What God Brings To Us

I always try to be aware of what might come my way while walking our labyrinth at St. Paul's.  Labyrinth walking has become my morning ritual whenever I am at the Church, and I miss it terribly if events conspire to keep me from my appointed rounds.  Sometimes - perhaps most of the time - the only things that come my way are the brick pavers, the blooming flowers and quickly growing crepe myrtles that surround the space, and hopefully a nice breeze on warm, sunny mornings like today.

But there are times when I am surprised, or when something quite simple, but out of the ordinary shows up.  Once, very soon after the labyrinth was installed, a trail of tiny ants appeared - running from one side of the circle all the way across to the other side - nearly bisecting the labyrinth in half.  Perhaps we had usurped their neighborhood, now giving them countless hills and valleys to traverse to get to their regular feeding grounds.  Who knows?

Beginning with those tiny ants I decided that I needed to pay attention to the little, or not so little, surprises that come my way while walking the labyrinth.  What might God be trying to say to me, or trying to remind me about, in these chance encounters?

Often it's my shadow that joins me on sunny days.  As I've mentioned in other places, a reminder of Christwho goes before and after me, and who surrounds me on every side (read verse six of St. Patrick's Breastplate).

A few days ago it was a small, gray, grasshopper that I chanced upon while taking my prayer walk.  It hopped across my path and into the gravel area that surrounds the labyrinth, finally pausing on one of the many blocks of granite that are in place waiting to mark the ashes of saints who go before us.  Why this grasshopper on this particular day?  Who knows?  Most likely just a grasshopper who happened to be there the same time as I.  But I was reminded of the wonder of God's creation.  Here was this little creature who, inch for inch, could out distance me in any long jumping contest (okay, I admit - any long jumping contest with me wouldn't ever be called a contest).  As you can see, it would take an eagle eye to spot it sitting still on the rock.  Nature's camouflage.  

That same day I caught a glimpse through the corner of my eye of something coasting through air and landing in the branches of a tree on the edge of the neighboring cemetary.  I couldn't spot it at first, but the cry of a Red-tailed Hawk has become familiar to me due to ones that live in my neighborhood.  And sure enough, there it was, high in the branches - surrounded by numerous small birds who obviously did not like the hawk's presence at all.  They constantly swooped at the hawk, which would spead its wings when they got too close, perhaps hoping to scare them off.  I'm sure they were protecting their turf, and perhaps weren't feeling too secure with such a finely-feathered raptor in their territory.  One on one the little birds would have no impact on the hawk.  But as a group of six to eight birds constantly swooping - well, the hawk got the message and moved on.

Today I came upon a small branch that had come to rest somewhere along the second circuit of the labyrinth.  There is nothing particular about this branch - though I have no idea how it got there.  There are no trees anywhere close enough to the labyrinth for it to have falling away from a larger branch.  It would hav taken quite a wind to deposit it here.  Perhaps someone brought it and dropped it along the way as a sign, or an offering, or simply because they had become bored with holding it.  But Jesus' words from John's Gospel came to mind: "I am vine and you are the branches."  Perhaps I need to pay more attention to those times when I feel apart from God.  Labyrinth walking helps me stay connected.

Finally, I am often caught by the various configurations of stones and shells people leave at the center of the labyrinth - often as prayer offerings or as symbols of letting go of something troubling in their lives.  There are times when days go by with only one or two stones present in the center.  Other times I am caught by surprise at the number that have seemingly appeared overnight.  In this arrangement an open shell sits atop the other stones - it is symbolic of my prayer for my wife, Lorraine, as she celebrates her birthday today.  It rests open side up as a metaphor for holding the good gifts from God for her on this special day.

Come to St. Paul's and walk our labyrinth.  Who knows what awaits discovery in the midst of your prayer walk?  (Photos from New Furrows Photography by Jim Melnyk)

 

Letting the Trinity Explain Us

Trinity Sunday, Year C; John 16:12-15; St. Paul’s, Smithfield 5/22/2016

Jim Melnyk: “Letting the Trinity Explain Us”

The other day I came across an interesting quote by a Presbyterian minister and author.  I can’t even tell you the name of the work from which the quote is taken – it wasn’t cited.  But I found it an interesting commentary on the Trinity.

William Dixon Gray writes, “Rather than explaining the Trinity, let the Trinity explain us.  We are, for instance, always changing from what we are to what we are becoming.

Everything is in this process; being is always becoming. …

The Trinity does not allow things to be static.  Whatever is static dies.  God is active within the divine being.  A static God would soon be lost.  God is active, and we must be [active] too” (Synthesis Commentary, Year C).

Trinity Sunday is a reminder that God is somehow above and beyond all things (metaphorically speaking), while at the same time intimately bound to and fully present in our here and now.  It is our way of saying God is always more – always more than we are ready, willing, or able to speak or understand. 

Consider how we meet God in today’s lessons.  Proverbs gives us an incredibly rich, poetic vision of a God experienced through the witness of Holy Wisdom, who for over two thousand years has been understood by many as an emanation of the Divine feminine, and who from the early first century was understood to be an expression of Jesus.  She is beyond time or space, seen in majesty and awe – present from the very beginnings of creation.  Here is the Wisdom of God, at the same time both infinitely beyond and yet so tantalizingly present, rejoicing and delighting in God, rejoicing and delighting in the whole of creation, and in particular, rejoicing in the human race.

           

Or take the passage from Romans: finding ourselves at peace with God through the gift of faith in Christ Jesus – we are given endurance and hope through the gift of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives.  God working within us to change us from what we are into what we are becoming – the very hope and presence of God’s love in this world – God working within us to change us more and more into the presence of Christ in this world.

Consider Jesus – the face of God – the hands of God – the humanness of God – with us – in us!  Each Gospel writer gives us a particular glimpse of this person Jesus.  Today’s glimpse comes from the Gospel of John.  As cosmic and utterly beyond as the Gospel sounds at its beginning (In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God), the evangelist brings us down to earth almost immediately (And the Word became flesh – the Word became human – put on human skin.  The Word became one like you and me – and lived among us). Doesn’t John’s description of the Incarnation sound like an echo of our passage from Proverbs – and an echo from the very first words of our holy scriptures as found in the opening words of Genesis? 

The Jesus of John’s Gospel is about freedom and life, and about the Divine Friendship of God.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus calls his followers “friends” and invites them into the incredibly dynamic relationship that is God: “I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one” (John 15:15 and 17:23).  Imagine what our world would be like if we actually lived like we believed that – if we lived like we believed the very God who spangled the heavens with stars loves us enough to take on human flesh and become one with us – and then fills us with Holy Spirit that we might better know and live out that oneness.  “I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one!”  As commentator Susanna Metz reminds us, “There is love within the Trinity that binds it together. That Love reaches out to gather into Itself each and every one of us. What else do we need to know?” she asks (Synthesis Today for May 20, 2016).

And in John’s Gospel we begin to see the presence of the Holy Spirit poured out for us as a reminder of God’s intimate presence and transforming power in our lives.  This is no new naming of God’s presence in the world – though perhaps it’s a more particular and expansive experience and understanding of God’s Spirit.  The Spirit of God – Ruach – moved over the face of the deep at Creation.  The Spirit of God rested upon prophets, judges, kings, and followers of Jesus – women and men alike – throughout the history of our faith.  Holy Spirit – the very presence of God – the very mind of Christ – enfolding us in God’s love, infusing us with Jesus’ wisdom, and empowering us to become something beyond our wildest imaginings.

           

As we listen to our lessons today we hear the faith expression of communities across the ages.  And truth be told, rather than identifying and defining a doctrine of Trinity, these lessons say something to us about how God meets us and invites us into an ongoing relationship that has existed from before the dawn of time.  As author and priest Martin Smith puts it, “The ‘personal’ God of Christian experience is not an omnipotent Individual, but a communion of self-giving love” (The Word is Very Near You, p 26).  Holy Trinity is not so much about figuring out God as it is about God figuring out us, and inviting us “to participate in the [ongoing] relationships of intimacy between Father, Son and Holy Spirit…[joining] an eternal dance already in full swing, and we are caught up into it” (ibid, p 28).  As we enter into the mystery that is the Holy Trinity we allow “ourselves to join in the dance and experience the movements, the constant interplay of the Persons of the Trinity” (ibid).      

It has been said of Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth century English mystic, that she “never approached the demonstration of God’s existence or the meaning of the Trinity in structured argument like the other great theologians of her age.  Yet in her visions and writings,” it has been said, “she came as close as anyone to understanding the God of love – the God of the Trinity.  Toward the end of her life, she penned this short but profound exchange: ‘Would you know your Lord’s meaning?’ she asks.  ‘Learn it well.  Love was his meaning.  Who showed it to you?  Love.  What did he show you?  Love.  Why did he show it?  For love’” (Frank Hegendus, citation lost). 

I don’t know about you, but I need a God who is both beyond me and this world and yet intimately connected at the same time.  I need a God who can call me beyond the mean-spirited pettiness that often infects my soul, and yet who enfolds me like a loving parent and shows me the meaning of love.    

If God can’t move us beyond ourselves – if God can’t move this world beyond an obsession with itself – what good is that?  If God can’t somehow touch the most inner core of our being, and teach us what it means to be loved and to love, what’s the whole point of believing?  When we can sift through the ancient cultural and contextual understandings of God in the Bible that reflect the harsh realities of ancient life – or we can sift through the fearful, exclusionary anger and hate that often passes for the Gospel in so many places today – we find ourselves standing with Dame Julian of Norwich and a God whose ultimate meaning is love – moving us to love this world – moving us to love the people of this world – moving us to love ourselves, our neighbors, and even the stranger living among us – with the very same love that God holds for us.

           

And in those blessed moments, when we can embrace a God who is both beyond us and yet somehow mysteriously within us – a God who is more than we can ever imagine and who strives within us to make us more than we can ever imagine – we will find that we have stopped trying to explain the Trinity.  We have begun to let the Trinity explain us.  Amen.

 

Embodying God

Pentecost: Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-17, 25-27; St. Paul’s, 5/15/2016

Jim Melnyk: “Embodying God”

Have you ever wondered what must be going through the mind of a comfortable, sleepy – or perhaps not so sleepy – infant like Mia, for instance, the moment that first scoop of cool water is poured across her forehead?  Bishops, priests, parents and godparents who are standing close by always get to see the startled look that jumps out at us in that moment.  Oh, older children, youth, and adults such as Josh, today, can be prepared for the sudden feel of water across the brow – but infants?  Not so much.    Yet even if we can’t recall that experience for ourselves, we have all experienced things that catch us by surprise – things that catch us up short and capture our attention – sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not. 

There are other things that can capture our attention.  Wind can grab our attention pretty quickly, can’t it?  Anyone who has sat through a tropical storm or a hurricane can attest to that –

I missed Fran here in the Triangle, but sat through Floyd years ago.  And I still recall the Palm Sunday tornados a few years back.  The sound of rushing wind can bring us up short – can catch our attention in painful ways that cause us to stop and look at our lives in a different way.  The people of Fort McMurray, Canada can attest to the shock of the massive wildfire that has destroyed nearly two thousand homes and has caused nearly one hundred thousand people to flee in its path. 

But as people of faith we have another experience of wind that can catch us up short – that can grab our attention – that can cause us to stop and look at our lives and at the world in a different way – that speak to us of the presence of God in our lives and in the life of this world.  The earliest stories of our faith used words like Ruach or Pneuma to describe the tangible presence of God in the world. 

God’s Spirit – in the Hebrew, God’s Ruach – moves over the face of the waters at the dawn of creation (Genesis 1).  The wind or breath of God hovers over creation as a mother or father hovers over their infant.  In the story from Acts God’s Spirit – in the Greek, God’s Pneuma – rushes in upon the Apostles and early followers of Jesus, like a roaring wind and flames of fire – the wind or breath of God – rushing upon a rag-tag bunch of disciples from out in the sticks of Galilee and empowers them to proclaim the Good News of God’s love for the world. 

The story from Acts is more assertive, more aggressive story of the Spirit’s outpouring than the gentler, quieter story from John’s Gospel which we read on other occasions.  In John's Gospel we have an image of Jesus breathing upon his followers in the Upper Room: Receive the Holy Spirit! (John 20)  Yet the charged presence of God – of Ruach – of Pneuma – of Spirit – is present in all three stories – present in life-changing – present in world-changing ways!

           

The stories surrounding the Day of Pentecost speak to us of wind and fire, of breath and presence.  These stories evoke images from the dawn of creation.  They evoke memories of the Baptist’s promise to the first followers of Jesus, “I baptize you with water, but one will come after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire!” (Matt. 3.11)  And they tell us some pretty important things about life as followers of the Risen Christ – things that should catch us up short – should grab our attention and make us look at life a bit differently than before.

First of all, while the events of that Pentecost Day evoke memories and images of both Israel’s and the Apostles’ past relationship with God, Pentecost is more about reminding us how God is with us in the very present moments of our lives.  Pentecost isn’t about God’s Spirit popping in for a few brief moments in history, scorching the hair of our spiritual mothers and fathers, then zipping on out of there on the tail end of some holy high pressure system.  “The Greek word kathiz, translated ‘rested on each of them’ in the NRSV (speaking about the tongues of fire), can also be translated ‘to sojourn with or settle down with” (Kari Jo Verhulst, Sojourners, Preaching the Word).  Bidden or not bidden, God is present. 

Pentecost is a reminder that God is present among us in the person of God’s Holy Spirit – the One Who Sojourns With Us or the One Who Settles Down with Us – to re-evoke the mystery of God in the person and work of Jesus.  Pentecost is a reminder that we can stand at what spiritual director, priest and author Martin Smith refers to as the “white-hot core experience of God” made known to us through Jesus.  The question we face at Pentecost – and every other day as well – is this: How will we let the Spirit of God invite us into that mystery that is God?  And then, if we find a way to re-evoke that “white-hot core experience of God” in our lives, what will we do with it?  How do we move from being imitators of an ancient faith to being Christ in this world? 

Being caught up in the Spirit can be as wondrously comforting as the experience of St. Julian of Norwich who reminded us, “And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” as reassuring as having a God we can call “Abba,” (Romans 8:15),  or as breathtaking and hope-filled as John’s vision of the New Jerusalem descending to earth. 

Being caught up in the Spirit can be as shocking as cold water poured over our foreheads at the Baptismal font, or as sweet as the smell of the chrism marking the sign of the cross on our foreheads.  Being caught up in the Spirit can be as sharp as the sound of the Priest’s Host cracking at the fraction, or the tart taste of wine on the tongue.  Being caught up in the Spirit can be cutting sharp and jarring – as painful as knife against skin – as God shakes us from our complacency and calls us into the world to love and serve our neighbor – perhaps that’s the reason early Christians proclaimed the Word of God to be sharper than any two-edged sword!

Pentecost is a celebration of the Spirit of God coming among us today – to shake us up – to stir our hearts – to move our spirits – to challenge our minds – to wake us up and send us out.  Pentecost tells us that God is already upon us and within us.  By the Holy Spirit we stand in the presence of God always – whether we realize it or not.  Pentecost tells us we are already en-God-ed – that is, we are already embodied in God – and our worship today is meant as an invitation – not to get something we need and don’t have; rather, it’s an invitation to recognize what we already know deep-down inside of us, and what we already have within us – the Living Presence of God and Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit of God – and we’re sent out to help the world know this to be true (Smith).

Pentecost is about how we embody Christ – about how we embody Christ who is made known to us not only in the breaking of the bread every Sunday – but in the gift of the Holy Spirit given to us in baptism as well.  Pentecost is about how Mia and Josh will embody God in this place, and especially when they are carried or step out through those red doors.  Pentecost is about how we – who have renewed our own Baptismal Covenant this morning – will embody God in the world around us as we live out our lives in between Sunday mornings in this holy place. 

The life of faith is about being aroused to God – a courageous awakening – strong and forceful – falling in love with God so hard that it makes our hearts ache and our spirits yearn to be enfolded by God and become the presence of God for one another (Smith).  Pentecost reminds us that God yearns within each of us to bring about something glorious for this world – something earth-shaking and life-changing – something that awakens the world to the kingdom of heaven now – sending us out to renew the face of the earth!

A New Day Dawning

 

Easter 7C; John 17:20-26; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC; 5/08/2016

Jim Melnyk: “A New Day Dawning”

Over the centuries there have been many depictions on the ascension of Jesus – whether in paintings, icons, or stained glass.  Most usually have a few angels scattered about, along with a few puffy white clouds, for effect.  Some show the full figure of Jesus floating above the earth and some even show nothing but his ankles poking from the clouds.

One Sunday following the Feast of the Ascension a Sunday School teacher was talking about the lessons with his class.  They were talking not just about the day’s lessons, but about the story of Jesus ascending to heaven – a story usually told on the Thursday before.  A youngster in his class raised her hand.  “Teacher,” she asked, “what would have happened if the disciples had grabbed hold of Jesus’ feet when he ascended?”  “That’s a very good question,” the teacher reportedly told the youngster.  “Why don’t we save that one for you to ask the Rector?”

Now I realize our Gospel for today isn’t about the Ascension – which we celebrated at noon this past Thursday.  But as I thought about today’s Gospel this old story came back to me.  Mostly because it’s difficult to not have Ascension Day on the mind as a preacher at this time of the season, but also because the Gospel of the day invites us into a between time – a time between Easter Day, the Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  It’s hard to imagine the Disciples listening to Jesus speak the words of what has been called his Priestly High Prayer in that Upper Room in Jerusalem – with all that talk about leaving his friends behind and going to be with God – and not wonder if at least a couple of them were thinking the same thing that youngster in Sunday School was thinking, “what if we just grab hold of him by the ankles and keep him here with us?”

Isn’t that part of our struggle of faith?  Knowing that we now share in an experience of God’s Holy Spirit – which is both theologically ethereal and experientially vague at times – rather than having flesh and blood Jesus physically among us to answer our all our questions?  What do we do next, Jesus? How do we experience the Risen Christ and find ourselves at one with one another? How do we experience the presence of God in our lives – how do we experience the presence of the Risen Christ in our lives – in ways that are tangible, life-changing, transformational, and real – and once experienced, keep that reality with us?  Perhaps the Priestly High Prayer of Jesus in John’s Gospel is meant to give us a clue.

Jesus’ prayer begins with a desire that Jesus’ life and death would glorify God, and that his disciples would find both protection and unity in God.  His prayer is on behalf of his disciples and friends to be sure – but the prayer is also offered “on behalf of those who will believe in [Jesus] through [his disciples’] word” – and that’s all of us down through the ages (17:20).

Beyond that, Jesus prays that his disciples will become a community bound together in the love of God – that the unity Jesus shares with Abba, the Father, will be known to them – and known to us – as well.  Jesus prays that his glory will be their glory – will be our glory – his gift to them and to us as well.  And Jesus affirms that he will continue to be present in the lives of his disciples just as God is present with and in Jesus – that through Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit he speaks about earlier in the Gospel – we “may become completely one,” so that the world will know the love of God (v. 23).

We don’t have to metaphorically grab Jesus by the ankles at the Ascension because in the deepest meaning of presence, Jesus never leaves.  The Advocate – the Holy Spirit binds us together with the love of God made known in the Risen Christ. 

Long ago – too long ago for us to remember exactly when, a rabbi asked his disciples, “When can you tell that the night has ended and a new day has dawned?”  One disciple asked, “Is it when you can look off into the distance and see a tree and know if it’s an olive tree or a fig tree?”  “No,” replied the rabbi.  Another disciple asked, “Is it when you can look in the distance and see an animal and know if it’s a sheep or a dog?”  Again the rabbi replied, “No, that’s not correct.”  “Then tell us plainly,” begged his disciples, “When can you tell that the night has ended and a new day has dawned?”  The rabbi replied, “When you can look into the eyes of the one standing beside you and recognize that person as your sister or brother, the new day has dawned.  Until you can do that it is still night.”  There’s a bit of what Bishop Desmond Tutu calls “Ubuntu theology” at work there – meaning our humanity is made real in the oneness that comes when we clearly see and acknowledge the fullness of humanity in others.

Orthodox priest, Kallistos Ware put it another way: “The whole person is a person who is on the one side open to God, and on the other side open to other human persons” (Synthesis Today, May 6, 2016). Our humanity is fulfilled in and through relationships with one another, as well as our relationship with God.

The Jesus we meet in John’s Gospel distills everything down to the unity of his followers bound by the immeasurable love God has for creation.  “For God so loved the world” – the world – that God gave us God’s only begotten Son – God’s beloved – for the life of the world.  “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (15:12).

One argument, then, might be that the way we show ourselves to be completely one with each other and with God is how we love one another.  It certainly isn’t about how we agree or disagree with one another.  People of faith from the beginning of time have disagreed – sometimes rather vehemently and even violently – and often go their separate ways – yet somehow the Gospel continues to go on.

Jesus prayed, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:22-23).

So, as one Biblical scholar wrote years ago, “if anyone asks you what the Ascension is about, it is not about the mysterious disappearance of Jesus into the heavens, ankles and all; [it’s] about the evolving responsibility upon us for being Jesus in the world.  We are Christ-bearers in the world” (quoted in Synthesis, 5/5/2016).  The Christ of God in Jesus becomes Christ of God in the community of faith – and we become Christ in and for the world.  “God in us as God is in Jesus, Jesus in us as Jesus is in God, that we all may be one – [so] that we may be in the world as Jesus was in the world” (The Very Rev. Todd Donatelli, The Cathedral of All Souls).

No one needed to grab Jesus by the ankles that Ascension Day so long ago – because through the gift of the Holy Spirit Jesus has never left us alone – we were not left behind – nor shall we ever be left behind.  Neither did Jesus define how we are to love one another beyond the self-giving sacrificial love of one who is willing to lay down one’s life for the other. 

When we can look one another in the eye – when we can look both our neighbor and the stranger in the eye, even with all our diversity – even with all our differences – whether they are differences of race, or creed, or color, whether differences of gender, or social standing, or orientation – even differences of political persuasion in the midst of an election cycle fraught with cynicism and bickering – when we can look one another in the eye and see our sister or brother looking back at us, then a new day has dawned, and we, as the Body of Christ, are one.