May 9 Easter VI 10:30 am
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. . . . Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Those comfortable words are sandwiched around something else that Jesus said:
I do not give as the world gives.
How does the world give? What it gives, it gives only for a while. It gives us to one another, but only for a time.
One of the more heart-wrenching moments in my life came as I was sitting out there where you are now and my father was standing up here where I am now, in this pulpit. It was a Lenten weekday service, about 20 years ago, and Christ Church had invited him back to speak. That would turn out to be the day when it finally became painfully obvious to everyone that Alzheimer’s Disease had encroached on my father’s mind to a point that preaching had become impossible. I don’t think he ever tried again.
Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Most things that I read about these days, and a lot that I can see with my own two eyes, do not bode well for the near term strength of our church as an institution. We were built as an establishment church, but Christianity is becoming less and less an establishment religion.
One piece of evidence for this development is the emergence of Sunday morning soccer in the South. This is the South that Flannery O’Conner once described as “Christ-haunted”—and now it is beginning more and more to resemble California.
I think it is too bad for America that this is happening because—perhaps I am biased—I think that main line Protestant Christianity has been a very good establishment religion. It hasn’t insisted that America understand itself as a Christian nation, yet through the generations it has imbued America with a solid set of Christian values and—again, I’m biased—I think these values have been indispensable to our becoming a great nation.
I am thinking now of the “protestant work ethic,” and the values of leaders like the Roosevelts, and Martin Luther King. Or imagine what America would be without Abraham Lincoln; and think how Lincoln’s understanding of America would be diminished had it not it built finally to the vision in his Second Inaugural Address, of a nation under divine judgment for its tolerance of slavery.
So that is a worry I have in this year of our Lord, 2010: about a continued decline of religion in America and about how our Episcopal Church will fare under a post-Christian dispensation.
I have other worries too, lots of them. Lately, I’ve been worrying to varying degrees about oil spills, tornadoes and volcanic eruptions. I worry a little about terrorist attacks and a lot about drivers talking on their cell phones. Every day, I worry about the happiness and well-being of my wife and family. I worry about the Razorbacks, starting with concerns about the kicking game. (If you put me under oath, I would have to confess that I spend less actual minutes worrying about the spiritual health of the United States than the Hog’s chances of beating Alabama.)
Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
My congratulations and best wishes for a happy Mother’s day, especially to all you mothers.
My mother has more worries even than I do. How could she not? She has six children, sixteen grandchildren, eleven great grandchildren—and a step-family almost that large. In a group that large there is always someone hurting in one way or another; as we suffer, so does she. The central Christian symbol of a mother is the Pieta, Mary holding Jesus’ broken body in her arms.
Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
I would like you to notice the spirituality involved in this directive. One part of ourselves—the part that thinks—is being told to take responsibility for the activity of another, the part that feels troubled and afraid. Don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
And we say: “Lord, how do we not let our hearts be troubled and afraid?” And he says: “Believe in me and the One who sent me.” And we say, “Lord, we believe, help us in our unbelief.” And he says: “That is why I’m here.”
I hope you also noticed, from the Book of Revelation, John’s vision of the heavenly Jerusalem: the City of God.
I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the Glory of the Lord is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory.
If it did not include this vision of fulfillment in another world, our Christian faith would make no sense whatsoever. As it is written by St. Paul, “if for this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” I hope you will join me in taking this essential aspect of our faith for granted.
What is so interesting and compelling about our Christian faith is how it combines this glorious otherworldly vision with love for life and unreserved commitment to the here and now.
This is another aspect of our faith that we can take for granted: God’s love in Christ for the world he has created. That message comes through loud and clear in the fact that, right to the end, the greater part of Jesus’ ministry was spent in healing the worlds hurts and patching up its wounds. According to the gospels, whenever Jesus was approached by the blind, the deaf, and the lame, he didn’t just promise them a brighter day—he gave it to them.
So ours is both an otherworldly, and a worldly, faith.
Our Book of Common Prayer is truly a remarkable resource for the cultivation of a worldly/otherworldly spirituality. This book is familiar with the promise of the peace that passes understanding and shows the path to its fulfillment.
Our Anglican prayers typically begin with some words of praise that contain important, helpful bits of information. Like this, from this morning’s collect:
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding.
That is getting a prayer off on the just the right foot—with a reminder of our trust that God’s mercies are new each morning, guiding us unto the perfect day. That same trust was incomparably expressed by my father’s favorite poet, T.S. Eliot, in these mystical poetic verses that are the climax of his greatest poem, The Four Quartets:
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
After the words of praise, our prayers become requests, still guided by the spiritual wisdom of our tradition. What shall we ask of God, in trust that God has prepared such good things as pass our understanding? Well how about this:
Pour into our hearts [O God] such love towards you that we, loving you in all things and above all things may obtain your promises.
What a thing to pray for! We ask God for love of God. Fill our hearts with love for you.
Our hearts are interesting places.
C.S. Lewis once described his own heart as a “zoo of lusts, a nursery of fears, a bedlam of ambitions, and a harem of fondled hatreds.” I don’t suppose it would take Sigmund Freud to tell you why, of all the quotations in the world, I find this one so easy to remember. The old Calvinists used to talk a lot more than we do about this part of human nature. They called it the “Old Adam” and taught that in baptism we are “drowning the Old Adam.” Karl Barth observed that the problem with that idea is that, unfortunately, Old Adam knows how to swim.
What changes Old Adam, breath by breath, is the love of God. So that is what we pray for. When fear comes, or anxiety, or guilt, lust, hatred or selfish ambition, our prayer is Come Down, O Love Divine, [and fill this heart of mine] with thine own ardor glowing. O Comforter, draw near.
And the Holy Spirit comes.
And in its love we find relief, and strength, and courage. And in this relief and strength and courage we find thankfulness and hope. And in this thankfulness and hope, we find happiness in God. And this happiness is our transformation: the birth of the new Adam, the new Eve.