Paralysis

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

June 25, 2017

7 Proper A

          When I was in high school, our youth group took a trip to Six Flags over Texas, an amusement park.  We had washed cars, raked leaves, and sold candy bars all year to raise the money for this trip.  We boarded a bus on a Friday night, arrived at Six Flags on Saturday morning where we spent the day riding the rides, and then got back on the bus and arrived home Sunday morning.  Riding the bus at night saved money on overnight accommodations, and all of our waking hours could be spent riding rides.  My friends talked me into riding the roller coaster, which I am sure was fairly tame by today's standards.  "You will love it," they said.  Against my better judgement, I agreed.   The ride only lasted 90 seconds.  How bad could that be?  Once we got in the cart, were strapped in, and the safety bar had been lowered across the seat, the train started slowly up a steep incline.  "This is not so bad," I thought.  And then, after a brief pause at the top, the bottom fell out.  The roller coaster descended at an alarming rate.  I could hear people screaming, but I couldn't breathe, much less scream.  I was terrified.  In the brief moment I had my eyes open, I could see others with their arms up in the air, eyes open, and their screams seemed to be happy screams.  Apparently, the way to enjoy a roller coaster is to let go and trust the safety bar, but I was having nothing of that.  I shut my eyes, tried to breathe, and learned just a bit about the feeling of being paralyzed with fear.  And I promised God that if God would just get me off that roller coaster alive, I would never, ever get on a roller coaster again.  And I have kept that promise.

          Twice in our readings this morning, we hear the words “Do not be afraid” in circumstances far more dire than any roller coaster ride.  In fact the circumstances we hear about this morning are so dire, that “Do not be afraid” sounds absurd.  When God says to Hagar “Do not be afraid,” she and her child, Ishmael, have just been banished to the wilderness with a bit of bread and some water, which have now run out.  Just when the situation looks most dire, as Hagar prepares to wait while her son dies, God says to her “Do not be afraid.” God tells Hagar that God will make a great nation of Ishmael and provides water for them to drink.  Then, we are told, Ishmael grows up, becomes an expert with the bow, and Hagar finds him a wife in Egypt.  Hagar was able to move beyond her fear and great things happened as a result. 

          Jesus also says to the disciples “Do not be afraid.”  Being a disciple of Jesus is not turning out quite the way the disciples expected when they took the job.  Exorcising demons, healing people of diseases, doing some teaching and preaching, and maybe turning a few loaves of bread and fish into a meal for thousands is one thing.  Sure, they might have no place to sleep at night, or have to rely on the hospitality of strangers, but those were small inconveniences relative to the joy of following Jesus.  Persecution, slander, divided families, and the reality of death is another thing all together.  When there is a great deal to fear, Jesus says “Do not be afraid.”  Had the disciples acted on their fear, nothing good would have happened.  But we know they acted on their faith instead, as they made a gospel difference in the world.

          Neither God nor Jesus say this morning that there is nothing to fear.  In both cases, there is most certainly something to fear.   When the angel of God says to Hagar "Do not be afraid," the angel is telling her not to act based on fear, but on faith in the promise that God will make a great nation of Ishmael.  Even when it seems far more likely that they will simply starve in the dessert, Hagar is asked to believe in God's promise and to live her life based on that promise, not fear.  When Jesus says to the disciples "Do not be afraid," Jesus is asking them to live, not out of fear, which would be pretty normal, but out of faith~faith that neither persecution, nor the unknown, nor ridicule, nor questions, nor failure, nor suffering, have ultimate power over our lives.  The promise of the gospel is that ultimate power over our lives is held, not by any power of this world, but by the God who knows us so well as to have counted the very hairs on our heads.

          The challenges to our faith may not be being cast out into the wilderness, persecution, slander, division of our families, or death for our beliefs.  The challenges to our faith may look more like sickness, broken relationships, conflicted priorities, making faithful decisions with our money, and fear of failure.  Any of those challenges can paralyze us with fear and keeping us from living as people who believe that nothing separates us from the love of God.  When God says “Do not be afraid,” God is not saying that there is nothing to be afraid of.  God is telling us to live like people who believe that God is really present with us, and there will be no end to the incredible gospel work we can do. 

                                                                                      Amen.

Hope

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

June 18, 2017

6 Proper A

          “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” was released in 1999,when our sons were 9 and 12.  The debut of this film was greatly anticipated at our house, and while we did not go on opening day, we went shortly thereafter, and shortly thereafter that, and some us of went again short after that.  Over the course of a very few weeks, between the four of us, I think we had seen the film some 20 odd times.  At a mere three viewings, I was clearly the least interested. 

          I do not actually remember a lot about the film all these years later, as I never partook of the subsequent watchings once the video and then the DVD were released.  But my favorite line out of all the Star Wars movies is in “The Phantom Menace.”  The great philosopher Yoda says to young Anakin “Fear is the path to the dark side.  Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to suffering.” 

          Whenever I hear the words of Paul this morning in the letter to the Romans, I think of Yoda’s words.  But where Yoda’s warning ends with suffering, Paul begins there.  Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us.  Paul does not say that hope does not disappoint us because we always get what we hope for, but because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

          Yoda’s words somehow seem more realistic than Paul’s, unfortunately.  We seem to have evidence every day about the darkness fear, then anger, then hate can cause.  Seeing suffering as something that leads to hope rather than misery seems a little more far fetched.  Yet this morning, both the story of Abraham and Sarah, and the teaching of Jesus have something to tell us about suffering and hope.

          By the time the Lord appears to Abraham this morning, God has promised Abraham no less than three times that his descendants will number the stars in the sky and he will become the ancestor of many nations.  But in order to be the ancestor of many nations, at least one child is required.  Sarah is barren, a cause of great suffering under normal circumstances and even more so when the barrenness seems to mock God’s promise.  Sarah has taken matters into her own hands and given her servant Hagar to Abraham so he can have a child with her.   But this morning, God again promises Abraham that he and Sarah shall have a son together.  By now Abraham and Sarah are so advanced in age, that the very thought made Sarah laugh.  But Sarah does conceive and bear a son, which brings her much laughter and joy.  Her long suffering does produce endurance, and perhaps character, and certainly hope as she and Abraham now have the future God promised.

          This morning, we also hear Jesus commission his disciples.  The commissioning starts off well enough.  Jesus sends the twelve out to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.  That sounds like a pretty good time.  Then the twelve are told by Jesus not just to pack lightly, but to pack nothing.  They are to depend on the hospitality of those they serve.   The disciples have already left everything to follow Jesus, so receiving hospitality probably sounds like an upgrade.  Then Jesus tells them that they won’t always meet with success.  While the disciples would no doubt prefer a 100% success rate, we all know that most new ventures are not 100% successful.  Some of them had probably spent long days fishing and caught nothing, or had little to show for a day of tax collecting, so a bit of failure could be taken in stride.

          But then Jesus tells them that he is sending them out as sheep in the midst of wolves, that they will be handed over to councils and flogged, and that they will be hated because of the name of Jesus, and persecuted.  This is not what the disciples signed up for.  They signed up to follow Jesus.  Casting out demons, and curing the sick was one thing.  Being hated, persecuted, and flogged was another matter all together.

          But Jesus tells them not to worry.  The Spirit of God will speak, and presumably work, through them.  If they can endure to the end, they will be saved.  Jesus has moved from telling them to trust in the hospitality of strangers to telling them to trust in God, which will enable them to endure.  Suffering produces endurance, which produces hope, which, Jesus promises, will not disappoint them.

          We may not face hatred, persecution, and flogging for our faith, nor we will likely conceive a child at the age of 90 or 91 like Sarah. But most of us do, on occasion, experience challenging times when suffering makes us question God’s promise to us, challenges our endurance, and leads us to wonder whether fear might be a more appropriate, or certainly easier response than hope.   The words of both Yoda and Paul ring true.  Over and over again in scripture, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear.  Fear often leads to anger, to hate, then to more suffering and we wind up in a very dark place.  In the midst of whatever challenges we face, Abraham and Sarah show us, and Paul and Jesus call us, to trust in the promise that God is with us.  God’s presence will help us to endure, which gives us strength, which will lead us to hope.  Hope is possible all because God’s love has been poured into our hearts and will never let us go.

                                                                                      Amen.

God-With-Us

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

June 11, 2017

Trinity Sunday

          When my mother died four years ago, I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from the church and from my colleagues.  My mother chose the Tuesday of Holy Week to make her departure, which was a whole lot better than waiting until Maundy Thursday.   Offers came from colleagues to see how they could be of help with the Holy Week liturgies, although I was coming home and would be present for all of those services.  Kind notes poured in from so many people, and had we taken everyone up on their offers of food, we would not have had to cook again until this very day.  Walking through the liturgies of Holy Week was particularly powerful that year, not only because of the comfort of the resurrection, but also because I felt completely held up and held together by the prayers and support of the far flung yet gathered community.  If I had any doubt that the presence of God was with me during that time, the love of the people around me made that presence known.

          Today is Trinity Sunday.  Some commentaries call Trinity Sunday the one day of the church year when we celebrate a doctrine rather than a person or an event.  After all, we have come to this point in the church year via Advent, the season of waiting for the birth of Christ; Christmas; Epiphany and the revelation of the Christ Child to all people; Lent and the preparation for Easter; then Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost.  After the glory of our Pentecost celebration last Sunday, now we turn to the somewhat confusing, and perhaps seemingly irrelevant theological doctrine in which we state that we believe in one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

          Actually, I think that to call Trinity Sunday a celebration of a doctrine does the Trinity a grave injustice.  I believe that on Trinity Sunday, we celebrate the way God works in the world and in our lives.  If our readings on Trinity Sunday included even just one reading that explains the Trinity, that would be helpful.  But while no passage of Scripture explains the Trinity, our readings today do give us clues.   

          This morning, we watch as God creates the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that is in them, and calls all of creation good.  This story goes into great detail to show the God who is in relationship with all that God created.  Humans are made in the image of God and made stewards of all that God created, so we are made to be in relationship with creation, too.  As the image of God, we are to have dominion over creation the way God shows dominion in this story, by building up and recognizing the goodness in all God has made.  The psalm this morning calls creation the work of God’s fingers.  Creation is not the work of a distant God, but the God who is connected with all God has made.

          In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells the people of Corinth “Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.”  Then Paul says “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”   The persons of the Trinity are named, but not explained.  However, on the one hand, the hard work to which Paul is calling the Corinthians requires the grace, love, and communion of God.  But on the other hand, when the Body of Christ lives in peace, the grace, love and communion of God is reflected to the world.  The world knows the fullness of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, by the way the Body of Christ treats each other.

          Lastly, we hear Jesus’ last words in Matthew’s gospel.  On the mountain top, Jesus gives a clear articulation of the Trinity when he commands the remaining 11 disciples and us to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Again, we hear the three persons of the Trinity named, but not explained.  But perhaps we have a clue in what Jesus says next.  Jesus says “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”   In the first chapter of Matthew, Joseph is told in a dream that Mary will bear a son, conceived by the Holy Spirit.  While Joseph is told to name the child Jesus, which means savior, for he will save the people from their sins, the angel also references the passage from Isaiah in which the prophet says “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’

          If we are made in the image of God, and God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, perhaps the call on our lives is to reflect God-is-with-us to the world.  Genesis calls us to reflect God’s love for all God created.  In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us to reflect the grace, love, and communion of God in the way we treat one another.  And in the gospel, Jesus connects his command to make disciples by baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit with the promise that he is with us always.  Certainly in the days and weeks after my mother’s death, I experienced God-with-me through the care and concern of so many people, and I know from the stories I hear that many of you have had similar experiences.  But the command of Trinity Sundays goes further than telling us to be God-with-us for each other.  The command of Trinity Sunday is to be God-with-us for the world.

                                                                                      Amen.

Many tongues and multiple accounts

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

June 4, 2017

Pentecost

          When our sons, Slocomb and Caldwell, were little boys, one of the great challenges of parenting was getting to the bottom of any particular accomplishment or altercation.  Whether something good had happened and they both wanted credit, or something unfortunate had happened and they each wanted to blame the other, getting to the bottom of what actually happened was almost impossible.  How two children could come up with such different accounts of who left the refrigerator door open, or left the den a mess, or ate the last of the cookies was one of the great mysteries of parenting. 

          In some ways, parenting prepared me well for dealing with Scripture, as Scripture often gives us more than one account of an event.  There are two very different accounts of creation in Genesis, two stories of Jesus birth and six accounts of the feeding of the multitudes in the four gospels, and four accounts of the empty tomb on Easter morning, for starters.  But we rarely hear two accounts of the same event on a single Sunday morning.  Usually, we can take the stories one at a time and hear what that particular story has to tell us.

Today is the exception to that rule as today we hear two very different accounts of how the disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit.  In the reading from Acts, we hear of a dramatic experience that occurred 50 days after Easter on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit arrived with the sound of a violent wind and tongues of flame, giving the disciples the ability to speak in a variety of languages.  In the reading from John’s gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples on Easter night, breathed on them, and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  Which story is correct?

          The fact that we are given multiple accounts of many important events in Scripture is a great blessing because it prevents us from saying “God acts this way only.”  Multiple accounts remind us that God has acted in many different ways throughout history and continues to act in multiple ways in our own lives.  If the Holy Spirit acts only through dramatic events like we hear about in Acts, many of us would conclude that the Holy Spirit does not act in our lives because nothing so dramatic has ever happened to us.  But Scripture also tells us that the disciples experienced the Holy Spirit in a quiet, gentle way, as natural as the breath we breathe.   If these two stories describe ways the Spirit is experienced, then our own stories bear witness to the Spirit as well.

What the two Pentecost stories have in common is also important.  Just before the descent of the Holy Spirit in Acts, Jesus ascended into heaven.  Jesus’ last words to the disciples were “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  After the disciples received the Holy Spirit, they were to go out into the world as Jesus’ witnesses.  In John’s gospel, we hear Jesus say “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  In both accounts, the disciples are given the Holy Spirit and sent out into the world.

          We also hear three different accounts of the gifts of the Spirit this morning.  The reading from Acts tells us that the gift of the Spirit is the ability to speak in languages such that everyone around us can hear the gospel in their native tongue.  The reading from John tells us that the gift of the Spirit is the ability to forgive sins.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells us that the gifts of the Spirit are wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, miracles, prophesy, discernment, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.  What we hear in these readings is that there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit.  What the three passages have in common is that these gifts are given for the common good, not for one’s own personal use and enjoyment.   

          At Christ Church, we are blessed with an abundance of gifts.  Collectively, we have the gifts of teaching, administration, music, wisdom, cooking, flower arranging, compassion, hospitality, creativity, financial management, the list goes on and on and on.  I do not doubt for one moment that we have, at Christ Church, the gifts for any ministry to which God calls us.  Our challenge is always how we use those gifts together to build up the Body of Christ for the common good and to be people who are sent. 

          In a moment, we will renew the promises we made at our baptism.  In baptism, we were sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever, which is what happened to the disciples on Pentecost whether with great drama or with the gentle breath of Jesus.  We will affirm the foundation of our faith in the three questions that lead us into the words of the Apostles' Creed.  Then we will affirm the way we will live in response to our faith, using our gifts for the common good and to live as a sent people.  We make those promises as individuals, but we are called to live out those promises collectively as we come together to use the many gifts we have been given to make a gospel difference in the world.

When we want to know exactly what happened and when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, so we can know for sure how the Spirit will work in our own lives, Scripture reminds us that the Spirit is not predictable and works in a great variety of ways.  When we take all of our readings together, we hear from Scripture that Pentecost happens when we are open to the Spirit, and when we use the great variety of gifts God has given us for the common good and to be God’s people in the world.  Pentecost is that simple, and that demanding.

                                                                   Amen.