 |
||||||||
| ||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
 |
|||
Spiritual MosaicsMay 11, 2008 Pentecost At some point over the course of this year, we’ll be issuing another volume of our little storybook, Spiritual Mosaics: Stories of Faith from the Christ Church Family. Every new member gets a copy, and if you’ve never read it, which I strongly encourage, you can pick one up on your way out today. As I re-read it this past week, refreshing my memory about the lives of these twelve family members, I was struck that nearly every story was about change. Some spoke of larger scale change, others smaller. But each observed a process that brought them to a new place or a new understanding; some described a serendipitous moment that induced enlightenment, others spoke of a longer journey and surprising outcomes. Towards the end of the first story, Lorraine summarized her journey this way: “That’s my experience. It is a story of personal growth, guided step by step by the rituals of Christ Church. [Over time] I was able to hear in harmonic [messages] just those notes that I was able to understand and temporarily leave the rest. First I heard about me and let the God part go. Then I heard the parables and found truth in them. Then I accepted God as metaphor. Then I understood the examples of Jesus; and then, finally, I believed that I was a child of God.” But then she added this: “And yet, there is a downside to being a member of Christ Church. We change, and change is hard. After two years, I quit my job and went back to school [finishing my PhD] to become a teacher. Many of my friends in our original covenant group quit their jobs as well…we misfits and soul-searchers alike…gather strength at Christ Church…and go off to do the important work of learning about ourselves so that we can better love our neighbors as ourselves.” The highly regarded writer of short stories, Flannery O’Connor, a woman of great faith, once reflected that “grace changes us and change is painful.” She meant God’s grace, of course – the Eternal Mystery, Holy Love, God’s ravishing Spirit. That theme runs through much of her writing. Of course, change can also be wonderful, or better, astonishing and transforming. If that wasn’t the case I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. I don’t mean change for change’s sake, or that everything old is bad and everything new is better, or that everything that happens to us is good. But we can’t be associating ourselves with God’s ravishing Spirit and not expect something to change. That’s relentlessly, logically obvious, right? To worship the God we see revealed through the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth and expect everything to stay pretty much as it is would be great foolishness. To expect our lives to follow a rigid path we’ve plotted out would seem, well, at a minimum, well-defended against the Spirit having her way with us. As I flipped through our small storybook I noticed a lot has changed in the lives of these sisters and brothers since its publication. Some have swapped old careers for new ones. Fred and Helen moved to London where Helen is now tracking towards ordination. Ruby had a book of poetry published. Jon got married and became a father. Manuel received his PhD. Matt’s in seminary discerning his call. And wonderful, sassy, irreverent Janet made her final change, wrestling, struggling with God every inch of the way before He finally relented and said, “Okay, you win!” granting her reward and taking her home. Since the publishing of this first volume of Spiritual Mosaics, a majority of you have wandered in and stuck around. Change has come quickly here, and change does seem to be an organic aspect of our natural lives. But importantly, grace changes us. God’s ravishing spirit has its way. In the family album Joyce recounts her decision to reaffirm her faith during the Easter dawn service. She writes, “As Easter Sunday approached I grew more and more anxious to the point where on Easter Sunday I was visibly trembling. (I know that I was trembling because during the service my son leaned over to me and asked why my hand was shaking.) It was as if I understood that something important was about to happen.” Given our track this morning we might describe what happened this way: grace changed her. She sort of anticipated change was on its way – that’s why her hands shook. God’s spirit was present that morning and then, as she said, “inside me a change occurred.” And I’m noticing that this change did not occur on a especially momentous, spontaneous occasion. It happened on a highly planned-out routine ritual day in which the Spirit was evidently active. All things considered, not a big-time event on the face of it. Which is not unlike that first Pentecost following the first Easter Juliana read about earlier. In Jewish tradition, the spring harvest festival of Pentecost came fifty days after Passover. Remember, the first Easter occurred during Passover – that’s why Jesus wound up in Jerusalem at the end of his life. He went there as Jews made pilgrimage to the holy city. So Luke reports in his book, the Acts of the Apostles, that the disciples are still in the city when the Pentecost festival came around. Just two months ago, they had marched triumphantly into Jerusalem like conquering heroes, they shared a remarkable and poignant last meal in the Upper Room that was followed by Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. Remember their cowardice and crushing sense of loss and defeat. Then the astonishing and disorienting experience of resurrection. A lot had gone down in the last weeks. Surely the disciples were agitated and confused, struggling to make sense of all these events. Now once again many pilgrims from many nations had crammed into the city for this routine ritual festival and grace changed things. God’s Spirit ravished the disciples and then a large, remarkably diverse ganglion of pilgrims. Hard to picture the scene really; the way Luke tells the tale it sounds like it happened all at once. I imagine the transformation was more organic. Those fifty days must have felt like a spiritual pressure cooker. I bet the disciples’ hands were trembling before it all came to pass. I bet they didn’t know what had hit them and how it would all turn out, but inside a change occurred – inside them and then inside a lot of folks who had gathered for the standard religious observance but instead got blown around by Spirit wind. They had not planned on that. But the Spirit had its way. They had planned a routine religious pilgrimage: trek to the city; gather with friends and family; share meals, swap gossip; make an offering from the spring harvest at the temple; shop at the bazaar; generally take in what the city had to offer and then make their way back home to tend the fields and herds. The Spirit interrupted their plans. No doubt most went back home eventually. But in the meantime they had been changed. Sometimes we sentimentally refer to Pentecost as the birthday of the church. You’ll note that the change was not just to individuals for their own spiritual advancement. This was also a communal transformation of the disciples, as well as the Parthians and Medes and Elamites and Judeans and Cappadocians and Libyans; Egyptians, Cretans and Arabs. All these and more – eventually, many, many more, including plenty of New Yorkers, all changed by grace, gathered and claimed as a community of grace. This book is a small compilation of how the Spirit changed individual persons. My point is this: their story is meant to be our story. That is, if we’re honest and open, ready and willing, along with them we’ll be able to say, “Grace is changing us. Sometimes it’s difficult and challenging. At all times whether in large ways or small, this change is astonishing and transforming.” Next week I’ll speak about part two of this process. Part two isn’t about the individuals, but about the whole, the community of believers, the church. Remember, our story isn’t just about individual transformations, but about collective transformation and the formation of an astoundingly diverse community of grace that flowered as a result of the Spirit’s invasion. But for now, for today, it is enough to say to one another, grace is changing me! Is it changing you? After telling his story of personal confusion and experience of death, Matt put it this way: “Grace intervened. At the same time Christ Church opened and lifted me to God and the Spirit…the circumstances of my life shifted dramatically….So much of what I claimed for my identity turned out to be never really mine. This was a house built on sand. [Finally] face to face with myself I began to stop hiding…there was suffering…through it all I knew I was watched over and ministered to by the Spirit… An…offering of love was extended to me at Christ Church. As space was made for me…I was offered hope…” Hope is a spirit gift. It’s a present virtue concerning a future condition. It’s predicated upon change. Spirit Change. Pentecost.
Previous sermon: The Pope Came to Town • Next sermon: VISION2020 All past sermons |
| ||
|
|