches were flourishing in the cities of the Roman Empire? Mount Gerizim shrines were destroyed in the year 67 and Jerusalem and the Temple in the year 70.  The Holy Places for the Samaritans and the Jews had been destroyed and their populace had become scattered.

The early churches were proof that former enemies were now loving friends in Christian fellowship.  The identities which previously divided people were now longer divisive.  Why?  The Temple, the Torah, the Temple of Mt. Gerizim were no longer to be reason for division.  Why?  Because  it was the Holy Spirit who created Holy Places.  And the Holy Spirit was not limited to the Temple in Jerusalem or on Mt. Gerizim.  The Holy Spirit is nomadic and omni-present and the Holy Spirit is able to become in each person like a gushing spring of water always baptizing us from within.  God is Spirit and those who worship God must worship God in Spirit and in Truth.

The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of Spirit and through this Spirit we share membership in God's kingdom.  And people of all tongues and races and previous backgrounds had come to know this Universal Holy Spirit of God.

This remains the truth for us today; the church is a church of worshipping God in Holy Spirit and Truth.  We can be like the disciples who did not think Jesus should engage this foreign woman and we can be like the Samaritan woman who was very certain of her exclusive Samaritan heritage.  Or, we can submit to the Holy Spirit who transcends differences and indwells anyone who wants to know and express of the love of God.

We in the Episcopal Church are not so popular today.  Why?  Because we believe in the inclusive Holy Spirit of God who inhabits all kinds of people who are not even accepted as valid members of other churches.

Let us hold on to this inclusive Holy Spirit who is willing to be present in the lives of all.   May this expansive Holy Spirit continually stretch our hearts so that we too will always practice the welcoming love of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Are We Born Again, and Again, and Again......?

2 Lent        A      March 8, 2020

Gen 12:1-8          Ps.121

Rom. 4:1-5, (6-12)13-17  Jn.3:1-17

Lectionary Link

One of the most influential books that I have read in my studies was written by a historian of science. It was written in the 1960's but it had to wait until the 1990's to distill into the culture-at-large after being limited mainly to the academic world.  You may not know the book or the author but you know the lasting catch phrase of the book.  What is that phrase?  Paradigm Shift.  How many of you have heard the phrase Paradigm Shift or a change of paradigm?  When something new was happening in any field, suddenly people would say, "A paradigm switch has happened....there is a sea change and we have to think and act differently because of this paradigm switch."  People in an old paradigm did not seem to speak the same language as the people in the new paradigm even though they used the same words.

The writer of this book was T.S. Kuhn and the book was, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions."  Kuhn observed changes in the scientific communities like those who held for the Ptolemaic Cosmology of geocentricism and the switch to the Copernicium Cosmology of a heliocentric world, a sun-centered solar system.  Kuhn wrote about the change from Newtonian physics to Einsteinian Relativity.  He notes that while people in both paradigms used the same terms of energy, mass and matter; they in fact meant something different.  And this can be confusing when people use the same words but mean something different by them.  How does one come to understand a new paradigm and what the words within a new paradigm mean?

The paradigm shift metaphor is useful to understand how change occur in science, in culture, in politics and in our faith experience.  I believed in God and Jesus when I was sixteen, and I do now, but my understanding of God and Jesus now would be unrecognizable to me as a 16 year old person.  In short, I have undergone many paradigm shifts in my life of faith and I remain the same person who encompasses all of those changes.

This notion of paradigm change might help us to understand the words of Jesus to Nicodemus:  "So Nicodemus, you don't understand my program?  Well, you have to be born again, or born from above, or perceive from a more elevated/heavenly point of view."

The Gospel of John explains the Jesus Movement as a significant paradigm shift from Judaism, even while the same words and symbols are used, they mean something different in the churches of the Risen Christ.

The Gospel of John, in long discourses of Jesus, almost like Socratic dialogues, channels the mind, voice and Spirit of the Risen Christ and place these channeled words of Jesus within a narrative of the life of Jesus.  Why?  The leaders of the communities of St. John's Gospel are trying to teach the meaning of the life of Jesus Christ in a newly constituted Jesus Movement within house churches.

Just as Einsteinian physics did not burn the bridges with Newtonian physics, but rather enlarged meanings to solve problems which could not be answered by the old paradigm, so too the Jesus Movement did not burn bridges with the Hebrew Scriptures.  The leaders of the Jesus Movement reinterpreted many symbols which derived from the Hebrew Scriptures.  How did the Jesus Movement re-appropriate the symbols of the Hebrew Scriptures?  We can look at some which are found in our Scripture readings for today.  Abraham, The Law, Baptism, Water, Spirit, and the serpent which Moses placed on a pole for the people who were plagued with poisonous snakes to see and be healed.

The new Christ-paradigm might be called the "born again" paradigm or the "kingdom of God" paradigm.

Once one has been born into this new divine realm, how does one see things in a new way?  One suddenly sees the flow of Gentiles into the Jesus Movement.  How can this be in keeping with the Hebrew Scriptures which seem to be a Holy Book restricted to the people of the Judaic faith?  Well, Abraham is like a Gentile person because he is pre-Jewish, he is before Jacob who became Israel.  He is before Moses and the Law and he is before King David and the prophets.  Was Abraham, who was not a Jew, accepted by God even though he did not live with the benefit of the law?  Yes, of course.  Abraham was justified or accepted by God because of his faith.  And now Gentiles have come to have faith without the benefit of knowing the Judaic law and the rules of ritual purity.  Was Abraham in the kingdom of God without the benefit of the law?  Yes, indeed, then so can the Gentiles be like Abraham in their lives of faith.

What about the crown jewel of Judaism, the Law?  The law recommends behaviors for good and holy living.  What the law shows is that everyone breaks the law in some way.  The law cannot make ones inner life and motives clean and holy.  The law can teach us how to live well but it cannot perfect those who cannot be perfect.  The Law can only show us that we aren't perfect.  So what is the purpose of the law in the Jesus Movement?  To show us that we have to live by faith in God's grace to justify us.

Moses was given the law; Jesus brought the law of grace and the law of the Spirit.  Water is the symbol of baptism; it is the like the amniotic fluid which accompanies this new birth by the Holy Spirit.  This birth by the Holy Spirit is God justifying us because God justifies the Divine presence of the Risen Christ and the Spirit within us.  Having the Spirit of God within us gives us the access to this new realm of the kingdom of God, into which we have been born.

What about the serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness by Moses?  In the Jesus Movement, the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross as the proof that God sacrificed his own being in dying with us and for us, gives us a place to glance and believe in God's sacrificial grace.  Since we know that we aren't perfect and always falling short, we can glance at the perfect offering of God on our behalf and ride on the coattails of Jesus into this new realm of life, the eternal life of the Spirit.

John chapter 3, highlights the reality of the paradigm which occurred in the Jesus Movement because of the life, death and post resurrection appearances of Christ to his followers.  This chapter of John's Gospel is perhaps the most famous chapter for the people who call themselves fundamentalist evangelical, born again Christians.  In fact, "born again," has actually become a definable political designation in our country.

I know this group; it was how I was raised.  I was raised as a fundamentalist, evangelical, born again Christian.  We loved the 3rd Chapter of John's Gospel.  How many of you have watched sports on television and seen the sign or placard, Jn 3:16?  This Bible verse is the identifying verse of fundamental evangelical Christianity.  And it is a good verse.  God so love the world.  How much?  God gave the divine Son in full identity with human life even to the point of his death.  That the divine life experienced death expresses a full solidarity with human life.  And if we believe in this solidarity of God with us, we can ride the divine elevator to know eternal life.  We can know God's Spirit within us as eternal life.

One of the weaknesses of fundamentalism and the "born again" mentality is that it is so narrow.  One is born again to get into the kingdom of God.  And what this refers to is a one time experience so that one can know that one is not going to hell.

What is more accurate to spiritual growth and process is that we need to have many born again experiences on the spiritual path.  We need to have continuous conversion, not a one-time conversion.  We need to have many paradigm changes on our spiritual journey.   God's perfection invites us to new break throughs in our understanding of God, Christ, the Christian paradigms and much more.  Old Christian practices do not do justice to God's love especially for people who previously were ostracized, marginalized or kept in the closet about their own self knowledge.  The Holy Spirit is dynamics and invites us to both personal and communal paradigm changes.  If we didn't make biblical paradigm shifts, we would still believe in slavery and the subjugation of women because it is in the Bible.  The reason that churches and Christians are often divided is because they live in different paradigms.  We have come to live in a paradigm where we believe the love of Christ honors the dignity of LGBT persons and believe that they should have full participatory standing in our church life.

Part of the conflict in our church and in our society and in our politics is due to the fact that we are unevenly located in different paradigms of the practice of the love of God in Christ to the diverse people who are actually in our lives.

What does this mean?  It means we need to continually invite people to be born again.  We need to demonstrate that the love of Christ as we live it in our Christian paradigm is winsome and truly honors a fullness of what we understand to be human dignity and justice.

So during this Lent, for all of us who have been born again; let be open for this to happen to us again and again as we come into new paradigm changes toward knowing the excellence of the love of God in Christ.  Amen.