Church of the Epiphany

Jeremiah 29:1-13

Amitai Etzioni, a professor of international studies at George Washington University writes this about an interaction he had with an audience about our current economic downturn:

‘When I asked an audience, “Do you really need a flat-screen TV? An inflatable Santa Claus? Plastic pink flamingos on your front lawn?”  they chuckled with agreement.  However, when I added, “A 4G phone?”  the room went awfully silent.  The bigger question is: will Americans learn to live with—better yet—find—some new sources of contentment, in the austerity many millions will face for years to come, or will they continue to be sharply disappointed that they have to make do with less?”  Later he writes, “There is no way on earth Americans over the next decade will continue to experience the kind of increases in income, and hence standards of living, we have seen since WWII.  The question is if they will respond in anger—or benefit, by dedicating themselves, once their basic needs are met, to spending more time with each other, their children, in social activities and cultural pursuits.’

This is a secular author writing for CNN.  He hopes that, because of the economic downturn, people will discover what Psychologist Abraham Maslow put forth—that once a human being meets his or her needs of the body—he or she would then learn to fulfill the needs of the soul and the spirit.  This takes looking to God and looking to others.

The problem is, we have so long been looking to ourselves.  We in the Western world have for decades been living at an economic and technological level unprecedented in the history of the world.  We have become spoiled, mobile, restless, and uncommitted.  Spoiled, mobile, restless and uncommitted.  We have become consumers not only of goods and services but also of relationships and locations. Joan Chittister writes, “Every store window holds a better bargain.  Every relationship promises a more satisfying partnership.  Every new place and new person and new possibility tempts me to try again, to try over, to try once more to find the perfect place or at least the place perfectly suited to me.”

The antidote comes from our Benedictine topic this morning.  I have listed it as conflict, but it really a way to address conflict and consumers—it is the concept of ‘stability.’  A monk or nun in the Benedictine tradition makes a vow to a community and a place—a vow of stability.  No matter what, that monk or nun will live and die in that community.  It is a vow, as Chittister says, ‘designed to still the wandering heart.’

Our time is an unstable time that calls for not only the monastery but also the church to be a place of stability—where people are committed to Christ and one another come what may.

Jeremiah wrote in a time that was even more unstable.  Jeremiah is writing this portion of his book to the exiles from Jerusalem who were carried away by Nebuchadnezzer of Babylon.  The Temple was destroyed and the walls of Jerusalem razed.  Many of the people were taken to Babylon, away from their home and away from their place of worship—Jerusalem.  In contrast to the false prophets, who said that the exile would only last a couple of years—Jeremiah says, no, it will be 70 years, almost two generations.  What to do with the next 70 years?  Lead a rebellion?  Pray for the destruction of Babylon?  Don’t pay taxes?  Be a burr in the saddle of Nebuchadnezzer?  No.  Jeremiah writes:

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:  “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.  Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Basically, settle, raise families, seek the peace and prosperity of the city—and—pray for Babylon, ‘because if it prospers, you too will prosper.’

Have a bunch of kids and pray for your enemies.  Seek the welfare of those who destroyed your Temple, your city and your home.

Basically Jeremiah says, ‘Commit to this place, you’re going to be here awhile.’

Commit to this place, you’re going to be here for awhile.  This is something we have difficulty doing.  We are always looking for other options.  This job, this new relationship, this new place.  There is Disney-like magic to be found if we just spend more time looking.  I remember encountering someone who wanted to be baptized.  He had married 7 times and had gone from Buddhism to Jehovah’s Witness, to Christianity.

Maybe we are not that extreme but we have learned to flit about until we rest on that ever fragrant rose.

But—every Rose has its thorn.

Benedict, while he was all about hospitality, made sure that his communities understood—someone can be a guest for awhile, but eventually they will have to start living by the same rules as everyone else.  In fact, guests were given three days to observe the community before they were then required to work and pray like everyone else—whether they felt a vocation or not.  This is why he said, ‘Do not grant to the monastic life an easy entry.’

It is the hospitality of Benedict that is attractive but the stability that makes one a monk.  Similarly, God puts an attraction in our hearts for himself and for the church, but it is the commitment to Christ and his church that makes Christians.

We stress welcome and hospitality, love, and Christian fellowship, and so we should,  but living the vows of our baptism, day in and day out—that is the stability piece that is missing in so many lives.  It takes a curious and longing heart to ‘sign up,’ but it takes perseverance and the grace of God to really make a difference in our lives.

Those who received Jeremiah’s letter must have thought, ‘pray for who?’ ‘pray for blessings for our enemies?’ ‘for 70 years?’  ‘Commit to this place, you’re going to be here awhile,’ was all Jeremiah could say.

But we would rather cut and run.

In our culture people grow weary of jobs, people, spouses, cities and the easiest thing to do is simply remove ourselves from the problem. ‘Get a new one.’ Is the phrase we use the most, whether it is a spouse or a new house.  [don’t get me wrong, I am not referring to poisonous relationships or poisonous situations]

One of the powers of stability in community is the realization that only Christ binds us together, we are flawed and we are difficult to be with.  This is true in marriage, family and church.  In the Christian community it is Jesus and only Jesus that makes us brothers and sisters.  Therefore, the first step in stability, after we have accepted the beliefs and ways of the Christian faith, is to become disillusioned and disappointed.  We want to have ideals for Christian community, but the sooner we can kill the idealism of Christian community the better.  I want to read to you from Dietrich Bonheoffer’s Life Together.  Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor and theologian who was killed under Hitler’s regime.  He says,

“Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely we must be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world…Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight…the sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both…The one who loves his dream of Christian community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the Christian community, even though his or her personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”

Many people say ‘I hate churches because they are filled with hypocrites.’  That is the case.  ‘I loved that church , but someone gave me a dirty look’.  Yup.  ‘They are so judgmental.’  ‘They don’t practice what they preach. They are too conservative.  They are too liberal.’

That’s not to excuse bad behavior in church, we have the Bible and the Prayer Book as our written ‘rules’ that remind us that Christ is the center of our lives and we should look that way but the sooner we can kill the idealism the sooner we can begin to live in solid, Christian community.

It didn’t take long for Sarah to realize that prince charming I am not.  But, now armed with that knowledge, our ‘community’ is deeper and more real at home.

Similarly, the sooner we realize that the people around us in this place will disappoint us and disillusion us, the sooner we can love them in Christ.  As Bonheoffer says, we are not looking for a social experience or a ‘wishful idea of religious fellowship,’ but a community of brothers and sisters, all of which are sinners saved in Christ, by Christ, for Christ and because of Christ.  The running and striving and rushing and restlessness is put aside when we have real, Christ-centered community.  Stability.  A people and a place for God to do his work in our lives and in the lives of others.

Esther de Waal puts it well, “Instead of this bewildering and exhausting rushing from one thing to another…stability means accepting this particular community, this place and these people, this and no other, as the way to God…Everyone needs to feel at home, to feel earthed…Without roots we can neither discover where we belong, nor can we grow.  Without stability we cannot confront the basic questions of life.  Without stability we cannot know our true selves.”

Joan Chittister says, “Stability, the willingness to grow where I am, ironically, is the ground of conversion, the willingness to be changed.  With these people, in this place, at this time I dedicate myself to rebirth and growth and maturity.”

There is no perfect community—there is only Christ centered community with sinners on every side striving to be what we ought to be.

You know the Hindu concept of Karma?  One definition goes like this:  Karma is “A consequence or “fruit of action” (karmaphala) or “after effect” (uttaraphala), which sooner or later returns upon the doer. What we sow, we shall reap in this or future lives. Selfish, hateful acts (papakarma or kukarma) will bring suffering. Benevolent actions (punyakarma or sukarma) will bring loving reactions.

Karma is a neutral, self-perpetuating law of the inner cosmos, much as gravity is an impersonal law of the outer cosmos. In fact, it has been said that gravity is a small, external expression of the greater law of karma.”

Now, Christians and Jews don’t believe in reincarnation but the concept of sowing and reaping we find in Scripture itself.  Among some of Jesus’ contemporaries there was a basic assumption: if you are blessed in this life it must be because of something you have done.  Riches were a sign of God’s blessings and suffering of his displeasure.  You remember the disciples asking about a blind man that Jesus was about to heal:  ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents that made him blind?’

Which is why Jesus’ parable today would have challenged many of his listeners’ assumptions.  Reaping and sowing seems to have gone in reverse.  Even the whole idea of a Rich man in hell would have caused some to raise their eyebrows.

The point of the parable is straightforward—show compassion in this life for in the Kingdom there is a great reversal.  Being poor does not automatically make one righteous, but the soil of a poor person’s heart is often more hospitable to God.  Conversely, those who are rich—their hearts are less hospitable to God and less hospitable to others.

In life the rich man ate from a bountiful table—not even aware that Lazarus was begging nearby with dogs licking his sores.  Conversely, in the Kingdom, Lazarus eats at Abraham’s table unaware of the rich man’s plight.

Abraham tells the rich man, “Son, (by the way, he speaks the way the father spoke to the older son in the parable of the prodigal son) remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”

The great reversal—something that would have made Jesus’ hearers scratch their heads—a sowing and reaping turned on its head.

Jesus is not saying that doing good things across your lifetime will outweigh bad.  What Jesus is dealing with is the condition of the rich man.  He has is a condition of the heart—a condition of the soul.  A condition of hospitality or a spirit that is inhospitable.

In case you haven’t guessed, today’s Benedictine principle is ‘hospitality.’  The Rule of Benedict, of course, deals with those who are received in the monastery.  He says:

“Any guest…should be received just as we would receive Christ himself…Guests should always be treated with respectful deference.  Those attending them both on arrival and departure should show this by a bow of the head or even a full prostration on the grounds which will leave no doubt that it is indeed Christ who is received and venerated in them…The greatest care should be taken to give a warm reception to the poor and to pilgrims, because it is in them above all others that Christ is welcomed.” (Rule Chapter 53)

Great principles from Benedict—the stranger is someone who ought to be reverenced by a bow or prostration. Ultimate respect.

Jesus is saying in his parable that the one who lies in the street may soon be a prince in the kingdom of heaven—carried by the angels themselves!  Therefore, welcome the poor.

Kathleen Norris, a Benedictine lay person (called an oblate), wrote that the ‘heart of Christianity is hospitality.’  Someone read her words wrote to her and said, ‘no you should have said that the Center of the Christian Church is fear.’

Why would someone say such a thing?

Now I haven’t heard a ‘fire and brimstone’ sermon for decades, though I hear they are still being preached somewhere in America.  But I know that even folks who are interested in coming to church find the whole thing scary.   There is a language to learn and a culture to engage.

People hope to find among us a spirit of hospitality.  That spirit of hospitality we cannot fake.  Those who have it in the church also have it outside the church.

Sometimes we feel inadequate, but as Joan Chittister says, ‘[we are] to pour ourselves out for the other, to give ourselves away, to provide the staples of life, both material and spiritual for one another.  The question is not whether what we have to give is sufficient for the situation or not.  The question is simply whether or not we have anything to give.  That’s what hospitality is all about. Not abundance and not totality.  Just sharing. Real sharing.’

Ask yourself—who is welcome in our church?  Who is not?  Why not?  Who is welcome at your table?  Who is not?  Why not?

Of course how you answer the question shows a condition of the heart.  It says something about how you view others.

But it should also say something about how you view your church.  Is it a refuge for the lost?  Or, is it just any other public place?

And of course it says something about how hospitable our hearts are when we reject others and keep them from our own table.

To love the stranger is not just Christian duty, it is to bring richness to our own lives.

Chittister again says,

“we must continue to beg the stranger to come into our lives because in the stranger may come the only honesty and insight we can get into our plastic worlds…to become whole ourselves we must learn to let the other in, if for no other reason than to stretch or own vision, to take responsibility for the world by giving to it out of our own abundance, to make the world safe by guarding its people ourselves.”

We are less when our hearts are inhospitable…Catherine Doherty said, “every human face is an icon of Christ, discovered by a prayerful person.

In Christ there is no Karma.  We are not received by Christ for our merit.  Neither do we receive (or refuse to receive) others based on merit.  What we receive, we freely give.

I repeat again Benedict’s words:

“Any guest…should be received just as we would receive Christ himself…Guests should always be treated with respectful deference.  Those attending them both on arrival and departure should show this by a bow of the head or even a full prostration on the grounds which will leave no doubt that it is indeed Christ who is received and venerated in them.”

I close with the words of Thomas Ken:

“O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship; narrow enough to shut out all envy pride and strife, Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling block to children nor straying feet, but rugged and strong enough to turn back the tempter’s power. God make the door of this house the gateway to thine eternal kingdom.
AMEN.”

Thomas Ken (1637-1711)

Inscription on St. Stephen’s Church: Walbrook, London

Today’s topic form Benedict’s toolbox is ‘learning.’ I start today asking you some basic questions:

On a ‘teachable’ scale are you average, above average, or below average?  What prevents you from learning more?  What (or who) encourages you to learn?

Benedictines are known for their scholarship, but it is a scholarship that is not purely for the sake of knowledge and trivia.  As a culture, we have unprecedented access to knowledge and information, yet we are deficient in learning, wisdom and moral character.

What the Benedictines brought to the world is an ability to meditate and contemplate the things of God beyond the academic.  It is a perspective on learning, a way of observing.  It is a way of hearing Scripture, the world, and each other.  A way of learning.

Paul speaks to Timothy in Paul’s last will and testament.  This is Paul’s letter from prison in anticipation of his death.  He is telling Timothy what a father would tell his son before he dies.

When Paul was ministering in Lystra, he heard about a young man named Timothy.  The book of Acts tells us that Timothy was well spoken of by the believers in Lystra and Iconium.  So, Paul took Timothy under his wing.  Timothy’s mother was a Jew and Timothy’s father was a Gentile, the only thing we hear about his father at all in the Scripture.

Paul heard of Timothy’s faith and potential, and took him right into the field.  Timothy’s task was to imitate Paul.  Timothy would have been a part of the imprisonments, beatings and suffering for the sake of Christ right along with Paul.

Paul entrusted Timothy with the Church in Ephesus.  It is possible Timothy would have met and ministered with John the evangelist, whom tradition puts in the city of Ephesus for a time.

As Paul says, Timothy had a Jewish mother named Eunice and a Jewish grandmother named Lois who taught him the faith.  They were his spiritual mothers.

We don’t know when, but at some point Paul laid hands on Timothy and ordained him as bishop and pastor.  But also—since we do not hear about Timothy’s father—it is likely that Paul became his father.  He certainly talks as such.  In fact, he was more than a physical father—he was a father in God—a spiritual father.

There is between them a language of intimacy.  Paul was Timothy’s spiritual father—what did that look like?  It was a relationship of love and mutual affection—it was a family relationship.

But it was also a learning relationship.  Paul encouraged Timothy to:

• Not be afraid or ashamed of the gospel.
• To keep the apostolic fires burning.
• To be a man of holiness.
• To guard the faith delivered to him as a deposit.
• And lastly, Paul encourages Timothy to imitate him.

So was the teaching from Paul to Timothy.  And we know that Paul took each of those points seriously—to the point of suffering and death.

I won’t go through all of these points today but who do we have in our life that encourages us:

• Not be afraid or ashamed of the gospel.
• To keep the apostolic fires burning.
• To be a man or woman of holiness.
• To guard the faith delivered to him as a deposit.

And who is there for us to imitate?

I think to boil it down—what we need in our Christian walk in the area of learning is someone to love us, someone to challenge us and someone we can emulate.

Someone to love us.  Paul loved Timothy.  There is affection, tears and familial intimacy between them.  ‘To Timothy, my child, my son.’

In the Christian faith and life we need someone who exemplifies the love of Christ.  I do not believe that the faith can be communicated without love.  In fact, we don’t deserve to be heard without love.  Look at St. Francis, whose Feast Day is tomorrow.  Thomas of Celano, Francis’ biographer tells the story of Francis, who was at first repulsed by the sight of lepers, one day was confronted with one in the woods while he was on his horse.  Rather than running, Francis felt led to kiss him and show him Christ’s love.  Celano concluded, “Francis therefore resolved in his heart never in the future to refuse any one, if at all possible, who asked for the love of God.”

Who is there to challenge us?  Paul encouraged Timothy to rekindle the apostolic fire that was given to him in his ordination.  St. John of the Cross said, “A disciple without a master to lead the way is like a single burning coal—he grows cooler rather than hotter.”  We need those who challenge us to keep the fires of the gospel burning in us.  Frederick Von Hugel, was aRoman Catholic writer and spiritual mentor of the last century.  His niece said of him: “He preaches Jesus.  And when he tells of God his face is lit and illumined by some interior fire.”

Who is there to challenge us in holiness and guarding the faith?  Timothy was told to guard the faith, like a deposit.  This is investment language.  The faith we have is a treasure.  A treasure of two thousand years to be invested and protected, not in a reactionary way, but in a way that shows its value.  John, you understand this and this is something of what you do for  Nathan.  You are to keep the faith, like you are protecting wealth—and pass it on to Nathan, who will guard the faith and pass it on as well.  It is protecting the investment, but watching it grow as well.  This is what we do in baptism.  We pass on the treasure from one to another.  Nathan will need his mom and dad to teach him about the treasure and he will watch them pass it on.  We in the church have the responsibility to do the same as well with Nathan and all those who pass through the waters of baptism.

Which brings us to the last point.  Imitation.  Who do we have to imitate, to emulate?  Whose footsteps can we follow to lead us to the savior.  Imitation and apprenticeship were the ways of learning in the ancient world.  This is how Paul taught Timothy and how Jesus taught his disciples.

“Jesus style of instruction embodied a pedagogy that invested life in the learner through an incarnation of the message being taught.  This teaching was not something that was conceptually defined for his disciples as much as it was lived, experienced, tasted and touched by the learners…in the sweat of shared work as well as the dusty exertion of shared travel, they were always in the classroom. By the sea…in the fields…in the stimulation of the sensual barrage of the city with its crowds, bazaars, buildings, soldiers, markets—they were always in school, always becoming a community of learners whom he called disciples” (Reese and Anderson, Spiritual Mentoring, pg.18).

‘In the ancient world skills were handed down from father to son, and so apprenticeship also carries with it the implication of a father-son relationship.  It involves imitation, and long, patient watching and copying, a shared learning that owes much to the fact of daily living together.’—Esther de Waal.

Imitation.  Patient watching, copying, a shared learning.  St. Aelred said, “There is you and I, and I hope a third, Christ in our midst.”  Julian of Norwich said, “I look at God, I look at you, and I look at God again.”

Someone to love us, someone to challenge us, and someone to imitate.

I close with these questions:

• Take a moment to look at your own life and ask:
• Who has created a safe space in which to tell my own story?
• Whose ‘song of faith’ has rung most powerfully in my life?
• Whose life do I desire to imitate or emulate?
• Then:  how can I be that for others?

Let us pray:

Lord, give us someone to love us, to challenge us and someone we can imitate in your ways.  Help us to pour ourselves out for the other, to give ourselves away, to learn to follow and to be worthy of emulation.  In Jesus’ name. Amen.