Bishops' Blog

Metropolitan Dream Center Prayer Breakfast

I want to thank Margaret for her kind invitation. She is obviously a brave person, and in many ways. Look, she’s gone and invited another of these Episcopalians to speak. Because we come with a lot of baggage. I mean, literally. Forget all those stone churches with leaky roofs, iffy AC, and plumbing back to the horse-and-buggy era. There’s a lot more baggage in the bargain- Cassock, cotta, surplice, chasuble, maniple, stole, tippet, rochet, chimere, cope, beretta, mitre, purficator, burse, corporal, chalice, aumbry, dalmatic, zachetta, mosetta (this part sounds like Italian dinner), thurible, vimpa (even I had to look that one up!), monstrance, chrism, fermentum, gradual, epiclesis, no mas! we get the idea! To be sure, you can be Church without any of it- Word, people, water, bread and wine, faith- and you are good to go? Why do we do all those add ons? Old fashioned? Retro? I am the wrong person to answer the question, but I can say this- the add-ons says this- this is special, this is different from the everyday, this is holy, take your shoes off here, keep silence for a moment. In a world full of the strife of tongues, here is truth, a world that sometimes feels like a hall of mirrors, here is clarity. Forget the hardware, but remember this- the Word brings its own authority, and we mark that, on every side, with exalted song, with walls, with silence, a thousand worshippers or two or three, there the Spirit will be found, there is authority, of the kind that makes us not constrained, but free!  All of this brings me back to Margaret! Each branch of the Church has its own way of raising up leadership. But what we all believe is that real leadership calls on us to open our ears to the Word, points to Jesus who is the Word, points to him in his or her life of self-sacrifice and humility and hope. And in doing that, in a way surprising to the world, is found real authority, that is what I have always seen in Margaret James, the kind of authority that shines outward from the heart, which I think makes her my right reverend bishop! Amen!

On to my task, which begins with thinking together about II Chronicles 7, containing as it does our verse this morning: ‘reach up to heaven in order to bring it to earth.’ But first, what was happening in that chapter? Talk about fancy and impressive worship with not a little baggage! The First Temple, built by David’s son Solomon, in the holy city of Jerusalem, on Mount Zion- king, priests, Levites, musicians, with trumpets and doubtless drums and tambourines,  and a vast host of worshippers, right out the door and half way to Egypt! And then the mind boggling part- twenty two thousand cattle sacrifices, along with one hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goals, a river of blood, the sky thick with a cloud of smoke, the fire for the offering from heaven itself, and then the feast- talk about barbeque!  And none of this 55 minutes and we’re back in our cars! The celebration went on for a full seven days unceasing! Puts the Episcopalians to shame!  God's voice was heard in his word, and he promised that they could come to that place and lift up their distress and they would be heard. They could confess their sins and be forgiven. They could count on God renewing their covenant in his mercy when their hearts had grown cold.  There was a place where they were sure to find God, where they would be heard, forgiven, renewed. Lest we be too elated, Brothers and Sisters, the last words of the chapter from the Lord are a sharp shift.  II Chronicles 7 is full of worship, wonder, and benediction.  But at the end of the chapter, the Word from God becomes one of judgment- a day will come when, because of sin, this spectacular temple will be a pile of rubble, a byword to passersby.  We cannot help but think about Jesus’s prediction that not one stone would remain on stone, and the way those passing by the cross, soon thereafter, would revile him.  The Lord is preparing us to think about the Temple in a very different way

I have with me an illustration, thanks to the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth.  Now modern art has a lot to do with human struggle in this modern time we live in, when many think they can live without God, or have a bone to pick with him, or think we make up our own truth. Modern art often describes very eloquently the confusion in which the children of this age live.  But one sculpture caught my eye, a ladder from ground level up to the upper windows of the museum (by Martin Puryear in 1996). It is rickety, not an easy climb. Does it stop at the ceiling? Is it hopeful or doomed? Is it going up or down?  Do we build our own, or can it be found? Predictably, the artist is not giving you an easy answer!  But a ladder to the sky, that is what we human beings long for, what every religion and every ancient myth sought. A ladder to the sky is what sacrifice seeks to be- Zion the place where the sky parts and the voice, the presence, the promise, the fire, the blessing, all come down.  And where the blessing comes down, the earth, otherwise a desert, blooms and comes to life.  Sacrifice up, then blessing comes down- so we humans might think.

You can tell where I am going, the first chapter of the Gospel of John, Jacob’s ladder, the opening to heaven, where angels ascend and descend, where? Upon the Son of Man, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Every promise given to Solomon and the people of God fulfilled, but in a surprising new way!  For us as Christians, we start with God’s own Son descending to us, born in a stable, refugee, man of sorrows, the crucified who counts his death to the credit of us his betrayers! Jacob’s ladder, but coming down to us. The lamb that was slain, but first for us, while we were yet sinners.  But of course, says Paul in Ephesians, the Lord bowing downward to us in Jesus is itself an ascension most wonderful, so that our Lord but also our brother at the right hand of the Father. First Christ, then us, first downward, and then us able to stand. First he becoming sin who knew no sin, so that we might become, what we are not on our own, the righteousness of God.  The question mark over than ladder in the modern museum is answered!  And then what of us? We follow in his footsteps, as we are enabled, in works of witness and service, the kind of thing the Metropolitan Dream Center is all about. And that becomes, says then man who wrote our prayer book, Thomas Cranmer, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, lifted upward in response.  Our verse this morning from II Chronicles 7 is just right- touching heaven to change earth. It’s a bit like a divine roller coaster. He comes down, that he might go on high, so that we might life up our praise to heaven, so that we might change earth as he empowers and directs. Down and up, up and down, the order and rhythm all God’s, often in spite of ourselves.

This is after all a prayer breakfast, so let me close with a word about what we are here together for the Temple foretold by Solomon is the risen body of Jesus, which is as ecumenical as you can get, and utterly one be you a Baptist or Pentecostal or Catholic or Episcopalian, bring what baggage you will.  The Temple where we are surely heard, our sins miraculously forgiven, where rain comes to our dried lives, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving consumed in fire- this is anywhere and everywhere, where the name of Jesus is uttered. That is Zion, to which the nations flow!   Our prayer book says that Eucharist, thanksgiving should be offered ‘at all time and all places,’ even the most distressed and hopeless in the world’s eyes, in every place and every moment, this room, in this beautiful setting, on this morning, with the certainty that our prayers reach to his ear in heaven, and our expectation of hearing, also in prayer, his mandate to be his servants of change on his earth. And we praying this morning, says Peter, stones in his temple, all together his royal priest, whatever the world may say, in our prayers, says Paul, built up as sinews and muscles into a mature person in Christ on the last day.

I am most grateful for his time, and for the remarkable and encouraging ministry of the Metropolitan Dream Center, and pray for the manifold blessings of the Holy Spirit on every one of you, Amen.

Dwell, Abide, Remain, with the Lord

On Friday, Stephanie and I drove to the modern art museum in Fort Worth. A good outing on a day off, but harder for me than you might think. I am impatient by nature, and my head was full of issues at work, but art requires that you stop, stand still, and actually look for longer than mu usual cursory moment. We do so to see what exactly is in the picture, and then to allow the picture to evoke a feeling, of whatever kind. The display specialized in surrealism, art as dreamscape, for in our dreams one thing morphs readily into something different and incongruous. We are told that dreams have their own logic, image, feeling, some reality behind them, and art is similar. But first, standing still, the hard part.

This morning I want us to stand in front of Ephesians 2 with this kind of extended gaze, for it its image is complicated, even strange, and, needless to say, profound.  But first, some background. Those early communities of Christians in Asia Minor were small, threatened, conflicted, the early chapters of the Book of Revelation confirm all this. But appearances notwithstanding, Paul has assured them in the first part of the letter who they really are- chosen by God from eternity, raised to the right hand of the Father by the risen Son as His beloved sons and daughters in worship. Now in chapter two Paul tells us how this is so, and this is where the picture comes in.

It is a single image, but in three stages. The first is the temple in Jerusalem. It was the goal of pilgrimage, the place where God’s glory dwelt, the center of the universe, the symbol of the future hope.  It was where sacrifice, mandated in the Torah, was offered to God, with the holy of holies for the priests, then the temple precinct for God’s people, and then, beyond a wall, the ‘court of the Gentiles,’ an outer space for spectators, the rest of the tribes of the earth, once, and not yet, God’s own.

Let us linger over this for a moment. Paul describes them as ‘without God in the world.’ But those pagans had their own gods, and they were drawn with interest toward the outer court. But at the same time, gods of our own making, idols, are extensions of ourselves and our desires, not really God. Those ancient people then knew something of secularity, being orphaned in a cold universe, and as to  the trouble you can get yourself into with this mindset; when it comes to decadence, they were pros. We have not invented our post-modern predicament.

Back to the picture! Suddenly the articulated temple on Mt. Zion morphs into the dying body of Jesus on the cross.  Paul tells us that when his body was broken, it knocked down that wall separating Gentile from Jew, and in a sense separating us from our God. We are now one- in fact we are now a new humanity, as we were meant to be. This involves a series of surprises- first, this is not just a metaphor for Paul- it has happened. It is not that we wish we were one- we are made one, the sacrifice accepted, the gap closed, Emmanuel dwelling with us. We are now one, with Him, and so with one another. Secondly, the making of peace, the end of violence, has happened through his suffering the violent act of crucifixion. This is harder for us because we are not accustomed to the cult of sacrifice.  The change in us has happened- Christ is made our peace, through the blood of the cross. 

Allow me one more aside.  One of my favorite movies is ‘Elizabeth’, the first that is, which I commend as a refresher in Anglican history.  When something decisive and of another order happens, the director Shekhar Kapur has the screen go to sheer light for a moment, a kind of punctuation mark, and then the action picks up once again.  I want you to imagine with me for a moment something similar. Verse 14: ‘for he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the wall of hostility.’ Action, perfect tense, Jesus the subject, done deal: screen to sheer bright for a moment…..

And then we move on to the third stage of the same picture. The cathedral as fallen down, like bombed out Coventry, and a great renovation has taken place. It is a temple once more, described in the same way as the ‘household of God,’ only now those in the outer court, the strangers and sojourners, are now on the inside, the new Israel.  In stage three the temple become his body become a temple once more, only different.  It is the Church, us, here in this place and this morning.

The word ‘stages’ is true enough, when time is considered in the simplest way, but it isn’t enough to say. Let’s recall that idea of a dreamscape, Zion into Jesus into Church, the first two do not go away. They are layers, angles.  Temple leads to Jesus and church flows out of him, literally as water and blood from his side.  Time too heads toward Him and from Him, because the goal of all things is there in the middle of our broken world, the perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world. That is why Paul, in what follows in chapter 3, will speak of the ‘mystery,’ which for him means not mystification, but God’s plan for time, with Jesus made our peace, the center, the key to the puzzle of life.

Preaching is like teaching in that it tells us where we come from, and how we got here, and so who we are. The complex and luminous picture of the temple/body/church that is Christ in us does all that, and we should gaze long on it- as is often true with God’s Word, we look at it, and realize He is looking back, and in seeing Him we come to see ourselves. But preaching is more than teaching in this, that it tells our heart as well as our mind why the truth is good news. It becomes ‘gospel.’  And with Ephesians 2 the picture preaches in two words, ‘access’ and ‘dwelling place.’  Paul says essentially the same thing when in his valedictory letter to the Church in Rome he says in chapter 5 ‘through [Christ] we have obtained access to his grace in which we stand.’  You have access to God! You know where to find him! He is nearer to you than you are to yourself! (in Romans 8) even when perplexed, His own Spirit is praying though you, confirming that you are his beloved son or daughter of the Father through the Son Jesus Christ.  You are not feeling your way along the walls of a dark room. You whisper into the ear of Jesus who stands beside the right ear of the Father. And so the Temple of the lamb who was slain, and behold, he is alive, is any and everywhere, which is why in the Eucharistic prayer we say that ‘at all times and places,’ even the most forlorn, we offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving , as the prayer book calls it.  So the second word, and my parting one in this sermon, is ‘home,’ that is, dwelling place. The new temple is spacious, united, intimate, available wherever you are, the picture actually a three dimensionally place you can dwell, abide, remain, with the Lord who was incarnate to do that very thing with us, who are no longer strangers, but heirs. Amen.