Saturday, April 19, 2008

A Clobber Passage

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
April 19, 2008; 5th Sunday of Easter, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(John 14:1-14) -- Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it."

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There are a handful of passages in the scriptures that are sometimes called "clobber passages." I got clobbered last week with a verse from today's gospel. "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." That was quoted in a letter I received last week from an earnest Christian taking issue with one of my newspaper columns where I spoke gratefully about what I had learned from non-Christians. He called me a "universalist." That was not a complement.

Maybe you know the story of Bishop Carlton Pearson of the New Dimensions Church in Tulsa. When he began to doubt that God would send non-Christians to an eternal, punishing hell and began to preach about universal reconciliation in what he called the Gospel of Inclusion, the bishops of his denomination condemned his teaching as heresy and ousted Bishop Pearson as a heretic.

According to David Barrett's "World Christian Encyclopedia" there are nineteen major world religious groupings and 10,000 distinct religions world wide. Christianity itself is divided into 34,000 separate groups, denominations and para-churches, nearly five thousand in the U.S. alone. Which one is right? How do you know the only way and truth and life, the only way to the Father?

The Holy Father Pope Benedict addressed this in the year 2000 in his declaration "Dominus Iesus," letting us know that "churches such as the Church of England, where the apostolic succession of bishops from the time of St. Peter is disputed by Rome, and churches without bishops, are not considered 'proper' churches." Only the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches are "churches in the proper sense." Bless his heart.

The Pope would get a harsh hearing from the Church of Christ down the street where they are sure that their church is the only true one. Then again, I remember having many conversations with my anxious church treasurer in one of my previous congregations. Her son-in-law pressured her tirelessly to convert to his Mormon congregation so that she would be able to see her grand-children in the after-life. He didn't want her left behind.

I also remember a conversation I had with a Baptist pastor who was certain that I am a heretic and that everyone who listens to me is likely to be lead down the path to eternal damnation with me. He spoke out of earnest concern and compassion. He truly believes that you and I are in mortal and eternal danger. He allowed as to how he was worried about his uncle also, who as a youth felt attacked by aggressive Christianity and forsake all religion. I asked the pastor, "You love your uncle, don't you?" "Yes, of course." "Well, now. What if you were in charge? If you were God, would you condemn your uncle whom you love to eternal hell, damnation and torment?" He thought briefly, and spoke his heart's truth. "No. I wouldn't." "Then," I asked, "why would you worship a god who is not as good as you are?" There was a moment when it seemed like he blinked. But it would be too costly for him to believe in such a generous God. He knows he would be treated like Bishop Carlton Pearson if he were to do so.

What are we to say about this word: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." I tried to address that earlier this year in a newspaper column titled "Transcending Religious Monopolies." That's the column the letter I received last week took issue with. My argument there was that as Trinitarians, Christians understand that wherever God is revealed, it is the activity of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word of God whom we know as Jesus doing the revealing, and it is the activity of God the Holy Spirit energizing the revelation. From before time and forever, God's Word is active and real in every time and every place. So, wherever there is any truth or goodness or beauty, it is the activity of the Holy Trinity, by whatever name. I'm not going to re-hash that column, you can find that on our web site under "Other Links" where we store all of my articles from the Northwest Arkansas Times.

I think our friend Marcus Borg has offered a helpful way to look at these things. Borg says that there are three ways to see the multiplication of religions. There is the absolutist understanding of religion which affirms that one's own religion is the only true religion. There is the reductionist view which reduces all religions to mere human inventions constructed to fill in our ignorance and to serve some strong psychological and social needs for security and meaning. Borg offers a third, his preferred view, the sacramental understanding of religion: religions as sacraments of the sacred.

Sacraments, you recall, are outward and visible things which mediate the sacred. Bread and wine are finite things, made by human hands; they mediate for us the presence of Christ and become a sacramental participation in his divine life. Religions, then, are human creations, finite things. But they connect us with God and with infinite things. Religions are "created in response to the sacred." Each religion embodies a response to the experience of the sacred in the particular cultures within which each religion came into being. Geography makes a difference. If Jerry Falwell had been born in Saudi Arabia is there any doubt that he would have become a powerful Islamic Imam?

Religions tend to differ from one another most in their beliefs. They tend to be most similar to one another in their core, in the heart of their experience of "the real" and "the more" – the experience of the numinous and mysterious. When we talk about our experience of God and how we nurture that experience in our prayer and practice, different religions tend to talk much the same language. When we emphasize our beliefs, we tend to separate.

I think we can allow a great tolerance for beliefs. Human beings do the best we can to put words and theology around our experience of the ultimate. What works for you might not work for me. We can agree to disagree.

But I like to make a distinction between beliefs and actions. I will defend the right of someone to a belief that I think is wrong or stupid, but I believe we must be vigilant toward religious actions when they harm others. When the cult that calls itself the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints abuses young girls in the name of their religion, the rest of us must say "No!" Believe what makes sense to you, but do not harm others. Admittedly that can be a fine line.

I embrace Jesus Christ as the way and the truth and the life. I believe that the revelation of his life makes God transparent and leads us into the depths of meaning and relationship. I look at Jesus as the human face of God. And when I look at Jesus, I see one who was generous toward those of a different faith from his own. I see him embracing and lauding Samaritans who were despised as heretics by his fellow Jews. I see him reaching out in compassion to those who were called sinners and unclean. I see him offering the same compassion and the same miracles of healing and feeding to Gentile and Jew alike. I see the incarnation of a spirit of love and compassion that is universally present in humanity. So wherever I see love and compassion, I see the manifestation of the same energy, the same Spirit that animated Jesus. We are all part of that whole.

The way Jesus talked about all of this was in family terms. He called us all brothers and sisters. He said he was in the Father and the Father in him. And he said we are in him and he is in us. He embraced all humanity as his family. That is the way and the truth and the life. The way to the Father is the path Jesus showed us, the way of compassion and love, an embracing vision that sees all humanity as our own flesh and blood. Jesus wrapped his arms of love around every bit of humanity, including our evil and our death, and gave that to God the Father on the cross. So in one sense, no one comes to the Father except through him. Which means everyone comes to the Father, because Jesus has embraced all humanity as his own family and has taken all our goodness as well as all of our evil and cruelty into his being and given it to God.

That is the kind of love that overcomes death. It overcomes sin and alienation and evil. And with God's help, it will overcome the cruelty that we commit toward one another in the name of religion. It is significant that Jesus was condemned as a blasphemer. Even the blasphemers come to the Father through such love. God has embraced us all, and Jesus is our story of that embrace. That story is big enough to make room for every sacramental experience of God and everything that threatens to divide us. Instead of being a clobber passage, to say that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus can be an embracing passage: saying that in Jesus, God has embraced the whole of humanity, in all its goodness and in all of its evil. Nothing is outside his embrace.

So we can live as generously and as expansively toward the other, the outcast, and the blasphemer as Jesus did. We can love God and neighbor and self, as he taught us. We can embrace the family of humanity as one family, with many diverse sacraments of the presence of God, who comes to us in so many wonderful ways. Bishop Pearson is right. The essence of Jesus is a gospel of inclusion. And everyone's uncle is included.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

The Good Shepherd

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
April 13, 2008; 4th Sunday of Easter, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(John 10:1-10) -- Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

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I know of a Roman Catholic priest whose name escapes me, so I'll call him Joe. After working hard and conscientiously for many years as the only priest in a pretty large parish, he was tired and mildly depressed. Pray for our Roman brothers who serve the Church. Typically they are responsible for the pastoral care of three to four times as many parishioners as Episcopal priests are accustomed to, and they labor without the benefit of a life partner to support them. It can be a hard life. Joe was a good priest, but he was facing burnout and was beginning to question his vocation. He shared his dilemma with his bishop. The bishop was a friend and wise. He gave Joe an unusual reassignment. He sent Joe to the Middle East. The bishop assigned Joe to work for a friend of the bishop's, an Arab Palestinian sheepherder named Ahmed (again, I can't remember the exact name, so Ahmed will do). For a season, Joe was to stay with Ahmed the sheepherder and do whatever Ahmed told Joe to do.

Joe was pretty perplexed by the assignment, but it's a hierarchical system and he accepted his orders. After several months of living with Ahmed, Joe returned to his former ministry invigorated and renewed. I heard him tell about what he had learned and how it affected him. I want to share with you what I can remember of his story.

Ahmed had a flock of sheep that numbered about 150. Each day Ahmed would lead the herd into the sparse countryside to find forage and water. Through the day he would watch carefully, to protect the sheep from predators and the many way a sheep could get hurt or lost in the rugged territory. At evening, he would bring them in to a safe place for their night's rest. But Joe learned, there was so much more to it.

Joe began his work with Ahmed living on the small farm where all of the family pitched in to manage the animals and crops. Early in the morning Ahmed would open the gate and lead the sheep toward the nearby pasture land. The animals followed obediently. Ahmed asked Joe to help him keep a keen eye for any sheep that might wander or straggle away. Ahmed also watched the surrounding countryside with great vigilance, wary of any wild dogs or other threats.

As they brought the sheep back to the sheepfold in the evening, Joe learned one of the purposes of the shepherd's staff. Ahmed used the long stick to guide the flock toward the gate, and then lowered the staff so that each sheep had to crawl slowly under it as it entered the fold. As they crawled, Ahmed carefully scrutinized each animal, looking for cuts or bruises or any signs of disease. He checked their ears, looked into their eyes, felt their joints and bodies, inspecting each for problems. If he discovered a cut, he cleaned and covered it with balm and bandage; if there were any signs of illness, he attended to it with prompt healing care. Every animal was throughly examined and treated before being tucked away for the night.

In that region, whatever land was conducive to growing plants and crops was all cultivated, and Ahmed had to be careful not to allow any of his sheep to trespass on a neighboring farmer's field. He kept his animals in the areas that were good enough to support some grasses and ground cover but not good enough for a crop. That was a challenge. It didn't take long for the sheep to finish the edible growth in one area, so Ahmed was always taking the flock to new pasture. Eventually they ran out of forage within a day's walking of Ahmed's home, so they prepared to go further and camp.

After spending a day in a distant place with good grass, Ahmed led the group further away in a direction opposite home. Rounding a rocky outcrop, Joe saw that Ahmed was leading them into a natural arroyo -- rocky cliffs on three sides enhanced with some boulders and man-made barriers that created a narrow entrance about fifteen feet across. It seemed like a perfect accommodation for the flock.

Just as Ahmed was finishing his inspection of the sheep, there was the sound of rustling activity, and Joe looked up to see another flock, larger than Ahmed's, with two shepherds leading them into the same encampment. They were followed quickly by a third herd with its guide. Before long, the three flocks of identically looking sheep were chaotically mixed into a huge, indistinguishable herd. Joe thought to himself, "We're going to have a Middle Eastern battle royale in the morning when they try to separate these sheep."

Ahmed greeted the other shepherds and introduced Joe, explaining his presence. The group made a fire, shared some food and stories. One pulled out a pipe flute and played a bit. As evening deepened, three of the four shepherds lay their blankets head-to-foot across the opening to the arroyo, creating a human gate, so that any sheep that might try to leave the enclosure or any predator that might try to enter would have to go through the bodies of the shepherds. The fourth shepherd positioned himself toward the top of the rocks where he kept a sharp lookout over the surrounding countryside. Some time in the wee small hours, that shepherd descended and tapped Ahmed, who woke and took his post as the sentinel. Each shepherd took a turn at watch. From time to time Joe awakened. Each time he looked up to see who was on duty; he noted that the lookout was always alert, awake, vigilant, never nodding or showing signs of distraction.

As Joe felt the dark before dawn arrive, he began to get nervous. How will they separate nearly 500 sheep into the proper herds? As the day began, one shepherd stood up. The shepherd began to sing. It was an eerie song, haunting, ethereal. Some jostling began within the herd. Then one of the larger sheep stood up, a bell around its neck. It began to walk toward the shepherd. The shepherd turned away, continuing his song, and walked off toward the distance. One by one, every sheep from his flock stood up and made a pathway through the other reclining sheep until the whole group had reformed, following their shepherd. Each of the other two flocks separated themselves efficiently in the same way, following the song, the voice of their own shepherd.

With time, Joe began to be able to distinguish the sheep, which at first looked all alike. Ahmed had names for each, usually related to a physical uniqueness. "This one is Blackie; there's Crooked Ear. I call that one Rami because he looks like my father-in-law, whose name is Rami."

One particular runt-sized lamb he called Tiny. As Ahmed inspected and counted the flock one evening, Tiny was missing. Ahmed immediately secured the flock with a neighboring shepherd, grabbed some extra water and provisions and headed out into the dark. Joe waited nervously. All day and the next night, no Ahmed. Another day and another night. Joe imagined all kinds of catastrophes that might have befallen Ahmed. Finally, on the third day, Ahmed returned, carrying Tiny across his back, a leg in a splint where it had obviously been broken.

The shepherds joined together for a feast with wine and much rejoicing that night as Ahmed told the story. Tiny had fallen into a crevice and broken his leg. Ahmed passed by the place three times before finding him. He couldn't reach Tiny, so Ahmed lowered himself as far as he could and withdrew the animal using the crook of his staff. By then, Tiny was dehydrated and in shock, so Ahmed set his leg and tended him until he was stronger. Then Ahmed carried the heavy animal on his shoulder for miles back to safety. Now hopping gayly on three legs, Tiny looked no worse for wear. Later they learned the story of how Ahmed had to scare off a small pack of canines, hitting the threatening pack leader with a rock from his sling.

Months later Joe returned home, tan and fit, and re-entered his priestly ministry with renewed vigor. He doesn't suffer from burnout anymore. He says it is because of what he learned from Ahmed. For Joe, Ahmed has made more real the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

Now, in the morning, Joe hears the sunrise voice of the Shepherd, leading him out to green pastures and deep waters. As Joe sets about his work and duties, he senses the attentive, protective presence of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. He feels the security of being known intimately and personally, freeing him from anxiety. He knows that if he gets lost or hurt, the Shepherd will not rest until he is found and restored. At night, Joe lets the Shepherd examine his day, setting right that which has been broken and putting balm on the cuts and bruises. He commits himself to the Shepherd's care, and he falls asleep in peace.

The old psalm has new significance for him:
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his Name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
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