Ascension: Journey of the Heart

Sermon preached  at the Regional Confirmation Service 

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Pittsfield, MA   

Feast of the Ascension 5-17-12

by Lee Cheek, Lay Preacher, St. James Episcopal Church, Great Barrington, MA

Peace be with you, Friends of God!   Peace be with you, (Bishop) Gordon, Hannah and Jennie! Peace be with you, candidates for confirmation and reception into this Communion!  And peace be with you, mentors, sponsors, friends and families!

15 years ago, May 4, 1997, on the Sunday afternoon before Ascension Day, Gordon confirmed me and received several others at Grace Church, Dalton, less than a year into his tenure as our bishop.  Tonight some of you will be confirmed by him in this, the final year of his tenure.  

As I recall, most of the service that afternoon was somewhat of a blur to me.  But the one thing I remember was the weight of Gordon’s hands on my head.  The weight was sure and firm—certainly much more sure and firm than my understanding at that time of the strange and complex vocation of being a follower of Christ—which is what I want to speak about this evening.

So I am grateful, Gordon, for that palpable firmness on my head and the assuredness it communicated to me that the project I was signing up for was Love’s project and it was Real.  Real with a capital “R”, even though it has taken me over ten years to appreciate just how Real it is and just how stunningly difficult it is to remember I am actually a part of it.  

Understanding this project and my part in it is the foundation for what I understand to be the Christian vocation.  And it is this: that Love (for God is Love) desires my agency in its world and there is no part of my life that Love does not desire to be in charge.  

That Love (for God is Love) wants me (even ME!) to be its agent in the world of my life and there is no part of my life where Love does not desire to be in charge.  

And this I know, and in this I place my hope for the world, because of the life, death, and resurrection of a young rabbi two thousand years ago and the witness of his followers who eventually learned to read the troubles of the world through his eyes. 

I say “eventually” because their new understanding of his life which became the foundation for their true vocation began when they encountered a dead man now strangely and fully alive, who greeted them with ‘Peace’ and let them  know that their cowardice and betrayal had simply no effect on his continued love for them!    Joy!

Through the eyes of this Forgiving Victim, they began to understand the scriptures, law, and history of their people—a people who had been called since Abraham to use the subversive power of forgiveness and mercy to organize and unite themselves with one another, rather than to exercise the temporary unifying powers of human sacrifice, whether cultic, spontaneous, or conveniently “lawful.”

Sadly and tragically today, human group cohesion and security is still being achieved far too often in the same murderous way.

So what does this strange picture of “ascension” of the state-crucified and God-resurrected Jesus have to do with our vocation as Christians?  What does this text have to say to us tonight, we professed members of a shrinking, yet still world-wide communion of those who long for restorative love and rescue from our entanglement with the powers that rule us by fear?

First of all, let us say that the picture of the Forgiving Victim rising to take his place on the throne beside the Ancient of Days is not a fanciful or pretty picture of Jesus’ cloud-ride to heaven which we also might get when we die if we have tried to be as good as Jesus or made a lot of public noise about how great we think Jesus is.

It was, rather, for Luke’s community, a picture of the removal of the veil of separation of Heaven (God’s place) from Earth.  Any Temple Jew of the time would have understood the significance of the image.  The Temple which had been the place of holy intersection between Heaven (God’s dimension) and Earth (humankind’s dimension) could now be anywhere—two miles away, over in Bethany!  Or in Pittsfield, or in your home or your body.  In short, wherever we are!

Because the point is that the connecting pathway to the place of holy intersection is accessible from anywhere, for it is the pathway for the journey of the heart.[i]

In addition, the image of the aforementioned cloud should be read as the traditional symbol for the presence of God, like the cloud pillar of Yahweh that guided the Israelites in the wilderness.   So this says something to us, too, about the identity of the Forgiving Victim as God himself—the One who has a claim on us and on whom no human can have any claim.

It was for them, and is for us, a picture full of hope in the understanding that Love (for God is Love) really is ultimately in charge—not the Caesars of this world whose claim on us is not ultimate.

You see, the manipulation of our allegiance, which is the giving of our hearts and minds, is where evil does its work in the world.  And the work of the church in the world is to ask the hard questions about whose lives and dignity are at risk in any human endeavor and in any human encounter in our homes, schools, our workplaces, and our institutions, especially our churches.  For it is a hopeless world indeed if the Caesars of our world and their collaborators are ultimately in charge of our souls.  

This is how it must have felt for the disciples when it looked like the restoration of Israel had seemed to fail for them with Jesus’ state ordered execution.  They couldn’t see that their ideas—like many of our own today—about salvation from the world’s evils were pretty much limited to getting rid of the bad guys violently or securing their identity of goodness with moralistic pride and self-righteousness.  

The powers that discount, degrade and devalue other human beings, especially their enemies, were still in charge of their souls, even though they had been following for three years a man who had challenged every current idea of kingdom, sacred or secular, that was established by exclusion.

What I love about the Ascension event is the joy when they learned how wrong they had been about who was really in charge and what was going to save their world.  Their story continues in us today, because it is only in this process of being wrong and being forgiven that any of us has a chance to understand and embrace our part in God’s great project of rescuing us from our own violence towards one another.

Even though we are disinclined much of the time to being wrong about something or someone, isn’t it a mercy when we can finally let go of the lie and relax into the truth?  And when we are relaxed, are we not less inclined to resort to returning tit for tat, or hitting back?  Less inclined to spread lies and rumors to shore up our goodness?  Less inclined to demonize others? 

Using the language of Ascension, we could say it this way:  anytime we can let ourselves be wrong about someone or something and relax into the truth is the moment when Love’s throne room moves into our lives.

And that, my friends, brings us back to what we are doing here this evening in this splendid space with the beautiful liturgy and traditions lovingly crafted by the saints before us and the saints among us now.  For each of them began their individual, personal journey with the hope to which each disciple is called:  that Love is indeed in charge of the world and that Love’s Spirit of Truth will be in us and among us and always for us and for the world.

So in my attempt to use the Ascension event to say something about our vocations as Christians, I hope you have some sense this evening that Love desires each one of us to be Love’s agents in the world, and that there is no place in our lives where Love does not desire to be in charge. 

Candidates, I hope for you that the weight of Gordon’s hands on your head will help you remember your acceptance into this strange vocation[ii] in a world that values a different kind of power.  

And for all of us here this evening, I hope that when Gordon stretches out his arms in his inimitable and memorable way at the end of our service, we will remember that we are loved and blessed into this vocation.  In his gesture, let us take in the hope for us in Christ’s Blessing.  It is how the disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy.  May you return to your own Jerusalems with great joy, too.[iii]  

AMEN.

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[i] Joseph Ratzinger, in part two of his Jesus of Nazarath (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 2011), described the path that the ascending Christ opens to us is “not a matter of space travel of a cosmic-geographical nature:  it is the “space travel” of the heart, from the dimension of self-enclosed isolation to the new dimension of world-embracing divine love.” (p. 286)

[ii] On the Christian vocation, Rowan Williams writes:  “In his faithful and obedient relation to the Father, Jesus sketches a new and comprehensive vocation for human beings.  So to come to be ‘in Christ’ , to belong with Jesus, involves a far-reaching reconstruction of one’s humanity:  a liberation from servile, distorted, destructive patterns in the past, liberation from anxious dread of God’s judgement, a new identity in a community of reciprocal love and complementary service, whose potentials are universal.”  (from the essay “Trinity and Revelation” in Williams’ On Christian Theology, Blackwell, 2000).

[iii] The preacher is indebted to the following authors for much of her reflection on Ascension: James Alison in Raising Abel (Crossroad, 1996) and The Joy of Being Wrong (Crossroad, 1998);  N.T. Wright in How God Became King (Harper, 2012) and Surprised by Hope (Harper, 2008). 

A Sermon preached June 3, 2012, Trinity Sunday B

by the Rev. Frances A. Hills, Rector

It’s Trinity Sunday, the great day of glory and wonder when we celebrate the way

we’ve come to speak of God as “One God in Three Persons”—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Blessed Trinity.

What a glorious day in our Christian faith! What a monumental day and weekend for us here! We have a new Bishop-Elect Doug Fisher! We’ll be looking forward to his ordination in Springfield on December 1.And today we will choose a new name for our consolidated parish! So in addition to being this great feast of the glory of our Triune God, it is and will be a New Day for this “Episcopal Community in the Southern Berkshires” and for the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. So, we need to be thinking about what that New Day will look like? What is our mission in the New Day? What will prepare us to meet the challenge of the New Day?

I believe through these years in the wilderness, the Holy Spirit has guarded us and guided us to this place in amazing ways, and we can learn from our experience.

We’ve learned to Trust God the Father, the One who creates us and calls us his beloved children. It’s clear that God hasn’t let go of us so far, so we have no reason to fear that God would let go of us in the future. We’ve learned we’re never alone,

because Jesus, the Son, our companion, our brother, our shepherd, is with us always…even to the end of the age. In his being with us through our joys, pain and grief, we’re learning that God loves us unconditionally. God takes us just as we are. Our faults, sins, and weaknesses are redeemed and then used to the Glory of God.  In these years, we’ve learned to recognize more and more that the Holy Spirit is with us, giving us courage and joy, making us longsuffering and loving, and deepening our faith. We’ve been learning how to listen for God’s voice in Holy Scripture, in one another, and in the wider community. We’ve been learning to notice and pay attention to the way the Spirit nudges us…Often/usually in ways we could never anticipate.

It’s important for us to remember these ways our Triune God has been with us as we think about what the future consolidated parish might look like. What is God calling us to do? Where is God calling us to join in God’s mission, during this time of great transition in the Church and the world?  How can we—who are created and loved by the Father, reconciled by the Son, and empowered by the Holy Spirit—be more ready to begin this adventure of being a New Church, with a new name, and a new bishop, in a world that is increasingly secular?

         

It’s a world full of people who are hungry for the very love, reconciliation, and empowerment that our Triune God so generously offers; yet they are people who have no idea that God is the real source of all they truly need and deeply desire. They don’t know God’s love, reconciliation, and empowerment are theirs for the asking. I think we are uniquely positioned to get that message to them because of the way we have survived, thrived, and come together and because of the way we love one another and reach out across boundaries with unconditional love.  

So what can help us be prepared to spread this Good News in our community today? I think we can look at today’s Isaiah passage (about his call to serve God)

for some important clues. In fact, in this story, we can find a pattern to follow as we move forward to answer God’s call. First, this mystical vision happens to Isaiah

while he’s in the temple, during a time of great transition…It’s “The year (long-reigning) King Uzziah died.”Times of transition are stressful. They make us vulnerable and especially open to the Spirit, creativity, experimentation, and new life!

Isaiah is transported to the very throne of God, to the very presence of God. God’s train/robe fills the temple as he sits “high and lofty” on the throne! And seraphims, strange, six-winged creatures, are flying all around singing “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts.” Just try to imagine it! We’re praying here at Crissey Farm, during this year of great transition…In the year that Gordon Scruton retired. In the year Saints James and George consolidated. In the year Doug Fisher was elected bishop. Like Isaiah we’re vulnerable and open to the Spirit, when all of a sudden we’re somehow in the very Presence of God!

Annie Dillard writes (Holy the Firm),

“Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews…For the sleeping God may awake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.”

For Isaiah it was such holy ground that the place shook and was filled with smoke…perhaps with the fragrance of God’s very self!

Now what happens here is so important…

          Confronted with God’s Holiness,

                    Confronted with the very Truth,

                             Confronted with the source of Goodness,

Isaiah’s response is to see everything clearly, and to admit his and the world’s truth: He, and the world, are “lost” and have “unclean lips”.

In the Presence of the Truth, Isaiah is spiritually convicted and confesses his brokenness. He seems amazed that even in his own fallen state, he’s actually allowed in the Presence of God. (How could God love a sinner like me?) And then what happens? A seraphim touches his mouth with a hot coal and says, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”  Isaiah confessed his sins, and he’s absolved!

After that, Isaiah is able to hear the Lord’s call, and he’s empowered to respond:

          “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Isaiah says simply,  “Here am I; send me!”

What happens with Isaiah in this story of his call is actually the classic pattern for reconciliation. This is what I think can inform and equip us at this transitional time in our diocese and our church, so that we are able to hear and respond wholeheartedly to God’s call to us.

When we are in the presence of Goodness, Love, the Holy, the Truth, we can see our own truth clearly and confess it, all of it…our shortcomings and grief, the bad things we’ve done, and the good things we’ve left undone. The way we wish the world would be, but isn’t. The way we resist surrendering our illusions of control, that keep us from “Letting go and letting God”. Having admitted the truth about ourselves (no more and no less than we are), we can receive absolution. Our guilt is departed, and our sin is blotted out. Then we can hear and fully embrace the call, the mission, the works of love and service that God will call us to do.

This pattern of reconciliation that’s part of Isaiah’s call is essential for us as we move forward into the New Day that’s dawning.  And we can approach this with confidence because we are loved by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

                                                         Amen. 

A sermon preached by the Rev. Meredyth Ward on June 2, 2012

at Christ Church Cathedral, Springfield, MA

on the occasion of the election of our Ninth Bishop

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, be always acceptable to you, O Lord our Rock and our salvation.

My name is Meredyth Ward.  I am President of the Standing Committee here in the Diocese, and I serve at Church of the Epiphany in Wilbraham.  The bishop and I are sharing the sermon this morning. 

A little more than a week ago we were blessed to have the candidates for bishop with us in the Diocese.  One of the places we brought the candidates was the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton.  Thursday afternoon, near the end of a long week, we had the opportunity to stop and pray and surround ourselves with beauty.  We were all a bit tired and worn, and we were deeply grateful for the opportunity for quiet rest and refreshment.

One of my favorite icons at the museum pictures an old monk at prayer.  He’s holding a sheaf of papers, or maybe a scroll, but that’s not what has his attention.  He’s looking at the upper corner of the icon, where there is a tiny image of the nativity.  There’s Mary and Joseph and the baby, a being covered in so much gold that it could only be an angel, and, in the back, in the midst of a group of figures there is a miniature image of the monk himself.  He was so immersed in praying the text, so transformed by the experience of meditation, that he himself was fully present at the Incarnation, fully participating in the mystery of the Word made flesh.

One of the things about icons is that while they are pictures, when we use them in prayer we’re not supposed to focus on the image itself.  They are often beautiful.  Some of them are even encrusted with silver filigree and jewels.  But rather than looking AT the icons, we are supposed to look THROUGH them, in order to see God.  They are spiritual windows—windows into mystery.  The surface is lovely, but we are asked, no, CALLED, to look through them into the deep mystery of God.

Over the past few weeks we have been engaged in a process of coming to know the candidates for bishop.  We have read their profiles, as they have read ours.  We have checked out websites and read blog entries and sermons and resumes.  They have been looking at ours as well. But our task and theirs has been to see beyond the words and images, and like the monk at prayer in my favorite icon, come into the presence of the Word made flesh, and see the presence of God and God’s work among us.

It is not easy to hear God’s voice clearly.  In our first lesson today, Samuel knew that SOMEONE was calling him, but he wasn’t quite sure about who or how or why.  He needed the help of Eli, his mentor and friend, in order to be certain that it was God’s voice that he heard.

All of our candidates for bishop have been called by God.  Some, like Samuel, heard God’s voice as a child.  Others became attuned to God’s voice later in life.  But no matter when they heard the voice of God, there is no doubt that they are beloved of God and are called to God’s service.  They have answered the call before.  Like all of us they were marked as Christ’s own forever in Baptism.  They tested their call again as they were ordained deacon and then priest.  At each step along the way there were others, friends and family and mentors and community members, who helped them hear and understand their call.  “This is what I hear God saying to me—does this match what you see and hear?”

Whatever the outcome today, it is likely that one or more of these fine priests will be ordained a bishop someday.  They are gifted, prayerful and dynamic.  They have prayed and studied and thought and hoped.  They’ve even convinced their spouses that this bishop thing might at least be an OK idea.  The question before us, though, is not should they be bishops, but which one is called to be OUR bishop, HERE in Western Massachusetts, at THIS time in our history.

Our task today is to prayerfully cooperate with the Holy Spirit.  We are called to view these candidates the way we view icons.  Our task is to open our eyes to see THROUGH these priests to God’s presence within them.  We are asked to focus not the on the surface of the words they have written and spoken, nor on their style of speech or appearance, but to see THROUGH these to notice what God would have us know of them.

One of these candidates is to be our shepherd.  One will be chosen not only to plead with the Lord of the Harvest on our behalf, but to help us learn to recognize the harvest which is all around us.  We need fresh eyes.  We need fresh ears.  We need a fresh heart.

We need these, but not because we have been without a shepherd.  We all know that that is not true.  We have been blessed with a shepherd who knows us and has had compassion on us.  One who knows our names and the names of our children and grandchildren.  One who loves us and has rejoiced at our joys and wept at our sorrows.  One who has held us in prayer and will continue to do so, long after he retires.

So we know what it is like to have a good shepherd.  What we need to be careful about is confusing the PERSON of the shepherd with the work of God WITHIN the shepherd.  Looking at the icon itself, rather than looking through it to see the work of God in our midst.

In the next few hours we are embarking on a work of mystery.  We ask the Holy Spirit to be with us, to change our hearts, to challenge our assumptions, to lift our hopes and encourage us to embrace new possibilities.  There are new pastures to be tended, new harvests to explore, new voices to hear and new visions to capture.  All for the love of God.  All for the work of the Kingdom.  All as a glimpse of the Incarnation.  All as a vision of the love and work of God among us that will drop us to our knees in prayer and send us out in love and service.