Conversion

Easter 3 C Conversion

Today’s Bible readings are about conversion – the Conversion of St. Paul in Acts and in St. John St. Peter after the Resurrection on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Conversion is change of one thing into another. Water at room temperature is liquid. Heat it and it becomes a vapor; when very cold it turns solid.  When Lucy and I went to Mexico this winter I converted American dollars into Mexican pesos at 18 to 1.  

St. Paul’s conversion was from hatred and anger toward the disciples of the Lord to proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God." St. Peter’s conversion was from a life of guilt and confusion to new life in Jesus in the truth and power of the Holy Spirit.  Three times Peter denied; three times Jesus commanded converted Peter, “Feed my sheep!”

Jesus appeared to Paul to convert him from hatred to love and witness. Jesus appeared to Peter to convert him from guilt and shame to truth and power. Acts tells us that Peter’s Pentecost sermon converted over 3000 people to faith and trust in Jesus.  Paul’s ministry brought the good news of Jesus to many parts of the Roman Empire.  

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles: “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”  On the way he met Jesus, was struck blind, received the ministry of Ananias and the community of believers at Damascus, “and immediately . . . began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."

Peter had confessed Jesus as Messiah by the stream at Caeserea Philippi in Galilee. Peter was a leader among the disciples, chosen to experience the Transfiguration, chosen to be with Jesus as he was questioned by the leaders of the people, and there Peter, as Jesus had foretold, three times denied knowing Jesus. But though Peter was a witness to the Resurrection, and though he continued to be with the other disciples, he was a broken man, bowed down by his memory of his betrayal.  His memory of his failure kept him from claiming the truth and the power of the Holy Spirit given him at Easter. He fell back on what he had been doing before Jesus called him; he went back to fishing. And Jesus met him there. Three times Peter had denied Jesus. Three times Jesus asked him, “Do you love me?” Three times Peter says, “Yes, I love you,” and three times Jesus calls Peter to love and serve, “Feed my lambs; feed my sheep; feed my sheep.”

In the Greek text there is a play on words.  I don’t want to push this too hard. The meaning is that God loves us where we are, as we are, and works in and with us to bring us to himself.   Greek has at least four words for love. C.S.Lewis wrote a book about them. St. John uses 2 of the 4 – agape and filia. The other two are eros and storge. Agape is used for the unconditional love – the love of God for his people – “to will the good of another.”  The first two times Jesus asks, “agapas me?” Do you love me with an unconditional love?  Peter responds, philo se, philo se, philo se.  Peter uses the word from which we get filial love, or philanthropy. Aristotle uses philia to mean loyalty to friends, brotherly love, love of family and community, a general type of love, like desire or enjoyment of an activity. The third time Jesus asks, phileis me? Jesus uses the word that Peter uses, not agape love but philia. 

The other two words for love in Greek are eros, physical attraction, and storge, for the sometimes exasperating love within a family. Storge also is used to express mere acceptance or putting up with situations, as in “love” for one's country or a favorite sports team. Lewis writes much about storge.

We sing an African American Spiritual, number 614 in Evangelical Lutheran Worship: 

Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain, But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.

If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul, You can tell the love of Jesus and say, "He died for all." There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.

Don’t ever feel discouraged, for Jesus is your friend; And if you lack for knowledge, He’ll never refuse to lend. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. 

“Balm in Gilead” is a healing ointment, a balsam extract. We read of it in from Genesis 43:11, when it is part of the present the Patriarch Jacob sent to Joseph in Egypt seeking a second supply of famine relief. Joseph’s half-brothers had sold him into slavery and told their father Jacob he was dead. Joseph prospered in Egypt, and he sold the brothers grain in famine time. The brothers did not recognize Joseph, and at their first visit Joseph did not reveal himself to them.  But he asked for his full brother Benjamin. When Jacob sent them the second time with Benjamin and the balm Joseph revealed himself; the family were reconciled, and the family were invited to settle on the border of Egypt.  We anoint with olive oil, praying for God’s healing grace, physical healing, psychological healing, spiritual healing, healing of relationships. There is indeed a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.

A contemporary example:  Heather Cook is a daughter of the Rev. Halsey Cook, former rector of St. Paul’s Church, Baltimore, born 1956. She was elected suffragan bishop of Maryland. On December 27, 2014 while driving drunk killed Thomas Palermo, who was riding his bicycle with others on Roland Avenue in north Baltimore. Title 4, Canon 4 (1.4.8.5 & 9) requires clergy to refrain from “refrain from: “any criminal act that reflects adversely on the Member of the Clergy's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a minister of the Church” and “any Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Clergy.”  Heather Cook pleaded guilty, was deposed from the ministry, and sent to prison. By all accounts she has been a good prisoner, got sober, and has helped other women prisoners. She will be released later this month, on 5 years supervised parole. Thomas Palermo’s family and many others have objected. Heather Cook’s release will not bring back their husband, son, brother. He is dead; she killed him. May God grant that the rest of Heather Cook’s life will be a witness to God’s love in Jesus Christ. She’s 62, still young, with years to love and serve. May God grant her conversion.  May God grant us conversion, conversion from hatred and anger, conversion from sin and guilt, freedom in the gospel to love and serve. Amen.

Easter Revelation

Easter season is 40 days when we remember the risen Jesus present with his disciples. Easter season includes Sundays and ends on the Thursday of Ascension Day. The 40 days of Lent do not include Sundays and begin Ash Wednesday.  The light of the Paschal candle reminds us of the light of the risen Christ who ate with his disciples, men and women, and taught them. Our first Bible reading in Easter season is from the book of Acts not from the Old Testament. The Epistles this year are from the Revelation to St. John, next year A from the First Epistle of Peter, then year B from the First Epistle of St. John. The gospels are from St. John, first the Resurrection and then from Jesus’ teaching at the Last Supper.

Let’s look today at the reading from the Revelation. Revelation is the last book of the Bible. It is said to have been written in the late 90’s in the time of a great persecution ordered by Emperor Domitian. This was about 25 years after 7O AD when Domitian’s younger brother Titus put down the Jewish rebellion and destroyed the Jerusalem Temple. Revelation is John’s report of a vision received while John was an exile on the Aegean island of Patmos. John says he was in the Spirit on “the Lord’s Day.” That suggests that Christians were keeping Sunday, then as now, as the weekly remembrance of Jesus’ Resurrection. John’s report of his vision of the end times forms a letter to 7 Christian communities in what is now western Turkey, then called the province of Asia.

John begins his letter, “Grace to you and peace.” When Jesus appears to the disciples Easter evening he begins, “Peace be with you?’ When he appears again the next Sunday he begins, “Peace be with you.” God’s will for us, for his church, for the world Jesus has redeemed, is peace. God wants us to live in peace, in reconciled peace with God and with our neighbors. But peace is not easy; peace in a sin-filled world means that we are reconciled after conflict, that we forgive and we are forgiven. From early times an exchange of peace came before  communion. The Agnus Dei has, “O Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us, have mercy on us, grant us your peace.”  In the exchange of the peace moved from words  at the altar party to greetings in the pews, obeying Jesus’ command, “When you bring your gift to the altar, make peace with your neighbor.” After the Prayers of the People we share God’s peace with one another, the reconciling peace the risen and living Jesus shared with the disciples on Easter Day and the Sunday after Easter, and every time he meets us.       

That peace, John says, is “from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”

In 1924 a Mississippi lawyer William Alexander Percy wrote a poem, “His Peace”

I love to think of them at dawn

Beneath the frail pink sky,

Casting their nets in Galilee

And fish-hawks circling by.  

Casting their nets in Galilee

Just off the hills of brown

Such happy, simple fisherfolk

Before the Lord came down. 

Contented, peaceful fishermen,

Before they ever knew

The peace of God that filled their hearts

Brimful and broke them too.  

Young John who trimmed the flapping sail

Homeless in Patmos died.

Peter, who hauled the teeming net,

Head down was crucified.  

The peace of God, it is no peace,

But strife sowed in the sod.

Yet brothers pray for but one thing –

The marvelous peace of God!”  

The last verses are Hymn 661 in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982.

Peace, John says, is “from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”

Jesus Christ, our Messiah, died and rose almost 2000 years ago. We believe his resurrection began the Messianic Age. Isaiah 2:4 and 11:6-9 describe that age: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift sword against nation and they will no longer study warfare. (2:4) The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. . . . They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (11:6-9)

But almost 2000 years later the sword has become the hydrogen bomb, Christians are murdered in church on Easter Day, and tourist families at breakfast are torn apart by suicide bombers. People continue to harm and destroy on the holy mountains. The gospel has been widely preached, but the earth is not yet “full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Glaciers are retreating, polar ice is melting, sea waters are covering more and more of the earth. The Messianic Age is not evident to the eye of the senses.  It is to the eye of faith.

Between 1927-29 Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest, and American astronomer Edwin Hubble developed the “big bang” model of the beginning of the universe – about 14 billion years ago. If all the physical world had a beginning, will it have an end?   

St. John says, “yes.”  Peace is “from him who is and who was and who is to come . . . and from Jesus Christ, the faithful wi1tness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”  Science and religion agree that the world as we know it will end. In the meantime we know “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”  

Remember that John’s vision came in a time of conflict and persecution. Human nature seeks liberty and autonomy, increased power to rule ourselves, to do what we want, when we want, as we want. Totalitarian governments before, during, and after the Roman Empire sought and seek complete control over the lives of their subjects.

John’s vision, and the experience of Christians in all ages, is that Jesus Christ is Lord, “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”  When Jesus Christ is our Lord we are assured of his love and grace. Our sin is forgiven and we share new life in Christ. Alleluia!  The resurrected Jesus has set us free to offer ourselves, our souls, and bodies to God’s service as members of his kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, sharing in his heavenly banquet as we receive the sacrament of his new life in the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Extravagant love

Lent 5 C April 7, 2019

I was born in 1939; my parents were both born in 1911, and began at West Chester State Teacher’s college in the fall of 1929. My father and mother both majored in secondary education. He graduated in 1932, she in 1933, into the depths of the Great Depression,. Pennsylvania had 100 school districts; 99 of them hired as teachers only graduates of their district’s own high school; one, Lower Merion, from which my mother graduated, never hired its own graduates. My father went to the Episcopal Divinity School in Philadelphia; my mother took what jobs she could get until they finally married in 1936 when my father was called as Assistant at St. Luke and the Epiphany in downtown Philadelphia (13^th St. between Spruce and Pine).  He was called to serve the people of the neighborhood and was paid $100 a month and an apartment.  

My point is that my parents learned in the Depression to be frugal people, and I was brought up to be frugal. We had what we needed, but extras were carefully considered. My father used to tell me, “Give 10% to the Lord, keep 10% for yourself as savings, live on what is left.”

With that family history, I find today’s gospel challenging. Its teaching about God’s extravagant love is hard for me. Judas said the perfume was worth 300 denarii. 300 denarii was more than a year’s income. A day’s wage for a working man was one denarius – 4 grams of silver - $2 today, but worth a lot more then.  When you file your taxes note your gross income, and figure that as the cost of Mary’s perfume, poured out over Jesus’ feet. It was an extravagant gift.     

But the spiritual truth is that God does love us extravagantly. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.”

It didn’t take supernatural wisdom for Jesus to know that the leaders of his people wanted to silence him, to kill him if that was necessary.  Saint John places today’s gospel story “six days before the Passover.” Jesus is aware of the hypocrisy and the increasing hostility of the religious establishment.  Despite the Commandment, “Thou shalt so no murder,” St. John (11:50) reports that the high priest Caiaphas said, after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, “You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”

Our continuing temptation, as individuals and as social institutions, to set self-preservation as our first goal. We naturally do whatever we have to do to keep on living and to preserve the institutions we care for. We learn early to care for ourselves, to fight back against those who would harm us. That is prudential, and prudence is a virtue. The Prayer Book includes this rubric, “The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people, from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses.”  The 1979 book places this rubric on page 445 at the end of the service of Thanksgiving for a Child. Earlier books placed it at the end of the burial service. 

“The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people . . . to make prudent provision . . . .”  For example, our church board is charged with prudently spending the money we all contribute to support the ministry of this congregation. Ron, our Treasurer, tells me we are spending more than we are receiving. Prudence calls us to increase our income or decrease our expenses. We have received grants from the Synod and diocese for $8000 to help with the expenses of the Spanish language ministry we host. That will help some. But we need to be prudent.  

And while we are being prudent we also are called to serve our risen Lord. We are generous in our food basket contributions; the quilt ministry helps many; we tithe our income to the work of the synod and diocese. We gather week by week to worship Christ Jesus. Jesus offered himself on the cross for our sins and the sins of the world. Jesus is Son of God, and God received his self-offering as full and perfect expiation for the sin of the world. When on the cross Jesus cried, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they are doing,” God answered that prayer. God forgives all our sins, the wrongs we do knowingly, in full awareness that what we are doing is wrong, and also the wrongs we do in ignorance, the wrongs we do because our knowledge is limited by our limited knowledge, and by the limits of our circumstances. God loves us extravagantly; God forgives us extravagantly.

Jesus said to Martha and Mary and Lazarus, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” In the physical world, the world of prudence, we do always have the poor, and we don’t have Jesus physically present with us. The resurrected body of Jesus ascended to the Father 40 days after Easter.  And we do physically always have the poor. We are called to do what we can to help the poor.  

But in the spiritual world, the world of abundance, we always have Jesus present with us: present in our hearts by faith, present in his word written as we read his Holy Scriptures, present to us in the sacrament of the altar as we receive his body and blood in bread and wine. And we are the poor, the poor in spirit, continually dependent on God’s grace, on God’s extravagant gifts showered on us by the Holy Spirit of truth and power.

“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”  God grant that our lives may be filled with the fragrance of God’s grace, unearned and undeserved, extravagantly poured out on us, and that we may witness in our lives to God’s love in Jesus Christ.

The spiritual truth is that God loves us extravagantly. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.”