Month: November 2008

Advent 1, Year B, 2008

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Happy New Year!

The world is going to end!

Today, this first Sunday in Advent, we celebrate the beginning of the new church year.  Advent is the season of repentance as we prepare to welcome Christ into the world.  However, Advent is also the time in the church year during which we remind ourselves that Christ will come back again.  This creates a little cognitive dissonance within us.  After all, Christ coming into the world the first time is really exciting and, even . . .cute!  Jesus started as a little baby.  Babies are adorable. What is less adorable are the scary and mysterious apocalyptic images we read during our Advent lessons about the second coming of Christ.

Today’s lessons reminded me of one of the darker moments of my seminary experience.

In order to be ordained an Episcopal Priest, you must take an exam called the General Ordination Exam.  This exam is taken over a four-day period, early in January, after Christmas break.  If we failed the exam, our ordination could be postponed, so we were appropriately terrified.

Most of the questions on our exam were manageable, but then Tuesday January 4th, 2005 at 1:30 PM, we opened our Church History question.  Now, to take the exam, we would go to the library, pick up the question in a sealed envelope, and then go to our dorm rooms to answer the question on our computers.  At 1:30 PM on that fateful Tuesday, I opened the question and suddenly heard a scream from across the hall, and then some cursing from upstairs.  When I read the question, I understood why.

I won’t read the whole question, but the first part of the question was this:

During the second quarter of the 19th century, a modern form of apocalypticism known as Dispensational Premillennialism (or Premillennial Dispensationalism) arose in Britain, crossed the Atlantic to the United States, and subsequently played an important role in the development of Protestantism in this country.

Briefly identify the origins and major features of this type of apocalyptic thought. Trace its history in the United States from the later 19th century to the present, noting major developments and situating them in the context of their times.

The reason my neighbors screamed and cursed, was that none of us had ever heard of Premillennial Dispensationalism.  We had no idea what the subject of the question meant. We were toast.  Thankfully, the question was open book, so we were able to fudge some answers, even though the term was not even covered in our Oxford Dictionary of Theological terms.  It turns out the people who did best on the test were those who were raised in fundamentalist households.  Premillennial dispensationalism, as it turns out, is the theology that undergirds books like the Left Behind series, and many fundamentalist churches.

And, I still don’t fully understand premillenial dispensationalism, even though dispensationalism does rate its own Wikipedia entry now.  Basically, premillenial dispensationalism is a theology begun in the late 1800s in England, which eventually ended up on our shores.  This theology has a very complicated understanding of end times that takes the Bible literally and takes clues from the Bible’s apocalyptic passages to divide time into thousand year blocks that outline when Jesus will come again.  This theology involves tribulation, the anti-christ, and the State of Israel and much, much more.  Those who believe in this theology are very certain about what the end times will be like.

We, as Episcopalians, however–in typical fashion–are less sure.

We talked about the idea of the end of time in Seminary.  I remember lots of graphs about the word parousia, which is the word the Bible uses to describe Jesus’ coming again.  But the graphs never told us anything about what the parousia would be like.

And this is where I think our passage today is helpful.

No, not the spooky part about the sun being darkened.  Not even the elusive part about the green leaves of the fig tree.  No, I mean this part:

But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake– for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

This part of the passage reminds us that no one really knows when Christ will return.  No one really knows what life for people on earth will be like when Christ returns.  We can make guesses, based on texts and what we know about Jesus already, but in the end, even the most certain person will be surprised by Christ’s re-entry into the world.

What God calls us to do is to remain in the present.

We cannot control the end of time by worrying about it, or hoping for it, or trying to predict it.  All we can do is be responsible for our own hearts, minds and actions.

We prepare for Christ’s coming by leading the life the un-mysterious parts of Scripture call us to lead.  We are called to follow Jesus, to pray, to read Scripture, to love our neighbor, to take care of those in need.

What we want to do as we go through life is to pay attention.  Jesus calls us in this passage from the Gospel of Mark to “keep awake”.   When life is stressful, or even boring, it is  easy to disconnect and stop paying attention to the world around us. Sometimes escape-physical, mental and emotional-can be really tempting.

But when we keep alert, when we pay attention to the world around us, we give ourselves the opportunity to really live.  When we stay awake, we are also awake to the opportunities that God gives us every day.  We are awake to opportunities to love and serve.  We are awake to opportunities to grow and learn.  We are awake to opportunities to give thanks.

God does not always speak to us in a booming voice.  Opportunities do not always jump up and wave their hands and shout, “Hey!  You over there!  God wants you to pay attention to me!”  To fully serve God, and prepare ourselves for Christ’s coming again we must be fully aware of our present and open to the experiences it brings us.

In the end, we do not need to know the exact details of what Christ’s second coming will look like in order to be prepared to receive him.  We just need to open ourselves to what Christ is doing here and now in the world around us.  If we participate in what Christ is doing now, we’ll be able joyfully meet him later.

This Advent, as we prepare to receive Christ into this world, we are invited to brush aside the distractions and stresses of the holiday season and to really focus on staying alert to the work God is doing in us and around us.

Amen.

Proper 28, Year A, 2008

/ Sarah / 1 Comment

We have reached the end of Ordinary Time.

Sounds pretty dramatic, huh?  The new church year begins on the first day of Advent, which this year is November 30th.  Next week, we celebrate Christ the King day.  So, for all intents and purposes, today we celebrate the last day of the church lectionary year.  While we’ve spent all of Ordinary time following the Old Testament through the stories of Genesis, Exodus and then briefly Deuteronomy and Joshua, after today, the narrative thread ends and the lectionary hops around a bit throughout Advent, Christmas and Easter.  We’ll pick back up with the Old Testament narrative in the books of I and II Samuel-but not until next June.

When last we left the Israelites, they were being led into Canaan by Joshua and a bloody series of battles ensued.

So, what happened next?  What did the Israelites do when they woke up and realized they were actually in the Promised Land?  How are sort-of faithful people who reluctantly followed God into new places now supposed to govern themselves?  For that matter, what does it mean for us sort-of faithful Christians to be governed?

At first pass, the book of Judges may not seem to address these questions.  Judges is a weird, weird book.  It is filled with stories that seem more appropriate for a comic book than a book in the Bible.  There’s the story of Jael, the woman who drives a tent peg through Sisera’s head.  There’s the story of King Eglon, a fat man who gets stabbed while on the toilet.  And of course, the story of Samson who stupidly reveals the secret to his super strength to his devious girlfriend, Delilah.

Our reading today is about Deborah, one of the more sane characters in Judges.  She is a prophetess and a judge, hence the title of the book.  Judges in those days are not judges in the sense that we think of now.  Judges were charismatic leaders who led tribes throughout Israel.  They could adjudicate disputes, but they also could act as military leaders, as Deborah does.

The important thing to note here is that Israel has divided into tribes.  For awhile, Israel was able to function as one people, descendants of Abraham, but now the twelve tribes of Israel have spread out over the land they have been given and each is governed by their own tribal leader.

So, now the tribes are not only fighting with indigenous peoples, this division leads to a terrible civil war in which thousands of people die and the tribe of Benjamin is nearly wiped out.

That’s right, the tribes of Israel start fighting each other!

The author of the book of Judges fully acknowledges the sorry state of Israel by starting nearly every new story with, “In those days, when there was no king in Israel. . .”, as if the lack of a king was to blame for this terrible behavior.

Now, we’ll get further into this issue of kings when we study I and II Samuel next summer, but the problem is God doesn’t think a king is that great of an idea.  Eventually, after the civil war, the Israelites start clamoring for a king so they can be like other nations around them.  They go to Samuel, the prophet at the time, and demand he give them a king.  His feelings get hurt, but God reassures him that they aren’t rejecting Samuel, they are rejecting God as their king.  God tells Samuel to warn them about the consequences of having a king.  Now, these are not punishments handed down by God, these are just the natural consequences of a government led by kings.  Samuel warns the Israelites,

These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you:  . . . He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.  He will take the best of your fields and vineyard and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers.  He will take one tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers.  He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle, and donkeys and put them to his work.  He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.  And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.

Now, if you go back to our reading today, you’ll see that Deborah was called into action when a local king was threatening the Israelites with nine hundred chariots of iron.  That was incredible, incredible technology.  The Israelites were a nomadic people.  They had weaponry, sure, but chariots made out of iron?  No way.  The sight of such a thing must have been terrifying.  The chariots were the iron-age equivalent of jet planes or tanks.  The Israelites just had no recourse against such technology.  And how were Hazorites able to have 900 iron chariots?  They had a king.

And so Israel wanted a king, too.  Not just because kings were exciting, but because militarily they were unable to compete with other kingdoms.

So, the Israelites ignore Samuel and insist that God give them a king and he does.  And some kings were wonderful and some kings were terrible and the Israelites did just as bad of a job of being faithful to God, their true King, as they always did.

For the first few hundred years of the Christian Church, early Christians broke from this idea that the religious group is also the political group.  After all, they were powerless, even persecuted while the Roman government wielded its incredible power.  However, after Constantine’s conversion, once again, the idea that God chooses kings to rule over his people came into power.

Now, of course, with the world wide spread of Christianity, you have Christians under as many different kinds of governments as you can imagine.  There are Christians under dictatorships, democracies, communist rule, even socialist rule in oppressed countries like. . .Sweden.

The rhetoric in THIS country about whether or not we are a Christian nation has been particularly strong this last year.  There are faithful Christians who believe we risk God’s wrath if we don’t elect conservative Christian leaders to government who will end abortion, post the Ten Commandments everywhere, eliminate sex education and reinstate prayer in school.

But, as it turns out, the founders of our Country were not attempting to make a Christian government.  God is not mentioned once in the Constitution and religion is mentioned only twice.  Once in the sixth article, which reads, “but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”  Secondly, in the First Amendment which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

And this is good news not only for American atheists, Muslims, Hindus or Jews, but for Christians, too.  When Israel finally elects a king, they do not become more holy and obedient to God.  Instead, they shift their loyalty to the king.  The God we serve does not need to be represented in government in order to govern our hearts.

God does judge societies, but throughout the Bible those societies are judged on how well they worship God, take care of orphans, widows, the poor, immigrants and whether or not they have just policies.  We can do all those things as individuals and as church communities within a secular government. Occasionally we manage to do them through our government as well.  We feed the poor school lunches.  We give widows Social Security payments.  We maintain justice as best as we can.  And of course our government is not perfect at this, but that leaves room for those of us in the church to pick up the slack-whether through ministries we already do-like Disciples’ Kitchen and Bread Fund-but also ministries we haven’t even dreamed about yet.  Who knows, maybe one day God will call Emmanuel to start a ministry for migrant workers or open an orphanage or teach financial management to those who struggle.

My point is, as participants in a democracy, we are called to keep our government full of integrity, justice and ethics, yet we can still fully live out our Christian duty within the confines of a secular government.  Our fealty to God is not hampered by the Constitution.  In fact, our fealty is protected by the Constitution, which many Christians in other nations cannot say about their own countries.

So, in short, American democracy gives us the best of both worlds.  We have more iron chariots than can possibly be good for us, yet total freedom to worship and serve our God.

Thanks be to God.

All Saints, Year A, 2008

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Today we celebrate All Saints’ Day, the day in the church calendar during which we honor the Saints who have gone before us, like the many dearly loved people on our own prayer list this morning.  All Saints’ Day also reminds us that we are part of that collective body of Saints that belongs not just to this world, but to another, spiritual realm, as well.  We are people of two worlds and torn loyalty.  Those Saints who have gone before us are now fully in that other world, but we are left here, both longing for and dreading the transition to the next world.  We wonder what that world will be like?  Will we be reunited with our friends?  Will we remember any of our history?  Will we still be ourselves?

I went through a period of my life-way back in my mid to late twenties-where I liked to read television spoilers on the Internet.  Spoilers are little tidbits about future episodes of television shows that are dug up by entertainment reporters.  I began hunting for spoilers when I was watching a lot of J.J. Abrams’ shows like Alias and Lost.  His shows can be very tense and scary and I just could not wait a week to find out if my favorite character would escape the cliffhanger ending of the last episode.  Spoilers don’t tell you everything about the future plot of your show-they just give you the teensiest glimpse of the future.

On this All Saints’ Day, we too are invited to catch just a glimpse of what our future may hold, through the “spoiler” of the book of Revelation.

One of our readings today comes from the book of Revelation.  I think it is fair to argue that no book of the Bible is more confusing and difficult to understand than Revelation.  There are as many ways to interpret Revelation as there are biblical scholars.  You can read it as a lens to a particular time in history.  You can read Revelation as a prediction of what the end of time will be like.  You can read Revelation as a metaphor for the spiritual realm.  As I was preparing for this sermon, I had to chuckle when the New Interpreters Bible informed me that the Church of England would not even include all of Revelation in the Daily Office.  Leave it to us Anglicans to just wash our hands of the really weird stuff!

Even though it is confusing, Revelation is still worth our effort. There are no clear descriptions of heaven in the Bible, but the snippet of Revelation we have in today’s reading comes close.  And this vision of life with God is glorious.

As one might expect, God is at the center of this vision, in the person of the Lamb, which is an image often used to describe Jesus.  In addition to being worshiped by angels, the Lamb is being worshiped by people of every tribe and language.  This is the first really beautiful and hopeful image of the passage.  In this world of John’s vision, the Saints are no longer divided by their external differences.  In our normal state, humans love to divide ourselves into little subgroups, and religious people are the worst at this!  When talking about a particularly self-righteous person, my mother used to say, “Well, I think HE’LL be surprised by who is next to him in heaven!”  The image of people from every people-group worshipping God reminds us that God’s love transcends every boundary we put up between us.

These people are all in robes of white, symbolizing their cleansed souls, who have been redeemed by God.  Wonderfully, the angel explains to John, that this Lamb is shepherding and sheltering these people-making sure they do not go hungry or thirsty or even get too hot!  And most beautiful of all, the angel promises that God will wipe every tear from their eyes. 

Life with God will be peaceful, and relational and joyful.  We don’t know much else.

This passage from Revelation does not tell us everything about the next world-we are just teased with enough spoilers to keep us encouraged.  After all, if we knew the whole story, where would the fun be?

Eventually, I stopped reading spoilers for television shows online, because I found I was no longer excited by the shows I was watching.  Knowing what happened ruined the fun of being fully present with the characters and the drama of their lives.   

Saints are saints not because they spend all their time daydreaming about what the afterlife with God will be like.  Saints are saints because they-and we-are focused on loving and serving God right in the here and now.  If we knew too much about what heaven was going to be like, we might be tempted to spend our lives just waiting to get there, rather than being fully engaged in our present. 

But we are welcomed to be encouraged by the good news of an afterlife with God and our loved ones who have gone before us.  Following God is not easy.  Following God requires discipline and personal sacrifice.  If you are feeling discouraged, it’s perfectly all right to take a sneak peek at the back of the book and remind yourself that in the end, God wins, we are redeemed by Christ and go on to spend eternity with him in joy.

Amen.