May 14, 2017 - Fabien Pering

St John Chrysostom

May 14, 2017

All the lessons contain language of direction and focus. In Acts, Stephen focuses his eyes toward heaven and sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God. The Psalmist shows his focus also being on the Lord, the rock of refuge. Second Peter talks about that as we come to the Lord, the Lord being our destination and focus. And finally, the gospel lesson shows how the Father’s house is our destination both now and forever. Moreover, we see the means by which we are to get to where we desire to go in the words that Jesus says: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”

These passages reveal something about humanity, that we all desire some sort good life. That is, we see the world around us, seeing its beauty we realize that there is something horribly wrong and broken. We all want peace and harmony in relationships, commerce, and politics. That is the cry of the psalmist who says, “Let me not be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me! Incline your ear to me and rescue me!” Jesus shows the end vision that this deliverance comes from God the Father. That vision is what we are to align ourselves with in order we might see the effects of peace in the world here and now. [Pause]

Not only do we align ourselves with the divine reality that Jesus and the Father are one, but we are to become like Christ is. Jesus gets at this in the following conversation with the disciples in verse 9 and following. Philip asks him to show them the Father and Jesus responds by saying how if they have seen him that they have also seen the Father. For Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. And he is the head of the body, which is the church. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.[1]

This work of reconciling all things to God is what Jesus is presently occupied with and we are to join in on that work as ones sent by God. In essence, we are to be Christ to those whom we interact with on a daily basis. So in focusing on the end destination of the Father’s house, which is a house of peace, we not only align ourselves with the truth but we become the truth, showing others how to get to where they truly want to go.

This focus on the end goal is not only a future hope but also a present reality in our lives. Being on both the evangelism and equipping the saints committee, I’d like to wear both hats and cast this vision of who we are to be here in Delafield and Oconomowoc. The present reality is that we are to be a place of refuge and strength, as the Psalmist desires. Using the transitive principle, if God is the source of safety, and Jesus is one with the Father, and we the church are his body, then we are to be present place of peace. [Pause]

In the words of 1 Peter, as we come to the Father, who is our focus, we are being made into this spiritual house from where peace and love is derived. And as Fr. Cunningham is the priest here at the altar administering the body and blood of Christ, so are you to be priests among your coworkers and neighbors offering to them the grace and peace that has been given to you.

This fixed gaze that we have on the father allows us to live into the reality of being the body of Christ. This shift in focus will fundamentally change us into the body of Christ, that is, we will change but it is conditioned on your willingness to focus on the Father through the Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life. This change might not always be so attractive, for the way is difficult but it will invariably and inevitably lead to life and freedom. [Pause]

We know that the way is difficult because of the narrative in Acts. The story of Stephen involves him preaching the way to the Father through Jesus Christ and him being killed because of it. Although we do not face the same opposition here and now, it could one day be a reality. The story of Stephen gives us hope in the work that we are to do in the name of Father because we see a Stephen peaceful passing into the arms of the Father. Stephen looked up to heaven to Jesus, not sitting as the Father is, but standing in anticipation of the work that Stephen is doing in His name. Jesus’ standing posture is that of eagerness to receive Stephen’s spirit. For Stephen will say the same words as the Psalmist, though in a slightly different tone of voice, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And wanting nothing more than love for his persecutors, he bids the Lord not to hold this sin against them!

That is the power that comes from making the Father’s house our focus and final destination. When we make that Altar of God our focus we alter our way of living in a way that we become that which we desire and long for. The more we focus on the nature of God, everything else falls into place by giving us the ability to endure any trial and hardship. In enduring hardship we show by our attitudes and actions that there is something worth living for both now and in the future. In showing others our joy; we then are able to engage in conversation that there is something fundamentally different with us. That is, we are as Christ is, focused on God the Father.

Amen

[1] Col. 1:15-20

May 7, 2017 - Fr. Cunningham

I realize that most of you were not English majors, but please indulge me for a moment because I want to make my father feel like he didn’t blow a bunch of money on my tuition and talk about Homer’s Odyssey.  For those of you who have read the story you might remember something odd in the narrative.  Well there are actually a lot of things odd in the narrative not least of why it took Odysseus ten years in a boat to travel a distance he could have walked in ten days.  However the odd thing I am talking about is why Homer describes the color of the sea as being the color wine-dark rather than blue or some other color we might recognize in describing the sea.  There are of course many theories of why he chose this description.  Some speculate that the Greeks did not have a concept of the color blue so Homer had to kind of make something up that approximated the color of the Aegean Sea, although I am at a loss to see how really dark wine in any way approximates the color of that particular sea.  I even did research and according to the Sherwin Williams paint swatch the Aegean is more of an aqua or teal than it is a deep purple.  Others have argued that the Greeks diluted their wine and that after pouring enough water into the wine it somehow turned to aqua or teal colored.  Now I have not personally tried this experiment but let me go on record as expressing some skepticism about adding water to a purple liquid will somehow make that liquid turn to aqua and make it look like one of those drinks Captain Kirk used to have on Star Trek.  What all of this suggests is that the Greeks were seeing something different than us – somehow dark wine being used to describe the color of the Aegean Sea made sense to them.  The point in all of this and what it seems to point out is that the Greeks had mental categories that we don’t – either in wine or in the sea.  Suggesting that there are things for which one needs to be trained to understand and to see.  The Greek mind was somehow trained to understand what Homer meant when he said that wine dark was the color of the sea.  It conveyed an idea to them that is lost to us.  We simply do not have the knowledge. The brain is trained to hear and understand certain thing; which of course gets us to Jesus and sheep.

In today’s reading we hear from Jesus that, “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.”  For those of us who follow Christ there should be a familiarity to his voice, something in our brain should be trained that makes us stop and look around to see who was calling us.  The voice of Jesus should tap something just like when someone shouts out our name.  On a slight side note I should mention a funny thing that happens at Nashotah House now and then is when someone calls “father” in the Refectory and six people’s heads jerk around to see who was calling them, because they have all been trained to respond.  But unfortunately with Jesus it is not quite this simple.  For while I think we understand that we respond to our name or can identify colors that we know, how do we hear the voice of Jesus and follow his command, because, after all, we do not generally hear from Jesus in an audible way.  And so how are we to hear that type of voice?  For most of us have not been trained in how to listen to the voice of Jesus.  And the reason for this lack of training happens because we live in a very noisy society, a society that is largely afraid of any sort of silence, a society that has created countless ways to never be without a distraction of some sort.  Just as an experiment look around the next time you are standing in a line and notice how many people have pulled out their cellphones (that is if you are not on your own cellphone).  The idea of silencing our mind and truly being open to listen for something is very foreign to us.  But, unless we train our minds to hear from Jesus we are not going to hear him.  Just like the Greeks saw something in the ocean that we are unable to see, Jesus may be speaking to us and we are not hearing it because we are not at a place where we can hear it.  And so how do we train our minds to hear the voice of Jesus?  There are of course many ways, but I want to focus just for a minute on using silence.  And I don’t mean silence in the sense of locking yourself in your room with a pillow over your head, but rather in the sense of not bringing things into our lives that are meant to distract and pull our attention in one way or another.

Our inability to hear Jesus largely stems from a loudness epidemic.  Think about our society today like being at a raucous party.  When you are at such a place and want to get someone’s attention you have to talk very loudly, but then your loudness makes someone else have to talk even louder and so it goes with the loudest getting the most attention.  Now note that loudness has nothing to do with the importance or the magnificence of what the person is saying, but just the volume.  And loudness is not simply an audible quality – there are all sorts of written things that are incredibly loud.  Glance at the headlines and see just how  many of them scream at you.  Here is just a brief sample of headlines I have seen recently: “CANNES FESTIVAL FEARS ATTACK”, “HORROR – Sewage pours from ceiling of New York Penn Station” and my favorite, “Epic Fight between two male giraffes.”  The headlines are the equivalent of someone yelling or of looking at a car wreck on the freeway – they are jarring and shocking and as a result they scream for our attention.  But this is an environment where it is a very hard to find the person who says, “Be still and know that I am God.” 

                I have trouble not believing that there has to be some correlation between the rise of distraction and the decline in religious belief.  If we cannot hear God how can we believe in him.  There are days where I feel that I would be a better happier person if I got rid of my smart phone.  I mean I am old enough to remember the days when you went home on Friday and you heard nothing about work until you showed up on Monday morning.  This allowed you to do things like spend time with your family and go to church without being distracted.  Last weekend I received 10 emails about work related subjects.  How are we going to hear the voice of Jesus if we are not quiet and distraction free for long enough to actually hear it?        

I don’t think I am quite at the point of suggesting that we all become luddites but I think we need to limit our distraction – turn off the phone now and then, go for a walk without using headphones and don’t turn the radio on in the car.  If we want to hear the voice of Jesus we are going to have to take some time in solitude and quiet so that we can train our minds to hear the voice of our shepherd and respond to him so that we may be his both now and forevermore. 

April 30, 2017 - Fr. Cunningham

In this country and in most of Europe, Christianity has been in the doldrums for some time.  The United States has not seen the large-scale abandonment of the Church that much of Europe has experienced, but it would be quite a stretch to say that the church is vibrant and thriving.   In just the seven years between 2007 and 2014 the number of people in the United States who say that they have no religion has grown from 16% of the population to 23% of the population.  Similarly if you just want to look at the Episcopal Church we lost 37,669 members in 2015 alone, a decline of 2.1%.  And so when we read things like today’s passage from Acts which says, “So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added” the immediate question that comes to mind is what are we doing wrong?  Well I wish I knew.  There are of course plenty of theories and plenty of experts all of which claim they have the secret sauce to stop this decline.  If you want to have fun sometime type the term “church growth” into the Amazon search feature.  I did it the other day and got 24,463 results.  I am not sure if that equates to 24,463 books, but if it does that means there is almost one unique book on church growth for everyone who left the Episcopal Church in 2015.  I mean if the church were growing the way books on church growth were growing we would make those in Acts today look like amateurs.  And it is not just books on church growth that are growing; there are also countless articles, lectures and church growth experts who work both freelance and for diocese and other Christian groups.  In my diocese of West Texas we have a person entirely dedicated to Church growth, which has allowed us to shrink at a slower rate than the rest of the Episcopal Church.  And so I don’t think we can blame church decline on a lack of experts or lack of books, but we do have to admit that it hasn’t worked.  Like Princess Leia told Grand Moff Tarkin, “The more you tighten your grip…the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”  The more we talk about growing the Church the more shrinking we do.  And so into this cheery assessment of the state of the Church I am hesitant to add one more theory on what the church needs, but here goes. 

As best I can tell from the Acts of the Apostles they never called in a church growth expert and St. Paul never published a book on church growth.  As best I can tell they just went out and spread the Gospel.  Yes certainly they wanted converts and cared about it otherwise we would not have recorded the number that we have today, but they did not have a concept of church growth as a thing in and of itself.  Rather they wanted as many people to understand what had happened in the world through the death and resurrection of Christ.  Which might seem like a subtle distinction but it has a different focus – the focus of the former is on numbers while the focus of the latter is on Jesus.  The first focuses on growth for its own sake while the second sees growth as a byproduct of bringing people into the truth of Jesus Christ.  And so the question for those of us who have been trained to desire church growth is, “So if we focus on Jesus then will the church grow?”  And here again I have to say that I don’t know.  But I say I don’t know with a caveat.  And that caveat is that I am not sure if numbers are the right metric.  For while today we hear that the church added 3000 people, in other places in the Bible, like Matthew, we hear from Jesus, “and you will be hated by all because of my name.”  That quote rarely shows up on get well cards and it hardly makes it sound like Jesus had Church growth in mind as a metric by which to measure the success of his mission.  For it would seem that Jesus predicted that not everyone would become a Christian.    

We tend to look at the Church as a marketing problem to be solved.  And, of course, the answer to any marketing problem is more – be it more things sold, more likes on Facebook or more people at a certain movie. Put in very general terms marketing measures success by how many products are sold and the way it convinces us to buy the products is to tell us that the purchase of that product will make our lives instantly better – using a detergent will make our towels cleaner, using a mattress will make us sleep better and eating a particular food will make our colon healthier.  And in many ways Christianity has largely bought into this formula – you become Christian and it will make your life better and it will happen right now.  But here is the thing, I know lots of Christians who have had or are having tragedy in their life.  I know Christians who are wealthy, but I also know ones who are barely getting by.  I know Christians with perfect children, but I also know ones whose children are delinquents. But the real message should not be centered around an instantaneous life improvement but rather is centered around being in relationship with the God of the universe.  St. Teresa of Avila had a rather famous exchange with God where she heard God say, “Teresa, whom the Lord loves, he chastises. This is how I treat all my friends.” To which Teresa replied, “No wonder you have so few!” 

Christianity is not rated on how it makes our life better but whether or not it makes us better, if it makes us more like Christ.  And in a society raised on self-esteem being told that we might need to change something about us to grow closer to God is going to be a message that might be a hard sell.  But becoming a Christian was never about ease but rather about holiness and our growing in holiness.  God is not our concierge whose sole job is to make sure that we get everything we desire, but rather God is a loving parent who wants us to grow into Godliness.  And if you think of it like this it starts to become apparent why our numbers may be in decline.  For if the default mindset of most of the Western World judges the worthiness of any endeavor on whether it makes our life easier or better then how do you sell a product which says it might make your life harder as you grow in holiness.

And so all of this may make you wonder why you are here in the first place, why didn’t you just go to Starbucks this morning.  But here is the thing.  Being in communion with the God of the universe gives us the stability to endure the trials and travails of this life.  But just as the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous bad things happen to both the Godly and the Ungodly.  Those who buy the right laundry detergent still have problems.  But for those who believe in Jesus Christ we know that he was raised from the dead.  Which means that God can redeem everything, including our sufferings and mild discomforts. 

I don’t know what the future of the Church holds –whether it will continue to decline or not.  But what I do know is that Jesus Christ died and rose for our sins so that we may be called sons and daughters of the most high.  That message does not always translate into an easy life, but it does translate to holiness so that we may be God’s both now and forevermore.