Sunday Sermon: 2 Epiphany (preached @ St Pauls, Mpls)
The Rev. Aron Kramer 2 Epiphany January 20, 2008
How many of you here today are Aries, born between March 21 and April 20? The animal symbol of Aries is the Ram, but that, it turns out, is only a recent phenomenon, it was known for many years as “teleh”, which to the Latins, meant “male lamb.” The book of Revelation identifies Aries as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David. The sign of Aries was always pictured as a male lamb with its head reverted backwards, looking over its shoulder at the emerging Taurus, the next constellation arising out of the cosmos. Only a being with a broken neck could look over its shoulder as the animal sign for Aries does, and yet, the sign shows the lamb still standing, still upright even with its neck broken. It becomes quite clear then that Aries was the perfect choice with which to identify Jesus and his life that would eventually be broken on a cross, only to see him standing upright again as a resurrected being, looking back as we follow and emerge into the holiness God has for us all. The Lamb of God does away with all that preceded it, it is a new beginning, a new life and a new age. John testifies to that for us and we are to believe that God is doing something new among us and for us.
The late Anthony de Mello liked to tell a story of two taxidermists who stopped before a window in which an owl was on display. They immediately began to criticize the way in which it was mounted. Its eyes were not natural, its wings were not in proportion with its head, its feathers were not neatly arranged, and its feet could certainly be improved! When they had finished critiquing the owl, they looked at each other self-satisfied with their evaluations. Then, suddenly, the old bird slowly turned its head, and winked at both of them. The Gospel of John, similarly calls us to look again at our faith, at our dogma and our rules for belonging. Many people have used this Gospel as a tool for deciding who is in and who is out. Many have used this Gospel to produce hatred and fear among people and therefore division. Many have used this Gospel to further the heretical belief that God is not a living, present and active God, but a distant, far away God that cares little for creation and for the most part is finished with Gods work on earth. However, John’s Gospel is one of the most vivid scriptural accounts we have of Gods living legacy in our world and even in our lives today.
I was told recently of an Episcopal parish, somewhere out west that includes among its actively pledging, attending and serving people, a group whose members have one other important thing in common – they do not believe in God. I wondered when I heard of it, if perhaps we have finally and truly become an inclusive church. Then I thought, what better place for atheists to be, both for themselves and for all the rest of us hangers-on, than in a church where they may not only freely challenge the appropriated theology just by their mere presence, but where we might learn that the God of our understanding is altogether more prodigious than our understanding of God. This is the Gospel of John, knowing that the God of our understanding is altogether more amazing and marvelous than our own understanding of God. John spills forth with language that is rich and beautiful, weaving a magnificent narrative tapestry, filled with language that requires silence, silence to let it sit and stir in your soul, silence that allows the hearer to truly inwardly digest and understand how God is alive today and changing and working and transforming ones life. For John’s Gospel is important if we are to believe that we can affect change of any sort in the world and if we believe that God is effecting change in our own lives as well.
Joan Chittister, a Roman Catholic nun wrote in her book, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope, “The kind of change that shocks us into new beginnings is the kind of change that gives us new life.” What a description of conversion. I remember many years ago, at Holy Apostles Episcopal Church, going through my first Teens Encounter Christ weekend. We had just done the final transforming Eucharist and I was being pulled around by this effervescent young woman jumping from room to room and singing at the top of our lungs the songs we had learned to sing to celebrate our love and praise for Christ in our lives. I describe that moment as the day my life went from Black and White TV to color. It was that shocking new beginning that changed my life and gave me new life and new hope for my future.
Two of John’s disciples follow Jesus after he declares Jesus as the Lamb of God. Andrew is one and the other we do not know. It is this unidentified Disciple of John that I want to speculate for a few moments upon. The text says nothing of what happened to that individual. Some commentators I have read said that this is the beloved disciple of Jesus, the first introduction of that individual. Others say it is the disciple who was close to the chief priests, the disciple who would eventually turn Jesus over to the authorities. Still others say that this disciple after spending the afternoon with Jesus and Andrew just wasn’t impressed and decided not to respond to the word as John had proclaimed him. I like this final interpretation best because it speaks to how we respond to conversion in our lives. Andrew, having heard Jesus’ teaching goes out and retrieves his brother and suddenly Jesus has a couple of disciples, not to mention the rock upon which the Church would eventually be built. Andrew responds to Jesus teaching by asking another, someone extraordinarily close to him we can presume, his brother, to come and hear the words of this rabbi, Jesus. Most of us know the story of what happens from there on out.
But what of this second unidentified disciple? I like to think he or she returned to John, preferring the comfort of his past, the comfort of John’s leadership, a leadership that he or she knew. To follow this Jesus would have been to take a big leap of faith. It would have required new thinking, new paths, and new ideas about what the world was like and how we were to live in it. John had been preaching and teaching for some time before Jesus came into the picture, what was wrong with what John had to say about the world and God in that world? I imagine this unidentified disciple hearing things that were probably similar to John’s teaching, but a little skewed to one direction or another more than they would have liked. I imagine this person saying, well, John said that in one form or another, therefore I do not need to hear this because it is nothing new. The comfort of John’s teaching, of John’s leadership, of John’s institution was enough and change was not needed at this juncture, even at the behest of John himself.
Joan Chittister, in that same book writes, “The first gift of struggle is the call to conversion – the call to think differently about who God is and who I am as an individual. It calls us to think again about what life really means and how I go about being in the world.” John’s call was a call to conversion, a call to think about God differently, a call to imagine a new way of life in a world that was rife with poverty and disease, and in need of great healing. John was calling us to live a life focused on conversion, focused on the changes in our life and how we respond to them. Not by, as Chittister says, “attempting to cement today into eternity, but by embracing the welcome of the tomorrow and opening our heart to the grace of new possibilities.” Change is difficult, but it is inevitable, we grow older, we shift our thinking, we adjust the way we live. Conversion, on the other hand, is near impossible, and far from inevitable, it is easy for us to resist conversion, conversion is more than just change, it is more than making a simple adjustment, conversion is about looking and seeing God in a new way, and then responding to that experience in a way that changes our life or the life of the community that conversion took place in. Conversion calls us to imagination. Imagining a God near us, not far from us. Imagining a God active in the life of this community, not absent from it. Imagining that the God of our understanding is more sublime than our understanding of God.
Neal deGrasse Tyson, an Astrophysicist blew my mind the other day on a radio program when he said, “The cosmos and human life have more in common than we can ever imagine. The number one ingredient in human life is hydrogen, same for the cosmos. The second ingredient in human life is oxygen, same for the cosmos. The third ingredient in human life is carbon, so it is for the cosmos. So it goes as far as we have been able to scientifically determine one for one in human life and the make up of the cosmos. It is not just that we are in the cosmos, but also that the cosmos is in us.” I have a sinking feeling that John knew that. He knew that all of life was linked and created in such a way that it could not be put asunder. The Lamb of God does away with all that preceded and all that followed; it is a new beginning, a new life and a new age. John testifies to that for us and we are to believe that God is doing something new among us and for us.
How many of you here today are Aries, born between March 21 and April 20? The animal symbol of Aries is the Ram, but that, it turns out, is only a recent phenomenon, it was known for many years as “teleh”, which to the Latins, meant “male lamb.” The book of Revelation identifies Aries as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David. The sign of Aries was always pictured as a male lamb with its head reverted backwards, looking over its shoulder at the emerging Taurus, the next constellation arising out of the cosmos. Only a being with a broken neck could look over its shoulder as the animal sign for Aries does, and yet, the sign shows the lamb still standing, still upright even with its neck broken. It becomes quite clear then that Aries was the perfect choice with which to identify Jesus and his life that would eventually be broken on a cross, only to see him standing upright again as a resurrected being, looking back as we follow and emerge into the holiness God has for us all. The Lamb of God does away with all that preceded it, it is a new beginning, a new life and a new age. John testifies to that for us and we are to believe that God is doing something new among us and for us.
The late Anthony de Mello liked to tell a story of two taxidermists who stopped before a window in which an owl was on display. They immediately began to criticize the way in which it was mounted. Its eyes were not natural, its wings were not in proportion with its head, its feathers were not neatly arranged, and its feet could certainly be improved! When they had finished critiquing the owl, they looked at each other self-satisfied with their evaluations. Then, suddenly, the old bird slowly turned its head, and winked at both of them. The Gospel of John, similarly calls us to look again at our faith, at our dogma and our rules for belonging. Many people have used this Gospel as a tool for deciding who is in and who is out. Many have used this Gospel to produce hatred and fear among people and therefore division. Many have used this Gospel to further the heretical belief that God is not a living, present and active God, but a distant, far away God that cares little for creation and for the most part is finished with Gods work on earth. However, John’s Gospel is one of the most vivid scriptural accounts we have of Gods living legacy in our world and even in our lives today.
I was told recently of an Episcopal parish, somewhere out west that includes among its actively pledging, attending and serving people, a group whose members have one other important thing in common – they do not believe in God. I wondered when I heard of it, if perhaps we have finally and truly become an inclusive church. Then I thought, what better place for atheists to be, both for themselves and for all the rest of us hangers-on, than in a church where they may not only freely challenge the appropriated theology just by their mere presence, but where we might learn that the God of our understanding is altogether more prodigious than our understanding of God. This is the Gospel of John, knowing that the God of our understanding is altogether more amazing and marvelous than our own understanding of God. John spills forth with language that is rich and beautiful, weaving a magnificent narrative tapestry, filled with language that requires silence, silence to let it sit and stir in your soul, silence that allows the hearer to truly inwardly digest and understand how God is alive today and changing and working and transforming ones life. For John’s Gospel is important if we are to believe that we can affect change of any sort in the world and if we believe that God is effecting change in our own lives as well.
Joan Chittister, a Roman Catholic nun wrote in her book, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope, “The kind of change that shocks us into new beginnings is the kind of change that gives us new life.” What a description of conversion. I remember many years ago, at Holy Apostles Episcopal Church, going through my first Teens Encounter Christ weekend. We had just done the final transforming Eucharist and I was being pulled around by this effervescent young woman jumping from room to room and singing at the top of our lungs the songs we had learned to sing to celebrate our love and praise for Christ in our lives. I describe that moment as the day my life went from Black and White TV to color. It was that shocking new beginning that changed my life and gave me new life and new hope for my future.
Two of John’s disciples follow Jesus after he declares Jesus as the Lamb of God. Andrew is one and the other we do not know. It is this unidentified Disciple of John that I want to speculate for a few moments upon. The text says nothing of what happened to that individual. Some commentators I have read said that this is the beloved disciple of Jesus, the first introduction of that individual. Others say it is the disciple who was close to the chief priests, the disciple who would eventually turn Jesus over to the authorities. Still others say that this disciple after spending the afternoon with Jesus and Andrew just wasn’t impressed and decided not to respond to the word as John had proclaimed him. I like this final interpretation best because it speaks to how we respond to conversion in our lives. Andrew, having heard Jesus’ teaching goes out and retrieves his brother and suddenly Jesus has a couple of disciples, not to mention the rock upon which the Church would eventually be built. Andrew responds to Jesus teaching by asking another, someone extraordinarily close to him we can presume, his brother, to come and hear the words of this rabbi, Jesus. Most of us know the story of what happens from there on out.
But what of this second unidentified disciple? I like to think he or she returned to John, preferring the comfort of his past, the comfort of John’s leadership, a leadership that he or she knew. To follow this Jesus would have been to take a big leap of faith. It would have required new thinking, new paths, and new ideas about what the world was like and how we were to live in it. John had been preaching and teaching for some time before Jesus came into the picture, what was wrong with what John had to say about the world and God in that world? I imagine this unidentified disciple hearing things that were probably similar to John’s teaching, but a little skewed to one direction or another more than they would have liked. I imagine this person saying, well, John said that in one form or another, therefore I do not need to hear this because it is nothing new. The comfort of John’s teaching, of John’s leadership, of John’s institution was enough and change was not needed at this juncture, even at the behest of John himself.
Joan Chittister, in that same book writes, “The first gift of struggle is the call to conversion – the call to think differently about who God is and who I am as an individual. It calls us to think again about what life really means and how I go about being in the world.” John’s call was a call to conversion, a call to think about God differently, a call to imagine a new way of life in a world that was rife with poverty and disease, and in need of great healing. John was calling us to live a life focused on conversion, focused on the changes in our life and how we respond to them. Not by, as Chittister says, “attempting to cement today into eternity, but by embracing the welcome of the tomorrow and opening our heart to the grace of new possibilities.” Change is difficult, but it is inevitable, we grow older, we shift our thinking, we adjust the way we live. Conversion, on the other hand, is near impossible, and far from inevitable, it is easy for us to resist conversion, conversion is more than just change, it is more than making a simple adjustment, conversion is about looking and seeing God in a new way, and then responding to that experience in a way that changes our life or the life of the community that conversion took place in. Conversion calls us to imagination. Imagining a God near us, not far from us. Imagining a God active in the life of this community, not absent from it. Imagining that the God of our understanding is more sublime than our understanding of God.
Neal deGrasse Tyson, an Astrophysicist blew my mind the other day on a radio program when he said, “The cosmos and human life have more in common than we can ever imagine. The number one ingredient in human life is hydrogen, same for the cosmos. The second ingredient in human life is oxygen, same for the cosmos. The third ingredient in human life is carbon, so it is for the cosmos. So it goes as far as we have been able to scientifically determine one for one in human life and the make up of the cosmos. It is not just that we are in the cosmos, but also that the cosmos is in us.” I have a sinking feeling that John knew that. He knew that all of life was linked and created in such a way that it could not be put asunder. The Lamb of God does away with all that preceded and all that followed; it is a new beginning, a new life and a new age. John testifies to that for us and we are to believe that God is doing something new among us and for us.
Comments