Jesus prays for us: Easter 7 year A

7 Easter Year A

May 28, 2017

    “I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”  

    These are beautiful words of Jesus in his prayer for his disciples as he faces his own death at the hands of the empire.  It’s a prayer that is filled with love for the disciples; but there is something else too; Jesus says that he disciples, his followers, which includes you and I, are one; we are one with each other, and we are  one with God the Father, and God the Son in Jesus…

    I spoke last week about our prayer as the Holy Spirit praying within us… that when we pray, when we truly give ourselves over to prayer, it is the Spirit working within each of us to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth… and now today, we have Jesus praying for us… what does it mean for each of us to have Jesus praying for us?  This is the great shepherd who knows each of us by name, who now brings us into the Father’s presence and love through his prayers…

    It’s a wonderful though as we have just celebrated the Feast of the Ascension in the church, which our reading from Acts makes reference to.   The miracle of Jesus’ ascension, at least for me, is that a human body with a human nature, is brought into the presence of God and is now seated with God at God’s right hand… and for us, that is good news.  It opens life after our death in a new way; Easter morning and now the ascension are God’s gift to say that death shall not, cannot have the last word in our lives.  The kingdom of God, as it is in heaven, has been established and is waiting for us…  and that is good news.

    But the kingdom is not just about the kingdom as it is in heaven… there is that part of the prayer, “ON EARTH as it is in heaven”... and that, I think is where today’s gospel comes in.   

    Jesus is praying for his disciples because he knows what is coming; he knows the fear that they will go through as they watch him go to his death; he knows that they will need courage and hope… fortunately, they don’t have all that long to wait; while I am sure it was the longest three days some of them had lived through, knowing that God’s truth and hope rolled away the stone, and knowing that Jesus had conquered death, had to be an incredible thing for them to witness.  

    And now, even though we are separated from Jesus’ words by many years, the words of Jesus’ prayer is still his prayer for us… he prays for us to be one with him and the Father… and also, that we might be one with each other, as he and the Father are one…

    Unity, the kind of unity that Jesus is talking about is so much more than having a group of people who get along.  Getting along is ok, as far as it goes, but it can sometimes require that the relationship is based on lies.  Oppressed people “get along with” their oppressors as long as they don’t cause trouble; that’s not relationship, that’s abusive.  People who work together can often “get along” because they share a common task or goal; once the time clock is punched, the relationship is over until the next work day…

    The unity that Jesus is speaking of is based on God’s love.  It’s a unity that really has no conditions; it’s a unity that exists simply because one is loved by God; just as Jesus loves and is loved by God the Father, so too, are we loved by each person of the Trinity.  It’s a relationship that is closer than any other relationship that we have because it is based in God’s love; and because Jesus ascended into heaven bodily, all that it means to be human is now closer to God than we can even imagine…

    So, what does it mean for us to be prayed for by Jesus?   I think it means that everything that you and I are is brought before God; I think that maybe when the Spirit prays in us, that it might be a response to having Jesus pray for us… that somehow our prayers and Jesus’ prayers somehow come together to form prayers that create more wholeness…

    If Jesus prays for us, if unity is what Jesus prays for, then we all have some work to do, don’t we?  The unity that Jesus prays for means that no matter what we think or believe, we are all one in Jesus; the petty fights that engage in, the arguments, and perhaps even the hatred and fear that we might engage in are things that we put in the way of the unity that Jesus desires for us, and for all of humanity.  Our unity as people is grounded in God’s love for us and in Jesus’ life as one of us… that’s it.  We don’t have to agree about much of anything, except that we are each loved by God; and if we are loved by God, that should mean something to each of us;  it should mean something about ourselves and about every human being that we come in contact with… Every. Single. One.   Oppression, prejudice, hatred, even the petty anger and annoyance that we have with others really has no place in our relationships especially when we realize that everyone we meet is the object of Jesus’ prayers… Just think about that… everyone we meet is loved and prayed for by Jesus - that alone gives them and us an infinite about of worth and beauty…

    Unity, the kind of unity that Jesus prays for, is a goal of the kingdom here on earth; we know there are plenty of places where it doesn’t exist; I encourage all of us here today to search those darker places in our hearts to work on ridding ourselves of the attitudes that keep us from true kingdom unity with each other… and I would ask us  to remember who it is who prays FOR us… and whose prayers live within us…  we all desire closeness and unity… it’s what we were created for.  Perhaps we can live as kingdom people who are working to bring the kingdom here on earth, so that we might be one, as Jesus and the Father are one...

Prayer and the Spirit - Daughter's Installation

6 Easter Year A

May 21, 2017

Instillation of the Daughters of the King Chapter

    In today’s gospel reading, we hear again, Jesus trying to leave the disciples with comforting words.  He knows what lies before him, and he likely knows what lies ahead for the disciples as well; he knows about the betrayals to come, the fear that shall almost tear the community apart; he knows that they will need each other to get to Easter morning when God’s truth shall be revealed… he probably also knows that they will likely forget everything he is telling them, at least until Easter morning…

    Jesus promises that even when he leaves, the disciples will not be left without comfort and guidance.  The Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, of God’s truth shall be with them forever… God’s own Spirit, who is intimately connected to the Father and to Jesus, will also be intimately connected to the disciples, guiding them and assuring them of the power, the love, and the guidance of the Holy Trinity…  But again, I am sure as Jesus spoke these words, the disciples were probably confused and afraid.  Eventually, it would become clearer… but for now, all they have are Jesus’ words and their incomplete faith.

    I remember when I was in seminary, a professor of mine said something that has stayed with me all this time… there are many things I have forgotten from those days, but this I have remembered.  He said, that when we pray, it is the Holy Spirit praying in us…  I don’t remember if he was quoting Romans chapter 8 or not, which says that the Spirit helps us in our weakness… but I remember being incredibly moved by the knowledge that my prayers were joined with the Spirit’s prayers… that somehow the Spirit was intimately connected to me… just as the Spirit is intimately connected to Jesus and the Father… and that is was through the power of the Spirit that my prayers were conceived and given on behalf of those for whom I prayed…

    That’s pretty powerful stuff don’t you think?  In our baptism, the Spirit becomes one with each of us, and we become adopted children of the living God… loved and cherished for all eternity… members of the kingdom of God here on earth, sent out into the world to continue the work of Jesus in world.  And we know that sometimes the work is scary stuff.  We know that the world which God loves is not always the most open and loving place… we know that sometimes we are told that our faith in Jesus has no place in the workings of the world, that it’s silly, a fairy tale… and that’s on the good days.  Sometimes what we hear and what some of our brothers and sisters go through because of the Gospel are much worse than ridicule.    May ridicule be the worst of it for us…

    The Advocate that the Father gave to the disciples is the same Spirit that he gives to us… we are the inheritors of that same Advocate that will help and guide us just as it helped and guided them; we are part of that same kingdom of God, that shall continue to love Jesus and keep his commandments to love God and love our neighbor, so that the kingdom of God might be known here on earth in this time an place…

    One of the ways that we do that is to pray.  Today, we shall bless and institute a new chapter of the Daughter’s of the King, here in the diocese of Oklahoma.  I am so pleased and excited for this time in the life of St. David’s, and for the life of this chapter to begin.   Daughters of the King, is a lay religious order for women throughout the Anglican communion.  Because it is a religious order, it means that those who take vows today, take vows to pray, to serve and to evangelise, which are all done to reflect God’s love throughout the world.   By virtue of our baptism, we are all called to pray, to serve and to evangelise… today, these women take these vows to say that with God’s help, and with the help of St. David’s, they are making these vows a priority in their lives, so that others may know Jesus through them… They are taking vows to pray very intentionally every day; they are taking vows to intentionally serve not just the people of St. David’s, but to help our parish serve those whom God has put in our lives; they are taking vows to live their lives according to the Gospel of Christ, so that others might know where their joy and light comes from.  I want to say, that as a person who lives by a rule of life, it isn’t always easy and there will be many days when your rule will escape you, and quite possibly make you feel sad or angry… do not be discouraged… a rule of life should always be challenging enough that we are always struggling a little; and it should be easy enough that we don’t get discouraged often… if anyone in the parish ever wants to craft a rule of life for themselves, I highly recommend it… come see me and we will talk about it!

    I am so very honored to walk with this group of women, as well as the women who completed the study and decided that this was not the right time for them to take vows.Discernment is an important spiritual  gift within the church,no matter where it might lead us.

    What I want to say to everyone today, not just the soon to be members of the Daughters, is that prayer is one of the most important things that you and I do… it allows us to know that God’s Holy Spirit is working in us, to help us and to guide us; prayer helps us to know how much we are loved by God, whose children we are; prayer helps us to know more about who Jesus is, and what he has asked us to do… it helps us to know how much we need and depend on God, and how much we need and depend upon each other… it helps us to know and to love the world that God loved enough to become one of us…  and so, since this chapter of the Daughter’s of the King is to be known as the Chapter of St. Clare, which as a Franciscan, makes my heart glad, I want to leave you with a short quote from St. Clare;  but first I want to remind you that Clare of Assisi, your patron, was a strong, some might say stubborn woman, who loved Jesus, and took on a life of poverty in order to live closer to Jesus.  She was no spiritual lightweight; she went toe to toe with her family, and with the Pope, and went on to be one of the spiritual leaders of the Franciscan way of life.  Here is what she said:  “We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become”.  Let’s listen to that again, “We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become”.   If we love Jesus, if we love the Advocate that the Father has sent, we will indeed become more like Jesus, and more like the Spirit.  If we love Jesus, then our prayers will rise within us, being strengthened by the Holy Spirit.  May all of us this day, as we are fed by the body and blood of Christ, grow in love for Jesus… may his Holy Spirit guide our steps, and may our prayers be joined to Jesus’ prayers in the work of the Spirit who dwells in each of us.

How do we use our stones?

5 Easter Year A

May 14, 2017

    As I was reading through the readings this week, I was struck by the images of stones and of dwelling places, that run through all of our readings.  Kind of difficult to pull them all together, at least it is for me… Certainly, the gospel for today is one that is often read at funerals in the Episcopal church.  It speaks of a comforting image of being joined with Jesus; it would have been something that the disciples would have needed to hear because where this reading takes place is right before Jesus is taken away to be crucified.  He tells them to not let their hearts be troubled… to believe in God and in him… that somehow, some way, things will work out… the disciples of course have no way of knowing that … and we know that they become quite troubled and quite afraid in the days to follow and with good reason…

    Anyway, I had a thought about the readings…  what does it mean for each of us to believe in Jesus?   Right after he tells the disciples not to be troubled, he asks them to believe in God and to believe in him… if we were to take the images of building, of safety, of refuge, of foundational stones… would belief in Jesus be one of those things for our spiritual life?  Peter seems to make the comparison in our Epistle today,  “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner”, and “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.”  

    As I read this, I started thinking about faith, about what we say we believe as followers of Jesus… and not just what we say, but what Christians say they believe… and I have to say, that as I thought about all of that, I found myself getting a bit troubled myself….

    Let me tell you a little bit of a story.  Many of you have heard me tell the story of my beloved home parish of St. David’s San Diego… it is the parish that sent me to seminary.  Long before I went to seminary, as I have also told many of you, our building was destroyed by an arsonist’s fire.  We were incredibly blessed to have as our interim priest at the time, a dear friend and mentor, named Jack Whitehouse.  Jack is now in the nearer presence of his God, probably causing a bit of stir with some other friends of mine, and I hope, that when my time comes, I will find what room Jack is hanging out in in the dwelling place prepared for us so we can talk some more, but anyway, Jack was a pretty incredible preacher; and I always knew that Jack believed in Jesus; there was never any doubt in my mind…

    I will never forget a particular image of Jack preaching; I don’t remember what the readings were; I don’t remember what season of the church year is was… What I remember though, is Jack picking up his black leather bible, and saying, “We don’t worship a book!  We worship a man, who is also God… we worship Jesus Christ!”  He went on to say that no matter how wonderful our Book was, that worshipping Jesus was much harder… because more was required of us...we had to think, we had to act, and we had to love…

It was a powerful sermon for me, and even now I can see and hear Jack.  The cornerstone of our faith, the foundation of our lives, the refuge for our battered souls is Jesus… a living, breathing person who desires a relationship with us, a relationship of love; a relationship that compels us to act in the kingdom of God as disciples… our Book is an amazing, beautiful book…. And we find in it’s pages all sorts of holiness that helps us to know God, to know Jesus… and I would also say, that the more we read scripture, the more it speaks to us, the more we learn…. It is a living book; by that I mean that if we let it, it will always be new and always helping to point toward God…

But out Book is not God.  When I look around at how “faith” is practiced by many these days, it seems to me that the foundation is a little bit misplaced… if I can take the images of stones a little further, I would say that many people use the Bible as their refuge, forgetting that it points to God… and it can lead them to a faith that can be rigid and unforgiving… Look what happened to Stephen in our reading from Acts; he treated his attackers with love and forgiveness; and they used stones to kill him, rather than using stones for a life giving purpose.  That’s what can happen when we forget that our faith in God is lived out in a growing and changing relationship; God became man in Jesus as an act of love; I cannot think of anything more loving than being in relationship with another; our attachment to things, whether it’s our money or our bible can become idolatrous. It can cause us to harm others because we put our idolatry before the relationships that are before us; our idolatry can cause us to be more concerned with rules that with people.  Relationship is far more difficult, don’t you think?  Relationship asks, even demands things of us; it asks us to move beyond ourselves into places that sometimes seem dangerous; relationship asks us to risk ourselves in order to gain everything… relationship asks us to be open to where the Holy Spirit is leading us, rather than getting bogged down in rules that don’t seem to care about relationship.

Jesus knew that night that he was going to face the worst that the Empire had to offer.  He knew that those who were in power were afraid even though they had all sorts of power… but as Easter people, we know that even in the face of incredible evil, love always wins.  God so loved the world… that God risked everything to be in relationship with us in the life of Jesus; Jesus who is the living stone, chosen and precious, who is the foundation of all that we are and all that we believe.

We worship a living person, who is both God and man; that relationship challenges us to act in the world as he did, bringing new life, healing and new relationships, some of which we may not really want, so that God’s kingdom might be known here and now....  What stones are we using for our foundation? To whom or to what will we profess our faith this day?