Living With Amazement

Proper 13B; Ex. 16:2-4, 9-15; Ps. 78:23-29; Eph. 4:1-16; John 6:24-35

St. Paul’s, Smithfield, NC – August 5, 2018

Jim Melnyk: “Living With Amazement”

Theologian Abraham Heschel once wrote, “Religion is the art of learning to live with amazement.”  “Religion is the art of learning to live with amazement!”  I find myself thinking, “Yes!  What a poetic statement about religion.” In turn, Heschel’s statement leads me to think, “Perhaps the life of faith is about the art of learning to live with amazement as well.”  And then, as I reread each of today’s lessons – and I am filled with – of all things – amazement!

The first three chapters of Ephesians are a mix of theology and prayer while the final chapters are more about practical instruction in the faith.  The author – most likely a disciple of Paul’s writing after the apostle’s death – has already offered us an incredible “prayer report” to the church in Ephesus.  And while I have issues with some of the author’s ideas later in the epistle (especially the parts dealing with his theology on marriage and the whole wives be submissive bit), I find myself blown away as I listen to what we have read over the past few weeks, culminating this week with the author’s charge to “grow up every way…into Christ.”  I find myself wondering, “How is it that I so routinely forget how incredible the Bible can be?” 

The stories of our faith speak of a God who is infinitely intimate with creation!  Ours is a faith that proclaims a God who not only desires our love, but who first and foremost loves us – One who, through Christ, gives us access to God with boldness and with confidence!  That idea of an infinitely intimate God had to blow a few minds in the first century Hellenistic world of rational thinking – and I imagine it certainly sounds out of place to many twenty-first century philosophers and religious nay-sayers. 

I suspect there are many Christians today who would, for perhaps many different reasons, flinch at the suggestion that religion, or the life of faith, or the stories of our faith are about the “art” of learning to live in any sense of the word.  One might argue that art is such a subjective expression of the human spirit.  What I may see as art you might see as junk – or the other way around.  To say that experiencing life in God is in some way “art” may sound too subjective to the Biblical literalist or the religious fundamentalist – it may sound threatening to those who need rock-solid assurances and air-tight answers to the questions of their faith – that is, when they’re actually allowed to ask questions.

The author of Ephesians knows that the reign of God – the kingdom of God – the communion of God – won’t come by way of a well-turned phrase, a thought-provoking story, or by slight-of-hand.  God comes into this world in a wild paradox of power.  The true mystery of God’s reign has nothing to do with the ability of Jesus to feed a few thousand folks or skip across the deep blue Sea of Galilee as he did in last week’s Gospel lesson. 

The true mystery of God’s reign is all about a Savior in the person of Jesus who finds himself surrounded by incredible need, and an incredible hunger for God; and in response is filled with love and compassion, and the desire to act.  The power of Jesus comes not because he has the ability to act – to build picnics out of thin air (or out of a few loaves and a couple of fish) – or to walk across the waves – but because Jesus has the heart and the will to act; to act on behalf of the people of God in every age – wherever and whenever they are in need.

The author of the letter to the Ephesians understands this – and understands that the power of Jesus is his ability to touch people’s lives – to empower people’s lives – and to kindle our imaginations and our amazement – moving us to be Christ in the world for others.  The author understands what it means to find ourselves strengthened in our inner beings with power through the Spirit of God, and to “grow up in every way…into Christ.”

This is the power of the Christian faith and witness to the world – that the God of all creation – the God who somehow at the root of all things, brings all things into being – that this God dwells in our hearts by faith.  This I find truly amazing!

Through God in Christ we are rooted and grounded in love! That, my friends is the Gospel – the Good News.  Through God in Christ we are rooted and grounded in love! And when we find ourselves rooted and grounded in love, there is power within us that is the fullness of God made alive!  And when we find the world rooted and grounded in love – well, that’s the kingdom of God, – that’s the reign of God – that’s the hope of God – that’s the dream of God – made real!  Amazing!

The children of God wandering in the wilderness awoke each morning to bread from heaven virtually littering the ground on their behalf, and ended their day with quail filling their encampment to meet their daily hunger.  The Psalmist tells us these sojourners – these mortal children of Abraham and Sarah – “ate the bread of angels;” God having provided them “food enough.”  And they were amazed – well, at least while their stomachs were full.

The children of God surrounding Jesus in the wilderness eat their fill of bread and fish – perhaps even recalling Israel’s time in the wilderness and the words of the Psalmist – perhaps even thinking for at least a few brief moments that they, like their ancestors, are eating the “bread of angels.”  They are amazed – until they’re ready for their next meal – and then they want yet another sign of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom.  Most, it seems, have imaginations too little to understand the art of metaphor – too little to understand the parable of the feeding – too little to understand that they are standing in the presence of Living Bread.

And now we have this (holding up a communion wafer).  We have this tiny morsel of bread pressed into a simple circle – about the size of a quarter, though not as thick, and certainly worth a lot less when figuring dollars and cents.  What little monetary or traditional nutritional value!  How small a piece of bread we call part of a life-sustaining meal!  It takes an openness to mystery and an openness of the imagination – it takes the “art of learning to live with amazement” – for us to realize that like the thousands surrounding Jesus that day, we – holding this tiny morsel of food in our hands – that we are standing or kneeling in the Presence of Living Bread.  

This is the meal that marks us as followers of Jesus; and at this Holy Table, we take this Presence of Living Bread into us – and at a cellular level this Living Bread becomes a part of us, and we become a part of that same Living Bread.  We come to understand that “Jesus prepared a meal for the multitudes to remind us that we feed people not because we believe they deserve it, but because they are hungry” - hungry for food and hungry for God (JohnPavlovitz.com).

And so, allow yourselves to be amazed by the living Christ dwelling within you.  Allow yourselves to be amazed at the ability of the Spirit of God to dwell within you – to strengthen you – to strengthen your inner being.  Be amazed at the ability of God to root you – to ground you – in the power of love.  Allow yourselves to know the love of God in Christ – a love that surpasses all knowledge.  Allow yourselves to be filled with the fullness of God.  It’s beyond amazing. 

And then ask yourself – What is it God wants me to do with this amazing life of mine?  Because once we allow ourselves to experience that presence of God filling us and dwelling within us – then that power of the living Christ can and will be at work within us…and once at work within us, we can find ourselves accomplishing more than we ever dreamed possible.

 

No Longer Strangers

Proper 11B; Jer. 23:1-6; Eph. 2:11-22; Mk 6:30-34, 53-56; 

St. Paul’s Smithfield, 7/22/2018 

Jim Melnyk: “No longer Strangers”

 Last Friday night Lorraine and I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a biopic film about Fred Rogers, who was the heart and soul of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.  Fred Rogers, who was an ordained Presbyterian Minister, spent his life encouraging, affirming, and honoring children.  In part his mission was to help both children and adults learn to love our neighbor and love ourselves.  His goal was to teach children that they are beloved as they are – not because of how they looked, or what they wore, or what they did.  He taught us to love one another in the midst of pain and fear – first welcoming us into his neighborhood in 1968 with all the tensions of the day.  And he found ways to help break down the many walls that often separate us from one another – without having to tell us what he was doing.

One of the regulars in the neighborhood was François Clemmons, who played a police officer on the show.  In a 1969 episode Rogers invites Clemmons to sit down and rest his feet with him in a small plastic pool.  This was a time when people of color were routinely chased from neighborhood pools – something that seems to be back in vogue these days.  Clemmons tells us, "The icon Fred Rogers not only was showing my brown skin in the tub with his white skin as two friends, but as I was getting out of that tub, he was helping me dry my feet."  They repeated the same scene 24 years later in their last episode.  Love your neighbor – and love yourself.

That said, if I had to pick a theme for today’s lessons – something to put out on one of those flashing church signs to inform everyone going by what happens to be on the preacher’s mind at the moment it would read, “No longer strangers or aliens,” a quote from today’s reading from the letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 2:19).  Or perhaps, a little tongue-in-cheek, I’d call it, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

The theologian that was Fred Rogers wanted us to understand what it means to be neighbor.  We are no longer strangers or an aliens – we have a home in the heart of God – we have a home in the Body of Christ.  There was an incredible depth to Rogers’ message – just as there is an incredible depth to the message of today’s lessons.  At the heart of it all is a message that conveys the deep compassion God has for all of creation.         

Yet throughout the centuries the Church has struggled to agree on just how the compassion and love of God in Christ Jesus is made known and experienced – and the Rogers movie shows that as well – giving us a glimpse into the so-called Christians of Westboro Baptist Church who picketed his funeral in 2013. 

And so it becomes the witness of Jesus, himself, and those who followed after him, that offers to us some insight on what it means to no longer be strangers or aliens before God, but rather “citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).  It is the witness of Jesus that challenges us to recognize how we all belong to the household of God – even those who are different from me – or different from each of you.

As the author of Ephesians (most likely an admirer and follower of Paul) tells us, Jesus is one who came among us to “break down the dividing wall” that separated people of faith – most notably Gentile and Jewish Jesus Followers toward the end of the first century – as well as the many and varied walls which separated human beings from God.  That said, along with the witness from Mark’s Gospel, we have a picture of Jesus who envisions and who embodies the compassion of God in all its glory.  Rather than building walls, Jesus breaks them down.  Rather than drawing lines in the sand that separate and exclude, Jesus draws ever-widening circles that embrace and include.  And it seems he does so with an intense inner fire – what we might call a fire in the belly – a fire in the gut – a feeling of deep connection to a people who have lost their way or who have been pushed aside by wayward shepherds who, like those from today’s lesson in Jeremiah (23:1-6), have lost their own sense of God’s call.

And after all, that sense of fire in the gut – that fire in the belly – that deep connection – well, that’s what compassion is all about.  It’s a word that gets bandied about a lot these days, and too often we just think it means to care about something or someone.  But actually, compassion is a “feeling of distress” on behalf of others.  Compassion means to “suffer with” the other (Dictionary.com).  In other words, to have compassion for others is to journey with them – it is to feel with them – it is to companion with them – and it is to carry deeply within us a desire to eliminate the suffering those others are experiencing.  One might say compassion is empathy toward another tied to action.

For Jesus, that means breaking down walls that separate people from each other.  It means breaking down walls that separate people from God.  It means inviting those who take the time to listen to his teaching to then become participants with him in the coming reign of God; and it means inviting others – others who have been cast aside as well as those in the inner most circles of the faith – inviting everyone who takes the time to listen, and to then become a part of the in-breaking kingdom of God: no longer strangers or aliens, but friends of God!          

Now, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that we live in a world – we live in a culture – that has more to do with separating folks rather than including them – that has to do with pushing folks away, rather than inviting their participation in community – a mindset that is more about identifying and avoiding strangers, than acknowledging their worthiness to be with us in all their wondrous diversity.  It seems to be a significant aspect of the human condition these days – though on our better days we fight the pulling apart of our world.

Disagreement, it seems now-a-days, is a sign of not belonging.  You disagree with me, you don't belong with me.  Diversity of opinion – diversity of theological or philosophical thought, it seems, is a sign of disrespect.  You don't believe as I believe – what I believe – you don't respect me.  But we’re still neighbors – and remembering that is part of the challenge today in the midst of this age of Social Media and instant dissemination of news and opinions – where tempers flare and fears are so easily fed. We’ve lost, as a society – as a nation – the ability to feel with one another – the ability to journey with one another – the willingness to suffer with one another – and the desire to celebrate with one another. 

I believe that we at St. Paul’s have a gift to share with a fractured society – the gift of compassion – the gift of community in the midst of diversity.  We are not a homogenous community.  We at St. Paul’s are politically, socially, and theologically diverse – and yet we find ways of being community together.  We work together.  We play together.  We serve this community together.  We break bread together at this Holy Table, and with one another at meals in Lawrence Hall.  And we can even chuckle with one another about our differences – well, most of the time, anyway.  That’s a gift we can share.   

This Jesus stuff isn’t easy!  If it was, the kingdom of heaven would already be realized.  The Jesus we meet in the Gospels challenges us to take a closer look at our own lives.  What does it mean to truly follow Jesus?  Living out the compassion and love of God in Christ might even feel overwhelming at times.  That’s the reason why I have on occasion used a Franciscan prayer as our closing blessing: “May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, at half-truths, and at superficial relationships, so that we will each live more deeply within our hearts.”

So, how do we get to a place where the Other is no longer stranger or alien – a place where the Other is known to us as he or she is known to God – as God’s beloved?  Perhaps by recognizing we’re all in this wonderful and terrible mess of a world together – perhaps by recognizing we have more in common than in opposition – perhaps by recognizing that our job is to love one another – or, if baby steps are needed in some instances, by just trying to remember the person with whom we disagree is still our neighbor. 

Recalling that through Christ we are no longer strangers and aliens, but [that together, we are] citizens with the saints, and [that we are all] members of the household of God.