Sermon (Fr. Peay) Ash Wednesday 2018

“Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

When we hear that simple little rhyme that goes along with a child’s game the last thing that comes into our mind is a devastating plague. But, as we all quickly discover, looks can be deceiving. It is thought that this rhyme dates back to the time of the bubonic plague; the ‘ring around the rosy’ described the bubo, or lesion that developed as a symptom. Ashes spoke of the almost certain death for one so afflicted and the truth that, eventually, “we all fall down.” Morbid? No. It’s an attempt to overcome devastation and panic in the face of something we can’t control. It’s a means, like comedy or any number of things we use, to try to manage our rather unmanageable world.

                Now when I think of that rhyme my mind goes back to September 11, 2001 and the billowing, choking clouds of dust and ash that came from those devastated buildings. Ashes, ashes, all fall down. Annie Dillard captures something of the mood and spirit that sometimes overtakes us when we confront the ashes of our world.

Ashes, ashes, all fall down. How could I have forgotten? Didn’t I see the heavens wiped shut just yesterday, on the road walking? Didn’t I fall from the dark of the stars to these senselit and noisome days? The great ridged granite millstone of time is illusion, for only the good is real; the great ridged granite millstone of space is illusion, for god is spirit and worlds his flimsiest dreams: but the illusions are almost perfect, are apparently perfect for generations on end, and the pain is also, and undeniably, real. The pain within the millstones’ pitiless turning is real, for our love for each other – for the world and all the products of extension – is real, vaulting, insofar as it is love, beyond the plane of the stones’ sickening churn and arcing to the realm of spirit bare. And you can get caught holding one end of a love, when your father drops, and your mother; when a land is lost, or a time, and your friend blotted out, gone, your brother’s body spoiled, and cold, your infant dead, and you dying: you reel out love’s long line alone, stripped like a live wire loosing its sparks to a cloud, like a live wire loosed in space to longing and grief everlasting.

 Dillard’s words are powerful, but as she reels out the line she forgets that the one whose dream is our reality is also the source of love and waits for us. Out of the ashes of sorrow, of disappointment, when things seem gritty and ground to dust, that’s when we send out a line to God who catches it and who knows, because God cared enough to become one of us. Looks can be deceiving and God can come in ways we can’t even begin to imagine.

                Did you know that the World Trade Center held millions of dollars in gold down in its deep vaults? There were also millions of dollars in jewels there as well. In the midst of all those ashes, there was treasure. So it is with our lives. Gold gleams inside us in our will to do the right and to be loving people. The light dances on the jewels of our hopes and dreams. And the gold and jewels within us glitters even when they’re shrouded in ashes.

                Sometimes ashes indicate that something’s been reduced to it essential nature. Perhaps we need the ashes to remind us that things aren’t what they seem, that looks can often be deceiving and that God can do wonders in the midst of the ashes of our lives. Perhaps, too, we need those ashes to remind us of who we are and of what we’re made, so that we can get on with the business of growing into what we’re destined to become – united with God.

                Lent is a season of reflection, reconsideration, stocktaking, and priority making. Use the season to find the treasure of your heart – that is your heart. Use it to discover that things aren’t what they seem and that those ashes might just be concealing a treasure or be fertilizer for the next stage of your growth. Walk with Christ the path of the Passion and see the eternal now become present to you.

            You see, Lent is more than “give ups;” there are take ups, too. Taking up a renewed commitment to live our lives toward God and away from fear, or hurt, or jealousy can make for a holy Lent. For that matter, learning to realize, as Sam Wells has so brilliantly shown in his book GOD’S COMPANIONS, that we are to realize the abundance we have and not be constantly thinking that everything is scarce. Taking up the right attitude, the attitude that looks to God and others, and away from self, can make all of the difference in how we live, but also in how we feel. Taking up the opening of the treasures of our lives to the world around us

            Taking up a spiritual discipline for the 40 days of Lent can tune us up and make our lives more effective witnesses to the love of God, which this whole season is about. Lent calls us to be a bit more systematic in our daily prayer and Bible reading, or in attending services of worship. We have a tremendous heritage in the Anglican tradition, the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. We don’t need a lot of special books on reading the Bible and prayer – use the Prayer Book. The offices of Morning and Evening Prayer are designed to plunge us into Scripture. If you do the Psalms as they are set up in the BCP you’ll do all 150 every month. Working through the assigned readings will take you through the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice in the year. All by taking just a few minutes morning and evening to step aside and give some intentional time to God. Add to that doing an intentional “good deed” and we may set the stage for a whole new way of seeing ourselves and those around us. 

Putting our lives into the midst of God’s life is far more important than making a tick next to successfully avoiding chocolate for 40 days. After all, as the great father of the early Church, Irenaeus told us, “God’s glory, human beings fully alive.” Truly, God GLORIES in us, that’s why Jesus came among us. Lenten discipline is designed to make up more fully alive to God. The ashes we will receive are signs of a renewed commitment to be God’s people, and to follow Christ’s way. Out of ashes good things can rise.

                Ashes can be deceiving, indeed. I was in New York and saw a new building that rose where the World Trade Center stood.  A single, taller, tower marks the spot and life continues afresh. “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes we all fall down.” Ah, but for the Christian we discover that there is a different end to the rhyme. We may fall down, but we get up. We are a Resurrection people. Have a blessed and fruitful Lent.

Sermon (Fr. Peay) February 11, 2018

“And he was transfigured before them.”

            The dictionary tells us that to be transfigured means “to give a new and typically exalted or spiritual appearance to: transform outwardly and usually for the better.” Mark’s Gospel recounts the transfiguration of Jesus, his new, exalted spiritual appearance, in terms of his garments: “his garments became gleaming.” The garments reflect the glory of the one who wears them, in other words, what is happening is that the glory of Jesus, the God-man, has been hidden from view right up unto this moment and now begins to come out, to be uncovered and in a spectacular way. The Greek word Mark uses here means to gleam, to glitter, to glisten, and it’s the only time it’s used in the New Testament. The light, the glory that has been unseen – save in the glimpses of his teaching and actions – comes out in full force and it overawes Peter, James and John.

            Some scholars look at this passage and see Mark taking a post-Resurrection experience and moving it back in the narrative. One can’t argue that the transfigured Jesus comes off a great deal like the Resurrected Lord in this passage. However, I, surprise, surprise, hold on to the traditional view that this is a moment of foreshadowing, a moment in which the Lord is fully-revealed to his disciples to prepare them for the horrors of the Lord’s passion and death. This moment, on the mountain, is a foretaste of the glory so that they can endure and hold-on through the events that lie ahead of them. Why do I think that, well let’s look at the text.

            Jesus is joined by two important figures Elijah and Moses. Both of these great prophets suffered because of their faithfulness to God, both of them endured great hardship so that the people of God might be kept in the right path in their journey toward God. It makes perfect sense that these two figures – traditionally thought to represent the Prophets and the Law – come to consult with Jesus as he is preparing to go to Jerusalem and to the cross. What is meant for us to understand here is that in Jesus we encounter the fulfillment of God to the people of Israel, the Law and the Prophets find their realization in the person and the work of Jesus.

            While they’re speaking Jesus is overshadowed by a cloud. The Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, are loaded with references to clouds, which symbolize God’s glory and power. It also doesn’t hurt for us to remember that, in addition, the cloud symbolizes both hope and life. Why? Because in Palestine it rains only from October to April, the cloud is the sign of the rains that will insure the continuation of life itself. So the cloud reminds us that God is the author of life and the ground of our hope. This God speaks and says that those who would know life and hope must learn to do something – listen. God says “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” Don’t argue, don’t theorize, don’t balk, don’t anything – listen. Perhaps that is one of the points that we need to take away from this recounting of transfiguration: that we’re to become a listening – and thus an obedient people. Because the root of the word obedience means to “to listen” and when we listen deeply we respond appropriately.

            I guess if we’re going to describe this event, we’re looking at a Christophany. We’re looking at the manifestation, the self-revelation of who Jesus really is and in that moment there’s a connection. That’s what Paul is saying in his writing to the church at Corinth, “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” God, in Christ, is giving us a glimpse of the inward light to which all of us are called and in which all of us share. This is the reality of the image and likeness of God in which we were created. The difficulty is, however, that we have lost the likeness while we retained the image, and that is why it’s difficult for us to see God at work in us or in the world around us. It’s the reason why God became one of us, in Jesus the Christ, so that we might be restored to the wholeness God intended for us to have.

            John Shea does a great job in summarizing how the late twentieth century Swiss theologian Paul Tillich described the human situation. Shea writes: “Paul Tillich described sin as a state of estrangement comprised of three interlocking factors: In unbelief people turned away from their grounding in God. This left them isolated and turned in on themselves in hubris. This hubris [exaggerated pride or self-confidence] unfolded into a panicky concupiscence [to desire strongly], in which people tried to pull the world into themselves to fill the hole that was created when they turned away from God. Unbelief, hubris, and concupiscence were the deep dynamics of the countless individual sin people commit.”

            Now, think for a moment about life in the world around us. Think about the situation we find ourselves in politically. Do you think that, just maybe, what we’re seeing is the result of the behaviors we saw in Shea’s summary of Tillich? Could it be that our society has so trivialized the concept of sin – turning it into all of the little misdemeanors people have been whacked with for years – that we’ve forgotten that the real sin is the covering of the Divine spark within us through selfishness and self-centeredness?

            When Jesus was transfigured, when the glory in him made his garments glitter, it wasn’t for him – it was for us. To use John’s language, the Light shone in the darkness so that we could see, so that we could come to a new understanding of ourselves in relationship to God and in relationship to each other. The whole point of Jesus work among us is so that we can understand that the light in us isn’t supposed to stay hidden under a bushel, but is to be put out on a lampstand so that others can benefit from the light. The light is inward, but it radiates OUTWARD.

            I came across a wonderful book on the spirituality of Meister Eckhart by Cyprian Smith. It’s called The Way of Paradox: Spiritual Life As Taught by Meister Eckhart. Eckhart’s point, Smith says, is that we come to God so that we can then understand the world around us. The light of God is supposed to be in us so that we can then see and live as God would have us live, in tune with God and with all of creation. Smith writes: “It is possible for human beings, living, thinking, and acting in God, to think, see, and do, as God does. Instead of standing within the created world, looking in it for signs of a God who is outside it, we stand within God, and it is the world which now appears outside. When we stand within the world, God appears as totally transcendent and ‘other.’ When we stand within God, however, it is the world which appears as ‘other,’ but not by any means transcendent; on the contrary, we are greater than it. It appears as a pale and imperfect reflection of the dazzling and brilliant Truth in which we are living and making our home.” That truth – dazzling and brilliant – is our life caught up in and transfigured by the life of Christ, living in us.

            Jesus was transfigured before them, and by extension, us, so that we might benefit and learn that we’re to benefit others. God has restored to us, in Christ, the fullness of our humanity. God has brought the Divine spark in us to the level of flame. The point of the inward light is that it is to radiate outward, it is to light the world and the way to the common good, which brings us into God.

            Each day we – you and I – are to bring the mountain-top down to the everyday. The glitter and gleam of the moment of transfiguration is to come into a world that is alienated, broken and hurting and living in darkness. You and I, Christians, ordinary human beings touched by the presence of God through the Holy Spirit, we are the means by which that inward light radiates outward. We work and grow in the spiritual life not so that we can achieve enlightenment or come to a higher state, or know come to some superior spiritual position. For Christians to be self-centered spiritually is to miss the point, rather we seek, we grow, we work to have in us the mind of Christ, to be in God so that we can embrace, heal, renew and transform this world in which we live.

            Bottom line, what that requires is that we move away from self-focus and move to focus on God in Christ and then outward from there. We do this by practicing the spiritual disciplines – and you can learn more about those all during the Sundays of Lent as I teach a class on Being God’s People -- but suffice it to say, it begins with taking the time to pray, to get into God’s Word, and then to practice our faith through living in an unselfish manner. Jesus was transfigured before them and the inward light radiated outward…..the inward light, in you and in me, needs to shine – so let it.

Sermon (Fr. Peay) February 4, 2018

"I became all things to all men. . . ."

Have you ever wondered how Paul accomplished the task of becoming all things to all people? Was he a master of many forms, a human chameleon, or an incredible con artist? Like the story of Frank Abagnale, Jr. which became the movie “Catch me if you can??” He was able to pass himself off, quite convincingly, as a physician, an airline pilot, what have you, at least for a while. Or, do you think Paul was simply insecure in his own self-hood or possessed of MPD, a multiple personality disorder?

I don't think Paul was a con artist, nor was he mentally ill. Paul was intimate with God and, ideally, one who is intimate with the Creator of all life shares the Creator's intimacy with all of created reality. Paul had the ability to become all things to all people, gained the freedom to submit himself as a "slave to all" because he had entered the freedom of intimacy as a "partaker of Divine nature."

Our society seeks intimacy, but we go about achieving it in all the wrong ways. It cannot be forced and it cannot come as the result of technology. Intimacy, defined by some psychologists as "the strength which allows one to share deeply with others," is the gift of God. God modeled true intimacy for us in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ; when he, literally, "got under our skin." We will begin to achieve true intimacy when we open ourselves to the reality of our ability to share in Divine nature. The great writers of the Christian East knew this and wrote about the internal struggle - what some contemporary scholars might refer to as "cognitive dissonance" - going on inside us. They understood that before one can achieve intimacy with others it must be achieved with the self. The only way intimacy with the self can be achieved is by entering into intimacy with the Creator of the self.

Here is what Gregory of Nyssa had to say: “Man, who among beings counts for nothing, who is dust, grass, vanity, who was adopted to be a son of the God of the universe, becomes the friend of this Being of such excellence and grandeur; this is a mystery that we can neither see nor understand nor comprehend. What thanks should man give for so great a favor? What word, what thought, what lifting up of mind in order to exalt the superabundance of this grace? Man surpasses his own very nature. From a mortal being he becomes immortal; from a perishable being he becomes imperishable. From ephemeral he becomes eternal. In a word, from man he becomes god. In fact, rendered worthy to become a son of God, he will have in himself the dignity of the Father, enriched by all the inheritance of the goods of the Father. O munificence of the Lord, so bountiful. . . .How great are the gifts of such ineffable treasures!”

Elsewhere Gregory tells us how we gain this gift. "For one who is a man becomes a son of God by being joined to Christ by spiritual generation; -- a man puts off himself and puts on the divine nature. A man becomes a son of God, receiving what he has not and laying aside what he is."

What Gregory is talking about here is the process of entheosis or divinisation. This is why Christ came among us. This is the kingdom of God come near that he preached; as he said to Peter, "for that is why I came out." God initiated the concept of intimacy in the Garden of Eden when he called after Adam and Eve, "Where are you?" Now, through his Incarnate Son, he gives us the gift and to a greater degree than anyone ever thought possible.

To be "in God" (entheosis) or "divinised" doesn't change our nature. Rather it builds upon it, restoring our human nature to what it was supposed to be like. Athanasius of Mount Sinai wrote, "Theosis (Divinization) is the elevation to what is better, but not the reduction of our human nature to something less, nor is it an essential change of our human nature. A divine plan, it is the willing condescension of tremendous dimension by God, which He did for the salvation of others. That which is of God is that which has been lifted up to a greater glory, without its own nature being changed."

Think about the implications of this divinization. You and I, creations of the hand of the God upon whom "no one can look and live" are now invited to share his life and to call him 'abba,' daddy! We are given the strength to share deeply with God. How do we achieve this sharing, how do we enter into intimacy with the Divine?

We achieve intimacy by using the means God has given us. First, we must open ourselves to God and stop running away when he comes looking for us. We do that by prayer. Jesus goes out "very early in the morning" and seeks solitude so that he can be solus cum solo - alone with the alone. The second person of the Divine Trinity needed to spend time with the Father. Do you think we can expect to grow or develop in spiritual life and do less? I hope not; we all realize that the key to intimacy is sharing and communication, it's really no different for spiritual intimacy.

We also have to realize that prayer is not just "talking to God," but involves our meditative listening as well. If you want a good little basic book on prayer, I think Anthony Bloom's Beginning to Pray is excellent.

The second means God gives us to achieve intimacy are the sacraments. Through baptism we are adopted into God's family and made part of the covenanted community. Our participation in the Eucharist - God's good gift to us - is truly a 'communion,' a coming into union with God. As Augustine tells us, we are made one with what we see before us on the table. Simple, every day things like bread and wine become living reminders of our participation in the Divine.

The third means God gives us to achieve intimacy, and this one is really part and parcel of the first two, is the Holy Scriptures. The way we can listen for God is by being open to hearing what his Word has to say. While the Bible is the "norm for which there is no higher norm," I think we need to realize that God can speak through a variety of means. Thus, our study should begin with the Scripture and branch out into theology, spiritual writers, and into all the arts and sciences. The God who made all of created reality can speak to us through it, if we have open minds and are listening with the "ears of the heart."

As we begin to grow in this Divine intimacy we will learn to exercise it in freedom. The manner in which we relate to our loved ones, to the community of faith, and to the community at large is going to be markedly different. Where before we had to "protect ourselves," we no longer have to do so, because, as Isaiah so beautifully put it, "those who wait upon the Lord renew their strength," mounting up "on eagles' wings." We can become "all things to all people" because we know who we are in relationship to the God who made all people. The perfect love of God, then, casts out our fears and allows us to see ourselves, and everyone around us, in a new way. I am free to be who I am because I finally know it!

This partaking in Divine nature is not some kind of stunt. Jesus distanced himself from those who simply wanted to see him as a "worker of wonders." He wanted to preach the possibility of Divine intimacy, the nearness of the Kingdom within the heart and life of every human being made anew in the image and likeness of God. Paul caught the same vision, thus his words, "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel!" The freedom of intimacy is compelling.

When Jesus left the village and went off to pray, he did so because the wonders were becoming more important than the Word. The message of change and growth was being lost, so he left and went elsewhere. Over the centuries, even now, we lose the message. We want the effects - the healings, the ecstasies, and the like - but we don't want to change. God should just do this for us.

That's not what it's about. Those who enter into Divine intimacy have to come away different than they were. The greatest wonder is that God empowers us, them, to make a difference. It's unfortunate that so many Christians are still getting caught up in the empty promise of the "wonder working" and missing the greatest gift - intimacy, union with the Divine. The freedom of intimacy comes when we partake of Divine nature, when we allow ourselves to be recipients and practitioners of measureless love.