They'll Know We Are Christians by..? (Reflections on Easter 7, Year C 2022)

I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. (John 17:20-21a) 

“…that they may all be one.” Remember that Christian folk song we all sang back in the ‘70”s? How did it go? “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord/And we pray that all unity may one day be restored…And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Yup. That was a pretty big hit back in the day. I remember we even sang the Coke-a-Cola jingle: “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony/I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company…” 

Oneness, unity, perfect harmony. These are the things we pray for and find so hard to achieve. Even when Saint John the Evangelist wrote that vexing, poetic, imaginative, frustrating, and inspiring gospel, we Christians weren’t all singing in the same key. Just take a look at any of the New Testament epistles and you’ll see that the early church couldn’t get its act together any better than we can now. 

The gospel lesson in the RCL which ends the seven weeks of Easter (John 17:20-26) is part of what Bible scholars call Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. It’s a long prayer and discourse supposedly given by the Lord on the night before his crucifixion.[i] Jesus knows he’s not going to be around much longer, so he prays that his followers and all who come after them (that would be us) have a spirit of agreement which can bind them together as a witness to the world. I like to think he’s praying we have a transcendental love, a love which unites even when we can’t agree on things. He asks that we have the sort of love the Father has. That’s a love which might not like everything the kids do, but still values them, forgives them, and never breaks the familial bond that unites them. 

Unfortunately, we’re so often like a family of siblings standing around the deathbed of a matriarch as she says, “You kids promise me you’ll always stick together.” We wipe the tears from our blubbering eyes and swear, “Yes, Momma! We’ll always look out for one another.” Then, as soon as she takes her last breath, we pull knives on each other over who gets the old lady’s China and silver tea service. 

Jesus prays in this prayer that the love of the Father and his own spirit will be in the Church. Notice he doesn’t pray that correct doctrine, perfect liturgical practice, or adherence to a political point of view be present. Just the Father’s love and his spirit. I take this to mean we don’t have to agree on everything. In fact, we don’t even have to like one another. But we do have to love one another. What must be an essential mark of the Church is the open, visible trust that we are a community—diverse and weird as we are—that stresses belonging, forgiveness, and forbearance. We are going to have our differences just as any family does, but we’re never going to deny the holiness of God present in each individual. 

In the First Lesson for Easter 7 (Acts 16:16-34) Paul and Silas offer us a demonstration of transcendent love. They did a good deed and got tossed in the clink for it—with open, undressed wounds from a severe beating. The jailer has them in the inmost part of the prison. I’m sure this space was dark, wet, and a virtual petri dish of bacteria. Then the earthquake frees them. The jailer is certain that all his charges have scattered like cockroaches in a flood light. Being an antique Roman, he draws his sword and is ready to off himself when he receives a completely unexpected and totally undeserved act of mercy from our two heroes. I don’t know about you, but I’d say Paul and Silas, who have been unfairly tried, punished, and jailed, would certainly be within their rights to vamoose out of jail and let the guy who stuck them with their bleeding wounds into a pit of mold and fungus disembowel himself. After all, what’s one less minion of a corrupt state? But these boys don’t see a pagan enemy or a police thug. They see a child of God. 

What I’ve always liked about this story is verse 35b: “…he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.” I mean, what did he believe in before? Was he a sullen atheist? I get the feeling this guy was a real s.o.b. at work and to his family. When he finally repented after being saved from mandated suicide by an act of love, his whole household rejoiced. 

Christians, I think, are people who love in spite of ourselves. We’ll have different tastes, different ideas, and be moved by different things. We’ll argue and fight—sometimes with very good reason. We’ll hate each other’s guts from time to time and invariably disappoint one another. We’ll assume a position of arrogant superiority until the day we finally stand before God in glory and—maybe—find out we were wrong about everything. Wouldn’t that be wild? 

But if we don’t all hold hands and share a Coke, we can’t escape being a family, like it or not. If we can keep living in that truth, we just might make an impact. 

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[i] Most Bible scholars will agree that there probably wasn’t a stenographer hanging around taking dictation as Jesus prayed. It’s very likely John’s invention, composed around the end of the first century of the common era. It may not be historically accurate to what Jesus said, but it reflects John’s community’s understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

The People Who Give Us A Jolt (Reflections on Easter 6, Year C)

 

“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26) 

Some months back I stopped at a local gas station[i]. I had an errand to run for my wife and I was scheduled to officiate a funeral later that morning. There was a car ahead of me at the pump, so I shifted into park to wait. As I did so, my engine stopped dead like someone shot it through the heart. The polite foreign gentleman who pumps the gas[ii] motioned me to pull up, but my car wasn’t going anywhere on its own. It was obvious to me that my battery had given up the ghost. 

I called my wife, who told me to call the insurance company for a free jump. The insurance company’s number was answered by a recorded female voice informing me that, because of COVID, there was a shortage of tow-truck drivers and I’d have to leave a message and wait. The polite foreign gentleman, whose grasp of English seemed tenuous at best, was still polite but appeared to be as useful as a Band-Aid on an avulsion. I began to worry that, being stuck where I was, I would soon be leaving a funeral home full of mourners without someone to eulogize their deceased loved one. 

Just as the first maledictions were leaving my lips, another car pulled up for gas. It was driven by a gentleman who adroitly analyzed my situation and produced one of those portable batteries which are the size of a paperback novel but, apparently, contain enough electrical power to light the Burj Khalifa. He had me on my way within minutes.[iii] 

Sometimes God puts just the right people in our path. 

In the First Lesson assigned in the RCL for Easter 6, Year C (Acts 16:9-15), St. Paul meets just the right person. Poor Paul isn’t getting anywhere in Asia Minor. He’s wandering all around, but just isn’t getting the vibe he needs to do his preaching. He winds up in the seaport town of Troas and has a dream in which he sees a guy from Macedonia pleading with him to cross the Aegean Sea and help his community. Ever the obedient apostle, Paul gathers his posse and crosses over to Philippi. As far as we know, he never meets the guy he saw in his vision. Instead—and I’ll bet he was pretty surprised by this—he meets a bunch of Greek women. One lady is named Lydia. She worships Yahweh, runs a thriving business, and has her own home. She really digs Paul’s message, and she and her entire household get baptized. She then volunteers her home for Paul and his bunch to stay, thereby making her the founder of the first Christian community on the European continent. She was in the right place at the right time, and God worked through her. 

I find the way Luke tells this story interesting. Paul’s inability to preach in Asia Minor is said to be the working of the Holy Spirit. It says he was “forbidden by the Holy Spirit” to speak the word in Phrygia and Galatia, and the Spirit of Jesus “did not allow them” to enter Mysia.[iv] It’s hard for me to imagine that the Holy Spirit would ever forbid anyone to preach the love of Christ, so I’m thinking this attribution to the Ghost must’ve come in hindsight. Maybe Paul just wasn’t getting any traction in Turkey and got the inspiration to skip across the water to find a more receptive audience. When this worked out, he thought to himself, “Ya think this was what God wanted all along..?” 

Maybe what seemed to be Paul’s intuition was really the Holy Spirit at work, teaching him what God wanted. Just as his own missionary plans seemed frustrated, God showed up and put him on the path to meet a person who would change his mind and start something new—in this case, a whole new ministry to a whole new culture which ultimately changed the course of Western history. Pretty cool, huh? 

In our gospel reding for Easter 6 (John 14:23-29), Jesus comforts his disciples who, we can only assume, aren’t exactly in the jolliest of emotional places knowing he’s very likely about to be crucified. They’re all probably thinking, “Whoa! If our friend gets killed, what are we going to do without him?!” Jesus lets them know that when he’s not around the Spirit will still be there for them, and this Spirit will open their eyes to see how God is at work. 

Maybe you can think of a time when God dropped someone right in your path at an unexpected moment when things didn’t seem to be working out the way you’d hoped. You might’ve made a plan, but someone showed you that God could use your thwarted agenda in another way. When I pray with the families of the recently bereaved, I always pray that God will put into their lives the people who need to be there, who will be understanding and supportive during a time of transition, loss, or tragedy. 

This past week I’ve been grateful to God for the presence of my buddy Lee Miller, the Bishop of the Upstate New York Synod. Lee and his family (including his adopted African American son) live just outside Buffalo. The words shock, horror, numbness, anger or whatever are insufficient to express the emotions the act of racially motivated violence perpetrated in that city last weekend caused. I’m convinced, however, that if ever a man was anointed by God to minister and comfort a community so traumatized, it is Lee Miller. 

The best way, I think, for God’s work to be made known to us is through other people. Let’s always pray for the Spirit to teach us to recognize God’s work. Some folks may cross our path for specific reasons and for only a short time. May God’s Spirit teach us to let them go when the time comes. But, most of all, may we be taught the wisdom to know when we ourselves are being used to deliver a jolt of power to someone who sees themselves stalled out in life.

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[i] This was back before filling up your car required taking out a second mortgage!

[ii] Yes, they still pump gas for you in New Jersey.

[iii] I now have one of those devices in my trunk. The brand name is Halo. You should get one if you don’t have one already.

[iv] See Acts 16:6-7

Yelling at the TV (Reflections on Easter 5, Year C 2022)

 

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (John 13:34) 

If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” (Acts 11:17)

 Oh, brother. It’s election time again and the airwaves are filling up with the over-played, obnoxious, slogan-spouting, brain-numbing video ordure that is the American political commercial. I was watching the tube last night and actually found myself yelling back at the image on the screen—as if the guy could really hear me. My wife hates it when I do this, and I can’t say I blame her. I’m really pretty intolerable. 

What got me riled up was this particular snippet of a grouchy-looking old white guy telling me to vote for his candidate because, “we have to save this country.” I started to yell back, “Save it from what? Just what exactly do you consider the existential threat, Sir? Pro-choice activists? Gun control? Immigration? Affirmative action? Or are you just trying to make America safe again for old white bigots like yourself?” 

But now as I think about it, my screeds at the TV screen—quite aside from the annoyance they cause my Bride—are not only wasted energy but really manifestations of my own selfish disobedience to the will and Word of God. I recognize that I luxuriate in identifying the other—someone for whom I can give myself permission to feel contempt. As much as I may feel morally superior in rejecting a policy, I have no right at all to reject another person made no less in the image of God than am I (Besides, for all I know the old white dude on the TV screen might not even be a supporter of the candidate. He could just be an out of work actor who needed the gig!). 

In the gospel lesson for Easter 5, year C (John 13:31-35) we hear again Jesus’ commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. So how does Jesus love? In the context of the passage he’s just lowered himself to do the dirty work of a servant and washed the feet of the disciples he knows don’t understand him and will desert him. He’s given bread to the man he knows is going to betray him, and he’s spoken lovingly to the man he knows is going to deny him. His love does not reflect their actions, it only reflects his care for them as people. 

In the First Lesson (Acts 11:1-18) Peter will be questioned and criticized for hanging out with the wrong people. Good church folks won’t want to have anything to do with someone who hung around and ate with their sworn enemies—the non-Jewish foreigners who had come to take over their land and make them pay taxes to a foreign emperor. By their standards, Peter shouldn’t even be inside the house of a Roman Gentile. But old Peter, who had his feet washed by his rabbi and who had been forgiven for denying him, has grown to love people in a whole different way. It’s not about who they are or what they believe or what they’ve done. It’s just love because Jesus told him to love. 

I always found the story of Peter and Cornelius amusing because Peter is so quick to give the wrong answer when God sends him a vision. I guess the analogy between unclean foods and unclean people was just a little too complex for this simple fisherman. He doesn’t get it at first. He’s proud that he’s kept kosher. God has to show him the vision of the tablecloth three times and finally gives up on this knucklehead. But: when Peter actually encounters the flesh-and-blood Gentiles who are hungering for God’s word of grace, he finally understands. It’s the personal relationship that changes his mind. Cornelius and his household are no longer “the other.” They become people to him. Real people, and they have the same wants and needs as he has. 

It's easy even for church folk to demonize people they don’t understand. Back in the early ‘80’s Julie, the organist of my home congregation, came out as a lesbian. Although no formal request was ever, to my knowledge, made, she suddenly felt unwelcome in the congregation where she’d grown up. She tendered her resignation and left the church with a rather bitter taste in her mouth. She and I remained friends. Sometime later, I had a conversation about this with my mom, a lady of rather traditional and conservative views. I was a bit surprised to find that Mom had very tender feelings toward my gay friend. “It couldn’t be easy for her,” she said. Mother had thought the matter over and concluded that she liked Julie when she thought she was straight, and she saw no reason not to like her when she knew she was gay. Julie was still Julie. 

Jesus makes a pretty big demand on us when he tells us to love the way he’s loved. He’s asking us to give up our sense of indignation and moral superiority and see one another as God sees us. That’s hard. Really hard. But not impossible. Jesus also tells us we’ll receive what we pray for in his name. Perhaps the ability to love other sinners might be a good request to make. 

For me, at least, it’s a better use of  my time than yelling at the TV. 

God’s peace, my friend.

 

 

"Tabitha, Get Up!" (Reflections on Easter 4, Year C 2022)

 

“She was devoted to good works and acts of charity.” (Luke 9:36) 

In my time in the ministry in Northeast Philly I’ve officiated almost 900 funeral services. I’m yet to raise anyone from the dead. Unlike Saint Peter in our First Lesson for Easter 4, Year C in the RCL (Acts 9:36-43), I haven’t received the gift of miraculous healing. I can only talk about the promise of eternal life without the ability to do an in-home demonstration. But we each have our own gifts, don’t we? I’ll be content just to retell the stories and—if I’m good at it—shed some light on a few interesting details in hope of giving you some helpful insight.

 First the obvious stuff: Luke parallels this story of the raising of Tabitha with the story in chapter 8 of his gospel[i] of how Jesus raised an official’s preteen daughter. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus raises the little girl by using the phrase “talitha cumi,” and translates it as “little girl, get up.” Although Luke doesn’t use the Hebrew[ii] expression, he must’ve figured everyone knew the story and would catch the similarities between “talitha” and Tabitha.[iii] I guess the point would be that Peter, that one-time scaredy cat who was too pusillanimous to admit he even knew Jesus, is now so full of faith and the Holy Spirit he can do the same miracles the Lord himself did. Take that for what it’s worth. 

I’m a little more interested in some of the minor stuff in this story. I always liked the fact that the widows introduce Tabitha to Peter by showing him all the stuff she’d sewed and made for others. You know: kind of like that scarf your grandma knitted for you. Or the duvet your best friends quilted for you as a wedding present. I have a lot of cool stoles I wear with my vestments, but my favorite is my scarlet Pentecost stole which was designed and sewn by both of my sisters for my ordination. My sister Lorraine lives in Colorado and my sister Maryanne is deceased now, but when I wear that stole, I have a little bit of their love wrapped around me. 

There’s something very powerful in gifts that were made by hand. They have so much more value than the cost of the materials. When the widows show Peter these tunics and other garments, they’re showing their friend’s talent as well as her love. 

I have to give a shout-out to Dr. Raj Nadella, a professor of New Testament at the Columbia Theological Seminary in Columbia, GA who did the commentary on this text for the Working Preacher website.[iv]Dr. Nadella pointed out that the Greek which is translated above as “acts of charity” would actually be literally translated as “alms that she continually did.[v]” Now “alms” and “acts of charity” have a bit of a distinction if you ask me. Tabitha didn’t just volunteer at the food bank. She “almed” too. That is, she may have been a pretty well-off old gal, and she made hefty donations to the widows in Joppa. Luke always likes to make a big whoop out of the fact that folks in the beloved community are generous. 

The text says nothing about there being a Mr. Tabitha around, so this lady was either some kind of heiress or she was a widow herself. And widow ladies like to stick together. I doubt there is a Christian congregation on the face of the earth that doesn’t have a group of older, wiser dames who like to hang out with each other and have each other’s backs. They just grow together organically because they’ve all been to the same rodeo. When my mom went into assisted living, the widows of our home church mobilized like a platoon of Marines and figured out who would visit Marie, who would do her shopping, who would take her to the doctor’s office, and who would drive her to church. Our pastor noted that the widows needed her as much as she needed them. 

But there’s always one gal who is the epoxy that holds the community together. She’s the one who makes the phone calls and the reservations for lunch and keeps the others in her prayers. She brings the casseroles to the potlucks and runs the church kitchen and tells Pastor when someone has gone into the hospital or when someone’s granddaughter is having a baby. These “Tabitha” ladies support the community with donations and time and prayer and concern. When they’re gone, the community is never the same. 

Dr. Nadella noticed that Luke gives more attention to the works Tabitha did—making clothes, giving alms, being mourned by the community, and he even tells her Greek name—than he gives to any of the consecrated male deacons mentioned in chapter 6 (with the sole exception of Stephen the martyr). He also noticed that there weren’t any other men around in this story. This is a salute to the faithful women and the love they have for each other. 

The passage ends with many of the good folks of Joppa coming to believe in Jesus because of the miracle of Tabitha’s resurrection. I like to think God restored her because this community just wasn’t ready to do without her yet. Maybe it was that her faith was infectious, that her love for the community became the presence of God people needed to see so they, too, could believe. And if you’ve ever in your life been comforted or strengthened by a “Tabitha," you have been blessed indeed.

 

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[i] 8:40-56 if you want to look it up.

[ii] Or is it Aramaic? I’m not really sure, but the two languages are kind of similar. You know: Like Spanish and Portuguese.

[iii] After all, he cribbed much of his gospel from Mark anyway.

[iv] My go-to place to steal sermon ideas.

[v] elehmosunwn wn epoiei for all you Greek language fans