Walking in Wisdom

Preached at St. Cuthbert’s Leaside on the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 16th, 2015.

Summer Ephesians Series: Ephesians 5:15-20

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise,” (Ephesians 5:15).

I want us to reflect this morning on wisdom and what it means to walk wisely. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise,” writes Paul. What is this wisdom that Paul refers to? And, moreover, how do we attain it? Well, allow me to give you the answer upfront: “You can’t get the wisdom you need simply by digging up more facts. You get it by worshipping the God whose facts they are,” (NT Wright).

To Paul’s Jewish readers, talk of wisdom would have rung familiar, for it is a theme that runs through the Old Testament. Essentially, wisdom in early Judaism can be summed up as a longing to know the will of God which gives life its true orientation and thus results in blessing. Recall our Old Testament reading moments ago wherein Solomon asks the LORD for, “an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil,” (1 Kings 3:5, 9). To which the LORD responds, “Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind…If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life,” (1 Kings 2:14). Wisdom is this desire to know God’s will, to discern what is good in all areas of life.

One other thing we should know about wisdom in the Old Testament is that it was later personified. From Proverbs: “Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?” (8:1). In fact, Lady Wisdom speaks: “And now, my children, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways…For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD; but those who miss me injure themselves; all who hate me love death,” (8:32, 35-6). Love of wisdom is life; hatred of wisdom is death.

Now let’s fast forward a wee bit to the early Church. Listen to how Paul and the earliest Christians spoke about the risen Jesus: “I want you to have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” (Col 2:2-3). Listen also, how they spoke of the gospel of Jesus: “But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory,” (1 Cor 2:7). And here again, more explicitly: “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” (1 Cor 1:24). Here’s the point:

As the early Christians drew together all of these threads of wisdom from the treasure-house of the Old Testament they found, and we with them, that the rich tapestry they form takes the shape of the Crucified One.

Christ is the wisdom of God. We walk in wisdom, then, by becoming like Christ. Or, as Paul put it at the beginning of Ephesians 5, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us,” (1-2). This of course begs the question, how do we become like Christ? Is this a decision we make? Be it resolved: today I am going to be like Christ. I want to suggest rather, to quote St. Clare of Assisi, that we become what we love; who we love shapes what we become. If we’re still tracking together, we can see that the logic works like this then: wisdom begins with worship.

Of course, worship is the primary task of the church. Above all else, we are first-and-foremost a community which worships Jesus Christ in Spirit and in truth. But how do we come to know the risen Jesus Christ, that we might love and worship him? I want to suggest that it is primarily through the Bible that we come to know Jesus in this way. And yes, no doubt, we read the Bible communally every Sunday when we gather for worship—our whole liturgy is steeped in Scripture. But what I want to leave us with this morning is the importance of individually immersing ourselves in the Scriptures as a way of nurturing our faith and love of Christ, and thus as the primary way in which we learn to walk in wisdom.

As it happens, this is one area where Western Anglicans have been traditionally weak in modern times—Biblical literacy. I sometimes wonder why this is? Do we shy away from a life devoted to the Bible because we think that’s reserved for the crazy uncle of the Christian family—fundamentalists? Or, perhaps it’s because we think, rightly, that the Bible is a challenging book to read. Boring, even! Whatever the case, here is the great irony: at the very heart of the Anglican tradition is a desire for people all over the world to have access to the Bible in a language that they can understand. The Anglican church is all about this!

At one point in Ephesians when Paul is talking about the mystery of Christ he says, “In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,” (3:5). The gospel of Jesus Christ has been revealed to Christ’s holy apostles and prophets. This is another way of talking about the Bible—the teaching of the holy apostles and prophets as handed down to us. And while Paul likely didn’t have the New Testament in mind the point certainly applies: we come to know—and love and worship—Jesus Christ as we read the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit and the whole Church. This is why, about 300 years after Paul, Saint Jerome can say, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

We cannot know Jesus Christ apart from the deposit of faith that we have in the Bible.

Moreover, the only way to make sense of the Christian life is to be ever more deeply rooted and grounded in Jesus. And we become just so deeply rooted as we immerse ourselves in a prayerful reading of the Bible, both communally and individually. Those of you who know the Book of Common Prayer will be familiar with Cramner’s exhortation to “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the Holy Scriptures. We simply cannot attempt to inhabit the divine wisdom which overcomes the world apart from this.

A friend of mine wrote recently, “Your responsibility to your own faith, your own cultivation of it, your own openness to its vigour and truth, your life with God, is your greatest gift of love to another person, to any person, to all those around you,” (Ephraim Radner). Here we see that our own cultivation of our own faith is not just for our own good but for the good of our neighbour, for the good of our child or our spouse, for the good of the world. That is to say, our life as a people immersed in the Scriptures is always for the sake of mission.

“Look carefully then how you walk,” writes Paul, “not as unwise people but as wise.” Wherever you are and whatever it is that you put your hand to, when it comes to walking in wisdom, when it comes to understanding the will of the Lord and discerning what is good and beautiful and true, we cannot do this as Christians apart from discovering Jesus Christ in Holy Scripture. Would you consider committing yourself, in whatever capacity you are able, to the reading of the Bible consistently over time? With the help of the Holy Spirit you will be challenged, prodded, made uncomfortable and at other times comforted and encouraged. You will know that from birth to death your life is in the hands of God and thus every single aspect of your life is filled with His presence and divine purpose—and you will learn what to do. You will discover that your faith is actually part of a much larger story, beginning with Israel and culminating in Christ Jesus and his Church. Most of all, I hope, you will come to see Christ in new and fresh ways as his light and love penetrate your heart and mind.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” writes the Psalmist. Indeed, may the light of God’s word lighten our path as we learn to daily walk in wisdom with Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

On Hosea, marriage, and life.

Reading through Hosea last week for our parish bible study I was struck anew by the significance of the marriage imagery.

Clearly, marriage is a central image as far as understanding Hosea goes, and not just any marriage: “When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness”…So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son,” (1:2-3).

Indeed, marriage is a central image throughout both Old and New Testament. The Bible begins with marriage in Genesis:

“So God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it,” (1:27-28).

“But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man…For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh,” (2:20b-22, 24).

It ends with a great wedding feast in Revelation:

“Let us rejoice and be glad and give [the Lord God Almighty] glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready,” (19:7).

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband…He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (21:1-2, 5).

In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus he writes at one point to wives and husbands (5:22ff) regarding the sort of sacrificial love that ought to define their relationships. Paul points back to Genesis quoting 2:24 (5:31, “For this reason…”). And yet, just here, Paul confronts us with a great mystery: “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church,” (5:32).

***

There were a few occasions while reading through Hosea that my mind leaped back to Genesis and the account of the Fall there in ch.3, as well as to various points of Israel’s sordid history. For example, consider some of the language that is used to describe Israel’s sin in Hosea: “They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval,” (8:4); “My people are determined to turn from me,” (11:7). The language of “unfaithfulness” that permeates the book gets at the same idea. The point is that Israel’s sin had to do with a turning from their God, forsaking his ways for their own ways apart from him.

Was this not the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden? Not a simple act of disobedience but the assertion of the self apart from God. The creature forgetting their creaturely dependence upon (and loving responsibility to) their Creator. The chasm of creation (to borrow a phrase from Ephraim Radner), that is the distinction and separation between Creator and creation, is exaggerated by sin.

A second instance when my mind went to Genesis: “Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning,” (8:11); “Now they sin more and more; they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen,” (13:2).

Was this not the created destiny of Adam and Eve, only here disfigured and unrecognizable? Were not Adam and Eve, and all human creatures through them, placed in the garden as priests to tend it and work it and offer it all back to their Creator in thanksgiving so that God might be all in all? Is this not the priestly offering of love that human creatures were created to participate in? Yet, what is the LORD’s charge against Israel through Hosea? The altars that were built for sacrifice have become altars for sinning. The human hands which were meant to work the garden and offer it back to God have become twisted up and now take the earth and form it into idols. Priestly hands became whorish hands. Hands meant to offer became hands that take and hold.

And, of course, the result is what? A lack of fruitfulness: “Ephraim is blighted, their root is withered, they yield no fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring,” (9:16).

***

Eve is born from Adam’s side. So too the church is born from the side of Jesus Christ (“One of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.” John 19:34). Eve was created out of Adam’s side. A distinction. A separation, but a separation for the sake of a union (“one flesh”). And, union for the sake of fruitfulness (“increase in number”). So too with Christ and the church: a separation, an initial movement away, for the sake of a union, a second movement towards. And this union for the sake of life.

This is the gospel, that in Jesus Christ God has come near to that which is totally other than himself, has sacrificially given himself in love to that which is totally other, has taken upon himself that which is alien to him (i.e. human flesh) so that that which is other might be united to him. And why? For the sake of life. Real life. Eternal life.

***

God has said no to unfaithful Israel. He has cast them off. God has said no to us. He has cast us off. But how? How has God said no to Israel and to us? How has he cast both them and us off? Is God’s ‘no’ to unfaithful Israel not God’s ‘yes’ to Israel? Has God not cast off Israel in her unfaithfulness precisely in his embrace of Israel in her unfaithfulness (ex. Hosea)? And has not all of this happened in the very person and work of the living Jesus Christ? And has this living and reigning Jesus not grasped us by the wrists and pulled us up out of the pit of despair along with him? Indeed he has!

May we return to the LORD as Hosea exhorted Israel (14:1ff), that we might be united with him in love for the sake of life (14:8, “fruitfulness”).

Seeing Jesus in Jeremiah.

Over the last couple of years I have developed a great interest in the figural reading of Scripture. There have been a number of influences for me here. Individual scholars/priests such as Ephraim Radner and John Behr. (I once heard Radner describe figural reading thus: “The temporal explication through the juxtaposition of her multiple texts, of scriptures’ divine “allness”.) A growing familiarity with the way in which the Church Fathers read and exegete the Scriptures. The Biblical emphasis in the NT on Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension being “in accordance with” the Scriptures (by which the NT writers mean the OT). Also, this last year we’ve begun a Bible study at church whereby we’re reading through the Bible in one year. We started with the gospels, and then jumped from there right into the OT beginning with Genesis 1:1. It’s been really fascinating to observe people in the group making connections, and seeing Jesus in the OT in light of the gospels which we began our study with.

At the moment we’re reading through Jeremiah. In my study this morning I read through a portion that included Jeremiah 25 that contains this fascinating image of the cup of God’s wrath being poured out, not only on Israel but, “upon all who live on the earth.” It can all appear rather confrontational and fierce, and indeed it is. However, right there in the middle of this section the reader stumbles upon this:

“The LORD will roar from on high; he will thunder from his holy dwelling and roar mightily against his land. He will shout like those who tread the grapes,* shout against all who live on the earth. The tumult will resound to the ends of the earth, for the LORD will bring charges against the nations; he will bring judgement on all mankind and put the wicked to the sword,” (25:30-31).

Pretty terrifying stuff, yeah? When I read this portion, I thought of another place in the Scriptures where the Lord roared from on high and it resounded to the ends of the earth:

“From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”…And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split,” (Matthew 27:45-46, 50-51).

The cup of God’s wrath has indeed been poured out upon Israel and upon all who live on the earth. It was done so as it was poured out on Christ Jesus, the true Israel, who takes all nations and all humanity up into his own human flesh and bears out the consequences of human sin on behalf of all humanity. As the prophet Isaiah proclaims, “it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand…my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities,” (53: 10, 11).

*evidently those who tread upon grapes shout. Who knew? Which makes me think of this, actually.

Here is the kingdom: Or, things have changed.

Last night at St. Matthew’s we continued our project to read through the Bible in one year (a good portion of it, anyways!). It was, I thought, another fantastic evening of eating and laughing, talking and praying.

At any rate, the portion of scripture we looked at was Matthew 5-11. A lot of really great stuff was drawn out by people in our discussion. Miriam helped to set this weeks reading in the context of last weeks for us quite nicely by recalling for us that Matthew sets Jesus up as the fulfillment of Israel’s story. This is quite clear in the first four chapters of Matthew as we saw last week. So then, the Beatitudes at the start of Matthew 5 are about Jesus first and foremost. These things are fulfilled in Christ before they are ever any sort of “moral imperative” for the people of God. This is an important point, for the Beatitudes are put matter-of-factly: “Blessed are the meek.” There it is, simply put. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “Blessed are those who try really, really hard to be meek.” Just, “Blessed are the meek”.

In a similar fashion Jesus simply states: “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world,” (5.13-14). There’s no talk about exerting much energy to be salt and light. It’s just, “you are.” But we’ll come back to this in a moment.

While he was in prison John the Baptist asks a question of Jesus upon which I think much of this hangs: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (11.3). Of course, we’ll have to wait until we begin reading the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) over the summer before we get a better grasp of Israel’s hopes related to “the one who is to come”. However, Matthew’s point to his readers, to us, is simply YES, yes, this is he. It’s interesting to note how Jesus responds to John’s question, though: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them,” (11.4b-6). Compare this with the start of Jesus’ ministry as recorded by Luke. Jesus walks into the temple on the sabbath, stood up, unrolled the scroll and read from it: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,” (4.18). Then he rolls the scroll back up and says (#likeaboss), “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” (4.21). Today. In Jesus, this scripture is fulfilled.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” asks John. “Look around, see and hear.”

OK, let’s return to this whole thing about us being salt and light. In Matthew 5.1 Jesus, like Moses, ascends the mountain to receive a new law from God. Unlike Moses, however, he does not ascend alone but rather brings the disciples and the crowd up with him. Did the disciples follow Jesus up or did he gather them and bring them up? Yes. They followed, but they did so in response to Jesus’ gathering them up into himself. Their following was responsive. So then, to be a follower of Jesus is not simply to hear and see the proclamation that Jesus is the one we’ve all been waiting for, God-in-the-flesh, the bringer of the kingdom. But to be a follower of Jesus is to hear and see that in Christ a new life is opened up to us, a new life which we are invited (demanded!) to step into and live out of: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven,” (Matthew 5.16). Now, this new law, this new way for God’s people to be, it doesn’t erase or replace the old law, the law of Moses. No, it fulfills it (Matthew 5.17). It is, in fact, more demanding! It demands not simply an outward compliance or mechanistic obedience, it demands our whole selves, our hearts (Matthew 5.21-7.29)!

I don’t know about you, but this strikes me as a hard way. Perhaps this is why the road isn’t all that crowded (Matthew 7.13-14). Maybe this load seems too heavy for you. How could anyone possibly follow Jesus along this way of life? In response to this (very good) question I would say two things: (1) Jesus very closely identifies himself with his people (Matthew 10.40-42). To welcome the disciples is to welcome Jesus. Thus, we can only even begin to journey in this way because Jesus himself is this way and the risen and living Jesus Christ attaches himself to us, grasps us, takes us up into himself and makes us his Body. (2) It is a difficult and challenging way, no doubt. To all those who have tried and are trying to follow Jesus in this way hear his words to you: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” (Matthew 11.28-30). Jesus will give you rest. The way of Jesus may look like foolishness, it is hidden after all. It is by no means apparent or obvious, hidden from the wise and intelligent but revealed to infants (Matthew 11.25). But it is life and it is rest, and the gentle Jesus will give you rest on and in this way.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near (Matthew 4.17)! Let us receive and enter into it, in Christ Jesus.
Amen.

Israel’s story fulfilled in Jesus: Or, “Were not our hearts burning within us?”

We began a new endeavour at St. Matthew’s this evening. Namely, we started to read through the Bible. The whole Bible (well, most of it). In one year. This is a parish wide project that all are invited to participate in, including neighbours that may want to join us. We read throughout the week and then get together on Thursday evenings to talk about it and pray. This first evening was fantastic. We looked at the first four chapters in Matthew and some things really struck me that hadn’t in the past.

What struck me in these first four passages is the extent to which Matthew goes to root Jesus in the story of Israel. I mean, he really goes at it. For example, the opening line of the gospel is: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” (1.1). Jesus is the Messiah. Boom. Matthew just begins with this. It’s as if he states his conclusion, so to speak, at the outset.

The genealogy which immediately follows is also interesting, particularly when compared with Luke’s genealogy. Luke, for example, anchors his genealogy (and thus Jesus) in, “Adam, son of God” (3.38). In contrast, Matthew anchors his genealogy in, “Abraham…the father of Isaac,” (1.2). This detail may seem insignificant but I believe it reveals the extent to which Matthew roots Jesus in Israel. Abraham; David; Babylon; The Messiah (1.17). Israel’s story is the story of Jesus.

Note also the recurring phrase, “All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet,” (1.22; 2.15, 17, 23; 3.3; 4.14 etc). In other words, all of Scripture (and by Scripture I mean the Hebrew Scriptures, or what we commonly call the Old Testament) points to Christ. In the words of the Fathers, the Old Testament is a treasury which contains Christ. Or, as Luke tells us about the resurrected Jesus who met the disciples on the road to Emmaus: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures,” (24.27) and how they spoke of his having to suffer (24.26).

The most striking of Matthew’s emphasis on this in the opening four chapters, in my opinion, is found between 2.13-4.17. Here we have Israel’s story parallelled in the life of Jesus:

2.13-15 – Jesus is taken into Egypt by his parents. Thus entering into the enslavement of the Israelites at the hands of the Egyptians.

2.16-18 – The massacre of the innocents. Compare with the Passover (Ex 11-12). Jesus, the firstborn, the lamb that was slain.

2.19-23 – Joseph and Mary return from Egypt with Jesus. The lamb of God leads his people out of Egypt – the Exodus.

3.1-12 – John baptizing in the wilderness. The Israelites led “by the roundabout way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea,” (Ex 13.18).

3.13-17 – The baptism of Jesus in the water. Israel passes through the water (Ex 14).

4.1-11 – Jesus led out into the wilderness to face testing. Israel wanders in the desert post-Egypt.

4.12-17 – Jesus returns from the desert into the land where he proclaims, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” (4.17). Foreshadowing Israel’s promised shalom that is to come (in Christ).

All of this to say: Israel’s story is taken up and fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The imagery is rather astounding, and hit me in a fresh way this evening. We cannot know Jesus apart from Israel, nor can we know Israel apart from Jesus. Who are the children of Abraham? Surely it is those who are in Christ. As with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, may the crucified and risen Lord Jesus open our eyes to see that it’s all about him.

Grace and peace.

Exegetical Notes: Phil 3.21

Here’s a new series that will no doubt be ongoing. I think it will prove to be a fun one! In it I will simply cut and paste a very small portion of the exegetical work I do to prepare for a sermon. OK, it may not be purely exegetical, it may simply be a note or something else. However, the point is that it will be a “behind-the-scenes” look. A thought or a bit of research that may not explicitly be in the final sermon but has influenced the sermon in some fashion. Enough preamble…

———-

On Philippians 3.21

“He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.”

• When Christ was resurrected his physical body was transformed into a spiritual body. This does not mean that Christ no longer had any part in the corporeal, rather, he was freed from the weakness and limitations and humiliation of the flesh, so that the new mode of his existence could be identified with that of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:17; 1 Cor 15.45) – Christ vanishes from the sight of His disciples on road to Emmaus once they recognize him – once knew Christ according to the flesh, now according to the Spirit
  • in Christ’s resurrection, the human project is complete. Humanity is finally taken up to partake in the very life of God. The mortal puts on immortality. This was always the goal for human creatures, to grow up into the fullness of Christ, to become partakers of the Divine life. In Christ this has happened and it happened via suffering and death whereby death itself is swallowed up. Suffering and death are transformed in Christ. Suffering is the glory of the Christian. Life is hidden in death, so that death becomes for us the way to incorruptible life. While all of this happens in Christ’s own person, he will return and raise us up with him, so that what he has done for us will be done in us and we will be transformed. We will become, finally, truly human creatures. We will, in the fullness of our humanity, be taken up into the life of God so that God will be all in all.

Christians and the interpretation of Genesis 1.

I tend to feel a bit out of my depths in matters of Creation and evolution. I’m not an evolutionary biologist, and I’m no Old Testament scholar. So, in both cases, I tend to have to rely on the expertise of others. I have to trust others. May they be wrong? Yes. May I be wrong? Certainly.

How we are to read the first few chapters of Genesis is one of these sorts of matters for me. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how we’re to read it. I do know that the Church hasn’t ever really had “a position” on Genesis 1 (for example). S. Augustine interpreted Gen. 1 literally*. Other of the Fathers interpreted it allegorically or spiritually.

Personally, I’m uncomfortable with a “literal” reading, because I just do not think that is the thrust of the passage. To try to argue that we ought to read Genesis 1 historically, as it were (that is to say, God created in 6 24-hour days etc.), is to impose a particular view on the text. It feels rather uncomfortable to me, like a shoe that fits too tightly. I would take a similar sort of approach to the question of whether or not Adam and Eve were “real” historical figures. Certainly Adam plays a significant role in Paul’s theology for example. But does this mean that Paul must have understood Adam to be an actual historical figure? I may be less convinced than others on this point.

At any rate, I watched this short video clip today:

 

This reminded me of an Orthodox catechism I picked up recently. The authors took what I thought was an interesting approach to these sorts of questions:

[…]

Seeker: Then divine time and human time are not the same?

Sage: Of course not. God does not live in time, because it is He who created time, just as He created space. God exists “before all ages” and beyond time and space. That is why it is impossible to compare the discoveries of science and the revelations of the Bible, as some naive minds have tried to do, imagining that the author of Genesis wanted to write a treatise on geology or paleontology.

Seeker: Then who is right, science or the Bible?

Sage: The truth of the biblical revelation is not the same as the fragmentary and relative truths studied by science. Science studies the world of appearances, of fleeting phenomena, which can be measured in minutes and in meters, and which unfold in human time and space and Biblical revelation rises above time and space to God. For it is He who has created time, space, and everything which science discovers, just as He has created the human intelligence which has invented science itself.

Seeker: Then what is the truth we learn from the account of the creation of the world?

Sage: After studying the biblical account of creation, the faithful see nature with new eyes. We discover with wonder the beauty of the created order, the splendor of the Creator’s work, which is itself only a pale reflection of the ineffable beauty of the Creator Himself…

[…]

Seeker: You tell us that man was created by God in His image. But I am told that we are descended from apes.

Sage: That which God created “in the beginning,” as we said earlier, He created from nothing. But God did not create man from nothing; He created him “out of the earth” and everything which it contains. That is to say that in order to create man, God made use of nature as a whole, including its evolution. The ape and the fish are also of the earth, for man is the culmination of all creation, and in him all creation is summed up and recapitulated. But, in addition, He has given mankind life through His own breath, His own Spirit. It is this presence of God Himself illuminating humanity, making the light of His face shine upon us, which distinguishes human beings from apes and all other creatures. This presence of God, this breath of God, projects the image of God upon us and gives us a beauty and “crown of glory.” It makes us the ruler of all creation and responsible for it (see Gen 1:28-29; 2:19-20).

 

*There are problems with the term “literal”. This point is drawn out a bit in the embedded video.

A Sermon on Psalm 14.

The following sermon was delivered at St. Matthew’s Riverdale (Anglican Church of Canada) on Sunday, July 29, 2012.

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Earlier this past week Christina, Charlotte, and I called up a couple that we are friends with who are fairly new to Canada and we all met in Riverdale Park for an early evening picnic. There was great food—cheese, baguette, sausage, fruit—and of course good drink too. These friends of ours know that we are Christians, we have spent a good bit of time together over the last year and half but we have never had much of any sort of conversation about faith, Jesus, and so on. On this night, however, it wasn’t long before we were sharing the gospel with our friends. We did not set out to do this, I assure you. We’re usually much more timid and politically correct than that. But these friends of ours have a deep and genuine hunger for justice and for truth. We began talking about what it would take to change the world. Our friends were of the conviction that if we protested, fought for justice, and were nicer to one another then together we could change the world. I then asked if they’d like to hear how I thought we could change the world, or rather, that the world has already changed and how we can join in on it all. This is the point where we inevitably ended up talking about Jesus and the fact that in Jesus the world has already changed and we can indeed change the world but only insofar as God opens our eyes to what He has done and continues to do in the living Jesus and pours out His Spirit into our hearts so that we may be made new and participate in this wonderful act of making all things new. Our friends had two main objections to this but I will only focus on one this morning: They objected to the fact that apart from Christ no measure of kindness on our part can effectively change the world.

This is, in much of my own experience and perhaps yours too, one of the main objections to the gospel—that we can do nothing apart from Christ. That our good works, apart from Christ, are sorely lacking and cannot have much of a lasting effect. That even our love, if it is not taken up into Christ’s love and transformed there to become Christ’s love poured out for our neighbour, even our love if it is not this is misdirected towards lesser ends.

A few minutes ago we said together the fourteenth psalm. Are you aware of the words that came out of your mouth then? “There is no one who does good.” “They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.” I think, for many of our neighbours, this would be a hard sell. Heck, for many of us this is a hard sell. “There is no one who does good, no, not one.” To be sure, the Psalmist has a particular character in mind, “the fool”. The fool is not someone with a low IQ. The fool is not even someone who is incapable of doing any good deeds whatsoever. The status of “fool” is not a human designation. In fact, “the fool” may often look wise from a human perspective. Rather, “the fool” is known as a fool in the context of God’s look—The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind, says that Psalmist. Rather, the fool is the one who lives as if God is distant and really does not have much to do with the world: “There is no God!” The fool lives as if God had not made a covenant with human creatures. The intent of this psalm, according to one commentator, “is to counter the temptation that humankind can manage the world in ways better than Yahweh’s way.”

Psalm 14 is attributed to David. Who is it that David is imagining here when he talks of the fool? Perhaps it is an individual such as Pharaoh or perhaps the surrounding nations who persecute and oppress Israel. In contrast to “the fool” we see others: “my people”, that is, the Lord’s people; “the company of the righteous”; “the poor”. Whatever the case may be, the fool is a threat to the life of the righteous, so that the end note of the psalm is a cry for the Lord’s deliverance. From the perspective of the psalmist, quite possibly David, there was a line between “the fool” who says “there is no God”, who does “abominable deeds”, who is perverse and has gone astray, and Israel, the Lord’s people, the company of the righteous, the poor. Is this not often the case? We draw lines in the sand to separate us from others–the wicked, the bad guys–so that we can maintain a façade of purity and righteousness. I have noticed this theme come up quite prominently in the last couple of weeks. In the wake of recent gun violence in the city Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney tweeted: “I agree w/ Mayor Ford: foreign gangsters should be deported w/out delay, (sic)”. Ah, yes, “foreign gangsters”. That’s the problem! How Ford and Kenney came to be so certain that said gangsters were “foreign” I am not sure. To be sure, many of the perpetrators of recent gun violence in Toronto have been young black males. Perhaps this is enough to make them both “gangsters” and “foreign” in the eyes of some of our enlightened leaders. This is, of course, to say nothing of the policies which Mayor Ford, and Minister Kenney have been trying so hard to implement. Policies that no doubt would make the already challenging life of the poor, and the immigrant, all the more difficult. Is this not itself a violence? My point is this, we often want to scapegoat evil and wickedness. We want to dislocate ourselves from evil, and place evil “out there”, away from us. This enables us, among other things, to see ourselves as the law-keepers and on this basis to justify ourselves as the righteous. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s well known quote comes to mind here: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Perhaps it would help us see the truth of this more clearly if we come back to our Scripture readings from this morning. We have already noted that in Psalm 14 David has drawn a line which separates the good guys from the bad guys, the oppressed from the oppressor. Yet, our first reading this morning was from 2 Samuel, where we witness David commit a heinous act. He forces himself upon the wife of another man and then murders the other man to cover up his trail. As if he could hide any of this from the sight of the Lord. But no. Just as in Psalm 14, “the Lord looks down from heaven,” and sends the prophet Nathan to confront David. Suddenly, David is confronted with his own sin and wickedness.

The point I have been making here is that it is too easy for us to identify with the oppressed and to think always of “the fool” in terms of other people—they are the fools, we are the wise and understanding ones who live in covenant relationship with God. However, the Apostle Paul uses Psalm 14 in his letter to the believers in Rome to establish the universal evil and folly of humanity— “both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin” (3:9) writes Paul, that is both God’s people and the nations. The fool is not a rare and elusive specimen, like Bigfoot, who is always “out there” and who we only see every now and then as a dark blurry mass in a photograph. No, all human beings are fools apart from the wisdom of God, that is, Christ Jesus. This is the nature of the world we live in. The church, those meant to be righteous and set apart, are mixed in with the nations so that it is difficult to tell them apart at times. Thus, confession of sin and repentance are central to the life of the church. Indeed, these things are central to our truthful worship of Christ Jesus each Sunday. In confession and repentance we cast ourselves fully on Christ Jesus acknowledging that apart from him our lives are misguided and misunderstood. Read in the light of Christ, the gap between “the fool” and the “righteous” in Psalm 14 is closed and the Psalm becomes a pilgrimage—we begin standing where the fool stands but as we continue to read we perceive and lament the nature of our folly and its consequent evil and with the psalmist we pray for deliverance from that folly. In our foolishness what we are most in need of is not enlightenment but rather the wisdom of God—the gospel of Jesus Christ, which from a human perspective may appear actually to be foolishness, but in reality it is the power of God for deliverance and salvation.

So, what of our friends objection to my statement that apart from Christ no measure of kindness on our part can effectively change the world. Well, the psalmist ends Psalm 14 with a cry: “O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.” Our friends are bang on in their hunger for truth and justice. However, what they, like us all too often, fail to see is that deliverance comes “from Zion”, and that restoration comes from the Lord. Indeed, this is the central proclamation of the gospel and thus of the church—that deliverance has come, that restoration has come, but deliverance and restoration has not only come for Israel. In the very life of Jesus Christ all of creation has been delivered from the power of sin and death, all of creation has been restored in Christ. Thus, it is only in connection with the risen and living Christ that the life of the church can be a force for goodness, justice, peace, and beauty. For when our life is taken up into Christ’s life, he takes what we have, our contributions of fish and bread, gives thanks for them, and uses them. Amen.

A Sermon for Trinity Sunday.

Scripture Readings

Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17

 

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” (John 3:3).

 

Prayer

Heavenly Father,

Open my mouth, that I may proclaim your Word

Open our eyes and ears, that we may see and hear you

Open our hearts and minds, that we may joyfully receive you.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

 

Earlier this week I Googled the term “born again”. The first hit was an advertisement for a Christian dating site with the tag line, “Meet born again singles – Find your born again soul mate!” Then there was Born Again Auto Sales whose sign was complete with a giant Jesus fish. Another good one was a website, jesus-is-savior.com whose header proclaimed, “Ye Must Be Born Again!” I then came across two interesting articles. The first asked, “Are Catholics Born Again?” Good question! The second was an article that came out in The Atlantic in the run up to the 2008 US election. The title of the article was “Born Again,” and it looked at the growing population of evangelicals in America. One comment on the media’s view of Evangelicals caught my eye: “Journalistic coverage of evangelical Christianity has oscillated between confident declarations that the Christian right is dead and horrified discoveries of its continuing influence.” True enough, the term ‘born again Christian’ conjures up all sorts of memories many, if not most, of which are terribly painful and rather embarrassing, and rightly so.

Yet, recall Jesus’ own words in our gospel reading from today: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above (or, born again),” (3). In this scene we witness Nicodemus, a Pharisee and leader of Israel, come to Jesus at night and affirm that indeed Jesus must be a teacher sent from God, “for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God,” (2). Nicodemus has seen the signs but is missing an important piece. He has not yet believed in the name of Jesus. He has not yet been born from above. There is a difference, you see, between knowledge about Jesus and belief in Jesus. Here Jesus charges Nicodemus not only with a lack of understanding, but also a lack of belief, since what Jesus is teaching is beyond understanding, and so it is only faith that could comprehend it. What Jesus is saying to him is something like this: If you are not born again, if you do not share in the Spirit that comes through the washing of regeneration, everything you think about me will be from a human point of view, not a spiritual one (Chrysostom). It is impossible, Christ says, for someone who is not born in this way to see the kingdom of God. This saying of Jesus also implies that apart from this new birth we are exiles and complete strangers to the kingdom of God, and that there is perpetual opposition between God and us until He changes us by a second birth (Calvin). This is indeed a hard teaching. It is to say that we are not able to come to God on our own. It is to say that whatever it is God is doing to make the world new cannot be known apart from Christ Jesus, for his resurrection to new life is the first sign of what God has planned for the world. But more than this, it is to say that we are in need of being redeemed, that we are in need of being saved from the powers of sin and death. This is an affront to our modern sensibilities for we would much rather believe that we do not need to be born again. We are good enough the way we are, thank-you.

OK, so there can be no denying the weight of Jesus’ remark: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” This raises two important questions for us. First, how does this happen? Second, what does this mean? With regard to our first question Nicodemus himself is curious: “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (4). Now, Jesus does not directly answer Nicodemus’ question here with a simple yes or no. Presumably, however, the answer is no, you cannot enter a second time into your mothers womb. Thank goodness for that. How is one born again, then? Jesus elaborates on his earlier statement: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit,” (5). So then, here we have it. One is born again, or born from above, by “water and Spirit”. The Christian tradition has, with a few notable exceptions, interpreted this to say that it is through baptism that one is reborn. This makes some sense in light of the surrounding passages of Scripture. Just prior to today’s gospel reading Jesus himself was baptized. Immediately following our passage John tells us that, “After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized,” (22). Furthermore, all of this talk of water and Spirit and entering the kingdom of God would have rung clear to a scripturally aware Jew like Nicodemus. The combination of water and Spirit with a particular hope for the future was deeply rooted in the Jewish consciousness. Israel’s prophets often proclaim a future time when Israel would experience renewal, by water and Spirit. Hear these words from the prophet Ezekiel: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God,” (36:25-28). God promises to renew Israel, to cleanse them by the sprinkling of water and by the infilling of His Spirit who will enable them to live in faithful relation with God. All of that to say the need for cleansing and expectation of the renewal of the Spirit was in the air in the period of Jesus and the early Church. Here is the part not to be missed, that in Jesus this hope for renewal is fulfilled and through baptism our old self, enslaved as it were to sin and death, is washed away and we are reborn in a new life of freedom in resurrection power. Of course, it is beyond us to say precisely how this happens in baptism. We must say simply that it does happen. After all, the Spirit like the wind has a life of it’s own. It blows here and there and we hear it’s sound though we know not from where it comes or where it will go next. Furthermore, this is not our own doing. That you and I may be reborn, indeed are beckoned to be reborn, is a work of God for there is only One baptism, Christ’s. Thus, “our” baptism is really a participation in Christ’s baptism. As we go down into the waters we die with Christ. As we come up out of the waters the Holy Spirit comes upon us with a life that is powered by the resurrection of Christ Jesus. We rightly call this, eternal life.

And that is the answer to our second question: What does it mean to be born again? It means to see and enter the kingdom of God. Another way of saying this would be to say that it means to receive eternal life. To believe in Jesus, to be baptized into his Body, the Church, and to be indwelled by his Spirit is to receive eternal life. So proclaims John in what is perhaps the most famous of all Bible verses, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” We modern Western folks tend to think of time as a linear progression. The present is a blip on the line. Behind us lies the past. In front of us lies the future. And beyond the future of our life on earth, beyond our death, lies eternity. We tend to think of eternity as part of our linear time, the part of time which lies a way off in the distance and which goes on forever and ever and ever. However, this is not eternity as Scripture portrays it. Eternity is not ‘part’ of time. Eternity, as understood Scripturally, is without beginning or end. It is that which always has been and always will be. Therefore, “eternal life” can not be something that “begins” after we die. It may be more helpful then if we think of eternal life not in terms of quantity (it just goes on and on and on forever) but in terms of quality (it is a particular sort of life). Whatever eternal life is, it has no beginning and it has no end, it is everlasting, which of course makes it rather hard to think about and talk about since our language is itself bound in time and space as is all that God has created. Our language itself begins and ends. Christian language in particular, begins and ends with Jesus. That is not simply a cute saying. It is the truth of the gospel, that everything that is, everything we can possibly say, properly understood begins and ends and is sustained in Christ.

Here, many would object. How can we claim such a thing? It is by no means obvious to us that Jesus is the clue to understanding history. This is a bold statement open to challenge and critique. And that is precisely the point! For John, eternal life comes only by the indwelling of the Spirit whom we receive with the waters of baptism and who opens our eyes so that we can not only see but enter the kingdom of God. Indeed, no one can see the kingdom of God without experiencing the renewal of the Spirit. For when we are baptized with Christ in his death we are raised with him to new life, resurrection life in the power of the Spirit. As St. Paul writes in Romans: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life,” (6:3-4). And again in the verse that preceded our NT reading for today: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you,” (8:11).

For John as with the other writers of the NT, central to a proper understanding of eternal life is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Arbitrarily acknowledging that God exists does not lead to eternal life. Even acknowledging that God exists and has something to do with Jesus does not lead to eternal life (as is evidenced with Nicodemus). To quote the great reformer John Calvin, the true faith which leads to eternal life is, “placing Christ before one’s eyes and beholding in Him the heart of God poured out in love.” Eternal life is to believe in the God whose originally wonderful and yet shocking love for us looks like the gift of His only Son lifted up upon the cross. Eternal life is to allow the God who loves the world in this way to penetrate our hearts and minds, renewing our entire being as the Spirit of the risen and ascended Christ lives and dwells in us. Eternal life is a blessed life that is freed from the confines and limitations of sin and death precisely because it is the bestowing upon us, or rather our participation in, the very resurrected life of Jesus. Furthermore, because the resurrection life of Jesus is central to our understanding of eternal life we cannot begin to grasp the effects of this eternal life apart from seeing the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as an event which paves the way for the resurrection and renewal of all things. The resurrection of Jesus and our experience of his eternal life right now points towards the time when the whole of creation will experience this in all of its fullness of glory. This is a time when the glory of the Lord will not only fill the temple, as Isaiah prophesied, but will fill the whole wide world: “Indeed,” writes John, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might saved through him,” (3:17).

How can we say that this is the sort of life available to those who would believe in Christ Jesus when our experience of the world is very often difficult if not seemingly mundane? Indeed, sin and death are still very much a reality for us, as they were for Jesus. This is because time as we know it is the time of our fallen world which is marked by decay and corruption and above all sinful history (T.F. Torrance). If you need evidence of this I might just point towards some of the news headlines from this past week. Or, lest we be tempted to think that the reality of sin and death only exist “out there”, we might turn our gaze inwards. Yet it is within this very time that the Father gave us His Eternal Son who is our very life (Gal. 2:20). The eternal life we experience now is in part. Then, when God renews all things and the whole world is filled with His glory, it shall be in full. Eternal life is life with God in his kingdom, whether that kingdom is on earth or in heaven. It is to share in the resurrection life of Jesus and, simply put, this transforms everything. The experience of eternal life is so unlike our usual experience of time, it is so unique and new, that the only fitting way to talk about experiencing it is to speak in terms of being born again, into a new world. Today we celebrate with Charlotte and her family as she, through baptism, is born anew. Charlotte, after your baptism you will be forever changed because your life will be connected with the life of Jesus and his Spirit will live in you so that you are a new creation. Friends, as we renew our baptismal vows along with Charlotte, may we see that at our baptism the Holy Spirit came upon us. May we see that together, the very Spirit of the risen Christ dwells in us. You are a new creation. Christ has made you his brother, his sister, and as such you are a child of God. This is true of you. Let us then live by the Spirit, being nourished by the same source which brought us into being (Augustine), and anticipate the life that is to come for all. Amen.

“How can these things be?”

John Calvin, commenting on Nicodemus’ question to Jesus in John 3:9 (“How can these things be?”) says:

There is no worse obstacle to us than our own pride; for we always want to be wiser than is proper, and therefore we reject with devilish pride everything that is not explained to our reason, as if it were fair to limit God’s infinite power to our poor capacity. We may indeed inquire into the manner and reason of God’s works to a certain extent, with sobriety and reverence. But Nicodemus rejects it as a fable with the objection that he does not think it possible.

Indeed. How often we get frustrated, angry, or just plain ambivalent towards God because we do not understand His ways. It is as if we want to be able to trust in God without faith getting in the way. Faith is that which keeps us trusting even when we do not fully understand or see. Faith is what sustains us in this time between the times, living as we are between the ascension of Christ and his parousia (return).