Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
May 27, 2012
Pentecost
When I was growing up, my family spent a good bit of time in the summer sailing on Lake Maumelle, just outside Little Rock. We started off with a Sunfish, a small sailboat with one sail and not much between us and the water. Most summer afternoons, the 5 of us would pile into our old Volkswagen Beetle, with the rudder sticking out the sunroof since there is not room in a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle for 5 people and a rudder, and off we would go, pulling the boat on a trailer behind us.
Sailing, I quickly learned, is all about the wind. There may be a strong wind, or no wind, white caps on the lake or what seems to be dead still water, but how ever the wind presents itself is what you have to work with. There is not one thing we can do to make more wind, less wind, or wind from another direction. So, in order to get from one side of the lake to another, or to the island in the middle with the nice picnic area, we had to learn to work with the wind.
The best ride, of course, was when we wanted to go in the same direction as a nice strong wind. All you have to do is let the sail out to catch the wind and away you go. It’s a little hard to stop without winding up in the water, but with some practice it can be done. The hardest work was when we wanted to sail into the wind. That requires setting the sail as closely as possible to the direction of the wind, but not directly into the wind because then the boat comes to a stop and begins to move backwards. But setting the sail as closely as possible to the wind, and using the weight of our bodies to keep the boat tilted at the most effective angle would get us from one side of the lake to the other until we finally reached our destination. That was a lot of work, but it was also a thrilling ride. Then, of course, there were the times when, for all intents and purposes, there was just no wind at all. That is why we always took a paddle with us. With lots of practice, we learned to work with the wind to get where we wanted to go, even when there seemed to be no wind at all.
This morning, we hear about a wind of another sort. When the Jewish feast of Pentecost had come, the feast that celebrated the giving of the Law to Moses, the disciples were all gathered in one place. And suddenly from heave there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them and rested on each one. And the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages.
Tongues of fire and the ability to speak in other languages get most of the press on Pentecost. But the wind and the fire filled the disciples that day. The Holy Spirit came as a wind that did not destroy and a fire that did not burn to blow the disciples out into the world, with a fire in their bellies, to proclaim the gospel.
Once Pentecost has come, the Holy Spirit is the constant in the lives of the disciples. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he did not say "If you need some help in my absence, there will be some power available from heaven." Jesus said to his disciples as he prepared to leave them "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 end of the earth." In the gospel reading we just heard, Jesus does not say "If you need help, I’ll send the Advocate, the Spirit of truth, to guide you." Jesus says "When the Advocate comes....when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth." The Holy Spirit is the constant, and the disciples and Paul will spend much of the book of Acts learning how to work with that mighty wind. Sometimes, the disciples’ work will be a down wind run-they will preach with great success, heal the sick, and be filled with words that are not their own to convey the power of the gospel. Other times, they will wind up in jail, or shipwrecked, or flogged, or hungry, or sleepless and they will be working with the wind to make very slow progress forward. Since the book of Acts is largely about the success of the very early church, we don’t hear much about the times when they felt like the Holy Spirit had abandoned them and they had to get out the paddles and make something happen on their own, but I’m guessing that they felt that way some days, too.
Pentecost is one of the feast days in the church when we celebrate baptism. In baptism we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Baptism is our Pentecost experience, whether we remember the event or not, as we are joined forever in the death and resurrection of Jesus and as part of the Body of Christ. However, baptism is also when we promise to spend our lives learning how to work with the Holy Spirit. Just as the sailing was not always smooth, and the disciples had a bit to learn after Pentecost, the same is true of baptism. After the water has dried and the oil of baptism has soaked in, we still have a bit to learn. In the baptismal covenant, which we renew today, we promise to spend our lives learning to work with the Holy Spirit. We promise to be faithful in worship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers, so that we are nourished for this work. Because we know we will fail sometimes, we promise that when we fall into sin, we will repent and return to the Lord. We promise to practice, over and over and over again, respecting the dignity of every human being, proclaiming the gospel in word and action, seeking and serving Christ in all people, and working for justice and peace. That is the work of the Spirit and the work the Spirit calls us to do. Sometimes that work is a down wind run-thrilling and fast and easy. Sometimes that work feels like work and we have to use some weight to keep the boat upright and moving forward. And sometimes we feel like we are all alone with our paddle, trying to make something good happen even when the water is dead still. But the message of Pentecost is that we are never actually alone. The Holy Spirit has been given to us, is present with us, is the constant in our lives, and gives us the power to make a difference, even when we think we are paddling alone.
Amen..
Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
May 20, 2012
7 Easter B
When I was in college, I spent three summers as a camp counselor at the Episcopal Church camp in the Diocese of Arkansas. The pay was low~$300 for the whole summer, the food was wretched, the cabins were old World War II army barracks, the temperature climbed into the upper 90's every day and hardly cooled down at night. And the counselors signed up summer after hot summer. Each summer we became a close knit community. We all liked working with the kids, and we could never imagine a time when we would all be grown up, have spouses and children of our own, and go our own separate ways. We thought we would be together forever.
Some 30 plus years later, several of us have reconnected on Facebook, the Internet social networking site whose stock happened to go public this week to great media fanfare. Until we met up on Facebook, most of us have not stayed in touch over the years and almost none of us stayed in Arkansas. Someone posted a photo of the 1979 camp staff on the website, and I’m not sure whether I was more surprised that I could actually identify some of the people, or that I could not even recognize the face of others. Thirty years ago, these folks taught me how to keep giving when I thought I had nothing left to give, to see Jesus in the lives of disadvantaged children from the inner city, and that to sing is one of the most powerful ways for me to pray. Thirty years ago, these people were an integral part of my own faith life and my development as a Christian. Now I wonder if I would recognize them if they walked through the door.
This morning, we listen as Matthias was chosen to take the place of Judas as one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. The remaining 11 apostles had just witnessed Jesus’ ascension into heaven, an event the church marked this past Thursday. Jesus told the 11 before he ascended that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit had come upon them, and that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So today we mark that uncertain time between the ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. What are the apostles to do during this uncertain time? They do the same thing many of us would do-they get organized. The apostles need to choose a new apostle so that they would be a group of 12 once again. The criteria for becoming the 12th apostle was that this had to be someone who had accompanied Jesus and the apostles from the time of Jesus’ baptism until the ascension. This criteria is a little quirky since Jesus did not call the disciples until after his baptism, but perhaps the point is that the criteria are impossible. The apostles proposed two people to the larger body of believers: Joseph, who was known as Justus, and Matthias. Interestingly, we know from various gospel accounts that James and the other brothers of Jesus may have actually qualified, yet they were not actually considered. After spending time in prayer, the believers cast lots and the lot fell to Matthias, and he was added to the eleven apostles.
Clearly, the addition of a 12th apostle was very important to the original 11. We are not told what would happen if the number remained at 11, but apparently that was not an option. The whole gathered body of the faithful, which, we are told, numbered about 120 people, chose the 12th apostle and they did so in the context of prayer. We are also told that the people believed that God had already chosen the 12th apostle, and the work of the faithful was to discern who that person was. And apparently, that was Matthias.
So, what does Matthias do as an apostle? Does he cast out demons and cure the sick? Does he proclaim the gospel with such power that thousands are baptized and added to the ranks of the faithful? Is he jailed for his witness to Jesus or even martyred? The truth is that Matthias is never again mentioned in Scripture. Never. We know nothing about his ministry as one of the 12 apostles. One commentator took Matthias to task for not living up to his role as an apostle. Another commentator took Scripture to task for telling us nothing else about Matthias. Yet another suggested that the apostles made the wrong choice because they did not wait for the Holy Spirit to come on Pentecost before making their decision, and that’s why we hear nothing more about Matthias.
While only God knows the real story, there is another way to understand the role of Matthias. My hunch is that Matthias had a clear and important role in the life of the embryonic church at a particular time and in a particular place. After being chosen as the 12th apostle, Matthias probably went about the rest of his life making Jesus known to those around him, using whatever gifts God gave him. Perhaps he was not a great orator like Peter, didn’t wind up in all parts of the known world like Paul, but that doesn’t mean that Matthias shirked his responsibilities or was an ineffective witness to the gospel. Matthias was probably like most of us who go about our business, doing the work God has set before us, witnessing to the love of God through our actions, and hopefully laying the foundation for God to do great things.
When I think about Matthias, I think about the many people who were once incredibly important in my faith life and who made a lasting impact on my relationship with God, but whose faces I would not recognize now. But we would be remiss if all we took from the story of Matthias was to remember and give thanks for people from our past who had a lasting impact on the development of our faith, however significant that impact might have been. Matthias calls us to remember that each of us, with our words and actions, can be Matthias for others. Like Matthias, there may be no written record of our words or actions, and our faces might not be recognized decades from now. But like Matthias, we are sent out into a particular place at a particular time to do the work God has given us to do, witnessing to the love of God with our words and actions, and laying the foundation for God to do great things. In the end, that is the very definition of an apostle.
Amen.
Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
May 6, 2012
5 Easter B
One Sunday morning, some 20 years ago, our son Slocomb announced from the back seat of the car on the way to church that he knows what God looks like. "Really?" said his interested parents. "Tell us." "God wears pajamas," said Slocomb. Slocomb was as convinced of this fact as he was that he had eaten strawberry pop tarts for breakfast that morning. "How do you know this," asked his amused parents. "We are made in the image of God, right?" said Slocomb. "Yes," I said hesitantly. "We wear pajamas, right?" said Slocomb. "Yes." Well, then God must wear pajamas" proclaimed our 6 year old theologian. Our younger son, not to be outdone, chimed in that God has big hands. "Big hands?" I asked. "Why does God need big hands?" "To give the children candy," said Caldwell. This gave me pause until I realized that one of the priests here at Christ Church at the time was a very tall man with large hands who often gave Caldwell candy when we came by the office. Both children had taken what they know and used that knowledge to come to some understanding about something beyond them. Whether or not they came to the correct conclusion is debatable. I doubt God needs pajamas or gives candy to children, as sweet as those images might be. But as we grow older, we still use what we know to try to understand the unknown. We talk about coming to a new understanding of God’s unconditional love when we see our newborn child for the first time, or learning what God’s forgiveness must be like when we are forgiven by a loved one for a wrong we have done. We use our own experiences as a way to reflect on our understanding and experience of God. Without the experience of loving and being loved by other human beings, how can we possibly understand the love of God? Without being able to recognize the image of God in each other, how would we know anything of the person God is calling us to be?
The reading from 1 John this morning reminds us, however, that this way of understanding God is limited, for the love of God stretches us beyond anything we can explain by human experience. The reading begins "Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God." Then the writer says "In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." The writer of this letter reminds us that God’s love is the baseline love, so to speak, and that we are called to love others as we have been loved by God. So what does that love look like?
According to 1 John, God’s love is life giving. "God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him." The point of sending God’s only son was so that we might have life. Secondly, God’s love is self-sacrificing: God sent God’s only son-the heart of God’s heart-to give us life. Thirdly, God’s love is a free gift-there are no strings attached. There is nothing in 1 John that tells us what we have to do to earn that gift. We love because we are loved, not in order to be loved. We are called to respond to the gift of God’s love by loving our brothers and sisters with that same life-giving, self-sacrificing, no strings attached love.
All that is well and good, but sometimes I need something more like a story to show me the love 1 John describes . And in the reading from Acts this morning we have an excellent story of life-giving, self-sacrificing, no strings attached love from one human being to a total stranger. Philip is given directions by an angel of the Lord that will take him to an Ethiopian eunuch who had come to Jerusalem to worship. As an Ethiopian and as a eunuch, the man was something of a double outsider even if he was in charge of the entire royal treasury. The Ethiopian invites Philip to sit in the chariot with him, an act of hospitality, and Philip interprets the scriptures for him, proclaiming the good news about Jesus, ultimately baptizing the eunuch before being snatched away. Philip’s love for God was demonstrated in his openness to the angel of the Lord who told him to travel a wilderness road for no apparent reason, his care and acceptance of the Ethiopian, and his sudden departure after baptizing the Ethiopian that left no room for any praise or credit for Philip. The Ethiopian’s love for God was demonstrated in his openness to hearing God speak through the scriptures, his openness to Philip and hearing God speak through Philip, and his openness to the Spirit in his desire to be baptized. The love Philip and the Ethiopian had for God spilled over into life giving, self-sacrificing, no strings attached acts of love for a total stranger.
The writer of 1 John says "God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them." Jesus says the same thing in the gospel lesson when he says "Abide in me as I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me." The fruit we are to bear is the love of God. I John was written to a Christian community that was bitterly divided over issues of Christian doctrine. If they and we proclaim the love of God, but practice a faith that is full of hate, vengeance, and judgement, the world around us will see that we are unattached to the very vine we proclaim and flee from the gospel. If we proclaim the love of God, and practice that very love even when we disagree, our attachment to the vine will grow ever deeper and the world around us will see a living story of the life-giving, self-sacrificing, no strings attached love of God.
Amen.
Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
April 29 2012
4 Easter B
Every year for the past 15 or so years, Christ Church has participated in Springfield’s Interfaith Thanksgiving service. The service began some 30 years ago as the joint effort of Covenant Presbyterian Church and Temple Sholom. Over the years, the service has grown to include the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and various Protestant churches along with the An-Nur Islamic Center. Every year the clergy and various lay leaders gather to plan a service in which we can all give thanks together for our many blessings. As you might imagine, some careful and creative planning is required as we create a service based on what we hold in common rather than focusing on anything that may divide us. The service is rich with shared stories, prayers, and music from our various traditions and each year the service is held in a different house of worship. We learn something about ourselves and about each other as we engage the sacred writings and traditions of other faiths. After the service, we enjoy one another’s company over coffee and cookies and we begin to build relationships with each other. And over the years, we have formed a deep respect for one another’s faith.
So, I am caught up short by Peter’s proclamation in the reading from Acts this morning. "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved." Peter sounds exceedingly exclusive. There is no salvation at all for those who do not believe in Jesus? When we gather with our brothers and sisters of other faiths at Thanksgiving, are we to believe that their faith traditions are just wrong and we Christians have the only path to salvation? At a deep intuitive level, that claim seems wrong to me. Fortunately all of our readings this morning provide some context for hearing Peter’s words.
This morning, Peter and John have just healed a man who was lame from birth when we find them in prison, being interrogated by the entire family of the high priest. The charge against the two men is first that they are teaching about the resurrection, then that they have claimed some power that does not belong to them. Peter’s defense argument is brilliant. Peter transforms the charges against him from a charge of blasphemy to the charge that he has done a good deed for someone who was sick. Who can argue against a good deed done for someone who is sick? Peter’s claim is he could not heal the man by his own power, but that the lame man could only be healed by Jesus, thus proving that Jesus was the Messiah. Peter is not speaking to the Roman Council, and he has no other faith in mind, when he tells his very own people that their salvation comes through Jesus. As Jennifer pointed out last week, Peter is saying "Look what amazing things our God is doing in our midst!" A few chapters later, in Acts 10, Peter will say "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." Peter is not preaching an exclusive gospel. In our reading this morning, Peter is challenging his own people, and a few chapters later, Peter states clearly that God shows no partiality.
The 4th Sunday of Easter , which is today, is traditionally known as "Good Shepherd Sunday." On this Sunday, we always hear one of the gospel stories that portray Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Today, we hear Jesus say "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And I lay down my life for the sheep." Over the centuries, the church has tried to figure out who Jesus’ sheep are. Who is in the fold and who is out? The seemingly obvious answer is that Christians are Jesus’ sheep. And we are. But Jesus also says "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice." Jesus’ claim is that he has sheep we don’t even know about, who will listen to his voice. Just a few verses earlier, Jesus said "The sheep follow the Good Shepherd because they know his voice." The very definition of Jesus’ sheep is that they know his voice and follow him. That is the whole definition. We do not get to control who is in the fold and who is out. Jesus does. And in John’s gospel, that does not make his audience happy.
But to focus on who the sheep are is to miss the point. The point is the Good Shepherd. When Jesus says "I am the Good Shepherd," he is not simply saying that he’ll take good care of the sheep. Through out the Old Testament, in the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and in the Psalms, specifically the 23rd Psalm that we read/sang this morning, God is identified as the Shepherd. In the Hebrew scriptures, most of the work of the Shepherd has to do with justice, providing food for the poor, strengthening the weak, and binding up the injured. When Jesus says "I am the Good Shepherd," he is pointing to those very scriptures and saying "I am God."
Many chapters later, at the very end of John’s gospel, after Jesus has been crucified and is risen, three times Jesus will ask Peter, the same Peter we hear from in Acts this morning, "Peter, do you love me?" Three times, Peter will say "Yes, Lord, you know I love you." And each time, Jesus will respond "Feed my sheep." Feed my sheep. The work of the Shepherd and the work of the sheep is the same-the work of justice, feeding the hungry, strengthening the weak. The command of the gospel is that we love Jesus by feeding his sheep. That’s our job. The Good Shepherd’s job is to gather the sheep. And all of the sheep Jesus gathers, where ever they come from, are our brothers and sisters. Amen.
Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
April 15, 2012
2 Easter B
Last summer, we hosted our first ever Reading Camp at Christ Church. Our goal was to help children who had just completed 2nd grade and were a year or so behind in their reading. We would recruit from schools with a high poverty rate, where parents most likely could not afford supplemental educational experiences for their children. Despite the fact that we were told by other churches who had hosted Reading Camp that this was not a venture for one church alone, a small group of Christ Church folk formed a leadership team to plan curriculum, field trips, meals, recruit children, find money, and take care of the countless organizational details. Once we had some idea what the Reading Camp would look like, we invited all of you to participate and the response was amazing. The parish stepped forward to shop, help with meals, read with children, chaperone field trips, decorate, call parents, contribute financially, and pray for this ministry. And the week was fabulous. After 5 days of Reading Camp, the children really had improved their reading. They had such a good time that they asked if they could come to school here. They loved taking books home to read to their families. And their parents were deeply grateful.
Does all this mean that Reading Camp went off without a hitch? No. I don’t know whether Christ Church is just special, or whether it is true in every church, but our projects rarely go according to plan whether we are buying real estate, roofing a building, or starting a new ministry. So, we planned Reading Camp for 24 children, were very happy to have 15 children registered, and then had 5 children show up on Monday morning. Phone calls to parents brought in three more children. Our teachers did a quick revision of the curriculum and 15 minutes later, they were ready to go with 8 children, but clearly we needed to rethink recruiting. We thought children would love choosing from a variety of cereal bars for breakfast in the morning, different flavors of yogurt, and sweet juicy melons. The children liked homemade egg and cheese biscuits and grapes. Lots and lots of grapes. We didn’t think walking to the library or the bowling alley would be a big deal. It’s not that far. Wrong. So, we tweaked through out the week, stayed flexible, changed the plan as needed and had a most amazing week. And we are tried to learn from our experience last year so we can offer an even stronger Reading Camp this year.
This morning in our readings from Scripture, we hear about the earliest days of the church....the days immediately following Easter. In both of these stories, we hear about what it means to be Easter people-people who go live knowing that Jesus has risen from the dead. In both of these stories, we hear about times when Plan A did not work out according to plan, and Plan B was needed. In the book of Acts, we hear that all those who believed were of one heart and soul, held all their possessions in common, and there was no one needy among them. That was Plan A. While this is a lovely picture of the early church, just two chapters later, the Greek speaking Jews who had become Christians complained that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. Plan A was not working so well. So the community was called together and seven people were chosen who had the gift of service to make sure that food and other goods were equally distributed. That way the disciples could focus on using their gifts of teaching, preaching, and healing. The early church had ideals, but when things did not go according to plan, they found new ways of keeping those ideals. Easter people are not perfect, and life does not always go according to plan. But Easter people know that resurrection is not about perfection. Resurrection is about new life and Easter people find new ways to be the people God calls them to be and do the work God gives them to do.
In the gospel reading, the disciples are hiding in fear behind locked doors when Jesus appears to them on Easter night. Whatever Plan A might have been, I’m pretty sure hiding behind locked doors was not the plan. Jesus says to the frightened disciples "As the father has sent me, so I send you" then Jesus gives the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit. But Thomas was not with the disciples that evening, and he refuses to believe the disciples’ tale unless he sees Jesus’ wounds. Who knows whether or not Jesus had plans for a follow up appearance to the disciples, but he does now.
Thomas has taken grief for his demand over the centuries and he will probably never shed the nickname "Doubting Thomas." But without this story, we could easily believe that the resurrected Jesus had no wounds-that all traces of the crucifixion had been eliminated. For Thomas, the proof that the person who appeared to the disciples is the crucified and Risen one was in the wounds. The wounds are the evidence that God has transformed death into new life.
Easter people are not perfect and do not live like nothing ever goes wrong. The early Christians in Acts could not maintain the ideal of holding all things in common themselves, and so they had to figure out a way to ensure that all things were shared equally. The disciples were hiding for fear of their lives, and Jesus appears to them anyway. Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit and sent them out into the world. A week later, where were they? Hiding behind locked doors. And Jesus appears to them anyway. The resurrected Jesus himself is recognized by his wounds, reminding us that the resurrection is not about perfection, but new life. The many, many ministries and projects we have here at Christ Church do not always, or often, go exactly according to plan for a whole variety of reasons many of which we have no control over. Sometimes we could have planned better or been more generous, sometimes not. Everything we do here has a story, whether Reading Camp, or the Food Pantry, or our welcome ministries, or our worship, or our Christian Education, or our work in the community to respect the dignity of every human being. And each of those stories is typically a parable about new life, not perfection. Easter people believe that God is always doing something new in our midst, even, or especially, when our own efforts seem to stall. In the book of Isaiah, God says "I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?" And in the book of Revelation, the one seated on the throne says "Behold, I am making all things new." Easter people believe that, in all that we do, God is writing a story of new life.
Amen.
