Author Archives: Fr. Tom McAlpine

Unknown's avatar

About Fr. Tom McAlpine

Fr. Tom is a semi-retired priest in the Episcopal Church living in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

Does our theology survive contact with the enemy? (2nd Sunday after Pentecost, 6/2/2024)

Leave a reply

Readings (Track 1); Psalm 139 (complete; versification differing slightly from the BCP version cited)

The Lectionary included part of Psalm 139 (Verses 1-5, 12-17) in today’s readings; what are we supposed to do with that psalm? The Lectionary offers one answer: read the parts you like; don’t read the parts you don’t like. Well, whatever text we’re reading, that doesn’t sound like a promising strategy for learning something new. So what are we supposed to do with it?

There certainly is an abrupt change in tone between vv. 17 and 18. The best way of making sense of that is to recall that some judicial processes in Israel involved a divine decision, the accused subject to divine examination (guilty or innocent?) with the decision announced, presumably, by a priest. “Presumably” because all our evidence is indirect: multiple psalms whose combination of themes is best explained by such processes. This psalm reflects such a process: the accused speaks to God regarding God’s thorough knowledge of the accused, and then calls for God’s judgment on the “wicked,” those who’d brought charges against the accused.

I say “This psalm reflects” because it’s hardly a transcript of the speech of a particular accused person. In fact, this theme of divine knowledge has expanded far beyond what the judicial process would involve, nevertheless preserving the flow from the accused affirming that just God’s knowledge of them, to crying out for that just God to punish the deserving. And in the process the psalm becomes—in its entirety—a sort of mirror for us. Let’s walk through it.

Verses 1-5 focus on God’s complete—astounding—knowledge of the speaker. It’s not that the psalmist is assuming divine omniscience. It’s more personal than that, putting experiences together. You know me, know all my tells. A game of poker against you would be folly. This knowledge: wonderful, incomprehensible. Peterson paraphrases “This is too much, too wonderful—I can’t take it all in.” But, such knowledge, welcome or unwelcome? Today, with all these databases collecting everything possible about us, increased use of facial recognition: good news? Is God having all this knowledge good news? The verses don’t say. The text invites us to wonder how we experience this knowledge.

Verses 6-11 provide a sort of answer: the speaker inventories all the possible places to escape this knowledge. But there’s no place to hide. Again, it’s not as though the psalmist is assuming omnipresence. It’s more like a wide receiver talking to a cornerback: “Just when I think I’m open, you’re there. You seem to know when I’m going to cut before I do.” Good news or bad news? The verbs in v.9 sound like good news, but then we can be lead where we want to go or where we don’t want to go.

Surprisingly, the light/darkness contrast in vv.10-11 provides a way forward, reminding the speaker of what God accomplished for the speaker in complete darkness: the speaker’s own bodily existence (vv.12-17). Verse 13: “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; / your works are wonderful, and I know it well.” Scripture’s well aware that our bodies can malfunction in horrific ways, but the uniform response is to call on God to make them work again, rather than to abandon the project. So Paul repeatedly speaks of a new body, and John’s Gospel notes that Jesus’ resurrected body is no barrier to enjoying a good serving of fish and chips. (Ketchup not mentioned because tomatoes hadn’t yet made it over from the Americas.)

God’s involvement with the psalmist started from the moment of conception. Amazing—but also in need of a sidebar. We’d misuse the psalmist’s testimony by dragging it into the current arguments about abortion. The psalmist is celebrating the care and continuity. The psalmist is not asking when this “unformed substance” (so the NRSV in v.15; “limbs” in the BCP) became a legal person. In Scripture that question is only implicitly addressed in the Exodus law dealing with fight between men that injures a woman that results in a miscarriage (Exod. 21:22ff). There the Greek translation introduces a distinction between a child not fully formed and a child fully formed, with personhood implied only in the latter case. So Thomas Aquinas’ position that the fetus received a soul 40 or 80 days after conception is representative. In the Roman Catholic Church ascription of personhood from the moment of conception may first appear in the 19th Century. Among the Evangelicals, as late as 1968 their flagship magazine, Christianity Today, sponsored a consultation on abortion. Participants disagreed on many points but reported “about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.”[1] But back to the text.

As in the previous sections, the psalmist is overwhelmed by the qualitative difference between God’s knowledge and theirs, and this becomes the focus of the section’s concluding verses (16-17):

How deep I find your thoughts, O God!
how great is the sum of them!
If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

But all that doesn’t derail the train of thought from God the judge examining the accused to calling on God to give the accusers what they deserve (vv.18-21).

What’s striking is that the intensity of the psalm seems to increase at v.18. God’s innumerable thoughts (vv.16-17) are important; God doing something about the enemies is really important. Somehow, once the enemies come on stage, all that celebration of God’s knowledge and creativity goes into the background and God’s role is reduced to destruction, to doing what the speaker can understand very well, thank you very much.

That’s the mirror that I think’s important here. We’re happy to celebrate God’s knowledge and the life-giving ways that God’s knowledge surpasses our own. But when the enemies come on stage, too often all that recedes, and what we want from God is that God do things we understand very well.

We remember Jesus’ “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). But sometimes we’re not there yet, and in those cases better to pray all of Psalm 139, than stop at v.17, hoping to convince ourselves that we’re farther along than we are.

To come at it from a different angle, the enemies provide an unwelcome helpful reality check: my talk of God’s amazing knowledge and competence: quarantined in the distant past, or the ground for trust and confidence in the present? That’s the recurrent challenge for God’s people in both Testaments: can the celebration of God’s past actions translate into trust now? Our enemies—alas—help us sort that out.

The last two verses attempt a sort of summary of the psalm. And they can serve as a sort of summary for our interaction with the psalm.

“Search me out, O God, and know my heart;
try me and know my restless thoughts.”

“Search” and “know”: verbs from the beginning of the psalm. So God should keep doing what God’s been doing, despite our recurrent ambivalence about whether that knowledge is good for us (“restless thoughts”).

“Look well whether there be any wickedness in me”

Perhaps that petition was originally formulaic, spoken assuming that of course God’s going to find me innocent. But after all the attention to God’s qualitatively superior knowledge, perhaps at least for us it can destabilize the assumption of a firm distinction between us and the wicked.[2]

“And lead me in the way that is everlasting.”

And in particular, “when the enemies come onstage, don’t let our vision shrink to what we’re capable of imagining you doing.” The military has a proverb: no plan survives encounter with the enemy. We might ask: does our theology survive encounter with the enemy? That’s the challenge Psalm 139 poses to us.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480, accessed 5/30/2024.

[2] The Pharisees as portrayed in Mark’s Gospel would have had no problem praying Ps 139 straight through and understanding their conspiring against Jesus as assisting God in the fulfillment of vv.18-21.

Postscript to the Trinity Sunday Sermon

Leave a reply

The Lectionary readings opened more doors than could be entered in the sermon. I could for example have spent much more time exploring the Trinity at work for our salvation in John’s Gospel. Hence this postscript.

One of the sermon’s primary themes was the Trinity as eternal community/fiesta/banquet/dance of love—hat tip to Leonardo Boff (Holy Trinity, Perfect Community) and C. S. Lewis (the Great Dance in Perelandra, chapter 17). But what of the buzzkill at the end of the Romans reading, Paul’s reference to sharing Jesus’ suffering?

The mediation between these themes was “The Prodigal Son” parable. (Is that parable a retelling of the Cain and Abel story?) The father wants both the younger “prodigal” son and the older self-righteous son at the banquet. But that’ll only happen if both recognize that the father’s love, forgiving, repaying evil with good (Rom 12:21), is an expression of strength, not weakness. That’ll only happen if both practice that love in forgiving, in repaying evil with good. Likewise the Father wants us at the banquet—us and our enemies. And that’ll only happen etc. That practice in this world means suffering (just ask Jesus how Holy Week went).

Pulling back the camera, while there are many moving parts in Jesus’ death, the combination of today’s Isaiah reading and the Prodigal Son parable encourage me to think that that death is less about paying some extrinsic penalty incurred by our guilt (a coal from the altar took care of Isaiah’s) and more about breaking the cycles of getting even that mar human beings and human history (see, conveniently, Gerhard Lohfink’s chapter 16 “Dying for Israel” in Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was).

Forgiving and repaying evil with good instead of seeking payback: signs of a strong or weak human being? (Signs of a strong or weak male?) The winds of that argument buffet us daily, and it’s worth noticing the answers we’re giving. And, since this is an election year, our presidential election is also about that.

La Santísima Trinidad–¿y qué? (La Trinidad, 26/5/2024)

Leave a reply

Lecturas

Hoy celebramos la fiesta de la Santísima Trinidad, una de las fiestas principales de la Iglesia. Un Dios; tres Personas. Pero—con toda la debida reverencia–¿y qué? Hay muchas maneras de responder a esta pregunta; voy a enfocar dos.

Confesando la Santísima Trinidad, confesamos que antes de la creación hay una comunidad de amor: Padre, Hijo, Espíritu Santo. “Dios es amor” decimos, y aquí tenemos el sentido más profundo de esta afirmación. Antes de nada, una comunidad de amor. “Comunidad”: quizá la palabra es demasiado débil. Mejor: una fiesta, un baile de amor. Y desde este amor Dios crea nuestro universo. Ni por carencia ni por necesidad, sino para compartir este amor primordial.

Compartir este amor primordial. Y aquí tenemos el destino humano: participar/vivir en esta comunidad de amor. Vislumbramos este destino en muchos textos de la Biblia. Por ejemplo, después del Éxodo y la entrega de la Ley:

Subieron Moisés, Aarón, Nadab, Abihú y los setenta dirigentes de Israel, y vieron al Dios de Israel: bajo los pies tenía una especie de pavimento de zafiro, límpido como el mismo cielo. Dios no extendió la mano contra los notables de Israel, que pudieron contemplar a Dios, y después comieron y bebieron. (Ex. 24:9-11 BNP)

O del profeta Isaías:

6 Y el SEÑOR de los ejércitos preparará en este monte para todos los pueblos un banquete de manjares suculentos, un banquete de vino añejo, pedazos escogidos con tuétano, y vino añejo refinado. 7 Y destruirá en este monte la cobertura que cubre todos los pueblos, el velo que está extendido sobre todas las naciones. 8 Él destruirá la muerte para siempre… (Is. 25:6-8 LBA)

O del fin de la Revelación de Juan:

El Espíritu y la esposa dicen: Ven. Y el que oye, diga: Ven. Y el que tiene sed, venga; y el que desea, que tome gratuitamente del agua de la vida. (Ap. 22:17 LBA)

Una fiesta de gozo desde antes de la creación—y nosotros, invitados a participar.

Ahora, un paréntesis, innecesario para algunos, necesario para otros—como su servidor. Un Dios; billones de personas: ¿no implica esto una burocracia sofocante? Bueno—necesito un poco más de imaginación. Y parece que Jesús mismo se dio cuenta del problema:

29 ¿No se venden dos gorriones por unas monedas? Sin embargo ni uno de ellos cae a tierra sin permiso del Padre de ustedes. 30 En cuanto a ustedes, hasta los pelos de su cabeza están contados. 31 Por tanto, no les tengan miedo, que ustedes valen más que muchos gorriones. (Mt. 10:29-31 BNP)

Hasta los pelos de mi cabeza. Y vemos esta dimensión personal de la invitación particularmente en los retratos de la Dama Sabiduría en el Antiguo Testamento:

Ella misma se da a conocer a los que la desean. Ella misma va de un lado a otro buscando a los que la merecen, los aborda benigna por los caminos, y les sale al paso en todo proyecto. (Sab. 6:13, 16 BNP)

En otras palabras, esta invitación de la Santísima Trinidad: no viene dirigida a ¨Ocupante¨ o ¨Residente¨.

Y esto nos lleva al segundo tema de esta plática. El primero: la asombrosa invitación de la Trinidad. El segundo: Dios no nos abandona a nuestros propios recursos para responder a esta invitación, como hemos escuchado en las lecturas de Romanos y Juan. En Romanos Pablo habla del Espíritu empoderando nuestras oraciones. Un poco después, de la intercesión del Espíritu cuando no tenemos la menor idea cómo orar:

26 De ese modo el Espíritu nos viene a socorrer en nuestra debilidad. Aunque no sabemos pedir como es debido, el Espíritu mismo intercede por nosotros con gemidos que no se pueden expresar. 27 Y el que sondea los corazones sabe lo que pretende el Espíritu cuando suplica por los consagrados de acuerdo con la voluntad de Dios. (Rom. 8:26-27 BNP)

En el Evangelio de Juan Jesús usa la imagen de nacimiento: ¨Te aseguro que, si uno no nace del agua y del Espíritu, no puede entrar en el reino de Dios.¨ (Jn. 3:5 BNP) Por eso bautizamos con agua en el Nombre del Padre, del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Nacimiento: la imagen sugiere un evento único. En la práctica, algo que recurre cuando—usando las palabras de Pablo—con la ayuda del Espíritu hacemos morir los hábitos destructivos que siguen siendo parte de nuestro carácter.

En otras palabras, ¿qué nos dice la doctrina de la Trinidad? Respondemos al Padre con el Hijo a nuestro lado y el Espíritu dentro y entre nosotros.

Bueno. La asombrosa invitación de la Trinidad, la asistencia diaria de la Trinidad a responder a esta invitación: basta para una plática. Pero, hay la última parte de la lectura de Romanos:

Y este mismo Espíritu se une a nuestro espíritu para dar testimonio de que ya somos hijos de Dios. Y puesto que somos sus hijos, también tendremos parte en la herencia que Dios nos ha prometido, la cual compartiremos con Cristo, puesto que sufrimos con él para estar también con él en su gloria. (Rom 8:16-17 DHH)

¿Sufrir con él? Después de tantas referencias a gozo, fiesta, banquete, ¿de dónde viene eso de sufrir? Una respuesta completa implicaría otra plática. Entonces, una respuesta mínima. En la parábola de Jesús que solemos llamar ¨El hijo pródigo¨ el padre quiere que tanto el hijo prodigo como el hijo creído estén en el banquete. Pero eso pasará solamente si los dos reconocen que el amor del padre, un amor que perdona y que vence al mal haciendo el bien (véase Rom 12:21) es una muestra de fortaleza, no de debilidad. Eso pasará solamente si los dos hijos practican este amor, perdonando, venciendo al mal haciendo el bien.

La Santísima Trinidad quiere que nosotros estemos en el banquete. Mejor: quiere que nosotros y nuestros enemigos estemos en el banquete. Pero eso pasará solamente si reconocemos que el amor del padre, un amor que perdona y que vence al mal haciendo el bien es una muestra de fortaleza, no de debilidad. Eso pasará solamente si hemos empezado a practicar este amor, perdonando, venciendo al mal haciendo el bien. Y esta práctica en este mundo trae sufrimiento—como nos recuerda cada Eucaristía (¨que por nosotros y por nuestra salvación bajó del cielo¨).

La Santísima Trinidad, una comunidad de amor desde antes de tiempo mismo, invitándonos a esta comunidad, empoderándonos por el Espíritu para responder a esta invitación, empoderándonos por el mismo Espíritu a caminar en el camino de perdón y de vencer al mal haciendo el bien: buenos motivos para celebrar esta fiesta, ¿no creen? Amén.

The Holy Trinity: And I should pay attention because? (Trinity Sunday, 5/26/2024)

Leave a reply

Readings

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday, one of the principal feasts of the Church. One God; Three Persons. But—with all due reverence—so what? There are many ways we might answer that question; here are a couple.

Confessing the Holy Trinity we say that before creation there is a community of love: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That’s probably the most profound sense of the statement “God is love:” Father, Son, Holy Spirit in an eternal relationship of love. ‘Relationship’: that’s probably too weak a word. We might call it a banquet or a dance. And out of that love God creates our universe. Not out of lack or necessity (nothing is lacking) but out of desire to share that primordial love.

To share that primordial love: that’s the human destiny. It appears throughout Scripture; here are three examples. The first comes at the culmination of the Exodus at Sinai:

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and they ate and drank. (Exodus 24:9-11)

The second, from the prophet Isaiah:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  (Isaiah 25:6-8a)

The third, from the end of the Revelation given to St John:

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. (Revelation 22:17)

The party’s been going on from all eternity; we’re invited to join in.

Now, a parenthesis which for some will be quite unnecessary, for others—like the preacher—quite necessary. One God; billions of people scattered over the centuries. How could that not end up being organized bureaucratically? Here’s where my imagination needs stretching. Jesus, it turns out, is aware of the problem:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29-31)

Even the hairs of my head: counted. Perhaps not surprisingly this personal dimension to the divine invitation is captured most vividly in the Old Testament’s portraits of Lady Wisdom: “She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.… because she goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought. (Wisdom 6:13, 16)

Which brings us to today’s second theme. The first: the Holy Trinity’s breath-taking invitation. The second: we’re not left to respond to that invitation on our own, as we’ve heard in the readings from Romans and John. In Romans Paul speaks of the Spirit empowering our prayers. A bit later he talks of those frequent situations in which we don’t have the slightest idea how to pray:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

In John’s Gospel Jesus uses the image of birth: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” And so we baptize (with water) in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Birth: that suggests a one-off event. In practice it tends to be a recurring event as we—picking up Paul’s language—repeatedly by the Spirit put to death those destructive habits that still form part of our character.

The Trinity’s breath-taking invitation, the Trinity’s daily assistance in responding to that invitation: that’s probably plenty for the sermon. But there’s that last bit in the Romans reading: “it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ– if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Suffer with him? After all the talk of feast and banquet in the sermon, how’d that get in? A long answer would require another sermon; here’s the short answer. In Jesus’ parable that we usually call “The Prodigal Son” the Father wants both the younger prodigal son and the older self-righteous son at the banquet. But that’ll only happen if both recognize that the father’s love, forgiving, repaying evil with good, is an expression of strength, not weakness. That’ll only happen if both practice love in forgiving, in repaying evil with good.

The Holy Trinity wants us at the banquet. More precisely, us and our enemies at the banquet. But that’ll only happen if we recognize that the Trinity’s love, forgiving, repaying evil with good, is an expression of strength, not weakness. That’ll only happen if we’ve at least begun to practice that love in forgiving, in repaying evil with good. And that practice in this world means suffering—as every Eucharist reminds us.

The Holy Trinity, a community of love since before time, inviting us into that same community, empowering us through the Spirit to accept that invitation, empowering us through that same Spirit to walk in the way of forgiveness and repaying evil with good. If that’s not a reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

The Spirit’s Many Roles (Pentecost, 5/19/2024)

Leave a reply

Readings (Acts, Psalms, Romans, John)

Today we’re celebrating the Feast of the Fiftieth (thank you, Altar Guild!). The Fiftieth? Well, ‘pentecost’ is simply the transliteration of the Greek word for ‘fiftieth.’ Fiftieth what? Well, that’s tied to the agricultural year, fiftieth day after the beginning of the harvests, so Fiftieth/Pentecost is a harvest festival, one of the three annual gatherings in Jerusalem. As Luke tells the story in Acts, this year the harvest being celebrated are the three thousand who are baptized in response to Peter’s sermon.

And that, in turn, provides one answer to the question of what the coming of the Spirit is for. At the end of Luke’s Gospel Jesus says to the disciples “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Lk. 24:49). The coming of the Spirit is the fulfillment of that promise, and throughout Acts we watch the Spirit empower mission. Better, the Spirit takes the lead, and the disciples—like Peter in today’s text—are called on to explain what’s going on. As we think and pray about St Peter’s mission in and around North Lake this might be a model to attend to: how might the Spirit take the lead here?

What’s the coming of the Spirit for? John’s Gospel gives a different answer, focused on the disciples’ common life. Jesus passes the baton to the Spirit, so that the Spirit continues doing what Jesus has been doing. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” That’s a promise we put our weight on, whether in our use of a canon of Holy Scripture (these books and not those books), the episcopate as it developed historically, down to the commissioning of our representatives for this year’s General Convention. We count on the Spirit to guide us into all the truth.

Guide us into all the truth. It turns out that there are a couple different dimensions to truth in John’s Gospel, and both are important here. The first, in line with what I’ve just said, is cognitive. “[Y]ou will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn. 8:32). That’s important. At the same time, Paul’s words to the Romans provide a sort of counterweight. Jesus’ words in John are—in part—about  the Spirit increasing our understanding; Paul takes comfort in the Spirit stepping in when we don’t understand: “we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

One other thing about this understanding/not understanding tension. Recalling that passing of the baton in John, recall how seldom Jesus gave a direct answer to a question, or how often Jesus responded to a question with questions of his own. We shouldn’t be surprised if the Spirit follows that model, giving us—if we’re paying attention—more questions than we started out with. To sharpen the point: when looking for signs of the Spirit’s presence, some Christian traditions speak first about speaking in tongues. On the basis of this text in John, we might speak about having new questions.

The cognitive is one dimension of this guiding us into all the truth. The other equally important dimension is behavioral: doing the truth. “But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (Jn. 3:21). Back in John’s Prologue we hear “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (1:14). ‘Truth’ there is something like faithfulness. So “guide you into all the truth” is about guiding us into faithful living. So Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). If we’re looking for signs of the Spirit’s presence, not a bad place to start.

We’re hearing a rich combination of the Spirit’s roles: lead actor in the Church’s evangelism (Luke in Acts), Guide, both cognitive and behavioral (John), Intercessor when words/understanding fails (Paul). And Psalm 104 gives us one more: “You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; / and so you renew the face of the earth.” God’s creation is ongoing, and the Spirit that hovered over the primordial chaotic waters continues to work throughout God’s creation, chaotic or not. Wherever we go, whatever situation we’re facing, God’s Spirit is already at work. That doesn’t mean that everything is peachy; it does mean that there’s no place that’s godforsaken. So the first step in mission or evangelism is usually to attempt to discern what God’s Spirit is already doing.

In other words, this global work of the Spirit warns us against thinking “guide you into all the truth” means only the Christians have truth. We witness to our experience, confident that the Spirit’s guiding into all truth is also global.

Let’s close this off with the other Collect assigned to this day: “O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Jesus, making the Father’s Name known (7th Sunday of Easter, 5/12/2024)

Leave a reply

Readings

In eight days we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, and already today’s readings are setting us up for it. The reading from Acts picks up from Thursday’s Ascension Day reading, and brings us to the end of the 1st chapter; chapter 2 opens on the Day of Pentecost. The Gospel narrates the heart of Jesus’ prayer for the disciples: Protect them! Sanctify them (Make them holy)! And the Father’s response to that prayer is chiefly in the gift of the Holy Spirit.

To appreciate what’s going on in Jesus’ prayer, recall the scene toward the start of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers in which Gandalf the wizard and Pippin the hobbit are in conversation: “Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for, the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth” (1965, 34).

“[A] great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.” Something like that same combination of care, sorrow, and joy is present, I suspect, in Jesus’ face and certainly in his words. Here he is, hours away from Judas’ betrayal and the tender mercies of the Roman garrison, talking about “my joy made complete in themselves.”

The joy is intimately connected to God’s Name: “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.” Now that’s odd: they didn’t know God’s name? What’s going on here? It turns out that Jesus making God’s name known is multi-dimensional, each dimension inviting us to joy.

The fundamental revelation of God’s Name up to this point occurred when God through Moses brought Israel out of slavery. In that first conversation at the burning bush, God has announced his intention to deliver Israel from Egypt, and we get this interchange:

—If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?
—I AM WHO I AM.… Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’

“I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” The most frequent form of the name was probably pronounced “Yahweh” (in some older translations, “Jehovah”). In its abbreviated form it’s the ‘Jah’ in ‘Hallelujah’. Whatever the form, the Israelites learn the meaning of this Name in God’s actions for their liberation. They start out slaves; they end up free; that’s what ‘I am’ means. And periodically in the Old Testament we encounter this I AM again, particularly in the Greek translation with which Jesus and the NT writers —specifically John— would have been familiar:

See now that I AM. There is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand. (Deuteronomy 32:39; my translation)

You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I AM. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. (Isaiah 43:10; my translation)

In the Gospel according to John, Jesus takes up this name “I AM” in a whole series of statements, including:

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (6:35)

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (8:12)

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.” (10:7)

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (10:11)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live…” (11:25)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (14:6)

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.” (15:1)

And in case we’re thinking “well, talk is cheap,” recall that Jesus says “I am the bread of life” after the feeding of the 5,000, “I am the light of the world” after giving sight to the blind, and “I am the resurrection and the life” just before calling Lazarus out of the tomb.

Nor did “I AM” always come with a predicate. Recall Jesus’ “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” (John 8:58 NAB). Again, when the disciples in a small boat in the middle of a big storm cry out in fear as they see Jesus walking towards them over the sea, Jesus responds, “I AM; do not be afraid” (John 6:20 my translation).

Yes, Jesus has made the Name known to the disciples. Jesus’ actions, Jesus’ words, Jesus’ very being have taken that divine name revealed to Moses to a whole new level. The Israelites were filled with joy when finally out of the Egyptian army’s clutches; as we remember the liberation God has accomplished for us through Jesus, a greater joy can be ours.

There is a second dimension to this “I have made your name known.” The first is the presence and power of “I AM;” the second is Jesus’ distinctive use of “Abba,” the Aramaic word children typically used to address their fathers. We have no evidence of Jesus’ contemporaries using the word to address God; it probably would have seemed far too intimate. Most of the time the Gospels translate it into Greek. Its one appearance in the Gospels during Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane —“Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14.36)— is a window on Jesus’ customary usage. And the intimacy with God Jesus experienced —evident also through today’s Gospel text—is offered to the disciples. Here are the other two appearances in the New Testament:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15 NAB)

And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6 NRSV)

So Jesus making God’s Name known to the disciples isn’t simply about giving them —us— information, but about inviting us to participate ever more deeply in God, God our Abba, God the “I AM” who can bring out of any situation life, freedom, and joy.

There is a third dimension to this “I have made your name known.” Jesus sends us out into the world to baptize in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. By the end of the New Testament, that is clearly the Name of God that Jesus has made known to the disciples. Our God, not a monolithic unity, but a community of love and joy into which we are invited to enter. Who is the God in whose presence we live? A loving Father, whose two arms, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, are constantly extended to strengthen, guide, embrace us. “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

You see, today’s Gospel text is pretty dense. I have tried to go for the core, the many ways Jesus has been revealing God’s Name —God’s reality, God’s character— to the disciples. Grasp this, and the rest falls into place: the deep gratitude in Jesus’ words, the awareness that all that he has is gift, Jesus’ trust in his Father’s continued care for the disciples, and the sense of passing the baton: You sent me into the world; I am sending them into the world. The world —the many ways we organize ourselves to shut out God— will do its worst, but will not succeed, any more than closing your eyes real tight, clenching your fists, and wishing real hard will keep the sun from coming up.

But all that falls into place only if we start with God. “I have made your name known…” Jesus said. Do not settle for anything less here. Do not get sidetracked. Life is too short to settle for anything less than “great joy, a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing.”

Humanity’s future: Human, not bestial (Ascension, 5/9/2024)

Leave a reply

Readings (with Daniel 7:1-14 read in place of Acts)

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

How’s that as an exercise in understatement? Not only risen, but, in Ephesians’ language “seated … at [God’s] right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.”

Like last year, we heard Daniel’s vision in place of Acts’ account of the ascension. I make the change for two reasons. First, having only Acts and Luke is something like having our participation in a wedding confined to watching the couple leaving for the church. Daniel’s vision pictures the ceremony itself: “one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him…”  

Daniel’s vision pulls the camera way back to encompass—representatively—human history, and to ask how it ends. It is a profoundly hopeful vision: history ends not with some version of “The one with the biggest teeth wins” but with authentically human life. And what today’s feast celebrates is that Daniel got it right. The Son of Man—Jesus’ preferred self-designation—has in fact been “given dominion and glory and kingship.” That’s good news that our neighbors—near and far—need to hear.

“Dominion and glory and kingship.” “Hey preacher, sure doesn’t look like it.” No it doesn’t, if dominion is measured by the compulsion of Daniel’s beasts. That’s one of the Church’s oldest temptations: let’s use the beasts’ tools, marry Church priorities with State power. No. Jesus’ dominion: creating space for free human choice, with the utterly reliable promise that even the smallest choice matters. “and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple– truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward” (Matt. 10:42).

And then there’s our reading from Ephesians: “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” If we’re paying attention, that text can be downright jarring. Imagine someone introducing a speaker like this: “She is the CEO of J P Morgan Chase—and the Manager of the McDonald’s at 5th Avenue & 42nd Street in Manhattan.” “Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion…head for the church.”

If you want evidence that Paul’s certifiable, there it is. Or maybe Paul has seen what we have trouble seeing. Think about the sort of thing we’ve been hearing in our readings from Acts this Easter season.

“But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20).

Later, the high priest: “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.” To which Peter and the apostles: “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:27-31).

Stephen, while being stoned, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).

Daniel’s beasts, Paul’s “rule and authority and power and dominion:” these are not the agents for a human future. But Jesus’ Church: we’re the heralds, the witnesses, the evidence, of that human future, and who knows what we might contribute to it in the process.

This Feast of the Ascension. About Jesus, certainly. Being about Jesus, profoundly good news re human history’s goal. Being about Jesus, a reminder of the centrality of Jesus’ Church for that human history.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

“Love one another:” Putting it into practice (6th Sunday of Easter, 5/5/2024)

Leave a reply

Readings

The first lesson from the Acts of the Apostles tells of the Holy Spirit coming upon the Gentiles —Romans, mostly— while Peter was still preaching. And with that all the parts of Jesus’ commission and promise “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” begin to be fulfilled. For once this still very Jewish Church crosses the enormous cultural hurdles to preach to the Gentiles it’s a relatively short step to the ends of the earth. Once the doors are open to the Gentiles, it doesn’t matter much if they’re in Naples, Norway, or North Lake. “And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith” indeed.

If we ask about the motor for that victory, there are two obvious answers. The first is the Holy Spirit. Who else but God’s Spirit could have given the apostles the backbone to stand before the Jewish leaders and the Roman Empire? But the second equally obvious answer is the love that has been the constant theme in our readings these past weeks. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” And in another context Jesus said “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you…have love for one another.” All the things that Jesus could have said but didn’t: “if you have flawless theology; if you are without sin; if you…” Well, we might as well segue into St Paul’s paean to love in 1st Corinthians: “if you speak with the tongues of angels and men…” Nope: “if you have love for one another.”

I thought very briefly about organizing this homily around the question “What does the Bible say about loving one another?” Then I quickly realized that that was absurd, because you wouldn’t be far wrong if you said that on the whole the Bible is about nothing else than loving God and loving one’s neighbor. So “What does the Bible say about loving one another?” would be a very long sermon. Better, it’s something we spend our entire lives learning.

So the question pretty quickly became What might I say that would be useful to us here and now about “love one another”? Here are four themes to chew on: confession, generosity, no-fault, and forgiveness.

Confession. “Love one another” doesn’t get very far unless we’re willing to acknowledge ourselves as serious sinners. If my own experience is an indication, we’re ready to admit we’re sinners, but not serious sinners —that’s other folk. Years before I got married a friend described marriage as the ideal context for discovering the depth of one’s selfishness. He was right. And in the first years of marriage the times I came closest to throwing in the towel were the times in which my choices were to flee or acknowledge to myself just how selfish I was being. To which the Christian tradition with exquisite pastoral sensitivity says “Well, duh! What did you think Jesus died for, your parking tickets? So repent & learn how to love this woman.” How often are we tempted to walk away from each other because the relationship is an occasion of unwelcome self-knowledge?

Generosity. “Love one another” is about —to steal from St Paul— hoping all things, believing all things. St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises put in best: “it should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. Further, if one cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love; and if this is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved.”

So when we find ourselves mentally mapping a conflict in a way that puts the others entirely in the wrong and us entirely in the right, all the warning bells should be going off, first because we are offending against charity regarding the others, and secondly because this mapping blinds us to our own sinfulness. The sad thing about this is that all of us have been working hard since kindergarten at getting good at this sort of mapping, and by puberty it’s mostly instinctive. As with the barbarian hordes, so with us: following Jesus means laying down weapons that we’ve gotten very good at using.

No-fault. “Love one another” is pretty much a no-fault policy. That’s the point of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” Again, notice what he doesn’t say: not “if you remember that your brother or sister did something bad to you” or “if you remember that you did something bad to your brother or sister” but simply “if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you.” If the relationship’s broken, that’s the trigger, and whose “fault” it is…is irrelevant. What relationships need some TLC?

Forgiveness. “Love one another” is about forgiveness. The stakes here couldn’t be higher. “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” I don’t know of anything harder than forgiveness, whether of others or of ourselves. Many times the best we can do is to pray for a little more openness to forgiveness.

And when it comes to forgiveness we need to be careful not to cut corners. People say: well, I forgive him, but see if I’ll trust/respect/talk to him again. That doesn’t work, and here’s why. It’s not simply that Jesus ties us forgiving others and God forgiving us together. It’s that the way we imagine God forgiving us is linked to how we forgive others. And God’s forgiveness is reckless and extravagant. The prodigal son gets new robes, the fattened calf, and a seat at the head table. The Epistles repeatedly celebrate our boldness and freedom of access to God’s presence. “[You have] made us worthy to stand before you” says one of the Eucharistic prayers. And this is the way we’re to forgive. It is an integral part of the freedom Jesus has won for us. The flip side: if we persist in forgiving at arm’s length (“I forgive you, but…”) we should not be surprised if we wake up one morning and discover that our image of God looks less like the prodigal’s father and more like the prodigal’s elder brother: well, you’re back, but don’t you dare make yourself at home.

“Love one another” It’s about being willing to learn the depth of our brokenness. It’s about putting the best interpretation possible on the conduct of our brothers and sisters.  It’s no-fault. It’s about forgiving as God forgives us: recklessly, extravagantly.

Let me leave you with a final image. Football games are usually won or lost in the trenches, the hard away-from-the-cameras work. It doesn’t matter who’s playing quarterback for the Packers if by the time he gets the ball the backfield is filled with guys wearing the wrong color jersey.

Loving each other when that “each other” is hard to love is that work in the trenches. There’s no glamour to it, but it wins games —and our Lord is out to win the world. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Life on the Vine (5th Sunday of Easter, 4/28/2024)

Leave a reply

Readings

Jesus’ resurrection, the beginning of the New Creation, ripples out to the ends of the earth.

We watched the beginnings of this last week in Jerusalem; this week we’re in Samaria–almost, and in a bit we’ll focus in on Samaria.

But there’s a second ripple effect in our texts today, starting with the Gospel, moving through the Epistle, and ending in Acts.

The Gospel. In last week’s Gospel, Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd. We noticed that “Shepherd” is not a new image, but had been and continued to be a powerful political image. Not surprisingly, Jesus’ followers proclaiming him as Good Shepherd encountered persecution and martyrdom from other authorities who claimed the exclusive right to that title.

This week, “I am the true vine.” And “vine” too has a history. Let’s do some word associations: Golden Arches… McDonald’s; Uncle Sam… United States; Badger… Wisconsin; vine… And we draw a blank. In Israel, we’d have gotten “Israel” The vine is one of the most basic symbols used in the OT for Israel: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove away the nations and planted it” (Ps 80). The prophets play off it: “Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit” (Hosea 10). Most elaborately, Isaiah develops an allegory of God seeking good fruit —justice— from Israel the vine and encountering only rotten fruit —injustice.

So when Jesus says “I am the true vine” it’s big. Never mind being the Messiah of Israel, he’s Israel. The closest analogy is Louis XIV’s “L’état, c’est moi.” (The State? That’s me!) What’s going on? Well, this comes after about 1200 years of history with Israel, God the vinedresser seeking good fruit and finding mostly stuff that even the livestock would turn up their noses at. So God decides that if this relationship’s going to have a future, God must unite with our humanity and play both parts, vinedresser and vine. Our task becomes infinitely easier: not producing fruit on our own, but simply staying connected to that fertile Vine.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me as I abide in you. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in the mid-20th Century wrote of these verses: “All forms of Christian worship, all forms of Christian discipline, have this as their object. Whatever leads to this is good; whatever hinders this is bad; whatever does not bear on this is futile.”

In developing the image, Jesus says “apart from me you can do nothing.”

This may grate, since particularly in this culture independence and autonomy are such high values. We may see it as a design defect: if God had done a better job, we’d be more independent. But there’s another way of looking at it.

We Christians confess the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Trinity: eternally equal, eternally interdependent. The Father without the Son and Holy Spirit can do nothing. The Son without the Father and Holy Spirit can do…nothing. The Holy Spirit without the Father and Son can do…nothing. So when this Triune God creates humanity in God’s image, is it surprising that we are created to be related to God, created, so to speak, to run on God? Rather than a defect, it’s an undreamt-of privilege, Cinderella getting an invitation to the ball.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way: “The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?” (Mere Christianity 176).

We spend our life together with God discovering what this means, how this happens. The obvious question is how do we abide/stay connected? In the verses that follow this text —we’ll read them next week— Jesus talks of love and keeping the commandments. Those sound like they might be going in two very different directions, but are not. As we’ll hear next week —and may already recall from Jesus’ summary of the Law— the commandments are finally simply about loving God and loving one’s neighbor.

The Epistle. The epistle too is concerned with abiding, God abiding in us, we abiding in God. The epistle’s particular concern is lack of love between Christians, and so its repeated command is “Love one another.”

Why should we love one another? The epistle reminds us of The Story: God so loved us that He sent Jesus to bring us from death to life, from separation to union. God so loved us —recalling the Gospel— that God played and plays both parts: Vinedresser and Vine. If that’s the story, then the only way to live that fits with the story is love.

How serious is this? “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

In contrast to our culture’s assumptions and the impression you can easily get from the Church’s history, God doesn’t regard loving God and neglecting to love one’s brother or sister as an option. We can’t, in other words, keep two sets of books: my relationship with God, my relationship with my brothers and sisters.

We’ll spend some time looking at what this means in practice next week, because I need time to say something about our reading from Acts. Suffice it to say that the Apostle in Acts, Philip, has heard first-hand from Jesus about the Vine and the Branches, about the need to love each other, and has had some years of learning to do this with the other Apostles, a challenging group to love even on their best days.

Acts. The assigned reading in the lectionary tells of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. From the position of the story in the book, he looks to be a Jew or a proselyte. Although it’s a lovely story, I want to focus on what happened in the verses just before it: Philip’s visit to Samaria and the conversion of many Samaritans.

First, a bit of background. Saul, David, and Solomon ruled over a united Israel. After Solomon’s death, the northerners rejected David’s dynasty and Jerusalem as the place of worship, so now there were two kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah). The city and region of Samaria is in the heart of that old Northern Kingdom. Centuries later in Jesus’ time, the Samaritans still followed Moses, rejected Jerusalem, and were universally scorned and shunned by all the Jews. When good Jews went from Galilee north of Samaria to Judea or vice versa, they’d do so on the east side of the Jordan, so as not to have to set foot in the region of Samaria. It had been going far longer than Hatfields/McCoys or Packers/Bears.

So here’s the thing. Nothing would have been more natural for Philip and the Apostles than to continue writing off the Samaritans. Nothing would have been more natural than for the Gospel to have leapfrogged Samaria for the Jewish dispersion throughout the Roman Empire.

But that’s not the story and that’s not the script. The story is God’s love turning enemies into friends: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” The script is Philip going to Samaria. In the Name of Jesus people are delivered from possession by unclean spirits, people are healed —and there is great joy.

Learning to abide in the true Vine, learning to love the other apostles sets Philip up to recognize in the Samaritans not The Enemy, but simply other folk for whom Jesus died and was raised.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me as I abide in you. In a world torn by multiple divisions nothing could sound more like irrelevant navel-gazing. But it’s precisely this “Abide in me as I abide in you” that gives the Church the traction to go where it would not otherwise have gone and to make of enemies friends.

Jesus the Good Shepherd (4th Sunday of Easter, 4/21/2024)

Leave a reply

Readings

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Jesus the Good Shepherd: a well-known image. Today’s readings give us a chance to explore it.

“Shepherd” is an image that works on multiple levels. In ancient Israel folk would be familiar with shepherds, and most would know first-hand the importance of good shepherds who were attentive to their sheep, gentle with the weak, strong against their predators. And not only in Israel but throughout the ancient near east rulers, whether good or evil, liked to be celebrated as good shepherds of their people.

King David had confessed “The Lord is my shepherd,” using the Name that later became too holy to be pronounced, which scholars usually vocalize as Yahweh. And here Jesus is saying not “The Lord is the good shepherd” but “I am the good shepherd.” It’s that way of speaking that pointed his followers to the confessions hammered out centuries later, such as the Nicene Creed that we’ll use later in this Mass: “very God of very God.”

And one of Ezekiel’s most profound promises of Jesus’ coming (Ezek 34) picks up the image:

Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them– to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep.

We know this world too well. The New York Times ran an update today on CEO salaries in 2020. Some examples:

  • Norwegian Cruise Lines $36M
  • Hilton $56M
  • Paycom $211M

No wonder there’s not enough for everyone else when many at the top are incapable of saying “enough.”

Ezekiel continues in this vein for a good stretch. Then:

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

So that day in Jerusalem, Jesus’ “I am the good shepherd:” I imagine Ezekiel hearing it and smiling…or pumping his fist.

Jesus the good shepherd, come that we might have life, and have it abundantly: green pastures, still waters. In a world in which too many leaders point to paths that lead nowhere, offer solutions that are worse than the problem, very good news. Jesus the good shepherd: that’s an image—a promise—to hand onto. And sometimes we find ourselves hanging onto it for a good stretch.

Now, it doesn’t take going around the block many times before we wonder what this image is really promising, whether we can rely on that promise. And here David can help us. For the psalm that starts “the Lord is my shepherd” contains not only the comforting words about the green pastures and still waters, but also the business about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, There’s a table spread—but “in the presence of those who trouble me.” That sounds like David’s life. And perhaps one of the reasons we’re given such a full account of David’s life (most of the two books of Samuel) is to watch the Lord as David’s shepherd through all of it.

Near the end of the psalm: “Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” “Follow:” that’s perhaps one of the most regrettable translations in the entire Bible. Literally: pursue. My enemies may be fast; the Lord’s goodness and mercy are faster.

What happens if we move from David’s poetry into the prose of our lives? We know that in this life good Christian lives can end badly and painfully. This is why Paul, talking about our hope in the resurrection says “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). Perhaps David pointed toward this in the last line of the psalm: “and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” Death doesn’t play the last card.

But there’s another truth, equally important. John’s first letter, a sort of “Dummy’s Guide to the Gospel” spells it out: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us [that’s the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep part]—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” So the Shepherd’s action becomes a model for our action. We are taken up, as it were, into the Shepherd’s work. So yes, there’s still the valley of the shadow of death. And John’s telling us not to let any Christian walk it alone. John continues: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

“Who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Here we might return to that NYT article. It turns out that none of the virtues are stand-alone—even love. If I don’t know how to say “enough,” my capacity to love will be severely limited. That’s perhaps the most important take-away from that article: whatever the issue, am I able to say “enough”?

It’s important to notice that John isn’t an outlier. The same Gospel in which we hear “I am the good shepherd” tells of the Good Shepherd’s command to his disciples: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

“Jesus, the Good Shepherd” is first about Jesus; it is immediately also about how his followers are to follow: loving “not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” And it is through these followers, by the way, that Jesus does much of the shepherding: love is the lubricant that allows us to receive and give what we need from each other.

So the command to love extends only as far as the church walls? Obviously not. It focuses on “one another” because if we’re not working on that there’s little hope that we’ll be of much use to those outside the walls. If we are working on that, the walls will be no barrier.

Let’s circle back to Ezekiel:

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

It’s reasonably clear that the abundant life Jesus brings is about much more than the fortunes of individuals, though it’s not less than that. The Shepherd’s out to set the world right, restore our institutions so that they serve, and stop destroying. But here’s where it gets confusing. In our experience setting the world right usually involves a large army and a great deal of violence. Jesus’ strategy is different. So Jesus really isn’t trying to set the world right, but limiting himself to something more modest, something simply interior? No. He’s out to set the world right, but armies and violence don’t cut deep enough. Jesus knows this is confusing, which is why we have parables like the mustard seed: the beginnings seem laughably insignificant, but, oh, the end product.

So, yes, working on this “love each other” business, the church walls are no barrier. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened” (Matt. 13:33).

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Amen. Alleluia. Alleluia.