Meanwhile in Massachusetts

One of the pleasures of living in Massachusetts is the opportunity to welcome friends from other parts of the United States, Canada, and even Europe to this place so rich with history and meaning. Among my favorite destinations is always the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. The way it uses artifacts and video footage to describe Kennedy's legendary presidency is nothing short of awe-inspiring. But that, of course, is because for many the Kennedy presidency itself was awe-inspiring, in its ability to speak to people across the world, in its ability to inspire young Americans, in its hope for a more free and just society. Kennedy's vision is as relevant today, 50 years after his inauguration, as it was then. Today, my friend Heather and I visited the museum and we were especially inspired by a moving poem written by Jacqueline Kennedy on the occasion of their first anniversary.

"Meanwhile in Massachusetts"

By Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy

Meanwhile in Massachusetts Jack Kennedy dreamed

Walking the shore by the Cape Cod Sea
Of all the things he was going to be.

He breathed in the tang of the New England fall
And back in his mind he pictured it all,
The burnished New England countryside
Names that a patriot says with pride
Concord and Lexington, Bunker Hill
Plymouth and Falmouth and Marstons Mill
Winthrop and Salem, Lowell, Revere
Quincy and Cambridge, Louisburg Square.
This was his heritage -- this was his share
Of dreams that a young man harks in the air.
The past reached out and tracked him now

He would heed that touch; he didn't know how.
Part he must serve, a part he must lead
Both were his calling, both were his need.
Part he was of New England stock
As stubborn, close guarded as Plymouth Rock
He thought with his feet most firm on the ground
But his heart and his dreams were not earthbound
He would call New England his place and his creed
But part he was of an alien breed
Of a breed that had laughed on Irish hills
And heard the voices in Irish rills.

The lilt of that green land danced in his blood
Tara, Killarney, a magical flood
That surged in the depth of his too proud heart
And spiked the punch of New England so tart
Men would call him thoughtful, sincere
They would not see through to the Last Cavalier.

He turned on the beach and looked toward his house.
On a green lawn his white house stands
And the wind blows the sea grass low on the sands
There his brothers and sisters have laughed and played
And thrown themselves to rest in the shade.
The lights glowed inside, soon supper would ring
And he would go home where his father was King.
But now he was here with the wind and the sea
And all the things he was going to be.

He would build empires
And he would have sons
Others would fall
Where the current runs
He would find love
He would never find peace
For he must go seeking
The Golden Fleece

All of the things he was going to be
All of the things in the wind and the sea.

Celebrating independence, 235 years later

It probably comes as no surprise that Anglicans in the American colonies were conflicted when it came to the prospect of independence. Clergy, in particular, were forced to choose between the vows they had solemnly made at their ordination as priests of the Church of England and the hope of independence of their friends and neighbors. Many ended up fleeing to Canada or England. Some who stayed supported the struggle for independence, but others ministered to loyalists and even the king's armies. One such loyalist priest was Samuel Seabury, who ministered as a chaplain to the king's army. After the war, this former loyalist would be consecrated as the first bishop in the new United States.

The first American Book of Common Prayer was proposed in 1786. Strongly influenced by Latitudinarianism, it was unique in that (among other things) it omitted the Nicene Creed in the Communion liturgy, altered the Articles of Religion (reducing their number to 20), distilling the psalms to just 20, and including prayers of thanksgiving for American Independence. This Prayer Book was adopted by various dioceses, but never by the Protestant Episcopal Church as a whole. Indeed, it came under strong criticism for its deviation from the 1662 Prayer Book of the Church of England.

When the first Book of Common Prayer was adopted by the full Episcopal Church in 1789, many of the innovations of the proposed book were reversed. Notably omitted were the prayers in thanksgiving for American Independence. Many Episcopalians, and especially clergy, felt that they could not in good conscience offer these prayers, as they had been opposed to the Revolution. In fact, prayers for the Fourth of July were not added to the American Prayer Book until the 1928 revision.

235 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it probably is safe for Episcopalians to give thanks for the blessings of this still young nation. In honor of this day, the following prayer from the proposed Prayer Book of 1786 is offered. Many of its sentiments and hopes are as appropriate today as they were in the days following the War of Independence.

O God, whose Name is excellent in all the earth, and thy glory above the heavens, who on this day didst inspire and direct the hearts of our delegates in Congress, to lay the perpetual foundations of peace, liberty, and safety; we bless and adore thy glorious Majesty, for this thy loving kindness and providence. And we humbly pray that the devout sense of this signal mercy may renew and increase in us a spirit of love and thankfulness to thee its only author, a spirit of peaceable submission to the laws and government of our country, and a spirit of fervent zeal for our holy religion, which thou has preserved and secured to us and our posterity. May we improve these inestimable blessings for the advancement of religion, liberty, and science, throughout this land, till the wilderness and solitary place be glad through us, and the desert rejoice, and blossom as the rose. This we beg through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Who's Testing Whom?: A Sermon on the Binding of Isaac

When I started seminary back in the stone ages of 1995 I became aware of a book that has shaped the way many read the Bible, or at least certain passages in it. It’s called Texts of Terror and was written in the mid-80s by a feminist scholar named Phyllis Trible. It focuses on biblical stories in which women are victimized, seemingly with the blessing of God. For the most part, these are stories that we don’t hear read in church, because they are so shocking, so far from how we would expect people of faith to act, and certainly far from how we would expect God to act.

Trible’s book has had a profound impact. She gave people license to wonder about whether the God that’s represented in certain stories really can be called God, or whether it is the construct of a people who valued (or disvalued) women and life in a very differently than we do today.

Trible doesn’t address the story of the Binding, and near sacrifice, of Isaac that we have just heard this morning, but I think it’s fair to say that it, too, is a “text of terror.” As you probably know, the customary interpretation is that God was testing Abraham, to see how much he loved God. God knew all along that he wouldn’t allow Abraham to kill Isaac (it says at the beginning of the passage that it’s a test), but he had to be sure that Abraham was worthy and that his faith was unflinching enough to become the father of God’s people. At least that’s what I’ve always been taught. But for a long time, I never gave it much thought, to be honest. Of course I knew that it was a difficult passage, but I was never too invested in it, one way or another.

But over time, my perspective about the Abraham and Isaac story has changed. I’ve moved from indifference to horror. Today, I am appalled by the suggestion that the God I am supposed to believe in behaves like a tyrant, playing with people and their emotions, testing their true loyalty, terrorizing them. Rather than love and compassion, rather than justice and hope, the God we find here is a lot like a medieval king, or maybe even the Southie mobsters in the news lately, demanding that people do whatever horrible thing they think up, to prove their faithfulness and allegiance. I know it sounds harsh, but it’s honestly the way I feel hearing the story of Abraham and Isaac.

And I would imagine that those of you who are parents feel just as strongly and probably exponentially more so. Just think: if anyone today were to act in the way that Abraham appears to have, claiming that God commanded that he kill his son, and attempting to do it, he would be locked up for life and we’d see coverage his trial on CNN. What’s more, it’s passages like this—calling people to swear unflinching allegiance to a god no matter what—that give rise to all sorts of fanaticism, in people like Jim Jones and his followers in Jonestown, the Branch Davidians in Waco, and most recently, of course, Al-Qadea.

The good news, though, is that the traditional interpretation of this passage is not its only or even its definitive interpretation. In fact, there is no definitive interpretation of any story in the Bible, because they are just that—stories. It’s up to us to figure out the meaning. So, maybe, there’s another way to read this story: a way that is less offensive and a little more hopeful.

Some of you may recall that when Anne Minton, your former interim priest, came back to Emmanuel last fall to lead a couple adult education sessions on Islam, she suggested that Christians and Muslims tend to read our respective scriptures in a way that our Jewish brothers and sisters don’t. We tend to accept things at face value, “what the Bible says is what it says” in a literal kind of way, while in contrast there’s a long tradition among Jewish rabbis of struggling with the text and finding new, different, and hidden meanings. It’s called “Midrash.” That Midrash tradition is really wonderful in that they are not afraid to argue with the text, to propose unusual readings, and even to wrestle with what it seems that God says. They try to fill in the gaps and imagine what was going on in the characters’ and God’s minds. They break a passage apart, especially a tough passage like today’s, so that some rays of sunlight can shine through.

Since the story of Abraham and Isaac was first a Jewish story, I thought we might look at what Jewish interpreters have to say. Now, many rabbis read it in much the way we tend to, as a test of Abraham’s faith. But others have suggested that there’s more, or perhaps that the test was different than we might first think. For example, some have suggested that Abraham must have been hallucinating if he thought that God would demand such a thing; others that it was God’s punishment of Abraham for abandoning his older son, Ishamael; some that Abraham really did kill Isaac, but that he was resurrected. And others still have argued that human sacrifice was so common in the age in which Abraham lived that the fact that God interceded to prevent it is what makes this story so profound, marking a shift in the way humans thought about God—toward a God who is appalled by senseless killing and human sacrifice, rather than demanding of it.

A contemporary Jewish scholar named Lippman Bodhoff, in Midrashic fashion, employs some creative thinking and suggests that perhaps God and Abraham are really testing each other—but not in the way you might think. To understand his point, we have to go all the way back, almost to the beginning of creation, and the story of the brothers Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s sons. You remember that Cain, who was jealous, killed Abel. God is appalled and decrees killing wrong. After the great flood, God reiterates that to Noah, saying: "Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that one's blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind."

Moving ahead several generations, today’s hero, Abraham, holds God to that standard when he intercedes for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah on the grounds that God’s plan to destroy the towns would have the consequence of killing innocent people. Abraham argues with God so persuasively that God promises to spare the towns if even five righteous people are found within them. Apparently there weren’t five righteous people, since God destroyed the towns anyway, but he did lead to safety the few who were righteous--Lot and Lot’s wife, and their daughters, though Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back against God’s command.

That brings us to this morning’s passage in which it seems that God is requiring that Abraham show his fealty by sacrificing his beloved son. This really puts Abraham in a bind, since he knows that what God asks of him is actually against God’s laws, as declared to Noah. Does Abraham comply with God’s order, horrific as it is, or does he follow God’s law? Bodhoff suggests that Abraham knows that he can’t kill Isaac, but he also doesn’t feel that he can argue with God again. He doesn’t want to test his luck and insult God, but he hopes that God will change his own mind.

And so, Abraham puts God to the test. He thinks to himself, “I have found God and my tradition and experience have revealed Him and made Him known to me as an all-powerful, all-knowing, just and compassionate God. But I need to be sure that this is the God to which I truly wish to dedicate myself and my progeny and my followers for all time. If the God I have found demands the same kind of immorality that I saw in my father's pagan society, I must be mistaken. I must look further. To obey such a God is not a moral advance at all.” What he doesn’t know is that God is testing him, too. Only God isn’t really testing him to see if he’ll sacrifice Isaac, rather God’s testing (or tricking) to see if Abraham will refuse to do it, as he should.

After God’s command, Abraham is in no rush and takes his time getting around to it (he’s stalling, in other words). He has men accompany them on their journey, and when they get closer to the mountain he asks the men to wait for their return. Notice Abraham doesn’t say for “me” to return, but for “us” to return. It seems he planned to return with Isaac all along. As he and Isaac are making their way, Isaac asks where the lamb is for the sacrifice and Abraham responds that the Lord will supply it. Even at this late stage he trusts that God will not make him go through with this horrific plan.

Meanwhile, God watches in horror (just as we do) as Abraham makes his preparations. God wonders when Abraham will call it all off, when Abraham will fight back, like he did for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham stalls for as long as he can, waiting for God to call it all off, wondering what kind of God he had come to believe in, what kind of covenant he had agreed to follow. It’s a divine game of chicken, really, with poor Isaac caught up in the middle.

Ultimately, God flinches first. He tells Abraham to stop, to drop the knife, untie Isaac, and sacrifice a ram instead. God knew, of course, that he would never let Abraham take things too far. God appreciates and honors Abraham’s loyalty, but is also perhaps disappointed that Abraham didn’t fight back, that he didn’t protect Isaac, that he didn’t reiterate God’s law against murder. In a sense Abraham actually failed that test.

But not really, because God didn’t know that Abraham was testing God at the same time. You see, Abraham had no intention of killing Isaac. To do so would break one of God’s laws. If God had not intervened when he did, Abraham planned to drop the knife and abandon this cruel, false god, in favor of the true God who is actually loving and caring, the God who is life-giving not life-taking. But Abraham never really thought it would come to that. And he was right. In the end, both Abraham and God passed the test, in spite of themselves, so much so that God blessed Abraham and Isaac, and their descendants became greater in number than the stars in the sky.

Well, is this Midrashic interpretation any better than the traditional one? I don’t know. But it is in keeping with an ancient understanding of God—who did not read human thoughts, but who could be bargained with, and who put people to the test. Really, he’s a smaller, more human-like God than we tend to believe in today. In any case, it helps us to consider this passage in different way. It’s no more official than any other interpretation, but maybe it’s less offensive, since we know that neither God nor Abraham were willing to see Isaac killed.

Like Abraham and Isaac, throughout our lives we are asked to make choices and swear allegiances. We are told that some authority, perhaps even God, wants us to act in a certain way, when deep down we struggle with how this could possibly be true. If you heard any of the debate about marriage equality in New York this week you might have noticed that several Roman Catholic lawmakers said that they struggled with their church’s teaching on the one hand and what they thought to be right in terms of justice and equality on the other. While senators came down on both sides, several bravely said that they ultimately chose justice and equality over the church. It doesn’t mean that they love God any less, but perhaps that how God speaks to them may be different than they have traditionally thought. In a way, that’s what this new interpretation tells us that Abraham did as well. He wanted to know if the God he had come to follow was truly a God of love and compassion or not. He wanted to know if God would support him, sustain him, and bring him abundant life, and not only him, but also his son Isaac, and for all who would follow them, or if the god he had come to believe in was no better than all the other false gods that people before him had followed. In the end, both he and God chose right.

And that, I think, is our test, too. It is up to us to decide if something is of God, or some other authority, telling us it is God speaking, urging us to do or believe something, but is actually far from what the true living God would want. Sometimes we may even find those other voices speaking to us through the church or the Bible. Often, those voices seek to divide and hurt us, and those we love. But here’s the thing. We like Abraham, like the prophets, like Jesus, believe in a God of love, a God of compassion, a God of hope, and we can know with confidence and assurance that the true God will never terrorize us or ask us to make choices that call us to hurt those we love; rather, the only commands that God gives us will come from love and result in love, they will come from compassion and result in compassion, they will come from hope and result in hope. We know that because that’s who God is, it’s how God acts, and it is who God wants us to be. That’s the God I believe in, and I hope you do, too.

To whom be the glory: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell

On Belief, Doubt, & the Nicene Creed: A Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Some of you may remember that a few weeks ago I talked about how when I was applying for the rector’s position here I was also a candidate in a couple other searches. Those who are new to the Episcopal Church may not be aware that we follow a call process, by which the congregation selects its priest, rather than an appointment process where the bishop makes the decision for you (here the bishop has to approve the congregation’s choice, but doesn’t actually select the rector). You also may remember that I said I was disappointed when I was turned down for a glamorous position in Newton, after a somewhat disastrous phone interview.

Well, as it happens, that interlude was just as Emmanuel’s search process was picking up. So my distress didn’t very last long, because as I read Emmanuel’s search profile materials I started to be intrigued by this parish and most especially by what I read about your interest in focusing on adult education. That is such a rarity in so many churches, where there’s a strong education focus for children’s ministry (as there should be), but the adults are pretty much content with what they learned in church school or confirmation 20, 30, or 40 years earlier. But here, at Emmanuel, there’s a desire to learn and grow in faith. That’s why we came up with the tag line, “Come and grow with us” that we have plastered all over our building and printed materials. Because our deepest desire is to grow, not only in numbers, but also in understanding, in relationship with God, in community life.

So, a mission of mine has been to focus on adult education (along with worship and pastoral care). And we’ve had a variety of approaches and courses over the past three years—most recently on the Gnostic gospels. What I especially appreciate about these sessions is how open everyone is coming to a deeper understanding, not needing to agree with other necessarily, but certainly wanting to learn together and from each other.

Interestingly, conversations often veer back toward the Nicene Creed, I suppose since we recite it together every week. What does it mean? Why do we say it? Do we have to believe all of it? What if we don’t believe all of it? Since today is Trinity is Sunday, and since it’s really in the Nicene Creed that we find the Trinity articulated, I thought I might say a bit about the creed: where it comes from, why we say it, and what it might mean for us today. This might be a little dry, or a bit like an adult ed session (though unfortunately less interactive), but hopefully also interesting. And if it’s not, you can mentally work on your Father’s Day barbecue menu.

The Nicene Creed was formulated in the fourth century—the 300s—to articulate what Christians believe about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Church. It came about as a result of debates and disagreements over whether Jesus was fully divine—in other words equal to God—or maybe not quite equal to God. And whether he was fully a human being, or maybe just looked like a human being. Emperor Constantine was concerned that Christians were so divided over these issues that told the bishops to figure it out and come to an agreement, and that’s what Christians would believe. It’s an understatement to say that it was an exercise of top-down authority. Ordinary people like us had no say.

So, the creed was worked out in the much the same way that Congress passes laws. It didn’t descend from heaven on a cloud and it’s not written in the Bible. In fact, the only place in the Bible that mentions the Trinity in the way we do as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is this morning’s gospel. The bishops debated and argued and changed some words here and there to appeal to various groups, and then debated some more, and eventually came to the greatest agreement they could, with as many people as possible agreeing to live with whatever they decided on, but everyone was not always exactly happy.

The original version of the Nicene Creed was decided upon in the year 325 and was quite a bit shorter than the one we know. There was no mention of the Virgin Mary or Pontius Pilate. It actually didn’t even say Jesus was crucified. Or much of anything about the Holy Spirit. In it’s earliest form, it was simply an attempt to emphasize that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. But that wasn’t enough, and people started arguing that maybe the Holy Spirit wasn’t equal to God, so they called another council to deal with that issue, as well as to flesh out the finer details. They added those portions that we know, and finally approved it in the year 381. With that, the doctrine of the Trinity was born. And we’ve had it mostly as is ever since.

The purpose of the Nicene Creed was two-fold. First, it unified Christians, articulating what they believed (or should believe), especially about Jesus. And second, it was meant to exclude teachings, like Gnosticism, which the majority of bishops decided were wrong. For example, the Gnostics believed that the world was created bad, not by God but by a lesser being (obviously in contrast to this morning’s reading from Genesis in which we heard that God created everything and called it very good). The orthodox Christians won that debate and enshrined their belief in the creed when it says that the one God is the maker of all things, visible and invisible. The creed also excluded those who didn’t believe that Jesus was fully divine (Arians) and also those who didn’t believe that he was fully human (Docetists). In fact, anyone who couldn’t agree was thrown out of the empire entirely. I guess that’s one way to enforce unity, if a bit draconian.

In the 1630 years since the Nicene Creed was adopted Christians have been reciting it week by week all over the world, in our various languages. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and Anglicans all say it every Sunday morning (and in some churches they even sing or chant it). As it was in the year 381, so today the creed is the single defining statement of the Christian faith. Everything else, really, is extra.

But here’s the thing: I know that some of us are able to recite it and believe every word, and some are not, feeling like they have to cross their fingers or take a deep breath during certain portions. Thankfully, it is no longer the case that any of us will be thrown out of the empire if we can’t agree to all of it. Nor will any of you be thrown out of Emmanuel Church if there are portions of it that you have a hard time saying. Even so, there are some find the creed to be exclusionary, because it tells us what we are supposed to believe, sometimes things that are very hard to believe. People even leave church because of it.

In my younger days I didn’t like it either, and I, too, had a hard time with several passages. But then, when I thought about it more deeply, I realized that in its own way the creed is actually kind of inclusive—or at least it can be. You know, when people come to Emmanuel, we don’t ask them what they believe or don’t believe. We don’t make any one sign a statement of faith. All we do here to confess our faith is recite the Nicene Creed. But if someone has a hard time with a portion of it, or if they don’t say part of it, that’s completely up to them. It’s no one’s business but his or her own. Maybe through reciting it together he or she, or you, will come to a greater appreciation and deeper understanding, and maybe not. But that’s okay, because if you’ll notice, it’s not necessarily saying that it’s what I or you as an individual believe, but what “we” as a church community together believe. What’s more, in the Episcopal Church there is no authoritative or official teaching to go along with the Nicene Creed. The Roman Catholic Church has a large catechism to explain everything, but we don’t. So, how we believe that Virgin Mary conceived or how the resurrection happened is open to a lot of interpretation. If you think about it, there’s actually a significant degree of liberality in that.

But just as important is the fact that what the creed covers is really very minimal. It basically addresses the Holy Trinity—who God is and how God relates to us—and that’s all. None of the other things the church gets so fussed about it is covered in any way. In 1996 the Episcopal Church determined that the Nicene Creed establishes the core doctrine of the church, which means that anything that falls outside the scope of the creed is open to debate, dialogue, and diverse belief and practice. This came about when some conservatives brought heresy charges against a retired bishop for ordaining a gay man to the priesthood. Well, the court of bishops who heard the case ruled that anything not related to the Nicene Creed could not be considered a matter of heresy. And of course the creed certainly doesn’t discuss who can be ordained (or married or anything like that), so the case was thrown out as without merit. It’s actually kind of ironic that the Nicene Creed, which was once used to exclude people, some 1600 years later was the basis for the church becoming more and more inclusive, and it has been ever since.

And so over the years, I have come to appreciate it more and more, both for what it says and what it doesn’t say. Today, I think of the creed as the skeletal structure of our faith. We each have bones and frames that look more or less the same, but the way we flesh them out, the way we bring them to life, is different for each of us. Some of us are tall, some short. Some thin, others not as thin as we’d like. Some have a deep rich skin tone and others like me are pasty white. And so it is with our faith. We take what has been handed down to us for nearly 2000 years and we interpret and express it in a multitude of ways. In fact, I would imagine that there are as many interpretations and expressions of the Christian faith as there are Christians in the world, and as there have been since Jesus called his first disciple. What unites us is not believing all the same things (because we never will), but sharing that common structure, that frame, the bones, which are really just beginning of a much deeper, richer, and livelier faith.

And you know what, that’s just as it should be. Because it is only together, when we all share our various and unique insights and perspectives, that we can truly come to who God is and how God is active among us. In fact, that’s why we have the doctrine of the Trinity in the first place, since God is known to us in diverse ways as Father, Son, and Spirit, as Creator, Redeemer, Giver of Life, as Mother, Liberator, and Friend. No single image is sufficient. We need them all.

So, the Nicene Creed is a wonderful start, expressing an ancient faith shared by Christians across time and space. But it’s always up to us to bring that faith to life in our own time and place. And that’s what we do here, when we pray and worship together, when we serve our neighbors, and when learn from each other. When we grow together in faith, spirit, and community.

To God be the glory: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell

On Endings, Beginnings, Graduations, & the Gifts of the Spirit: A Sermon for Pentecost

I’ve been thinking a lot about endings and beginnings lately. I think that’s because of this time of year—the ending of a school year, for some even it’s even the ending of a school career with graduation season upon us. But then, of course, just when something ends, like high school, college, or graduate school, a new beginning is set before us as well—or at least the hope of a new beginning—whether that’s a job or more school in a different place. I suppose it’s not too profound to say that whenever we experience any kind of ending in life, we experience a new beginning at the same time. Whatever circumstance life hands us, there is always the hope of something new to follow.

Later this afternoon, my high school will be holding its graduation ceremony at the Target Center (the arena of the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team) in downtown Minneapolis--the very same place that my own graduation ceremony was held 20 years ago when the Target Center was just a few months old. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years on the one hand, but then on the other, it really seems like a foggy, misty life-time ago that I can barely remember.

Perhaps like you, sometimes I wonder, if I were to go back and look at my former, younger self, who would I find? A very skinny guy with a lot of insecurity and doubt, who didn’t always get along with his mother and new stepfather, who didn’t even have a drivers’ license and was tired of working for $3.85 an hour at the Dairy Queen, but who also looked forward to a future full of possibility. Most especially, I looked forward to going away to college, to starting over, to figuring out what my life should be all about.

What I definitely know is that I would never have expected that I would be here, in this place with you, 20 years later. When I graduated from high school, my plan was to go to college and major in German and Political Science, with a goal of being a German teacher, or if I was thinking really big, to work in international politics in Austria or something. But as it turns out, I didn’t end up majoring in either German or Political Science. Early on I discovered my deeper interest in religion; the college’s German department fell apart so I switched to Swedish (Minnesota is probably the only place in the country you can do that with no more than a blink of the eye!), I learned about the Episcopal Church, and my life was somehow set on a very different trajectory than I had planned when I donned my graduation cap and gown. My mother jokes that she sent her Lutheran son to a Lutheran college and he came out wanting to be Episcopal priest!

Our lives take many unexpected, bumpy, twisty, windy paths, don’t they? Sometimes there are forks in the road that force us to make difficult choices. We find roads closed that we had planned to take, sometimes we have to ask for directions, and we may even have to turn around and go back when we get lost. I suspect that for many of you, life has been much the same. And for those who are younger, thinking of graduation, college, jobs, and your own life’s future, you should remember that whatever plans you might have, whatever road you have mapped out today, may not be the one that God has planned for you. But that’s okay. It’s even as it should be. Because somehow, in some way, you will get to where God wants you to go, even if it may seem like you have to take more than your fair share of detours to get there.

One of my favorite people is David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times and contributor to National Public Radio and the PBS Newshour. Recently he wrote a column for today’s college graduates. But actually, I think his insights apply to just about all of us. He writes:

Today’s graduates are told to find their passion and then pursue their dreams…. But, most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. A relative suffers from Alzheimer’s and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. A young man works under a miserable boss and must develop management skills so his department can function. Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. This wasn’t in her plans, but this is where she can make her contribution….

The graduates are also told to pursue happiness and joy. But, of course, when you read a biography of someone you admire, it’s rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration. It’s the things they did to court unhappiness — the things … that were arduous and miserable, which sometimes cost them friends and aroused hatred. It’s excellence, not happiness, that we admire most…. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.

Well to me, that sounds an awful lot like something Jesus said to his disciples 2,000 years ago. They likewise followed a bumpy, twisty, windy road. For them, like us, there was no map, no GPS, no life plan. They must have wondered: Was there any kind of future in this disciple business or would it be better to try fishing, net mending, and tax collecting once more? Would their friends and family take them back? Would their employers? Or did the path they followed Jesus on prevent them from going back to the life they had known previously? And if so, where would it lead them now?

Of course they had that promise of Jesus that he would not leave them comfortless, that God would send the Holy Spirit to fill their hearts, sustain them, uphold them, and help direct their path. But until the Spirit came, during the time of waiting, it must have seemed like one more impossible puzzle, one more confusing mystery among many since the fateful day they decided to drop their nets, to give up their lives, and fish for people.

Eventually, of course, on Pentecost, the Spirit did come and filled their hearts. In the Acts of the Apostles we read that the Holy Spirit came like a rush of a violent wind and descended on them like fire, giving them the ability to speak in a multitude of languages. Of course, we can’t be sure if that’s how it really happened, or if that’s more of a dramatic, pictorial way of describing something that, like the resurrection, defies explanation. But however it happened, the disciples came to believe, in a new and different way, that indeed Jesus had not left alone, that there would be some guide or at least a light on their path, that God would uphold and sustain them through whatever lay ahead.

What’s interesting, though, is the fact that much like David Brooks’ suggestion about a finding a meaningful life today, the Bible never tells us that the life of discipleship became easy, even after the gift of the Spirit. We don’t read that suddenly it all became clear and smooth or that there were no more bumps or potholes in their road. In fact, the Bible tells us just the opposite. We read that those who chose to follow Jesus faced many, many trials and challenges—people didn’t listen to them and held them up to ridicule, some were imprisoned, and some were even killed for their faith, just as Jesus himself had been.

The gift of the Spirit didn’t prevent any of these trials. Rather, what the Holy Spirit did was empower them to face the great challenges of life, confident in the power and promise of God to sustain them through anything the world might dole out. It doesn’t mean that life wasn’t still hard or that they didn’t have serious questions and doubts, because they surely did. But it does mean that when they stopped, when they prayed, when connected again with the Holy Spirit that lived and breathed in them, when they drank from the Spirit, to use the language of today’s readings, they realized that their strength was in God and not in their own ideas, their own plans, or their own accomplishments. They realized that whatever happened on the road they followed, God’s light would shine on them and through them. And that, for them, was enough.

And it’s enough for us, too. Because the same Spirit that the disciples received in such a dramatic fashion on that Day of Pentecost 2,000 years ago lives on still, in us, today. The Spirit empowers us to be who God created us to be and helps us to fulfill whatever dream God has in mind for us. Sometimes, the Spirit even encourages us to consider challenges and opportunities that don’t even seem possible. I think that’s why Paul’s writes, “To one is given the utterance of wisdom, to another knowledge, to another faith, to another gifts of healing, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”

In this, Paul reminds us not only of the diverse gifts that God showers on us in the Holy Spirit, but also, and I think more importantly, of the power of those gifts to literally transform us from the inside out, helping us to be who we could never have imagined, to take on tasks that we could never have imagined, and in the process empowering us to transform the world, in big and small ways, into the kingdom that God is bringing into being through you, through us, together.

Whatever your gifts may be, whatever ours are together, God gives us the energy we need to take on life’s challenges, to see that each day is full of new promise and new possibility, to work for transformation, and to make all things new. Like Jesus’ first disciples, we won’t always succeed. We’ll stumble more often than we’d like. Sometimes, we’ll find ourselves on roads that seem like dead ends or that lead to nowhere good. But then, just as we throw up our hands in despair feeling like we can’t handle any more, we realize that we already have what we need to get us through--a spark, a flame, God’s spirit, burning within us, giving us courage and power to face another day, to take on another challenge, to embrace another opportunity.

That’s what this day, this Pentecost is all about. It’s our reminder that God is ever and always with us: guiding us, challenging us, shining light on our path and in our hearts, and opening to us new possibilities, new hope, and new life, each and every day.

To God be the glory: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell

Christ has died! Christ is Risen! Christ will come again!

It is May 21, 2011 and some people around the world are busy preparing, and perhaps worrying, about the second coming of Christ today. Harold Camping, an evangelical Christian radio broadcaster in California has predicted that today is the day. His means of calculating the date is too complex for me to understand, truth be told. But somehow, his arguments are compelling enough to lead some to quit their jobs, others to go into hiding, and still more to wonder what exactly it is that Christians believe. I was asked a question about it all by a friend (also my former high school orchestra conductor, as it happens). Here is my response, with an extra dose of Anglican theology thrown in, since I am supposed to be on retreat working on my doctoral dissertation.

Obviously there are some Christians who believe strongly in the triumphant return of Christ. The TV is full of them. However, they tend to think the May 21 prediction is nonsense, since Jesus himself says that no one knows the day and hour except the Father in heaven. But they believe it will happen eventually. Even mainline Protestants, who certainly don't emphasize such things, must believe in the second coming in some sense, since our liturgies are full of reference to it. In the Episcopal Church, Eucharistic Prayer A includes the congregational refrain "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." In fact, the liturgical season of Advent is specifically set aside for the preparation of Christ's coming, both as a baby at Christmas and also on the last day.

The earliest Christians, too, believed in the Second Coming. However, they thought it would happen in their lifetimes. St. Paul certainly did. That's why he advised against people marrying unless absolutely necessary. He thought we should focus on preparing ourselves spiritually for Christ. The gospel writers also thought it would happen sooner rather than later. Mark's gospel, in particular, really has to be read through the lens of one who thought that the second coming would be soon. There's lots of evidence for this. His gospel--the earliest--was written in AD 70, around the time of the destruction of the mighty Temple in Jerusalem. It was for Mark a sign of the approaching end times. Throughout his gospel, he uses the word 'immediately' often, emphasizing that there isn't much time to get his message out, or to be prepared. Thus, Mark avoids stories about Jesus' origins, such as the virgin birth, since for him that's so much less important than the future--he just wants to get to the substance of his gospel, sharing the Good News of the saving work of God in Christ. Finally and perhaps most interestingly, in Mark's original ending, there is no resurrection appearance, since he seems to believe that the resurrected Jesus will appear not on Easter morning, but on the last day when he comes again. He concludes his gospel by saying that the women who came to the tomb left terrified. Obviously, that didn't happen--or at least it hasn't yet.

The later gospels (Matthew and Luke use Mark as a model, but were written 10 to 20 years later) deal with the fact that Jesus hadn't come again as soon as expected by the Christians of Mark's era by telling us about Jesus' resurrection in more pictorial ways. Luke grapples with the fact that Jesus is not still physically on earth by describing his ascension into heaven. They write about the establishment of the church community and Luke describes the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, all to tide us over for the longer term until Jesus comes again. Even so, I don't think these later evangelists would have imagined we'd still be here 2,000 years later.

The toughest question is: what did Jesus himself think? Of that we can't really know, since each of the gospels is written from a post-resurrection, post-Temple destruction perspective. So, as a result, much of what we read, much of what Jesus says, is the gospel writers' attempts to craft a compelling story, rich with theological meaning, inspired by the events happening around them and most especially by their profound belief and conviction that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross and rose victoriously on Easter. It doesn't mean that what they write isn't true in a deep theological sense, even as it probably is isn't always historical fact. They believed this Gospel, this Good News, with every fiber of their being, and because they were confident that Jesus was the Son of God, they were also sure that he would come again, at some undetermined time.

However, what that means is that it is sometimes hard to discern what Jesus thought about such issues, or even *if* he thought about such issues. Presumably he did to some degree as it was a common first century concern, but we can't know for sure. Sometimes what Jesus says is really what the gospel writers say, inspired by their belief in Jesus as the Son of God. But sometimes it really is Jesus, too. Unfortunately, it can just be hard to figure out which is which.

Whatever is depicted in the gospels, I think that if and when Jesus comes again, it will not be a cataclysmic event for the world--with stars falling from the heavens and earthquakes and the like. Instead, I think it will be a reconciling event. Because I believe that Jesus came to bring peace, hope, and new, abundant life. There may well be judgment--either at the end of our lives or on the day of the second coming (whatever that may mean)--but in my imagination, anyway, we will do the judging of ourselves when we see from a new perspective the pain and hurt we have caused others. As we know, there's nothing more damning in the human experience that knowing how deeply we have hurt others. F. D. Maurice, the great nineteenth century Anglican theologian and my hero, described sin as “the sense of solitude, isolation, distinct responsibility.” He writes that one knows sin most fully when he realizes “how he has broken the silken chords that bind us to our fellows; how he has made himself alone, by not confessing that he was a brother, a son, a citizen."

But then, just as we grapple with that, we also have the opportunity to receive God's limitless grace, forgiveness, and love. Just because that's who God is and what God does. God doesn't force us to accept this love, of course. We can wallow in our guilt and pain and self-destructive ways if we want, but God certainly hopes we will choose the more life-giving path that is being offered us, and will wait on us for long as long as it takes. God will always be there holding out hands in love, waiting for us to drop whatever junk we may be carrying (guilt, pain, selfishness, whatever) so that we can reach back and be raised to new life.

All that said, I do think we should be ready for Christ's return, because it just might happen. We don't know when or how. But I believe that readiness doesn't come through doomsday predictions, but through loving and forgiving others, helping the poor, sick, and oppressed, living fully and abundantly, just as Jesus wanted us to do. If we do all that, then we'll be ready to meet Jesus, whether he descends on a cloud, or meets us around the next corner in the face of a homeless man, the cashier at the grocery store, or those we already know and love.

None of this is a definitive answer, of course, but it's what I think. Maybe I'll be dreadfully wrong. But if I am, I'd rather be held accountable for being too loving and too forgiving than not loving enough.

F. D. Maurice (who plays a starring role in my dissertation) wrote the following in his controversial book The Theological Essays in 1852. I think it is just about the best assessment of what we should believe and hope for, both now and in the age to come:

"If you take away from me the belief that God is always righteous, always maintaining a fight with evil, always seeking to bring His creatures out of it, you take everything from me, all hope now, all hope in the world to come. Atonement, Redemption, Satisfaction, Regeneration, become mere words to which there is no counterpart in reality.

"I ask no one to pronounce, for I dare not pronounce myself, what are the possibilities of resistance in a human will to the loving will of God. There are times when they seem to me—thinking more of myself than others—almost infinite. But I know that there is always something which must be infinite. I am obliged to believe in an abyss of love which is greater than the abyss of death. I dare not lose faith in that love. I sink into death, eternal death, if I do. I must feel that this love is compassing the universe. More about it I cannot know. But God knows. I leave myself and all to Him."

Enjoy your May 21, whatever happens at 6 pm. Jesus wants us to appreciate and embrace the gift of life. He wants us to abide in that abyss of love.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell

On Anne Frank, Resurrection, & Baptism: A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter

Today in Wakefield we celebrated the Second Sunday of Easter with two baptisms. This was the homily.

Most of you know that I like movies, and I like to talk about movies in my sermons. Usually, I talk about science fiction movies like Star Wars or Star Trek, because they played such a major role in my life as a kid--the vast, vast majority of my toys were Star Wars action figures, so those movies and its characters like Luke Sykwalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader, were my constant companions--I think I often even brought action figures to school in my backpack to play with at recess, and also just to have my heroes with me. I also liked the Wizard of Oz and quite a few musicals-- my parents liked them, too. So it might come as a surprise that it's not only fantasy or cheesy musicals that draw my attention. I also like serious movies that make me think. Movies that draw me in, identifying with the characters, sharing in their story.

When I was 12 or 13 years old I happened to see the old 1950s movie The Diary of Anne Frank. I don’t think I knew of her story before I saw that movie; although, I did know of the Holocaust, but perhaps without the personal face that Anne Frank gives us so movingly. My parents recorded it on TV and I was so drawn in that I watched it over and over again (I am one of those people who likes to watch movies many, many times, so I can catch all the nuances). Sometimes I wonder if that was such a good idea, when it came to Anne Frank, as it really scared me on the one hand, but it was also so compelling. Certainly it shaped how I look on the world.

You probably know the story—from reading the actual diary or seeing a production of the play or the movie. (As it happens, if you don’t know it, or if you want to see it again in the near future, our own parishioner Chip Sheeran is directing a production of the Diary of Anne Frank at the Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham, opening this Friday. And, our super talented parishioner Emily Sheeran stars as Anne.) You may know that Anne and her family were Germans, from Frankfurt, but right after Hitler came to power they moved to the Netherlands, when Anne was 4, where they thought they would find a safe refuge. And for about 8 or 9 years they did—living comfortable middle-class lives, until 1940 when German troops rolled in and occupied that country, too. So they went into hiding in the secret apartment above Anne’s father’s office in a factory that made pectin and spices used in making homemade jams.

What’s interesting, from a dramatic, literary, and even human perspective, is how the story is really limited to what happens in the secret annex. They obviously hear about what’s going on outside, from the radio and the few helpers who bring them food and other provisions, but those in hiding never see that world, except when they take a peek through the heavy lace curtains or blackout paper that cover their windows. The adults try hard to give the younger residents as normal a life as they can—assigning books to read, math homework, and the like. But, of course, their lives are far from normal. The fear of being found out is never far away. A telephone call at an odd time, an unexpected knock on the door, or footsteps on the stairs on a Sunday fill them with terror. I can’t even imagine the strength of character and courage it must have taken them to live that way for 2 whole years, every day worrying that they might be discovered.

I read once someplace that when the authorities finally did find Anne and her family and marched them out to a Dutch prison camp, before sending them off to even worse places on the last train to leave the Netherlands, Anne—who was always so hopeful—actually expressed a sense of relief at being found. Not, of course, for the fate that would come, but a sense of relief for being freed from worrying about every knock or footstep, and relieve to be able to experience the pleasure of feeling the sunshine again and breathing fresh air. As you probably know, only Anne’s father survived the war. Anne and her sister Margot died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, sadly, just a couple weeks before the British liberated the camp. Afterward, her father devoted his life to telling the story of Anne, her family, and fellow residents of the secret annex, giving us faces and lives that we can relate to on a deeper human level while we learn about the horrors of World War II and the hope and power of the human spirit.

So, what does this have to do with Second Sunday of Easter and our baptisms this morning? Well, when I first read this morning’s gospel, I imagined that the disciples who were locked away on that first Easter felt a lot like Anne Frank and her family. They were terrified. They were afraid of any knock or footstep outside, worried that like the SS 2,000 years later, the Roman soldiers would find them and crucify them, just like they had Jesus. After all, that’s why they scattered; that’s why Peter denied Jesus; that’s why the disciples weren’t there at the foot of the cross. The women were there, but the men fled. They were too afraid—not only for Jesus, but also, really, for themselves. And probably, their fears were justified. Because the authorities ruled by fear. Like the Nazis, the Roman rulers were not hesitant to use the sword, or the cross, to accomplish their goals.

Now, our gospel reading says that the disciples were locked away for fear of the Jews. That’s very misleading. Jesus was Jewish. The disciples were Jewish. Absolutely everyone they knew—Mary, Martha, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Mary Jesus’ mother, Joseph, absolutely everyone—was Jewish. Maybe the disciples were afraid of the Jewish religious authorities whom Jesus had upset, but then, they didn’t really have the power to do anything. So more likely, the disciples were locked away afraid of the Roman government. Because, you see, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the area around Jerusalem, was a ruthless man. In fact, Caesar later removed him from office for being so over the top in terrorizing the people under his authority. The gospels sort of portray Pilate as being reluctantly caught up in the situation with Jesus, but that seems less likely as we learn more about who Pilate was. He wouldn’t have given the crucifixion of Jesus (or anyone) a second thought, if it would have kept the peace and kept him in power without news of a disruption traveling to Caesar in Rome. The problem is that by the time the gospels were written, especially John’s gospel, the church leaders knew that Rome had the upper hand, and they wanted to secure as much protection as they could from the government. They couldn’t portray Rome as the bad guys, so they shifted the blame for everything on not just the Jewish leaders but on the Jewish people. Unfortunately, we Christians have been dealing with the fallout of that shift ever since. Sadly, tragically, it’s part of what gave rise to Jewish persecution throughout history, including in Europe during World War II, including families like Anne Frank’s.

But you know what, in today’s gospel, as the disciples are cowering in fear, afraid for their lives, hope breaks in. Because Jesus breaks in. He literally breaks in, in fact, showing up in their locked room, saying “Peace be with you.” Peace. Do not be afraid. He tells them, in fact he shows them, that they have no reason to fear, because God is in charge—not the religious leaders, not the soldiers or Pontius Pilate or not even Caesar. But God. Jesus appears to them that Easter evening so that they will know that their life and the life of the world is really, truly, in God’s hands, despite how it may seem sometimes. Easter is God’s way of telling us that there’s nothing that the world can dole out, however fearful, however horrific, that God can’t transform into something better. It doesn’t erase what happened earlier, it doesn’t make it go away—the wounds of Jesus’ crucifixion are still there, after all—but God takes it and is able in some mysterious way to bring new life.

And it’s that new life, that promise that we celebrate today as we baptize Kate and Madison. By baptizing them, what we are really doing is telling them that their lives are, in fact, in God’s hands, and that they are marked with the cross as Christ’s own forever. There’s nothing that the world can do to change that. They will forever and always belong to God. And time and again, God will work through Kate and Madison to bring wonderful new life to the world. That’s God’s promise for them, for us, for the whole world. It’s a promise that we saw fulfilled that first Easter 2,000 years ago when Jesus appeared to the disciples in their locked room, and it’s a promise fulfilled each and every time new life conquers fear, death, and despair.

Before I close, I want to go back to Anne Frank for a moment. I know it probably seems like a weird thing to talk about Easter and a Jewish girl who died in World War II in the same sermon. And sometimes, we may wonder how it is that these promises of new life are actually lived out when we see so much destruction around us, not only a generation ago, but today as we hear the news of Libya and Afghanistan and Iraq, the earthquakes and nuclear disaster, and even this week’s tornadoes in the south. But I believe, because I believe in Easter, that somehow, in some way, God really is working to bring experiences of the resurrection and new life into our lives and our world. Most especially I believe that God is doing that work of resurrection through us.

And consider this: Anne Frank, the girl who lived in hiding and simply wrote a diary has touched the lives of millions of people in the 60 years since it was first published. In fact, next to the Bible, her diary is the most translated and most widely read book in the world. By Jewish people, of course, but also Christians, and Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and people of no religion at all. Eleanor Roosevelt described it as “one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war and its impact on human beings that [she had] ever read.” John F. Kennedy said, “Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank.” And so it is that through her, and people like her barriers between people—whether because of religion or culture, or anything else—are broken down. Through her story we see the human spirit soar and transcend the terrors of the world. In her story, we find God’s promise of new, abundant life.

And you know what, it’s a promise shared by the whole human family, regardless of our religions or cultures. It’s a promise that we will make when we baptize Kate and Madison today, and it’s a promise that we receive each and every time we see signs of new life, of resurrection, of Easter in our world.

Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."

May that peace, joy, and new life fill our hearts, today and always.

To God be the glory: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell