Preacher's Study - Easter 5A 2017

The Preacher’s Study

First Thoughts on Next Sunday’s Sermon,

5^th Sunday of Easter, Year A

John W.B. Hill

Acts 7:55-60; 

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 

1 Peter 2:2-10;

John 14:1-14.

Try to remember the extreme emotions we experienced during the Great Three Days: the intimate yet ominous gathering at table on Maundy Thursday; the horrific spectacle of fear, hatred, and violence on Good Friday; the silent stirring of hope as the flame was kindled in the darkness of Easter Eve; the solemn waiting, and the joyful cries of “Alleluia, Christ is risen”; then at last, the foretaste of the heavenly banquet around the altar.  (And perhaps even some emotional exhaustion when it was all over!)  Then we slid into the happy rhythms of Easter, confident that our salvation had been won by the power of God who raised Jesus from the dead.

So how do we deal with this disturbing new outbreak of violence in the crowd’s reaction to Stephen (Acts 7: 55-60)? Will it never end?  We desperately want to know that peace has been restored, that the crucifixion was a once-for-all sacrifice, never to be repeated.  Yet here it is, once again. 

What we are dealing with is the stubborn reality that something is deeply wrong with the world we have constructed.  Jesus may have won the battle against evil, but the world is still not ready to believe this.  Our society still reacts to perceived threats with exclusion or violence!  God laid a cornerstone in Zion, but we stumbled over it, and we still stumble over it (1 Peter 2: 6-8).   Of course Jesus warned his disciples to expect this very sort of resistance and persecution (Mark 13: 9-11; John 16: 2), and he was right.  What is surprising then is not that a faithful witness like Stephen was viciously attacked, but that he responded without bitterness, prayed that God would forgive his attackers, and entrusted his life one last time to the mercies of God — exactly as Jesus himself had done (Luke 23: 34-46).

Thankfully, we have Jesus’ comforting words: “Do not let your hearts be troubled . . . In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places . . . if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14: 1-3)  Whatever happens, we do have a guaranteed place in heaven, don’t we?

Well, that is almost certainly not what Jesus is talking about.  His reference to “dwelling places” invokes a major Johannine theme of dwelling/abiding/staying/ continuing/remaining (John 5:38; 6:56; 8:31; 14:2, 10, 17, 23; 15:4-10).  (A number of English words are used to translate the Greek verb meno and its noun form mone.)  Furthermore, the only references to “my Father’s house” in all the Gospels (Luke 2:49; John 2:16) are references to the Jerusalem temple.  In John’s account of the ‘cleansing of the temple’ (John 2: 16), we hear Jesus saying, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”  But then he goes on to say, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  And the writer comments, “He was speaking of the temple of his body.” 

A temple is, above all, a place of encounter, a holy place where one can sense and be possessed by the spirit of a deity.  Most religious traditions have temples or shrines of some sort.  The problem with this phenomenon is that it usually supports some kind of idolatry: the ‘sacred’ can be objectified in such places and become an instrument of our own purposes, permitting us to treat other places as merely ‘profane’.  This became the travesty of the Jerusalem temple; Jeremiah protested the false piety of people who proclaimed their loyalty to the temple of the Lord, but oppressed the poor and shed innocent blood (Jeremiah 7:1-7); Jesus likewise insisted that the temple was no guarantee of God's protection, and predicted it would be thrown down and destroyed (Mark 13:1-2).

That is why the prophets insisted that God’s people must be holy for that is how others would come to know the holiness of God (Ezekiel 36:22-27).  That is why the Jesus’ movement soon abandoned its attachment to the Jerusalem temple and adopted ‘temple’ as a metaphor for their movement: “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2: 5; see also 1 Corinthians 3: 10-17; Ephesians 2:21).  The final vision of the Book of Revelation is of the city of God, come down to earth from heaven, where God dwells among his people, where there will be no temple, and the gates will never be shut (Revelation 21:1-4, 22-27).

So the ‘place’ Jesus has prepared for us is the relationship he has won for us — sharing with us his own relationship with the Father (“I am in the Father and the Father is in me”) and sharing that relationship with all others who are ‘on the way’.  It is a place of eternal rootedness where we can grow together and bear fruit.  In other words, Thomas’ problem (“we do not know where you are going”) is not a problem at all, for we only need to know the way!  And the way is Jesus’ way, the true way, the life-giving way.  The sentence that has caused so much grief (“No one comes to the Father except by me”) does not require adherence to the correct beliefs about Jesus, only following the way of Jesus;  “ . . . if you do not [believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me], then believe me because of the works themselves.” (John 14:11)

Helping new Christians appreciate this relationship will be crucial to their appreciation of membership in the Church.  The Church is neither a shrine nor a hierarchical organization.  It is a company of disciples that functions like a temple: a place of encounter, a holy place where one can sense and be possessed by the spirit of God.  It is served by a hierarchy, but not dominated by it.  This kind of ‘dwelling place’ (and there are many of them, according to Jesus!) is our only protection against infection by the fear and hatred that still poisons this world.   “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

John W.B. Hill is a presbyter serving in Toronto. A Council member of APLM, he is the author of one of the first Anglican sources for catechumenal practice.

"The Martyrdom of St Stephen the Archdeacon (Icon)" by Maxim Sheshakov.

Preacher's Study - Easter 4A (2017)

The Preacher’s Study

First Thoughts on Next Sunday’s Sermon

4^th Sunday of Easter, Year A

John W.B. Hill

Acts 2: 42-47; 

Psalm 23; 

1 Peter 2: 19-25;

John 10: 1-10

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2: 42).  That is how the first reading describes the earliest community of disciples of the risen Christ.  And that is the calling we accepted, in our baptismal covenant.  But there is more; that first community of disciples apparently adopted, quite spontaneously, an entirely new social order and economy.  Once liberated from the economy of anxiously defended personal security, they freely supported one another in love, in a shared life of adequate abundance and treasure in heaven. 

According to the Gospel reading, they could do this because they trusted their shepherd.  The risen Christ shapes our communal life not by compulsion but by winning our trust as he pioneers a new way of life for us.

Sheep played two important symbolic roles in the life of Israel: (a) sheep were a recurring metaphor for the people of Israel themselves (as in the Psalm); and (b) sheep were essential to the cult, as sacrificial offerings.  In the synoptic versions of the gospel, we hear Jesus frequently taking up the metaphor of God’s people as sheep, but it is only in John’s version that the cultic role of sheep comes to expression:

· Jesus is ”the Lamb of God” (John 1: 29, 36);

· Jesus is slaughtered on the same day the Passover lambs are slaughtered (John 18: 28; 19:31), not on the day after, as in the synoptic accounts (Mark 14: 12; Luke 22: 7-8);

· in the ‘Cleansing of the Temple’ (John 2: 15), Jesus drives out cattle and sheep (in addition to overthrowing the tables of the money changers, as recounted by the synoptics);

· John provides the only New Testament reference to the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem (John 5: 2), the gate he refers to again in this parable (John 10: 1-6), through which animals for sacrifice were brought to the Temple. 

And so, the great irony of Jesus’ parable of the shepherd is that we are invited to think of Jerusalem as the sheepfold; yet this fold is not a place of safety but a place of slaughter!

Israel’s prophets had often drawn a contrast between good shepherds and bad ones.  David would be the king in whom God took delight because he had been a shepherd boy (1 Samuel 16: 11-13; 2 Samuel 5: 1).  Jeremiah (Jeremiah 21: 1-4) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 34) castigated the ‘shepherds’ of Israel who exploited the sheep and scattered them, and promised that, one day, God would be their shepherd.  The Suffering Servant of Second Isaiah is compared to a lamb led to slaughter for the sake of the sheep who have gone astray (Isaiah 53: 6-7).

Jesus’ parable then sharpens this prophetic vision by contrasting the shepherd who enters by the gate and the false shepherds who climb in by another way (“thieves and bandits”).  The true shepherd lives among the sheep, going ahead to lead them, in contrast to the false shepherds who are imposed on them (and then slaughter them!)  That is how the sheep learn to trust the true shepherd, for he is one of them, not an outsider who takes advantage of them.  (Compare this with the economy of major corporations today: when hiring a new CEO, they no longer raise up someone from within the company, but bring in an outsider whose job will be ensuring corporate success, not promoting the security of the employees.)

But the key to the parable is that the true shepherd shares with the sheep their fateful passage through the sheep gate!  Sheep brought to Jerusalem were doomed to suffer for the sins of others, but the true shepherd shares their suffering and death, and changes for ever the meaning of their suffering and death.

This is precisely the message of the second reading.  “If you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2: 20-21).  We who have been baptized into Christ’s death (who have entered the kingdom of God through ‘Jesus the gate’ (John 10: 7-10)) have been set free from the competitive and retributive norms of the secular culture.  We are now free to support one another in love.

In its context, however, Peter’s message is addressed to slaves!  Are slaves who follow the way of Jesus called to passively submit to abusive structures?

The earliest Christians — a tiny minority — could not yet imagine a social revolution capable of challenging the economy of slavery in the Roman Empire.  Anti-slavery doctrines only began to appear in Christian theology after the decline of Rome.  Even today, there are tens of millions of slaves around the world.  How then can slaves possibly follow the way of Jesus?

If, as today’s second reading insists, Christ has left an example for us to follow, it is not just the example of his patience in suffering.  What he suffered for was his fearless indictment of the false shepherds who exploited the sheep of God’s fold!  If it is left to slaves alone to resist the evil of slavery, and they are just sent to the salt mines and replaced by newly enslaved people, the evil is only compounded.  It is those of us who are not enslaved who must follow Christ’s example of resisting this evil on their behalf.  This is the real meaning of “supporting one another in love”.

The Church in which we have become members by our baptism into Christ may wear the face of a tradition-bound institution, functioning in a way similar to other corporate institutions.  But that is not really who we are.  We trust the risen Christ, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12: 2); this is what holds us together in the bonds of love, in a shared life of adequate abundance and treasure in heaven.

John W.B. Hill is a presbyter serving in Toronto. A Council member of APLM, he is the author of one of the first Anglican sources for catechumenal practice.

The Good Shepherd (Original Oil Painting on Sculptural Base), by Bette Anne Wygant, available from https://www.houzz.com/photos/33335244/The-Good-Shepherd-Original-Oil-Painting-on-Sculptural-Base-contemporary-paintings

“I Am the Good Shepherd,” by Lee Hodges

Preacher’s Study – Easter 3A 2017

The Preacher’s Study

First Thoughts on Next Sunday’s Sermon

3^rd Sunday of Easter, Year A

John W.B. Hill

Acts 2: 14a, 36-41; 

Psalm 116: 1-3, 10-17 (NRSV: 1-4, 12-19); 

1 Peter 1: 17-23; 

Luke 24: 13-35

During the Great Three Days the Church throughout the world was busy making disciples, baptizing them into the mystery of Christ dead and risen.  We all participated in this mystery, renewing our own baptismal identity, our calling to “remember his death, proclaim his resurrection, and share in his eternal priesthood.”  In the first reading (which brings to a climax last Sunday’s first reading) we are reminded of the original purpose of the sacrament of baptism: “Repent, and be baptized . . . so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is for you . . . and for all . . . whom the Lord our God calls . . . Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”  Baptism was the way to enter the Reign of God, the realm of mercy and forgiveness, the experience of communion in the Spirit: it meant inheriting the ancient promise, and disentangling from a culture of delusion and violence.  “The cords of death entangled me; the grip of the grave took hold of me; I came to grief and sorrow.  Then I called upon the Name of the Lord: ‘O Lord, I pray you, save my life.’” (Psalm 116: 2-3).

It is essential to note the context of this first celebration of Christian Baptism: Simon Peter, speaking on behalf of the company of Jesus’ disciples, is addressing the festival crowd on the Day of Pentecost who are flummoxed by the suddenly spirited behaviour of these disciples.  So Peter, emboldened by the Spirit, dares to name the ‘elephant in the room’: just fifty days ago, this people had officially rejected their own long-awaited Messiah!  Yet, in a final apocalyptic act of divine judgement and faithful mercy, God raised up the crucified victim, making him both Lord and Messiah, and pouring out his Spirit on all flesh.  These are indeed the  “last days” that Joel foresaw.

We today must never again make the categorical mistake of holding ‘the Jews’ responsible for the death of Jesus.  But, as Gil Baillie has written, “The Cross became the revelation it is largely because it occurred in a Jewish setting . . . It was Jews who rejected and reviled Jesus; it was Jews whose lives were transformed by him; and it was a Jew who was reviled and revered in each case.”  And, we might add, it was as the Jewish Messiah that Jesus became the Saviour of the world.  Today’s gospel reading (Luke 24: 13-35) makes clear that the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection can only be recognized for what it is in the light of “Moses and all the prophets”.  So Peter’s speech positions the story of Jesus in the context of God’s messianic promises to Israel and offers repentance and baptism even to those who rejected him so that they too can know forgiveness and inherit those promises.

However, the context in which we celebrate baptism today is vastly different.  We no longer think of ourselves as grafted onto the vine God brought out of Egypt (Psalm 80:8ff; cf. Romans 11: 17ff).  We tend to see baptism as a blessing bestowed by a religious institution, and a mark of identity distinguishing us from Hindus, Jews, Muslims, etc. 

It should come as no surprise, then, that adults or older children who have been baptized at Easter in a rich and daunting ceremony, enacted with such lavish and powerful symbols, should experience something of an anti-climax by this point in time.  So much was promised; so little has changed.  They may even recognize themselves in the two disciples wending their way home to Emmaus: people who had spent time listening to the prophet from Nazareth, “mighty in deed and in word before God and all the people”; people who were dumbfounded by his shameful execution; people who had even heard the implausible report about an empty tomb and an angel saying he was alive.  But what was it all about?  “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” 

However, their state of disillusionment was not a bad place to be.  Although they didn’t know it, the dead and risen Christ was humbly walking beside them, hearing their agonized recollections of all that they had seen.  But they had seen it only through the lens of their limited expectations.  They could not recognize him because he was so far beyond the scope of their expectations.  So that is what he began to address, with infinite patience, “interpreting to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.”  And their hearts burned within them!

That is the kind of humble encouragement and deeper perspective that we need to provide for the newly baptized.  The Sunday liturgy was designed to do this, but we need to open it up for them, aware of their limited expectations, until they begin to long for an ever deeper experience of Christ’s sufferings and an ever clearer vision of his glory (see Philippians 3: 10-11).  Then their eyes too will be opened, and he will be made known to them, Sunday by Sunday, in the breaking of the bread.  “How shall I repay the Lord for all the good things he has done for me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord; I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.” (Psalm 116: 10-12)

If we can learn to preach in this way, new Christians will be able to hear themselves addressed in the words of the second reading (1 Peter 1: 17-23): “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors . . . with the precious blood of Christ . . . revealed at the end of the ages for your sake . . . Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory . . . Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart..."

APLM Council member John Hill is an Anglican presbyter in Toronto, Canada, and author of one of the first Anglican sources for catechumenal practice.  

'The Road to Emmaus,' by Daniel Bonnell. 

https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/bonnell.html

'On the Road to Emmaus,' by Carole Foret. 

http://caroleforet.com/art-page

'Road to Emmaus,' by John Dunne. 

http://www.swordofthespirit.net/bulwark/oct06p11.htm