Homily for Nov. 10 – Pentecost 25 THE PEOPLE IN THE BASEMENT Hebrews 1:1-3 Lections for Pentecost 25: Hag. 1:15b-2:9; Psalm 145; 2 Thess. 2:1-5, 13-17; St. Luke 20:27-38 “For surely the word of the Law and the Prophets, when it is understood with faith is like a star which leads those who are called by the power of grace in accordance with his [God] decree to recognize the Word incarnate.” – St. Maximus the Confessor, abbot “There are two kinds of light—the glow that illuminates and the glare that obscures.” -- James Thurber “Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it.” --Habakkuk 2:2 The author of Hebrews talks about the “many various ways God” has spoken in the past. A literal translation makes the point clearer: In the past God has spoken “many times and in many ways” (Heb. 1:1, my translation). I believe God still speaks “many times and in many ways.” For example, Psalm 19 has it: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (vss. 1-4). Weather permitting, I sit on my patio in such a way that I have an unobstructed of at least a dozen flower beds. How to put this? I hear God speak remarkably eloquently in the bloom of a single lily. Because God speaks “many times and in many ways,” we may discover that God speaks in other ways besides the universe in general and Mother Nature in particular. Have you, for instance, heard God speak through a friend, a letter, a song (not particularly a hymn), or the whimper of a child? I also believe God speaks through the medium of dreams. If you read psychological literature, you come across two opinions about dreams: on the one hand, the belief that one’s dreams reveal a great deal about the dreamer (Freud, Jung, Sullivan, etc.) and on the other hand the belief that dreams are the results of the random electrical activity of the brain (the random firing of neurons). These opinions, notwithstanding, I maintain that God speaks to God’s people through the medium of dreams. You may recall that God communicated with Joseph through dreams (Genesis 39 ff.) and that St. Paul received a call to leave one place and go to another by means of a dream (Acts. 16). Having said this, I shall tell you about one of my dreams. It was a Sunday at the eleven o’clock hour; I was fully vested sitting in a choir loft with a fully vested choir. For a reason not clear to me, I left the nave and went into the basement of the church where I found lots of people engaged in a variety of activities. Some had gathered around a fire trying to get warm; others were tending to children; still others were milling about engaged in ordinary conver-sation. I wondered why these folks weren’t upstairs in church. Then I had a second and I think a more profound thought: How can we get what’s upstairs to these people who are in the basement? I relate this dream in order to engage you with the question: How can we get what is in here at the Sunday eleven o’clock hour to people who are” in the basement,” to people who on a Sunday morning are engaged in activities that range from the trivial to the ordinary activities that make up one’s life? I agree with C. S. Lewis who said “. . . the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men [sic] into Christ to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time” (Mere Christianity, Book iv, Chapter 8). As you are probably thinking, I have a couple of suggestions about how to get what’s in here on Sundays out there to the people who aren’t in here, to the people in the basement. The move from “in here” to “out there” begins with the acknowledgment that this church doesn’t belong to us but to the Lord Jesus. Hear me now; this church--well any church for that matter—belongs to the Lord Jesus and to no one else. We pay an unholy price when we begin to act as if the church belongs to us and not to the Christ. This became clear to me as I remembered and meditated on the dream. There was a scene in which I was vesting for service. I discovered that most of my stoles were missing, and the one which I needed was abnormally short; of the four cinctures, the one remaining had been shredded; and my alb lay in a heap on the floor of the closet. The choir was disorganized to the point that it (we) couldn’t find the appropriate music. I couldn’t keep from thinking that this is precisely what happens when we forget to whom the church belongs: what we do loses its meaning. Regardless of how appropriate the attempts are, they are just a shadow of what they ought to be. The dream has a somewhat unrelated scene in that it doesn’t seem to belong in any sequence of events. We church leaders are sitting at what I assume is brunch when I noticed that the time was 11:15, fifteen minutes past the time when service was scheduled to begin. We had to scurry, even to climb over a fence, to get to the church! I’ve been there and done that. I adore pomp and splendor, lighted candles, the smell of incense, colorful vestments. I confess to crafting aesthetically pleasing orders of service, each part carefully placed and elegantly executed, and lections and hymns carefully chosen—each and every facet executed with precision. But did any of it point to the fact that I was in a place that belongs to the Lord Jesus, and did any of that precisely executed liturgy point to him? James Thurber, an American writer, puts it like this: “There are two kinds of light—the glow that illuminates and the glare that obscures.” I stand in the greater judgment for creating the glare because I was a shepherd who led his sheep into an unworthy pasture. I confused means and ends; I majored in trivial while ignoring substance. Worship really isn’t about us; it’s about God. I suspect the general belief in the so-called Bible Belt is that God is on the chancel while we are seated in the pews. God performs while we look on. Folks, this ain’t the situation. We have gotten the real situation reversed. Listen now. We are on the chancel while God is in the audience. We are the characters in the drama, and we perform for God who is the ONLY person in the audience. We perform for God! Okay, we acknowledge that the Lord Jesus owns the church; what is the next step? Let’s return to the reading from Hebrews. God has spoken many times and various ways “. . . but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appoint the heir of all thing through whom he also created the world” (Heb. 1:2, RSV). This Son, this Jesus Christ, bears the very stamp of the nature of God. The Greek word for stamp (charakater) refers first a tool for engraving and then to a stamp or impress, as on a coin or seal. The point is that Jesus bears the authentic image of God, the only reliable image of God. If you want to know what God is really like, look at Jesus. With respect to God what you see in Jesus is what you get! St. Paul gives us an indication of what the church ought to be about when he calls it “the body of Christ.” What Jesus in bodily form was to his world is what we are to our world. We are his eyes, ears, mouth, his hands and feet which we use in just the same way he did. St. Teresa of Avila has it, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world. Yours are the feet with which Christ is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which Christ is to bless all people now.” I offer the following comments without malice or sarcasm. Jesus did not go to Con-ference or one its multiple agencies looking for a program that would bring the people from the basement upstairs into the nave. Rather he took what he had to offer “Into the highways and hedges” where the people were. He entered a tax collector’s booth, a fisherman’s boat, a sick room, a banquet hall where he ate with sinners, a synagogue, the Temple, celebrated a wed-ding--and where does the list end. He did not open the doors of his home with the invitation, “Y’all come. “He took what he had to the people where they lived and worked, and they responded hand-over-fist! In one of the many, many, many, many meeting I’ve attended, it was pointed out a particular church in the district was having phenomenal success attracting and holding new members. More than one asked, “What program are you using.” The pastor of the church said, “Why, we just love them.” That was his “program” just loving them! That was Jesus’ strategy. Want to reach the people in the basement? I have two suggestions. First, give owner-ship of the church to Jesus which frees you to do as he did. (If you accuse me of over-simplifying a complex situation, I respond, “Just try it.”) Then do as he did by taking the Good News where they people were. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Homily for Nov. 10 – Pentecost 25 THE PEOPLE IN THE BASEMENT Hebrews 1:1-3 Lections for Pentecost 25: Hag. 1:15b-2:9; Psalm 145; 2 Thess. 2:1-5, 13-17; St. Luke 20:27-38 “For surely the word of the Law and the Prophets, when it is understood with faith is like a star which leads those who are called by the power of grace in accordance with his [God] decree to recognize the Word incarnate.” – St. Maximus the Confessor, abbot “There are two kinds of light—the glow that illuminates and the glare that obscures.” -- James Thurber “Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it.” --Habakkuk 2:2 The author of Hebrews talks about the “many various ways God” has spoken in the past. A literal translation makes the point clearer: In the past God has spoken “many times and in many ways” (Heb. 1:1, my translation). I believe God still speaks “many times and in many ways.” For example, Psalm 19 has it: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (vss. 1-4). Weather permitting, I sit on my patio in such a way that I have an unobstructed of at least a dozen flower beds. How to put this? I hear God speak remarkably eloquently in the bloom of a single lily. Because God speaks “many times and in many ways,” we may discover that God speaks in other ways besides the universe in general and Mother Nature in particular. Have you, for instance, heard God speak through a friend, a letter, a song (not particularly a hymn), or the whimper of a child? I also believe God speaks through the medium of dreams. If you read psychological literature, you come across two opinions about dreams: on the one hand, the belief that one’s dreams reveal a great deal about the dreamer (Freud, Jung, Sullivan, etc.) and on the other hand the belief that dreams are the results of the random electrical activity of the brain (the random firing of neurons). These opinions, notwithstanding, I maintain that God speaks to God’s people through the medium of dreams. You may recall that God communicated with Joseph through dreams (Genesis 39 ff.) and that St. Paul received a call to leave one place and go to another by means of a dream (Acts. 16). Having said this, I shall tell you about one of my dreams. It was a Sunday at the eleven o’clock hour; I was fully vested sitting in a choir loft with a fully vested choir. For a reason not clear to me, I left the nave and went into the basement of the church where I found lots of people engaged in a variety of activities. Some had gathered around a fire trying to get warm; others were tending to children; still others were milling about engaged in ordinary conver-sation. I wondered why these folks weren’t upstairs in church. Then I had a second and I think a more profound thought: How can we get what’s upstairs to these people who are in the basement? I relate this dream in order to engage you with the question: How can we get what is in here at the Sunday eleven o’clock hour to people who are” in the basement,” to people who on a Sunday morning are engaged in activities that range from the trivial to the ordinary activities that make up one’s life? I agree with C. S. Lewis who said “. . . the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men [sic] into Christ to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time” (Mere Christianity, Book iv, Chapter 8). As you are probably thinking, I have a couple of suggestions about how to get what’s in here on Sundays out there to the people who aren’t in here, to the people in the basement. The move from “in here” to “out there” begins with the acknowledgment that this church doesn’t belong to us but to the Lord Jesus. Hear me now; this church--well any church for that matter—belongs to the Lord Jesus and to no one else. We pay an unholy price when we begin to act as if the church belongs to us and not to the Christ. This became clear to me as I remembered and meditated on the dream. There was a scene in which I was vesting for service. I discovered that most of my stoles were missing, and the one which I needed was abnormally short; of the four cinctures, the one remaining had been shredded; and my alb lay in a heap on the floor of the closet. The choir was disorganized to the point that it (we) couldn’t find the appropriate music. I couldn’t keep from thinking that this is precisely what happens when we forget to whom the church belongs: what we do loses its meaning. Regardless of how appropriate the attempts are, they are just a shadow of what they ought to be. The dream has a somewhat unrelated scene in that it doesn’t seem to belong in any sequence of events. We church leaders are sitting at what I assume is brunch when I noticed that the time was 11:15, fifteen minutes past the time when service was scheduled to begin. We had to scurry, even to climb over a fence, to get to the church! I’ve been there and done that. I adore pomp and splendor, lighted candles, the smell of incense, colorful vestments. I confess to crafting aesthetically pleasing orders of service, each part carefully placed and elegantly executed, and lections and hymns carefully chosen—each and every facet executed with precision. But did any of it point to the fact that I was in a place that belongs to the Lord Jesus, and did any of that precisely executed liturgy point to him? James Thurber, an American writer, puts it like this: “There are two kinds of light—the glow that illuminates and the glare that obscures.” I stand in the greater judgment for creating the glare because I was a shepherd who led his sheep into an unworthy pasture. I confused means and ends; I majored in trivial while ignoring substance. Worship really isn’t about us; it’s about God. I suspect the general belief in the so-called Bible Belt is that God is on the chancel while we are seated in the pews. God performs while we look on. Folks, this ain’t the situation. We have gotten the real situation reversed. Listen now. We are on the chancel while God is in the audience. We are the characters in the drama, and we perform for God who is the ONLY person in the audience. We perform for God! Okay, we acknowledge that the Lord Jesus owns the church; what is the next step? Let’s return to the reading from Hebrews. God has spoken many times and various ways “. . . but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appoint the heir of all thing through whom he also created the world” (Heb. 1:2, RSV). This Son, this Jesus Christ, bears the very stamp of the nature of God. The Greek word for stamp (charakater) refers first a tool for engraving and then to a stamp or impress, as on a coin or seal. The point is that Jesus bears the authentic image of God, the only reliable image of God. If you want to know what God is really like, look at Jesus. With respect to God what you see in Jesus is what you get! St. Paul gives us an indication of what the church ought to be about when he calls it “the body of Christ.” What Jesus in bodily form was to his world is what we are to our world. We are his eyes, ears, mouth, his hands and feet which we use in just the same way he did. St. Teresa of Avila has it, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world. Yours are the feet with which Christ is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which Christ is to bless all people now.” I offer the following comments without malice or sarcasm. Jesus did not go to Con-ference or one its multiple agencies looking for a program that would bring the people from the basement upstairs into the nave. Rather he took what he had to offer “Into the highways and hedges” where the people were. He entered a tax collector’s booth, a fisherman’s boat, a sick room, a banquet hall where he ate with sinners, a synagogue, the Temple, celebrated a wed-ding--and where does the list end. He did not open the doors of his home with the invitation, “Y’all come. “He took what he had to the people where they lived and worked, and they responded hand-over-fist! In one of the many, many, many, many meeting I’ve attended, it was pointed out a particular church in the district was having phenomenal success attracting and holding new members. More than one asked, “What program are you using.” The pastor of the church said, “Why, we just love them.” That was his “program” just loving them! That was Jesus’ strategy. Want to reach the people in the basement? I have two suggestions. First, give owner-ship of the church to Jesus which frees you to do as he did. (If you accuse me of over-simplifying a complex situation, I respond, “Just try it.”) Then do as he did by taking the Good News where they people were. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 13:57:11 +0000
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