Yielding to the Realm of the Spirit

Sermon preached The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, Eighth Sunday After Pentecost (July 6, 2008 )

Readings: Gen 24:34-38, 42-49, 68-67; S of S 2:8-13; Rom 7:15-25a; Mt 11:16-19, 25-30.

“Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom 7:24-5

What a jumble of conflicting feelings we human beings have, and how artfully are they on display in today’s readings! The coldly contracted marriage between Isaac and Rebekah contrasts with the romantic love poem of the Song of Solomon. The courageous freedom counselled by Jesus has its counterpoint in Paul’s earnest self-reproach. This emotional range speaks to us in our human condition – constraint and freedom; love and guilt; divine initiative and human choice.

I want to concentrate on Paul, though, whose own skill in expressing the range of his own emotion has made him both famous and infamous. Now, I myself experience ambivalence in my reactions to Paul. On the one hand, I’m always moved by the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, Paul’s hymn of praise to the perfect gift of love. But on the other hand, we have passages like this: “I know that nothing good dwells within me,” he says, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.” And concerning the evil Paul does commit, he says, “it is [not] I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” And he ends this section with the lament, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” The answer, of course, is Jesus Christ.

What Paul is this? It is not the sublime, transcendental Paul who said that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” It is not the bold, confident Paul who asserts, “The trumpet shall sound…and we shall be changed.” This is not even the angry, hurt, and scolding Paul of Second Corinthians and Galatians. No, this seems to be another Paul – a Paul who loathes himself, one who cannot or will not take responsibility for his actions – “It is not I, but sin that dwells within me!” Wallowing in self-pity and self-recrimination, Paul’s internal judge and jury has found him guilty of being possessed of no good thing, of occupying a body of death.

Unfortunately, this has become the dominant idea of Paul in the Church. Karl Barth, in his definitive 1921 commentary on Romans, wrote: “Conflict and distress, sin and death, the devil and hell, make up the reality of religion. So far from releasing men from guilt and destiny, it brings men under their sway. Religion is the misfortune which every human being has to endure, though it is, in the majority of cases, a hidden suffering.” “Well, this is not a very useful preaching help,” I sadly conclude.

But I think exploring Barth’s interpretation is important, because it still resonates in the Church, and in how Paul is understood – incorrectly understood. It is an understanding of Pauline theology that has nurtured a kind of Pharisaic legalism in many Christians – a sense that we are inveterate no-goodniks, crippled by evil impulses, yet saved through the grace of God nonetheless. We’re helpless, suffering bystanders, watching as sin and Spirit wage war on the battlefield of our bodies.

This is a profound misunderstanding of Paul’s anthropology. Just as my caricature of Paul as a self-loathing, helpless whiner is a little over the top. Confronted with the passage we heard from Paul’s letter to the community in Rome, we can’t help but be struck by the personal, confidential tone of Paul’s confession. So smitten are we by this little autobiographical gem, this insight into the psychology of the great, last apostle, we cannot see the real story behind the rhetoric. For what we have here is not an emotionally wracked Paul, but Paul in the role of author and missionary, deploying his fine skill as a master of diatribe. And while this passage does give us insight into Paul’s psychology, it is not the personal, intimate portrait we have long assumed.

Many commentators have suggested that this passage is one of the most important in Romans, and one of the most controversial. In an important article entitled “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Krister Stendahl zeroes in on it. He notes that the passage is not primarily concerned with Paul’s own predicament, or even that of humanity. Rather, Paul is here engaged in an argument about Torah, the law. This is really the story behind the story in the whole letter. Paul is eager to defend the law as, in his own words, “holy, just, and good.” His means of doing so is to distinguish between it – the law which is spiritual – and the realm of sin, which leads to fatality. “It is not I who do evil, but the sin which dwells within me.” This distinction allows Paul to blame sin and flesh, and to rescue law – Torah – as a good gift of God.

This rather trivial observation, that we all know there is a difference between what we ought to do and what we actually do, has morphed into the common view that Paul has rendered a penetrating insight into the nature of human beings. The real purpose of the passage – the nature and intention of God’s law – has been lost.

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about this misunderstanding is that many Christians have turned Paul into a Gnostic, much like they themselves are. Like the Gnostics, they see the human condition as one of pure spirit trapped in evil matter. This clearly denies the full humanity of our Lord, who, in his earthly ministry, was as flesh and blood as you or me. Jesus had hopes, fears, loves, temptations – all on display for us in the biographies of him written by his followers. Moreover, such an interpretation contradicts Paul’s own views – he who said that the body is God’s temple, and that the Spirit of God dwells within it. Note – not imprisoned in your body, but dwelling in it.

The insight that this passage and much of Romans offers into Paul’s psychology is that of his dualism. He sees reality divided into two spiritual realms – one of God and grace; the other of sin and death. For Paul, these are real powers, real principalities. He speaks repeatedly about sin having exercised dominion, of Christ’s victory over it through his death, and our access into the divine realm of grace and true life through his resurrection. “We know,” Paul says, “that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and that we might no longer be enslaved to sin.”

According to Stendahl, what dominates this chapter is the awareness that there is a positive solution available here and now by the Holy Spirit, about which Paul speaks in the next chapter of Romans. Stendahl says, and I quote, “We should not read a trembling and introspective conscience into a text which is so anxious to put the blame on Sin, and that in such a way that not only the Law but the will and mind of man are declared good and found to be on the side of God.”

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t regret something I’ve done. Perhaps the most regrettable things are the self-recriminations and self-disgust over what sort of person I could possibly be to do those things which I regret. When we understand the fundamental goodness, the sacredness of our being, of who and how we are created, we will see that making ourselves small and ugly in our own minds is to yield to the realm of sin. We are created in the image of God – the face of Jesus shines in the face of every human being – in you, in me, in the first person you see when you walk out that door. Let us yield to the realm of the Spirit. Let us, with Paul, offer our thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008.

 

“Follow Me”

Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul (June 29, 2008 )

Readings: Ezek 34:11-16; Ps 87; 2 Tim 4:1-8; Jn 21:15-19

“Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.” – Jn 21:17

The theme of today’s Gospel, as it is with the whole contemplative tenor of our worship today is, “Follow me.” Hyperbole, that is to say, exaggeration, is a familiar literary technique in the Bible, but nowhere does the cudgel of driving a point home come down quite so repeatedly as it does in Jesus’ threefold interrogation of Peter in the closing verses of John’s Gospel. “Do you love me?” Jesus implores the disciple, who is by turns mystified and hurt by the repeated questioning. “Lord, you know everything – You know that I love you.” “Feed my sheep,” Jesus responds, and prophesizes the consequences of that commission – Peter’s eventual torture and death. Then Jesus utters a two word invitation to Peter, perhaps the most eloquent summation of our Christian avocation – “Follow me.” Despite it all, “follow me.” Come what may, be it hard or even lethal, “Follow me.” And, as the story unfolds in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Letters of Peter and Paul, we discover that is exactly what Peter did.

This is the story of contemplation, as well. It is this Gospel imperative enacted. When we walk the labyrinth or when we mark the beads of a rosary or when we chant a prayer or draw a Celtic knot, we are following a pathway. We love the life-giver, the pain-bearer, the Spirit-bringer – this ineffable yet all too real force which opens our eyes every morning and beats our heart every second and inflates and deflates our lungs and fires the neurons of our brains. We love the One who is Love, without whom community is impossible, though the world does not know it. We love the One who is Life, without whom we would merely survive, in a world of hurt of abandonment. We walk the labyrinth, we pray the prayers, we sanctify the sacraments because they are passageways we walk to follow the beloved who captivates our hearts in the flight of a bird, in the tender touch of a loved one, in a simple act of compassion to one unknown.

Today we celebrate contemplation as a way of being people of faith – as the nutritional building block of faith itself. As we walk the labyrinth, or pursue other passageways, the veil falls from our eyes, and we make a journey to see God face to face in a theophany of prayer. It was in pursuing such a passageway that the scales fell from the eyes of Saul the persecutor, transforming him into Paul the missionary. It was in pursuing such a passageway that Peter was transformed from an unlearned labourer who denied knowing Jesus to save his skin into the first, great bishop of the church, willingly martyred. The psychological, spiritual, and even physical pain of taking this path was enormous, but – as we heard Paul say a couple of weeks back – it was a pain that produced endurance, and an endurance that produced hope, and a hope that did not disappoint, because from within its small kernel burst forth a shaft of light that the darkness has never, will never, and can never overcome. That is the shaft of light that we seek when we walk a labyrinth, sing a Taizé chant, pray the rosary, or recite the daily office by a prayer shrine in our home. That shaft of light is love, and that love is God.

My prayer is that today we inaugurate a commitment to live contemplatively, both privately and corporately. Beginning tomorrow, and continuing Monday through Thursday throughout summer, if I am here, the bell will ring at 9 am, and I invite anyone who wishes to join me in pursuing the particular passageway of our beautiful labyrinth. Amidst the stimulations inner and outer, those which soothe and delight and those which annoy and bring pain, we pursue our passageway to God, to fulfill the commission we share with Peter and Paul from the abundance of our love: “Follow me.” Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008.

 

The Kindness of Strangers

Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, 5th Sunday After Pentecost (June 15, 2008 )

Readings: Gen 18:1-15; Ps 116:1-10-17; Rom 5:1-8; Mt 9:35–10:8

“If I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant.” – Gen. 18:3

In the middle of a vast, empty plain Abraham suddenly sees three strangers approaching his tent. So what does he do? Why, he rushes out to greet them, of course, bowing to them, inviting them in, washing their feet, preparing food, and serving it to them while standing by them to block the rays of the sun. These three men are an extraordinary apparition of God – but Abraham doesn’t know this.

The kindness of strangers makes a civil society possible – and sometimes it makes life itself possible. I’m sure each of you could make a long list of the many small acts of unsolicited help or support offered by people unknown to you. The stranger who gives your car a jump-start. The anonymous donor whose blood sees you through surgery. The benefactor whose scholarship helps you complete your education. The kindness of strangers makes us feel less alone, less helpless. This goes beyond the aid and comfort of a fulfilled need – we feel, if only briefly, connected to something larger, that maybe we are part of some greater human family. Indeed, the impulse to give and receive is truly familial when we do it without any expectation, but simply because we understand we are in a relationship with the other. And, if you think about it, isn’t that really the way of God?

Reading how Abraham treated his unexpected visitors caused me to recall my friend and mentor, David Retter, who dies three years ago this month. Fr. David was a quiet, unassuming man; and I never fully realised the power of his influence on my Christian formation until his death. That influence wasn’t so much in the training or the advice he gave me during my apprenticeship, although that was valuable, of course. No, a lot of his influence was expressed in his quiet generosity and humble hospitality – whether it was preparing a surprise meal for his fellow-residents in the St. James’ clergy house, offering an unexpected lift to the airport, or stepping in to take evening services for me just so I could leave early to see friends. Just a few weeks before his death, we went for lunch and David insisted on paying – my birthday present, he explained. I wasn’t even aware that he knew when my birthday was…but he always had an excuse for picking up the tab!

David didn’t do these things because we were close friends. He was like this with everybody. His is the sort of civility we are talking about when we use that gently archaic expression that someone is behaving “like a Christian.” This unforced generosity, this desire to be gracious, kind, and welcoming is a way of life. We often trivialize it – indeed the first entry when you perform an internet search on the word “hospitality” is “Hospitality.net: Hospitality news, products, and services for the industry.” But hospitality isn’t an industry – it is a state of being. Hospitality given and received forges a connection, not only between the individuals, but with God. Hospitality propels us into intimacy with the One who is the source of all generosity, from whom the gift of life and salvation is the origin and model of generosity itself.

If acts of unmerited kindness makes us more Christ-like – as I believe they do – then it is natural that such acts would make us more attuned to the mind of God, allowing us to enter into a conversation with the divine, just as Sarah and Abraham did. God is waiting to show generosity to us in so many ways, if we would only be willing to accept God’s initiative. Consider again the story of the three visitors to Abraham and Sarah. The hospitality of the couple permits a conversation and an invitation, allowing God to fulfill the promise of descendents that was made to them; thus permitting Abraham and Sarah to partner with God in fulfilling a larger plan.

It is sometimes a challenge to be open to the sheer scope of God’s generosity. We suffer from a very limited perspective at times – at least I know I do. We assume a universe of limitations and restrictions, and are unwilling to accept an horizon of infinite possibilities. I have ongoing treatment for my back and neck; and have seen a number of professionals who have helped me increase my range of motion. Anyone who has undertaken such therapy soon comes to know that our muscles tighten and we become less flexible for a number of reasons, but frequently it is simply because our bodies want to take the path of least resistance. I think that the same principle extends to our spiritual selves, as well. We may miss out on the vast rewards and personal growth nurtured by a growing intimacy with God, because we conclude that it is simply too much work. We take the path of least resistance. And so we choose to dive by the stranded motorist, to pass by the blood donor clinic, to avoid writing a cheque or volunteering time for a worthy cause.

By surrendering opportunities for hospitality and generosity, we limit our spiritual range of motion often to the point where we can no longer function as spiritual beings – that is to say, as human beings. It is no accident that the story of Abraham and Sarah’s hospitality to the messengers of God is followed by the inhospitableness of Sodom to other messengers. Inhospitableness, carried to the extreme of violence and objectification, leads to utter alienation from God. And alienation from God is, as the moral of Sodom and Gomorrah teaches, ultimately destructive.

Jesus understood the relationship between hospitality and godliness He understood that by commissioning the apostles to go forth and perform acts of generosity, he was enabling those who would receive his emissaries to achieve intimacy with God, which we call “faith.” And for those who would not be hospitable, who would not receive the visitors and allow God to enter their lives? Jesus warns that the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah – bywords for alienation – would await those who choose to live outside the loving unity God has established for all Creation. It is helpful to recall that Jesus’ instruction to the apostles that they avoid the Gentiles and tend only “the lost sheep of Israel” is later challenged by A gentile woman. And, as happens so often in Scripture and in life, a conversation with God has the power to change God’s mind…to take the divine initiative and up the ante. “Great is your faith,” Jesus tells the woman – and her faith, her relentless push for divine intimacy, saves her, heals her, and ultimately includes her in the covenant of God.

As Paul wrote, our faith also creates an intimacy with God. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, we have established “peace with God.” Our faith overcomes the alienation created by human selfishness, violence, and inhospitableness. Again, this is a gift we receive through God’s initiative…an act of generosity and kindness, utterly unmerited. The peace established by reconciliation allows the conversation to continue, enabling us to reproduce that generosity and kindness in how we live our lives. In doing so, the scope of divine love expands, filling the corners of the Earth, transforming the lives of those who are alone, without hope, or in need of help. And, in giving generously, God will continue to transform each of us, as well, filling our own hearts with God’s generous store of love. In this way, the dance of intimacy grows ever stronger into a future of infinite possibilities. Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008.

 

Nurtured at God’s Bosom

Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, 2nd Sunday After Pentecost (May 25, 2008 )

Readings: Isa 49:8-16a; Ps 131; 1 Cor 4:15; Mt 6:24-34

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life.” – Mt 6:25

One of the things I looked forward to when I moved to the Sunshine Coast was enjoying the natural beauty of this place. I love to be outdoors – to hike, bike, kayak, and camp in the summer, and to cross-country ski and snowshoe in the winter. We are truly fortunate to find ourselves in such an outstanding location, where so much of the environment has been preserved or restored. A place in which the air, earth, and water are relatively clean, and where people seem genuinely to care about the upkeep of the natural neighbourhood in which God has placed them.

But each of us knows that our local success story is not universally shared – indeed, it’s getting rarer by the day – and that the relatively comfortable lifestyle we enjoy requires a lot of degradation of the natural environment in order to be maintained. Every year, for example, about thirteen million hectares of forest is lost, releasing as much carbon dioxide as eight million people flying from London to Toronto. Moreover, humans consume about three and a half billion litres of oil every single day, which has contributed to carbon dioxide levels which are higher now than at any time in the past seven hundred and fifty thousand years. Indeed, two hundred and fifty-six billion tons of carbon have been released in just the past two centuries. These are a few sobering statistics plucked from many that I uncovered as I prepared for the five part series on stewardship and sustainability we undertook this past Lent, called “Tokens of Love.”

My hope was that the series would focus our attention on how we steward the many gifts bestowed on us and on Creation by God. In today’s reading from his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul speaks of ministry as involving stewardship of God’s mysteries – a role requiring trustworthiness above all other things. And so I wanted to spend a month in our worship incorporating environmental themes, with the intent of implicitly getting us to ask ourselves whether or not we are indeed trustworthy stewards of God’s mysteries, as they are manifested in the gifts of Creation; the environment. Today we conclude that theme in our worship, with three readings which pointedly direct our gaze onto our responsibilities as ministers of God’s reconciling grace.

First, we have a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, who speaks on God’s behalf to the exiles preparing to return to Israel from Babylon. Using the imagery of a mother nursing her child, God assures Israel that God cannot help but practice care, nurture, and compassion for God’s people. Significantly, this is manifested in the context of the land: The “desolate heritages” abandoned through exile will be restored to fruitfulness, the bare heights will be transformed into pastures for grazing, and springs of water will relieve the exiles from the scorching wind and sun.

It should perhaps come as no surprise to us that God employs the land as a sign of God’s care for this agrarian people. But we need to recall that the land, its creatures, and its produce is always used as the medium of covenantal promise in the Hebrew Bible. Fruitfulness and verdancy is a sign of God’s favour, a metaphor for life and well-being. Indeed, for a people for whom famine and want were real and present dangers, how could it be otherwise? But the subtext for them, and for us, is plain: Without utter reliance on the mercy of God made tangible in the basic stuff of creation – the air, water, and soil which makes life possible – abandonment and death is the only alternative. In other words, the care and compassion of God implies an obligation to respond, as a nursing child responds to its mother.

It is up to Jesus to make explicit what Isaiah implies. In the extraordinarily moving passage we heard this morning, Jesus contrasts human concern for material values with concern for the values of God and God’s care. In an effort to uncover for his listeners the spiritual core animating all existence, Jesus uses the word “worry” no less than five times in his brief instruction. He challenges his hearers to put worry aside and instead embrace the cycles of life that God has mysteriously and wondrously put into operation. Consider the nonhuman animals which seem to so easily and ably fall into the niches God has created for them, Jesus says. They know instinctively to rely on the utter mercy of their Creator, and they accept the necessities of life uncomplainingly, without taking more than they need to survive, and so without worrying that those necessities will fail.

Humans, on the other hand, worry and hoard and manipulate and stray into all sorts of false allegiances. At best, they find it hard to trust God, or they see God’s mercy as provisional. At worst, they consider the universe to be totally devoid of God, and thus devoid of love – a cold place in which gifts are nothing more than resources to be extracted; and people and creatures have no intrinsic value, being only good for what they can do for your own comfortable survival. In this homily from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus – the proto-hippie, if you will – is basically calling on his listeners to live in accord with nature, to take and give no more than what is needed, and so to repose with tranquillity on God’s nursing bosom.

Preaching about the environment is a difficult challenge, since it can so frequently stir up a toxic mixture of guilt and hopelessness. This cannot help but create paralysis that leaves us spiritually and emotionally numb and unable to act. As a result, we spiral into despair, feeling nothing can be done to save us. But as people of faith, we must claim the power of repentance and reconciliation as an antidote to guilt; and, more importantly, as a portal into hope. As I explained to the children, there are many things we can do – and the small things can and do build up into mighty change.

My hope and prayer is that, to paraphrase our reading from Isaiah, we will inscribe Jesus’ words on the palms of our hands as we build up a healthy and whole community of faith. We cannot serve two masters. And so, let us actively find ways, talking and working and praying with one another, to make St. Hilda’s a beacon of environmental stewardship for all of Sechelt – not only by what we say, but by how we live. It’s up to you to take the leadership in making a difference as individuals and as a spiritual community. Let the conclusion of our month long focus on the environment not be an ending, but a beginning of transformation – a transformation to repentance, reconciliation, and hope. Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008.

 

The Primordial Faith

Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, Easter Sunday, 2008 (March 23).

Readings: Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18

“Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him…“Rabbouni!” – Jn 20:16

Well, a lot of people have been mentioning how early Easter is this year. For the record, it is. March 22^nd – yesterday – is the earliest date on which Easter can fall, the date being fixed as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Yes, ours is indeed a very primal religion.

The festivals of all major religions are often intimately tied to the seasons of the calendar, reminding us that God was first and elementally discerned in the cycles of life and nature. This primordial insight into how the universe works is now derided by many in our post-Enlightenment society as superstitious, backward, and ignorant – but for me, it was the metaphysical equivalent of the discovery of fire.

It is no accident that today’s festival, celebrating the Christian belief in resurrection – the bringing to life of that thought to be irrevocably dead – is a moveable feast determined by the advent of Spring. There is a reason why primitive pagan symbols of fertility like eggs and rabbits became cultural talismans of the season. Easter is first and foremost a testament of confidence in the power of life; indeed, the emergence of life from death.

It is only relative to our contemporary western society that such a testament is considered quirky, alternative, quaint, or just plain bizarre. Those who claim a spiritual heritage from Burma to Bahrain, from Montreal to Moosonee accept as a commonplace that the dead are not gone. It is why, in post-Enlightenment societies such as ours, the practice of religion by serious-minded individuals is one pursued by those – such as you – with a lively interest in questions of mortality and existence, of how to live a good life, and the effect of our being and our actions on the moral fabric of the universe.

Yes, heady stuff I know for a simple, joyous, festival of frippery. Trust the priest to sound a pedantic tone. So let me bring it down to earth by asking you to imagine the scene John so expertly paints of Jesus’ resurrection. Picture a cave hewn out amidst a sweetly fragrant sunken garden, the air filled with the scent of rosemary, eucalyptus, and almond, birds chirping and insects buzzing. It is no wonder we fill our sanctuary with such glorious flowers on this day, which so evoke that image, as well as symbolise the joy and life we associate with this festival of festivals.

Pondering Jesus’ sepulchre, as I imagine it, I think of my own parents’ grave amidst the Garry oaks of a small veterans’ cemetery planted in the middle of a golf course in Esquimalt. I imagine a Spring morning, the ornamental cherries budding, as they are now on the street where I live, and – dodging the whizzing golf balls – visiting my parents’ final resting place. Now, squeezing my eyes real tight, I try to picture their ashes taking flesh and coming to life, and – well, there my imagination now fails me. It’s a little too much like a science fiction novel for me to grasp.

Yet, the fundamental Christian response about the puzzle of existence is that it persists beyond the bounds of time and space. The dead literally live, but they don’t live literally – if you get my distinction. This is the fundamental challenge of our faith – how to testify to the triumph of life over death in the face of all empirical evidence to the contrary. I believe, however, that the story of Jesus’ resurrection gives us a fundamental insight into answering this challenge.

In order to appreciate that the resurrection has been a challenge to faith from the beginning, we need look no further than the resurrection account of John’s Gospel. Here, we find the author giving substantial attention to how each character came to faith. The Beloved Disciple, whom we are reminded repeatedly “Jesus loved,” is the first to believe, having only seen the empty tomb. Could it be that such immediacy of faith is made possible because of the love between Jesus and this disciple? If so, the message seems to be that love for the Lord gives one the insight to see him present with us.

Similarly, Mary Magdalene. For her, recognition is key – initially, she either cannot believe it is truly Jesus, or he has undergone some change in appearance. Indeed this may be the case. For instance, Paul speaks about the difference between the spiritual and physical bodies, and in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus appears to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus “in another form,” or to use the Greek word, morfh. The idea that the resurrection is a sort of metamorphosis causes us to recall the story of the transfiguration, which seems to foreshadow the resurrection.

But whatever the case, Mary at first does not recognise Jesus. She has consulted the disciples, the angels, and the supposed gardener (Jesus himself), indicating that we may not recognise the risen Lord by reputation or even sight alone, but only through some personal encounter. In Luke, for example, the disciples on the road to Emmaus know him in the breaking of the bread. Here, Mary recognises him when Jesus addresses her by name, “Mary.” And her response, just as eloquent, “Rabbouni” – dear teacher.

The odd thing about John’s account is that this most spiritual of gospel writers, the one most inclined to stress the heavenly glory of the incarnate Word of God, is the one who depicts him in such a human, physical, and earthy way. All John is saying really is that there is no higher exaltation, no brighter glory than that which Christ attained in his own self-offering, since it is the absolute expression of divine love. This is the glory he shared with the Father from the foundation of the world, which is now shared with us.

Love. This is what animates our faith, our fellowship, and our assurance that the Lord is risen indeed. Love is what gives us confidence in our own birth into eternal life, and that of our ancestors and loved ones who have gone before. Love made necessary the crucifixion, love made possible the resurrection, and love is the mystery which makes creation and salvation happen. Peter, seeing the faith of the Gentiles, was amazed and exclaimed, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” To have faith is to love, and to love is to have faith. When it comes to love and to faith, God shows no partiality. Love is the persistence of existence beyond all time and space.

On this day when we welcome Scarlett and Merryk into this household of faith, which is the Body of Christ, we celebrate anew the miracle of resurrection symbolised in baptism. We recognise the gift of the Spirit already working in these children – for baptism is but an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of God, raising them to new life. In confidence we pray that one day Scarlett and Merryck will reach out to Jesus with a voice of recognition, “Rabbouni” – dear teacher – responding to the call our Lord issues forth to them, and to all of us, today and every day.

This is the personal encounter, this is the love, which brought the Beloved Disciple and Mary Magdalene to faith. As we celebrate this holy day of joy, let us renew the faith of our own baptism. Let us reach out to the one who calls us by name. We know Jesus lives, and that we live, and that we shall live forever in the light of the one who is life and love. For he is the one who makes life and love itself possible. Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008

 

Grace, Love, and Communion

Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough at St. John’s Anglican Church, Sardis, BC, Trinity Sunday (May 18, 2008 )

Readings: Gen 1:1–2:4a; Ps 8; 2 Cor 13:11-13; Mt 28:16-20

“God saw everything he had made, and indeed it was very good.” - Gen 1:31

I have a friend who pushes my buttons by bringing up the subject of the Trinity. Now, Shaun’s Jewish, and for him monotheism – the belief in one God – is nothing if not uncomplicated. A while back he decided to needle me about this as we drove by the Unitarian church at 49^th and Oak. “Those people make sense,” he said. “But you,” poking me in the ribs, “How can you claim to be a monotheist and yet believe in three gods?” “So what movie do you want to see tonight?” I replied, and to my great relief he laughed and dropped the subject.

But here today none of us can let the subject drop. This doctrine, which we confess in our creeds and formularies, is conveniently ignored fifty-one Sundays of the year. But this Sunday, the Trinity is in our face. And how can we respond to the question Shaun asks – for it is, I suppose, one we all ask ourselves from time to time.

When I was in seminary I took an elective course in the Trinity. Sadly, or perhaps happily, I seem to have destroyed my notes. But the memory of the jargon remains with me. It’s the sort one might find in a science textbook: ousia and hypostases, divine economy versus divine monarchy – and the many heresies: Modalism, Sabellianism, Noetianism, Homoiousianism, Monophystism. Now, I don’t recall what all these heresies actually professed; I just remember that they all seemed to be sort of the same as one another and pretty reasonable, actually. Nowadays, we forget that people clashed in the streets over questions about Trinitarian doctrine. Indeed, the dispute about whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or from the Father and the Son precipitated the first major schism in the Church, between the East and the West, one which persists to this day.

To understand the Trinity, we need to put aside the dogmatic controversies of the primitive Church, and return to Scripture. The Bible is, after all, a story about God; specifically, a story about the relationship between God and the creature fashioned in God’s image. And our life as people of faith is spent in working out the nature of this relationship. Thus, it is fitting that Trinity Sunday should stand at the head of the long, six-month season after Pentecost, a season in which we are encouraged to grow in the faith. For it is a day that fixes our gaze upon the subject of our belief – God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Today’s readings, with their different snapshots of God interacting with human beings invite us into the book which is both the guide of our faith, and a story of the relationship between God and God’s people.

Our interactions with one another as Christians are marked by a desire to be in right relationship with God, and to right the relationship between God and all creation. To be in relationship requires mutual understanding and empathy. I need to know with whom it is that I’m getting into a relationship. And when we perceive that a relationship is an unequal one, the one who believes they have less power (us) really wants to know what the one with more power (God) wants and expects. But this is a misperception of the relationship between us and God, and it forms the basis for the power games which Christians are prone to play with one another, and with society. Relationships based on power are, in fact, relationships based on fear, or at least quiescence. But I ask you, how can this be the nature of our relationship with God, when scripture teaches that the divine qualities are ones of grace, love, and communion?

Grace, love, and communion: Reading the creation story, one can’t help but see all three qualities of God at play. We are offered no reason why God created. God just does it out of sheer love, in order that the One might be in communion with the many. However, the mystery and the simplicity of this often fails to satisfy. And so we indulge in power games by attempting to define the parameters of God’s creation. We think that if we can define God, we can control God—or, at least, control our understanding of God. But these efforts – not unlike my class on Trinitarian doctrine – accord power to the abstract intellect over concrete experience and spiritual transformation. After all, our society values reason, while viewing the senses as unreliable, and the spiritual renewal of which Jesus spoke as flaky New Ageism.

Now, this prompts another seminary memory (preaching is sort of like regression therapy) – a memory of a poem by Gary Snyder with which I prefaced my ministry position paper in my final year. Using political movements as an analogy to spiritual awakening, Snyder wrote, “If the abstract rational intellect is the exploiter, the masses is the unconscious and the party is the yogins” – (yogins are those who train their consciousness toward spiritual insight and tranquility) – “and power,” Snyder goes on, “comes out of the seed-syllables of mantras,” (that is, prayer).

What rings true for Snyder, a Buddhist, also rings true for me as a Christian. I have never felt closer to God than when I am on a trail by the ocean, seeing seals playing in the shallows, or turkey vultures circling almost out of sight. Or when someone is honouring me by sharing his or her innermost hopes and fears. Or when I have sat alone in my room or in church, pursuing a passage to God through the seed-syllables of prayer. Real power flows from encounters such as these, and the power cannot be possessed.

It is through prayer that we come to know God, and realise the depth of God’s knowledge of us. Such everyday encounters allow us to see the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit. Seeking the heart of God in Creation, Scripture, prayer, and relationship is the most effective doctrine of the Holy Trinity imaginable. We needn’t make it out to be more complex than it is.

The three distinct manifestations of God are eloquently expressed in today’s long reading from Genesis: the story of Creation. From it we learn that the Father caused to come into being all that is through the Word of God, the Logos, Wisdom, later manifested in Jesus; thus establishing an eternal relationship between being and God. We read of the Spirit, “a wind from God [sweeping] over the waters” filling all that has been made with divine energy, enlivening and sanctifying it. Creation, redemption, sanctification: It is enough to get us started on a journey of inquiry into the depths of God. But we also know that this is a journey that will not end until we come to meet God face to face. If we choose to unburden ourselves of the prideful need to master God, to domesticate and put God in a box or a cage, then we can repose with tranquility in the mysterious communion, the three Persons in one God.

Ambiguity about the nature of the interaction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is not the same as uncertainty. Rather, God models for us, within God’s very being, the mystic, sweet communion for which we should all strive. God models for us the mystery of absolute unity in diversity, which forms the pattern for Creation, and is the only hope for us, the creature God fashioned from clay. May each of us accept the grace, love, and communion of God to love the many within the One. Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008.

 

Come, Holy Spirit!

Sermon Preached by the Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, Pentecost/Whitsunday (May 11, 200

Readings: Gen 11:1-9; Ps 104:25-35, 37b; Acts 2:1-21;Jn 14:8-17

Pentecost is a good day to preach about love. Well, any day is a good day to preach about love – in fact when I mentioned to a clergy friend of mine that “love” was the chief content of my sermons, he quipped, “That stuff never gets old.” But it’s true! It is the essential message of Christianity, the greatest gift of God, and the fibre which holds Creation – heaven and earth – together. I mean, why wouldn’t a preacher just rattle on about it endlessly?

As the festival celebrating the Holy Spirit, Pentecost is essentially a celebration of divine love. And love is first and foremost, a verb. The Holy Spirit is the active dimension of God, bringing things into being and making the ongoing presence of Christ with us possible. As the agent of Creation, the Holy Spirit literally breathes life into existence. Indeed, it is no accident that the Greek word for spirit, pneàma, is the same one that is used for “breath” or “air.” Breath gives life, just as the spirit is a life-giving force.

How that spirit was conceived in the primitive church and how we conceive of it now represents an ongoing spiritual journey of Christians into the mind, heart, and nature of God. It is no accident that the Greek word for spirit, pnuema, is the same one that is used for “breath” or “air.” Breath gives life, just as the spirit is seen by us as a life-giving force. And so we have in Genesis the generative breath of God sweeping over the primordial waters as a prelude to Creation itself. A few verses later, God forms the first human being out of dust, the physical elements of the Earth, but it has no life until God “breathe[s] into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

This representation of the breath as a symbol of the divine indwelling of the Holy Spirit persisted in the early Church. In the ancient practice of insufflation, a bishop or elder would breathe into the mouth of a newly ordained person. This is undoubtedly taken from the model of Jesus breathing on his disciples in order that they receive the Holy Spirit. The most famous example of insufflation was the custom of filling a skin bag with the holy breath of the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, tying it up, and transporting it upriver to Ethiopia where it was unbound and let loose on the one designated to be the head of the Ethiopian church. We’re a little less interesting nowadays. When we go to the Cathedral for a Confirmation or ordination service, what we see instead is the Bishop laying his hands on the heads of the candidates and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” – as happened a few weeks ago with Kathryn and Christine.

In both cases, however, the message is the same. The Holy Spirit functions as One who equips us for ministry and acts as an agent of divine revelation. The Holy Spirit enables us to perceive the will of God, to envision it, dream it, and speak it in prophetic utterances. Our reading from Acts, for example, offers an explicit counterpoint to the story in Genesis of the Tower of Babel. That story, as you may know, is a folktale of human pride and folly, as the people of the world unite to build a tower up to heaven in order “to make a name for ourselves.” God, sensing humans may be getting a little too big for their britches, scatters the human race, who acquire different languages which enforce their separation.

But the account of the disciples visited by tongues of fire seems to reverse those divisions created in the Tower of Babel story. Why? The purpose seems to be nothing less than the establishment of unity in order that all might have and share with others the knowledge of God. This event no doubt prompted them to recollect Jesus’ promise, which we heard repeated today in our Gospel, that he would be present with them to the end of time, through the medium of the Holy Spirit. Like God breathing on the waters of Creation, or breathing life into the first human creature, here Jesus breathes on his disciples, and they too are given life, in a profoundly new and different way.

The community to whom John wrote his Gospel indeed felt Jesus’ ongoing presence with them so profoundly that they give this presence a name, Paracleitos, “Paraclete” which can be translated as “advocate,” “intercessor,” or “comforter.” Regardless, the sense is the same: The spirit of Jesus – the breath of Jesus, in fact – abides within the disciples of John’s community as one who counsels, and as one who intercedes with the Father.

On Pentecost Sunday fifteen years ago, I was confirmed into the Anglican Church of Canada. It was an occasion on which I was powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit, feeling full of energy, full of life, full of love, able to accomplish anything I put my heart and mind and strength towards. It was a feeling I had recur again and again during the intervening years, as our Church has moved forward to fully include all people; as we honoured our commitment to First Nations people abused in residential schools; as our diocese has acted on issues of social justice here and abroad. I’ve felt it here at St. Hilda’s, as well, as we have come together as a community to sense the prompting of the Spirit as we are called to new and effective paths of ministry and service to one another, and to the wider community. When I have those experiences, and when I recall them today, I feel so good, so full of life. I want to shout, “Come Holy Spirit, and renew the face of the Earth!”

I wish a share of that Spirit on us all in this parish, this outpost of God’s love. May the Spirit breathe into each of you as we enter this long season after Pentecost, a season in which we develop and begin to implement a plan for our future. May each of us be empowered by the Spirit to work for justice and reconciliation in our world, our diocese, our parish, our families. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008.

 

The Martyrdom of the Earth

Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, Rogation Sunday (April 27, 200

Readings: Acts 7:55-60; Ps 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Pet 2:2-10; Jn 14:1-14

“Like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.” – 1 Peter 2:5

“Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” With those words, St. Stephen is dragged out and stoned to death, earning for himself the distinction of being the first martyr for the gospel. Although everything we know about him is contained within seventy-five verses of the Acts of the Apostles, he shines through the pages and over the centuries as a remarkable personality. And, as is so often the fate of remarkable personalities, he is killed by the powerful whose advantages are maintained by the status quo.

As like all martyrs, the path taken by Stephen begins with an idea – a new and radical and powerful idea. He perceives that with the vindication of Jesus as Messiah, the religion of the Temple had outlived its usefulness and that Mosaic law needed to be seen in a new and different light. In this way, Stephen stands at the forefront of the “second wave” of the spread of the Gospel as it moved out from a small circle of Aramaic-speaking Jews in Jerusalem, to Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora, located mainly in what is now Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey.

Stephen is brought before the religious authorities accused of blasphemy, of trashing the teachings of Moses. Asked to respond to the charges, he replies with a lengthy defence of Moses, recounting the remarkable story of Israel’s salvation history. There is no doubt that everything he says would have been greeted with nods of acceptance. But suddenly, the tone changes. Stephen lights into his judges, descendents (as he sees it) of those who contended with Moses in the wilderness. “You stiff-necked people,” he cries, “uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit just as your ancestors did.” Then Stephen angers them further by accusing them of violating the law of God by denying that Jesus is the promised Messiah. His judges “grind their teeth,” and then Stephen seals his fate with a vision. This is where we pick up the story. He sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and his testimony to this messianic epiphany is enough to have him dragged out and killed.

There is no holding down a powerful idea. If its origin is in God, the idea will grow and even co-opt the most unlikely figures to achieve fruition. In this instance, the banner would be taken up by no more unlikely a figure than the man who stood by and held the cloaks of Stephen’s executioners. Paul, that most orthodox of Pharisees, would go on to be the apostle to the Gentiles; and rather than consignment to the dust-heap of memory, Stephen’s position as first among Christian martyrs would be enshrined.

To say that a martyr is one who dies in testimony to his or her faith is obvious, but why is someone martyred in the first place? Simply put, martyrs are made when someone or some group feels so threatened that the one testifying must be violently eliminated. Martyrdom evokes such strong emotions because questions of faith pierce us to the core of our being. Faith has the power to transform lives and overturn societies. It has the power to unseat the ungodly and ennoble the righteous. Faith exposes deception and untruth, and shouts from the rooftops truths that have been obscured and hidden. Faith causes institutions and beliefs to crumble, and shakes the foundations of history. And it is martyrs like St. Stephen who create faith – faith does not create martyrs.

Whether they threaten piety, authority, social customs, or all three, martyrs are victims in an ongoing spiritual warfare. Today is Earth Day, and the human creature, both individually and collectively, is engaged in an experiment of martyring creation – the life collective and wellspring of faith. This is an aspect of the spiritual struggle – a rather perplexing aspect, when you consider the suicidal nature of undermining that which is the sustenance of life itself. There is a tension between basic survival and the totally understandable desire to create the most comfortable conditions of survival possible, given our fundamentally brief existence which can be so often physically and emotionally painful.

The issue, in other words, is one of desire. The one who martyrs another has a profound and inescapable need to dominate truth with fantasy, acceptance with control, contentment with comfort. Earth Day provides an opportunity for us to focus anew on environmental degradation as a spiritual matter, as well as a practical one. It offers a chance to develop insight into the truth that the opposite of stewardship is faithlessness. The means to achieving such focus and such insight is honouring and celebrating that which we might otherwise destroy. It is, in other words, to undergo a conversion experience, like that of Paul. It is to journey on our own roads to Damascus, have the scales fall from our eyes, and go from destroyer to apostle and evangelist of the Good News of the light and life and love of God in Christ.

The organic unity that is Creation itself is, or should be, reflected in the spiritual unity of the church. This ideal is summed up evocatively in the reading from the First Letter of Peter, which characterises us as “living stones…built into a spiritual house.” The church is perhaps the only institution in our society in which people who might otherwise have nothing to do with one another, voluntarily come together with one voice, one will, one song of praise to uplift the Creator – and in so doing, to uplift Creation.

Our task as living stones is not to be a wall. The task is, as with the stones and rock of the Earth, to provide a foundation – a platform from which life can spring and flourish. We cannot allow ourselves, therefore, a Sunday-morning luxury of self-satisfaction. We cannot mock the Creator by praising the awesome splendour of what has been wrought, and then going out to despoil, pollute, or benignly neglect it. Scripture has much to teach in this regard. James speaks of the double-minded, who look at themselves in the mirror, and then wander off, forgetting who they are. Paul’s entire case for salvation rests on embracing the Spirit of life within and rejecting the soul-destroying desires of transitory things. And Jesus, likewise, tells us that we cannot serve two masters – one cannot pick figs from a thorn tree.

But, as I said on Good Friday, “guilt is an indulgence we can ill afford. Harder is repentance; and the restitution that flows from genuine contrition. Yet only when we repent of participating in an unspoken conspiracy of silence and obedience to injustice will we begin to taste the sweetness of freedom. And only when we take up tools to build the kingdom of God will we go beyond tasting freedom to fully living it.”

This is a day for honouring Creation and the Creator, and delighting in both – and, indeed, we shouldn’t need a special day for that. More vitally, today is a day to begin anew, recommitted to the notion of stewardship as the mortar which binds this spiritual house of living stones together. This is the outgrowth of the celebration of creation, of simply being, to which we are called. How will you be the change which rescues the Earth from martyrdom, and transforms it into the ground on which the kingdom of God may be built? Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008.

 

Let the Sunshine In

Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, 4th Sunday of Easter (April 13, 2008).

Readings:  Acts 2:42-47, Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” – Jn 10:10

Today’s epistle reading begins with an encouraging line: “It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly.” We’re tempted to think, perhaps, of famous dissidents like Nelson Mandela or Andrei Sakharov. We don’t, however, get to hear the line preceding it, which introduces the passage: “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle, but also those who are harsh.” Well, once again we discover that context is everything.

This advice to slaves is one reason why I’m not overly fond of the letter unfortunately and inaccurately attributed to Peter. There are other reasons I don’t like it, as well, for example, its description of women as the “weaker sex,” who are “adorned” by their husband’s authority; or its call to “accept the authority of every human institution,” including that of Caesar, who “silences the foolish.” So I suppose it wasn’t a huge surprise when I went to consult a commentary on the Petrine epistles and then remembered that I didn’t actually own one. If I don’t agree with what an author has to say, I find I don’t pay much attention to it. And while that’s not something of which I’m proud, I hope you’ll agree that it is an understandable response.

This is not to say that there isn’t much which is good in First Peter. If you didn’t know that what we heard today was meant as encouragement for slaves to endure the beatings of their owners by looking to the sufferings of Christ as a model, then you could apply it to your own life without hesitation. You might even be able to overlook the address to slaves completely, if it didn’t also trouble your conscience to know that this passage was used to offer divine justification for slavery in recent centuries, and to reinforce the obedience of slaves as akin to a command from God. I find it unfortunate that so much of what is good ends up being obscured by what is so atrocious in books like First Peter. But it is scripture, so what are we to do?

During one of my New Testament classes in seminary, we were studying some other troubling texts, namely First and Second Timothy and Titus – the so-called “pastoral epistles,” attributed to St. Paul. Like Peter, they counsel obedience to authoritarian family and political structures – structures which many of us no longer see as being worthy of praise. A classmate of mine said to a small group of us, “I wish we could get the churches to agree on just taking these sort of passages out of the Bible!” Naturally, I was shocked. First, I was shocked that he thought we could get the churches to agree on anything; but, more importantly, I was shocked that he seemed to feel that Holy Scripture could be so trifled with.

Twelve years and a lot of reflection later, I’m not so shocked – in fact, I’m almost sympathetic. Those of you who joined me last Fall during our Advent study on Jesus Christ know that I encourage a careful reading of Scripture. What does it mean to say that the Bible is the word of God? What does it mean to say that we are subject to the authority of scripture? These are questions we must take seriously, if we are to be serious about our faith. What I believe it means when we say that the Bible is divinely inspired and authoritative is that we must neither lightly reject nor lightly embrace what it says – locked as its words are in the context of particular times, places, and circumstances.

Anglicans sometimes refer to our pillars of authority – scripture, tradition, and reason – as a three-legged stool. Remove any one of the legs, and the structure collapses. But that’s not quite true, since one of those legs, scripture is considered the foundation, the lens through which tradition and reason are interpreted.  The prescriptive character of scripture is a negative one, that is to say it rules out doctrinal conclusions which are incompatible with it.  It is not so much a dispassionate arbiter, as it is in dialogue with our tradition, reason, and experience.  Its words have both literal and symbolic dimensions.  In this sense, words are like water.  Water is a thing, but it is only meaningful to us by what it does - providing energy, nourishment, or beauty.  And even then, drinking a glass of water to wash down a pill is a different experience from drinking a glass of water when one is literally dying of thirst.  The experience of reading and interpreting the Bible is the same.  Words are only meaningful when they are interpreted, and only when we apply them to the experience of our lives.

So what becomes important to us in the passage from First Peter is not the address to slaves, which speaks to a reality in the author’s time and place. Rather, we need to look at what speaks to every person in every time and place, including us; namely, its encouragement to endure harsh and unjust treatment when there is no practical way of ending it. What is vitally important for us to remember is that the authors of the New Testament were followers of Jesus Christ. Everything that is said must be read through the lens of his vision. And what do we hear him say in today’s gospel reading? “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

To be a sheep in the sheepfold of Jesus is not to be silent before the shearers. It is not to submit to unjust and tyrannical institutions which dehumanize and abuse. It is, instead, to be empowered, to be uplifted, to experience life – abundant life. The condition of owning or possessing another human being is impoverished life. The condition of being abused or abusive in any relationship is impoverished life. The condition of being oppressed by a government or to be an agent of state oppression is impoverished life. “Abundant life” is the key which God has provided us, through Jesus Christ, to unlock the hidden meaning of scripture. Rather than “cleanse” the Bible of texts which seemingly legitimize injustice, inequality, or even terror, we are invited to use this key to open the door, and let the sunshine prevail over darkness.

Abundant life is the key to interpretation, it is the message, and it is the way of being to which our Lord has invited us from earliest days. This much is evident from the brief reading we heard from the Acts of Apostles. Baptism into the community of the resurrection was, for them, a transformation into abundant life – life so abundant that the earliest disciples freely divested themselves of worldly possessions to offer what they had to those in need. As it is written, “they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God.”

May each of us dwell with joy in the abundant life Christ has given to us, and may we use that abundance to bring abundance to others, through the liberating message of Jesus Christ both in word, and in deed. Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008.

 

Our Roads to Emmaus

Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, April 6, 2008 (3rd Sunday of Easter)

Readings: Acts 2:36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35

“Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” – Lk 24:31

A number of years ago, I had the honour of being asked by friends of mine to be the godparent of their son, Liam. At that time, they were members of a Vineyard Church in Hamilton, Ontario. The Vineyard is a Pentecostal-like movement that stresses gifts of the spirit, such as speaking in tongues and prophetic utterances. And, so it was a few months after Liam’s birth, I flew out to Hamilton for his dedication at their church, a ceremony which is something akin to our rite of thanksgiving for the birth of a child.

Going to a Vineyard service was a bit of a departure for me, even given the two or three years I was involved in a Baptist church. Most of the service involved singing and spontaneous praying over members of the congregation. The music was rousing, almost martial, and there was plenty of it. People waved colourful homemade pennants and stomped their feet. Occasionally someone would collapse on the floor in holy laughter, and during the dedication ceremony itself, someone unexpectedly came up to utter a prophetic utterance in tongues over Liam.

The congregation met in what was formerly an Anglican church, oddly naked without the furnishings, plaques, and knick-knacks common to these Victorian piles. We sat on folding chairs, and the band which provided the music performed in what had been the chancel, behind the altar rail, beneath the only decoration in the building. It was a beautiful stained glass image of Jesus holding aloft a loaf of bread with Cleopas and his companion looking on, with the inscription beneath, “he was known of them in the breaking of bread.” Now don’t get me wrong – Christ was made known in my friends’ community in many very significant ways, but I know Eucharist was rarely one of them.

Anglicans are sometimes referred to as “people of the book,” and given that – by last count – we use three different books for worship here at St. Hilda’s, that might be an apt description. But I prefer to think of us as “people of the Eucharist,” instead. When we get together, this is what we do – we break bread and pour wine, we say the blessing, and we gather around the table to receive the spiritual body and blood of Christ.

Now, since I distributed my essay on the invitation to Communion last week, I’ve gotten a lot of positive and thought-provoking feedback. But I’ve also been asked to talk about my own theology of Communion. Today’s Gospel reading is – if you’ll excuse the expression – manna from heaven in this respect; and in my words today, I hope to add to the exchange of ideas.

Eating and drinking are elemental human acts, ensuring our very survival. Without nourishment, we die – and when someone we know refuses nourishment, it becomes a matter of urgent concern. And sharing a meal is one of the elemental social acts. Feeding another person is the ultimate sign of hospitality, one of care and concern and acceptance of the other. So what could be a more profound expression of Jesus’ message than his call to make the sharing of a symbolic meal the central activity defining his community of followers? It is for us a matter of survival, and a sign of hospitality.

The Eucharist is many things. It is a memorial performed to recall Jesus and the promise he fulfilled to lay down his life for his friends. It is a symbol of unity. We are bound in this act across time and space with apostles and martyrs, with Christians living in palaces and in shantytowns. It is a foretaste of the kingdom of heaven, calling us to concentrate our hope on the time when we will share in the heavenly banquet with our Lord. And it is the new Passover, recollecting our liberation from bondage and our entry into the Promised Land of new life.

Yes, the Eucharist is many things, but at its core, eating the bread and drinking the wine is to actively participate in Christ. Christ is the host of this banquet (hence, we call the consecrated bread “the host”) and so I believe that when the priest stands at the altar, he or she should be like a clear sheet of glass through which one looks and sees the Lord. In addition to being the host, Christ is also the meal. Now, this has led to all sorts of problems for missionaries in different cultures who have to work hard to persuade people that no, we’re not cannibals. We don’t sacrifice our God and then eat him. Rather, what we do in the Great Thanksgiving, the prayer consecrating the bread and wine, is that we beseech the Father through the Holy Spirit to make Christ spiritually present in this feast.

Finally, the Eucharist engages us in all dimensions of our being. It is most obviously a physical act. We take the bounty of creation itself – as Genesis says, already consecrated and blessed by the Creator as “good” – and we consume it. It is also a mental act. We recall, we imagine, and we hope. But, above all, it is a spiritual act of the utmost intimacy. Christ’s being, his body and blood, becomes one with your being, your body and blood. A pinch of bread and a sip of wine isn’t a meal in the usual sense of the word: it isn’t going to fill you up. But its spiritual nourishment is more than plenty to provide the energy you need to live out your faith in prayer and action. As with the disciples who walked with Jesus, our hearts burn within us. For when we know Jesus in the breaking of the bread, and when we receive that bread, surely he walks with us, too.

I gave my godson Liam a Bible for his dedication, figuring that he would one day be old enough to read and learn from it. On the inside front cover, I wrote an inscription from the Graeco-Jewish philosopher Philo, a contemporary of Jesus, which can be translated as follows: “Even if we close the eye of the soul and do not care or are not able to look up, you, O Hierophant, lift up your voice and take command of us. Never cease to anoint our eyes until you lead us as initiates to the hidden light of sacred words, and show us the beauties which are fenced off and invisible to the uninitiated.”

Now, my friends kid me about many things, but one thing they are usually right about is that I can be a little too abstract…especially with children! My friends asked me what the term “Hierophant” meant. Well, there isn’t really an English equivalent, but it is the title of a priest who teaches the rites of sacrifice and worship, who, as Philo puts it, initiates others into the beauty of sacred mysteries. This is who Christ is for me in the Eucharist – the one who opens our eyes to the hidden light of sacred words, and shows us the beauty permeating and radiating from the visible and the invisible. And I hope and pray that one day my godson will come to know this Christ in the same way, in the breaking of the bread – the central act of our worship and identity as followers of Jesus.

My prayer for all of us is that even when the eye of our soul is closed, even when we go through periods when we do not care or are not able to look up, that we nonetheless keep open hearts to receive that most sacred of mysteries – Christ, spiritually present in the Eucharist. On all the roads to Emmaus that you will travel, may Jesus – that great Hierophant, that great instructor of himself – walk beside you. May your hearts burn within you as you share that journey with him, and as he opens the scriptures to you. And may you always, always, know him in the breaking of the bread. Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008