15th Sunday after Pentecost

The beginning of man's pride is to depart from the Lord; his heart has forsaken his Maker.


The concluding verse of our first lesson tells us that “Pride was not created for men” (Ecclesiasticus 12). The question of pride is a confusing one, I think, for many, especially those, like me and other Gen-Xers and Millenials, who had pounded into their heads the idea of self-esteem. This is the age of participation awards and the morality of being nice. As a result, it is easy to get confused by the question of pride. Is it a good thing to be proud of who you are and the talents you have? Or is pride just conceit and vaunting? According to Gregory the Great who formulated the so-called seven deadly sins from a verse in the book of Proverbs, pride is the first and greatest of these sins. Is pride a sin or does it express a positive self-image and self-esteem? This morning I'd like to work through this thorny question.

So what is the sin of pride as the theologians define it? In his magnum opus, The City of God, Augustine of Hippo gives an extended meditation on Adam, Eve, and the Fall. Now, some of the earlier church fathers contended that the first sin of Adam and Eve was fornication, leading to the erroneous conclusion that sexual sin is the worst kind of sin. Augustine takes a deeper view of the matter. He notes that before Adam and Eve took of the forbidden fruit or broke any commandment, they had a thought, a will inside of them which said that they knew what was good for them better than God. From this premise that they knew better, they could make the decision to break the explicit commandment of a loving Creator and Father. Augustine says that a bad will preceded the transgression, and that bad will was pride. We might summarize, thus, that pride is a willingness to separate oneself from God, to frame one's destiny apart from the lordship and fatherhood of God. It's been pointed out that in the narrative of Genesis up through the fall, it was invariably the Lord who said it is good: and God saw the light, that it was good. In the fall, we are told that the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes. The root of pride is thus to decide what is good and evil according to your own self-directed morality. It's the impulse to live apart from God and to direct our lives apart from his Word and his leading,. If you think you can live apart from God and be your own light and guide, you obviously have an inflated ego. This is the bad, the sinful type of pride, and it has a further ramification: when we say that we do not need God, we soon say that we do not need our fellow human beings, and this also is pride. This resultant pride is illustrated in the story that succeeds the fall, the slaying of Abel by Cain which, as I talked about in last week's sermon, is a grim illustration of innocent and unredeemed suffering. It paints a true but hopeless picture. We've all thought at one time or another that we could better direct our lives than the Lord. We've all known the impulse to write others off, and say to ourselves we do this better without you. Such bad pride is illustrated in this morning's Gospel where our Lord warns us not to disregard the host—God—or the fellow-guests—our fellow-man. In pride we say, I'll take the best for myself without respect to God or care for others. Now our Lord was not trying to teach social etiquette in his parable; rather, the parable shows how we are relate to God as our Father and fellow-man, our brother. You look to the host to tell you where to be seated; you recognize that others may have an equal or greater claim to distinction than you. There is constant need for those in the ministry of the church to be reminded of the fact that the ministry does not depend on man—if you won't be faithful to what the Lord has called you to do, he'll raise up others.

So if bad pride is wanting to live apart from God and man what is good pride? First of all, it has to be said that the Bible does not use the word pride in a good way; rather, it speaks of the fact that we are, for example, God's children by adoption and grace. To be a Christian, thus, means being able to say not that I am worthless but that God accounted me worthy to send his Son to live and die and rise again for my salvation. Let me back up and cite another lesson from our recent VBS. On the last day, we talked about the Tower of Babel. If you ask why the people wanted to build a tower, the answer you'll get 90% of the time is that they wanted a tower to reach God. But the Bible says something different: And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name for ourselves. Assumably, the building of a tower to reach to heaven is about going up to God, but I think the second phrase is more important: the people wanted to make a name for themselves. They wanted to define their own identity and destiny. Thankfully, as we learned from our VBS, Jesus rescues us from this awful burden, by coming to show us who we truly are. As I told our children, you are a child of God by adoption and grace, you are a son or daughter of the king. True pride then is a well of confidence that springs from the truth that you are loved and treasured by the Lord, not because of anything you've done, but because God freely chooses to love you. Such pride and confidence we need to instill in our children. It's a drum we need to be banging for young adults today who too often are trying to find meaning and identity in careers and shallow materialism, inevitability leading to depression and the sadness that is so endemic among people in their 20s and 30s.

This true pride also teaches us how to relate to one another. I am a child of God and son of the King, I can also recognize that others are too. The gifts and talents that my God and Father has given me are not tools to stroke my personal vanity. Rather, they are to be used to build up others, just as the gifts of others build me up. You see, the truth is we need one another. We can't do very much apart from one another, and we can do nothing apart from the Lord. But if we'll surrender our lives to the Lord, and give ourselves in loving service to one another, we can do beautiful things for the Lord in this world. The world doesn't need another Babel, but it needs people of faith and good-will to work together for good. There is much negative about in our world today, but we're not called to be cynical and negative. We're called to accept our true identity as children of God, and to go out into the world making it a better place by things like love and joy and forgiveness and beauty.

14th Sunday after Pentecost

In the Epistle this morning, we have the climax of the argument that the author of the epistle has been making throughout his letter. That argument is that the new covenant of Christ is greater than the old covenant of Moses. Throughout the epistle he illustrates this argument. He says that Jesus is superior to Moses, because Moses was just a servant of God while Jesus is a Son—the heir always has greater care for his father's house. The priesthood of Jesus is greater than the priesthood of Aaron, because unlike those Old Testament priests, he doesn't have to make a sacrifice for himself nor offer repeated sacrifices annually. Rather, he has made one complete sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. In chapter twelve from which we heard this morning our author compares Mount Sinai to Mount Zion. Mount Sinai was the location of the giving of the law and the Ten Commandments to Moses. The people were told that they could not touch the mountain nor their cattle or else they would die. At first the people heard directly the voice of God which they found terrifying. Afterward they requested that God speak just to Moses and then Moses could deliver the message. As Christians, the author argues, we have not come to Mount Sinai where we hear the law, a law that convicts us as lawbreakers. Rather, we belong to the heavenly City and have come to its mount, Mount Zion, where we don't hear the law that condemns but the good news that forgives, that our Lord Jesus has made one sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the whole world.

In the middle of our passage, there is a curious statement that we have come to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. It's an unusual image because we don't usually think of blood as speaking. As readers though we're invited to compare and contrast the murder of Abel with the execution of Jesus, to figure out why the blood of Jesus is a better word than the blood of Abel. Abel and our Lord are both similar in that they are innocent sufferers; they are both killed by brothers—in Abel's case by his brother of nature, in our Lord's case by his brothers of nation and ethnicity. They are also killed for reasons of religious envy: Cain is jealous of the acceptance of Abel's sacrifice; the Pharisees are jealous of our Lord's authority and his claim to have God as his Father. The fruit of envy is a consuming hatred that is evident in both accounts. 

Now, given these similarities, why is it that our author says that the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel? A better initial question would be what word does the blood of Abel speak? This past week at VBS we talked about the key stories in Genesis 1-11. This section contains the primaeval narratives that lead up to the story of the patriarchs, Abraham and his descendants. One of the main purposes of these opening chapters is to explain why the world is the way it is. Why are there multiple languages in the world? The story of the tower of Babel provides an answer to that question. Why is man out of communion with God? The story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall answers that question. Another question is why is there is war? Why do brothers and sisters feel malice and hatred for their own kin? Why is a marriage that survives so rare and one which would be described as happy even more rare? Why is friendship so difficult to find and then to maintain? The story of Cain and Abel is an answer to this question, or at least an assertion that the world of Cain and Abel is the same world in which we live, a world where man is at enmity with man. Abel's blood does speak a word, but one that is painful to hear. Despite our desire for poetic justice, the innocent often suffer. Children are the object of abuse and violence. The powerful lord over the powerless, and human beings are treated as expendable for the benefit of political expediency or economic growth. Economies are constructed in such a way to promote oligarchy rather than common wealth. In short, the word of Abel's blood testifies that sin divides and destroys families and communities and nations. Sin has separated us not only from God but from one another. At the heart of all this division between man and man is the assertion I am not my brother's keeper. The word of Abel's blood is a true one—it reflects accurately the disorder and suffering between man and man, brother and brother in the world, but it is a word that offers no hope. It leaves us with the fact of innocent suffering with no remedy for the malice and hatred that engendered this suffering. 

But the blood of Jesus, my friends, speaks a better word. His blood is that of an innocent suffer, but it is a blood that cleanses and makes new. Our Lord does not live in the paradigm of Adam or of Cain. Unlike Adam he consecrates all of his life to God his father, and lives in total obedience and surrender. Unlike Cain, he lives in total love for his brothers and sisters, his fellow man, even when they do not deserve it. All of the injury and violence that has been inflicted in the world calls for justice; this blood cries out from the ground. Our sins are the same way. They call out for justice and satisfaction to God. The blood of Jesus is shed that the unjust might be made righteous and just. He doesn't promise that if you'll be good and just try harder, you'll be considered just before man and God. He doesn't offer an elaborate self-help program. What he offers is forgiveness if we'll turn to him in faith and trust; forgiveness is the only real hope for a world as broken by injustice and sufferings. There will never be marital reconciliation without forgiveness and a surrender of your sense of right and wrong. There will never be reconciliation between family members without forgiveness of past grievances. Society will never be at peace unless forgiveness is extended as a sign of goodwill to all people. You might ask, how can I forgive this person or that group for what they've done? And the answer is in the word of Jesus' blood. The one absolutely innocent person suffered unjustly and yet extends forgiveness: forgive them for they know what they do, he says from the cross. In the cross is found the way that Cain can be reconciled to Abel, and this is why it is the greatest hope for our world. This is a word that we should never tire of hearing and proclaiming, as we live into the call to be ambassadors to the world of this shed blood that indeed speaks a better word. 

Independence Day

I have a copy of the English Book of Common Prayer from the 1830s. In the back of that prayer book can be found several commemorations that cannot be called strictly religious: there is a set form of prayers to commemorate the failed Gunpowder Plot which was an effort in 1605 to blow up the English parliament and kill the king, James I, in order to, among other things, restore the Roman Church in England. Another commemoration is for the date of the death of Charles I, the king who was forcibly removed from the throne and eventually killed or martyred depending on your perspective in 1649. Another celebrates the restoration of the monarchy a decade later with the crowning of Charles II which brought an end to the nearly two decades of the English Civil War. The introduction to that brief service reads in part: A FORM of PRAYER with THANKSGIVING to Almighty God, For having put an end to the great Rebellion, by the Restitution of the King and Royal Family, and the Restoration of the Government after many Years interruption; which unspeakable Mercies were wonderfully completed upon the Twenty-ninth of May, in the Year 1660. It is thus entirely in keeping with Anglican custom to recall political events of the nation and to see them through the lens of our faith.

This is precisely what we are doing this morning, as we celebrate our nation's Independence, not merely as a civic holiday but one that should be commemorated in our churches and by all faithful Christians who are citizens of this nation. I have noticed an alarming trend among fellow Episcopal clerics. It is commonly taught by many that it is not a good idea to have patriotic hymns or services in the church. Many have worked to remove American flags from the interior of the church. Perhaps you've heard or witnessed something along these lines in another church? The reasoning behind this move is to a certain extent compelling. These religious leaders are trying to avoid the church adopting an uncritical attitude towards the nation in which it resides. If the mission and promotion of the nation become one with the mission of the church, social and political disaster is at hand. Think of the majority of churches in fascist Germany who largely remained silent and inactive about the Nazi program of world domination and racial cleansing. When the church enmeshes itself in politics, the church's proclamation is often corrupted and its people can begin to think that God is exclusively on their side of a political or social issue. There is something to be said for this argument especially if one is residing in a particularly nationalistic environment. This qualification, however, is the reason why I don't think it is a wise decision to remove flags from churches or to discontinue patriotic services. We live in an age of ambivalence about a great many things. There is ambivalence about religion—the fastest growing religion according to the demographers is no religion at all: the so-called nones—n-o-n-e-s—the nones are those who have no religious affiliation. It's not that the nones don't believe in God or in an afterlife—the nones are not atheists, but simply ambivalent about religious institutions. If it is possible, there is even more ambivalence about politics in our age. Very few trust the established political institutions and together with a big dose of ambivalence, most people cannot be bothered with patriotism. The kind of heroic sacrifices made by so many during the grim days of World War II when so many were either fighting abroad or managing their homes with victory gardens and limited rations seems like a world apart. No, our problem today is not an excess of nationalistic fervor, but a seeming apathy about our nation and its future. In one of his books, G.K. Chesterton, the great Catholic apologist and satirist, offered the helpful insight that most ages are blind to their own weaknesses and vices. They pick on the vices of a former age, and congratulate themselves on being so much more superior, but all the while they are blind to their own faults. I think we have an excellent example of that in our own time. If in a former time, some were uncritically loyal to every action of the nation, and therefore, forfeited some of the prophetic role of the church, in this age, what we need is not less patriotism but more.

What does not it mean to be patriotic? Well, the word patriot is derived in part from the Latin for father, pater. To be a patriot is to be loyal to your fatherland, your homeland. Christians are sometimes accused of being so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good. I think this point is overwrought. Christians should place very high value on life on this world because it is where we learn to live in the world to come. If you want to be part of God's family, the communion of love in his eternal kingdom, then you are going to need to learn how to get along with your own family, to do your duty to parents, children, siblings, and all those who might have a claim on your care and responsibility as kin. Similarly, if you are going to be a part of the Catholic, the universal Church, the body of all faithful Christians in heaven and earth, then you will need to learn to be a member of a local congregation: to offer yourself in loving service and ministry in whatever way the Lord has gifted you; to overlook the faults and foibles of others; and to live into the truth that Christianity is not something to be practiced individually, but as a body, a community of believers joined together in Christ. Finally, if you are want to be a citizen of that city above—the heavenly Jerusalem—you are going to need to learn how to be a good citizen of your city and state and nation in this world. If you neglect your responsibilities to these temporal powers, how will you possibly be a faithful citizen of the City of the Lord Almighty. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. And what are those civic virtues that we need to practice as patriots? Well, among other things, we might start with honest and diligent labour and industry, promotion of the common good rather than our own private good, establishing justice for all, fighting if necessary for the defense of liberty and the protection of innocents. St. Paul tells us that our citizenship is in heaven. May we render to Ceasar his due, even as strive to live as the children of our heavenly King and Father.

4th Sunday after Pentecost

Then they found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.

This morning's Gospel is one of the most strange accounts in all of the Gospels. It's also one of my favorites, because I think it offers a striking representation of self-destructive humanity which is delivered and renewed by God in Christ. After crossing the sea of Galilee, our Lord and his disciples enter into a primarily Gentile region—this is evident by the fact that in this county the people keep herds of pigs which of course then and now are forbidden food for observant Jews. In this land our Lord and his disciples meet a man who, according to St. Luke, had certain devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any houses but in the tombs. In a parallel account in the Gospel of Mark, we are told in addition that this man used to cut himself with stones. I cannot help but be struck how suggestive this detail is for our own age. There is a small but significant trend among young people—young women in particular—to cut themselves and practice self-harming. One of the triggers for this in this intense negativity that young people feel about themselves and their bodies. I believe that this phenomenon is not just isolated abnormality of human psychology but actually an acute manifestation of the more pervasive problem of self-loathing. Listen, you probably don't cut yourself, you may not even loathe yourself, but I bet you know a lot of people in the world, and maybe young people in your family who loathe themselves. Look at the staggering number of suicides every year among teens and those in their twenties. Despite Gen-Xer's and Millennials being fed a steady diet of self-esteem reinforcement with things like participation awards, very little of this has seemed to translate into greater confidence and positive self-image. The world, my friends, has defined what constitutes a happy life—certain physical looks, popularity, academic and professional success—and when these don't measure up, as inevitably they don't because we're human, the living flesh and blood pales with this perfect image, and self-loathing ensues. The demon-afflicted man may seem a world apart from us, but I would suggest that he is really a representation of our self-loathing society and may be a portrait of us in self-loathing or self-destructive behavior.

But the power of the Gospel is that our Lord comes and he wants to deliver this demon-afflicted man. There is no personal gain for our Lord—he just pities this afflicted son of Adam and wants to see him restored to his right mind. What further illustrates the vigor of self-destruction in these demons is that our Lord at the demons' request sends them into a herd of swine. The demons who make the man cut himself, enter into the swine and the herd runs violently down a steep place into the lake and are choked.

Life, my friends, is a battle. It is outward battle of trials and vexations, mostly things out of our control, and it is inward battle as we struggle with sin and temptation and fight our own inner demons of addiction, or self-hatred, or anger, or greed, or malice. All these kill. These are the demons that cause the man to cut himself and that move the herd to be cast violently down and drowned. The demonic is self-destructive, as is sin. We think sin will make us happy or at least will not harm us, but on another cognitive level we are usually aware of how unhappy sin makes us and how sin robs us of spiritual joy. Clinging to that rage will kill you. Ask any doctor, and he will tell you that the stress of anger increases blood pressure and the rates of heart attack and stroke. Ask any Christian, and you will be told that anger roots out joy and peace. And yet in a kind of insanity we cling to that rage and anger. Addiction to alcohol or pornography will do the same thing: driving one to self-destruction. Part of the nature of sin is that it causes self-destruction. St. Augustine makes a profound statement on this point. In explaining the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, he points out that implicit to the commandment is the love of self. And so he asks the questions what does it mean to love yourself, and concludes that to love yourself is to have compassion on yourself; to have compassion on yourself is simply not to sin because sin is that which kills us.

Our Lord wills to deliver those who are afflicted by inner demons. In this miracle, the kingdom of God breaks into human existence. In the kingdom of God, there is liberation for the captive, freedom for the possessed, joy for those who are cast down by sorrow and despair. Listen to this beautiful succession of actions attributed to God in the Psalms: The Lord upholds the cause of the oppressed, and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. . . the Lord watches over the foreigner, and sustains the fatherless and the widow. Our Lord’s ministry is the manifestation of these works of God, exemplified in this miracle. Our Lord reveals God’s dominion over every spiritual evil in his kingdom. If our Lord delivers the man who cuts himself with stones, he will deliver you too from your inner demons and self-destructive behavior. Your deliverance may not come overnight—the implication is that the man has been possessed for years—but seek the Lord in prayer of the heart, gather together in Christian fellowship, study the Bible to hear God’s word to you—and your deliverance will come. When we are going through a time of intense internal struggle, it is so easy not to look beyond the present feelings and circumstances, and so to hand ourselves over to despair. The God whom we worship, revealed perfectly in Jesus Christ, wants to deliver us from every demon, addiction and sin. We are his children, he has pity on the afflicted sons and daughters of Adam.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways!

Reclothe us in our rightful mind,

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper reverence, praise.

3rd Sunday after Pentecost

The Lord loves the righteous, the Lord cares for the stranger; he sustains the orphan and widow.

In last week's Gospel, we heard the story of the centurion of great faith, and who sought to have his servant healed by Jesus. There was an interesting tension in that account: on the one hand, there were the centurion's friends and sympathizers who said that the centurion was worthy of having this healing performed even though he was not a Jew, and on the other hand, you had the centurion himself declaring that he was not worthy. As I pointed out in my sermon, we do good things not so that we can present them to God as a kind of resume, but rather, doing good that we can do, we recognize that before the Lord we are not worthy because our good is never unalloyed with a little bad and even the good we do pales in comparison with him who is goodness itself. What is particularly notable about last week's Gospel in contrast with today's is that our Lord was asked to come and perform that healing, while in today's, where he raises the only son of a widow from the dead, he acts without being implored. As much as we may have a sense that we are growing in holiness and in the life of the Spirit, the more profound truth is that at some point we were like this dead young man. To put it into the words of that familiar hymn, I once was lost but now am found. At some point our Lord found you; he came unsolicited and unwanted, by his own authority and moved by his heart of love, to awake you out of spiritual slumber. The Lord's greatest work is almost invariably unsolicited, and this is so because so often we don't even realize the good things we need or can have from the Lord. Gorging ourselves on a steady diet of stale biscuits and water, we too often miss the fact that our Lord has spread a table before us, and by his grace has called us to partake, all of his own initiative.

It is interesting to put the first and Gospel lessons in conversation with one another. Both contain stories of raising a widow's only son from the dead. Luke wants us to think of this scene from the life of the prophet Elijah because he understands Jesus is a prophet, but of course, he is even greater. This is evident if read them side by side. The broken-hearted widow reproaches the prophet Elijah for the death of her son. The prophet takes the child into an open room, and beings to pray, Lord, O Lord my God, hast thou brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn? Then he lays upon the child three times, and finally the soul of the child comes into him again. It is clear that this raising from the dead is by the power of God and not by Elijah's power. He is merely the pleader and the intercessor, the instrument through whom the Lord works. In contrast when our Lord sees the young man being carried on the bier, thronged with mourners and processing towards the grave, he sees the sorrowful mother and has pity on this poor widow. Walking over and touching the bier, he says, young man, I say unto thee, arise. Here our Lord is seen not as the pleader and intercessor, but as the one in whom authority is given to raise from the dead. Like the prophets, our Lord proclaims the truth of God, but unlike the prophets, in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, to use the words of St. Paul. Our Lord is not only the mouthpiece of God as a prophet, but the incarnate God. He shows that he has authority over every sickness and demon, and even over death.

But someone might ask why didn't our Lord raise all deceased children? Was his compassion limited just to this widow? I like what George MacDonald, the great 19^th century Scottish divine, had to say about this passage, O mother! mother! wast thou more favoured than other mothers? Or was it that, for the sake of all mothers as well as thyself, thou wast made the type of the universal mother with the dead son—the raising of him but a foretaste of the one universal bliss of mothers with dead sons? Now a modern interpreter might argue that widows were often destitute in the ancient world, so our Lord's raising of the young man had more to do with providing for her than sympathizing with her grief, but such a view misses the plain wording of the Scripture: when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said unto her, Weep not. It is a horrible, horrible thing for a parent to bury a child. Some of you may have been through that; others perhaps have seen loved ones and friends mourn the death of a child. A window in this church memorializes such a death. The thought of a child cut off in the flower of youth is horrible to contemplate—lost life and joy swallowed by the oblivion of death. And yet our Lord comes, he has compassion; he touches the bier. He did this not just for this widow, but for all mothers and fathers who mourn the death a child to show them that he is the Lord even over death and destruction. In his kingdom, the love between a mother and a son, a parent and a child will find its reunion and fulfillment because God is love, and that motherly love was a gift of his. Our Lord touches our sorrows and has compassion on the those who mourn, and we pray that, to quote the graveside prayers from the Book of Common Prayer, he would raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness.

Pentecost Sermon

We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.


In Augustine of Hippo's great work, The City of God, he reviews the popular philosophies of the time, both popular and academic, and evaluates the kind of happiness they offer. Augustine works from the thesis that no lasting happiness can be established apart from that found in God in the greater life, because in this world, we are subject to so many dangers and trials. Some of these are of our own making—many of them are not, but have to do with living in a transitory world where things wear out and break and human bodies fail and die. One of these evils, Augustine argues, is the diversity of languages in the world that divide human beings. He writes: Man is separated from man by the difference of languages. For if two men, each ignorant of the other's language, meet. . . mute animals, though of different species, would more easily hold intercourse than they, human beings though they be. For their common nature is no help to friendliness when they are prevented by diversity of language from conveying their sentiments to one another. All know what he is talking about if you've have ever been in a foreign country and struggled to communicate with others of a different tongue or simply interacted with a foreigner on your native soil and confronted the intractability of trying to communicate with someone that doesn't speak your language, though they are human. Just a few weeks ago, near the end of evening prayer, a Russian speaking Belorussian wandered into the church. He spoke very little English and trying to explain the Episcopal Church was very challenging—even church of England did not suffice.

The opening chapters of the book of Genesis have what is known as etiological purpose, that is, these chapters help explain why the world is the way it is: why are humans out of fellowship with God? Because of the human willfulness to break his commandment, as shown in the fall of Adam and Eve; why are humans out of fellowship with each other? Jealousy turns into malice and hatred and finally the murder of brother by brother in the story of Cain and Abel. The account of the Tower of Babel is a narrative that explains the diversity of languages in the world. A simplistic reading of the text would suggest that God feels threatened and so he confounds the languages of those building the tower—they were getting too close to him and might have stolen fire or something else from him. If you ask most people why the people wanted to build the tower, the most common answer will be that they wanted to build a tower to God. However, we need to read carefully. They are building a tower to heaven—this is what they are doing, but the reason why they do it is in order to make a name for themselves. And herein lies the clue to the wickedness of their endeavor and why God so punishes it. Life is decidedly not about making a name for yourself. Many of course are working under this assumption. Some build and put their name on monuments. Sometimes the very geography of the earth is imbued with this pursuit of reputation so that the names of powerful men are given to mountains, rivers and valleys. Thankfully in the United States we've avoided some of this demagoguery by not putting figures on our currency or giving their names to things until after they are dead.
My friends, life is a kind of education; God, our great teacher, uses the uncertainties and evils of life to wake us up and push us towards healthy change. The Bible tells us that, Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18). Often times, as in the case of the those erecting a tower for their name, God lets us fall that he might open the door to the way of humility, the way of his sons and daughters. He confounds their languages they he might teach them a new way of speaking, that he might establish for them a union not based on human power and reputation but on the wonderful works of God.

And this is really the answer to the seemingly contradictory actions in the first and second lessons. In the first lesson, God confounds the languages of the people, causing disorder and disunity. In the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the account of the day of Pentecost, the Father sends the Spirit and empowers the apostles to speak the languages of the diverse crowds of people who have come to Jerusalem for the temple feast. It's an event of unification that anticipates the great turn in the early church when Gentiles, non-Jews, will be allowed to be included in the body of the faithful. Every tongue and nation, whether Jew or Gentile, male or female, whether slave or free, has a place in this kingdom of heaven by the grace of our Lord Jesus.

In last week's sermon, I made the point that Jesus as our high priest is the representative of all without distinction. This means that at the heart of the Christian proclamation there is posited a radical equality among all people that flows out of the truth that we all have one high priest, one representative. At the heart of the proclamation of this feast of Pentecost is the truth that by the work of the Holy Spirit, God is bringing all things into unity with himself. Again, it is not a unity based on human endeavor, power, or ambition, but rather, based on what God has done for us in Christ. The multitudes hear the Apostles telling each in their own language the wonderful works of God. The kingdom of God is not something we build so that we can make a name for ourselves, but God's gift to us by the Spirit. It's economy is the giving of love and its light is the Lord. The world may divide men and races and categorize according to party, class, and so forth, but the goal of eternity is that all would be one in the Lord. As we cooperate with the work of the Spirit in our lives this unity is what he nurtures and promotes. Each of us are given a choice, will you be among the common day laborers of the tower of Babel, scrambling for your slice of human fame and accomplishment, or will you be in the army of the Lord whose banner is to fight evil, promote love, and proclaim the new humanity revealed in our Lord Jesus?

4th Sunday after Easter

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling of God is with men

The Bible does not have an abundance of things to say about heaven, but in our first lesson this morning from St. John's Revelation, we have a beautiful image of what heaven is. Building on imagery from the prophet Isaiah, John sees a new heaven and a new earth, and then a new city, descending from heaven. Its descent from heaven is a symbol of its origin in God. He reports, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. It is interesting to talk to geographers who study where cities are established and why. One major consideration its proximity to water for a supply of fresh water. In New Mexico all almost all of the major towns are on the Rio Grande because of the importance of this water supply in the desert. Before the advent of modern shipping—when eating grapes from Chile in the northern hemisphere would have been unimaginable—easy access to grown food was also important. For provision of housing, forests and trees that can be harvested are needed to make shelters. These considerations have to do with preserving and perpetuating human life, seeing that all the members of the polis have food, water and shelter. Cities are also established for economic reasons. Many of the great cities of the world are on the ocean or on major bays with access to the ocean in order to expedite trade. A region's natural resources can become a boon for a local economy and see the flourishing of new cities. Many of the cities in Oklahoma and Texas have grown to their extent because of oil. Cities are places for the preservation of human life and for commerce, but they are also for communion and fellowship. A visitor to New York City is invariably impressed by the number of languages overhead by simply walking the streets or taking the subway, and yet all these millions of diverse people manage to live together in relative peace.

This New Jerusalem shares some of these considerations in common. For example, we are told that there is stream in this city. In the following chapter of Revelation, St. John reports, And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. These fruits and this stream symbolize the fulfillment of all human longing. No longer will there be the numbing pain of empty stomachs or parched throats. The cycle of hunger, hunt, and satiation will have an end because we will no longer be subject to these bodily needs and will know the ultimate satiation of joy in the Lord. Similarly, though there will not be in this city the clamor of ambition and greed, there will be a kind of commerce. Again, we are told that, the gates of the city shall not be shut at all by day. . . And the kings of the earth shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. There is powerful symbolic value to these images. The glory and honor of the nations are all the good things that human culture has produced that are not in opposition to the one true God or his glory. All that is beautiful, noble and true will find its home and fulfillment in this city because it is the city of God who is himself, Beautiful, Noble, and True, the source of all human good, whether artistic or moral. Finally, this city will be about communion and fellowship. John is told earlier in Revelation that among the citizens of this city, he sees a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. It is a New York City but with greater diversity and certainly more peace. But the greatest fellowship of this city will not be with humans, but rather with God. Of this city, we are told, Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. The God who is throughout all eternity who does need or want anything, wills to be in communion with us, and has made a way for us to share in that communion through the joining of divine and human natures in the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Mortal human existence has been taken into the godhead to be transfigured and redeemed.

Today, this communion with God and each other is what we celebrate with the baptism of Charlie Belle is just a few moments. The Bible relates how in the fall of human nature, man has sought to live apart from God and from his brothers and sisters. First Adam and Eve choose to decide what was good and evil, and to live by their own light rather than the light of God in an implicit rejection of communion with God. This breakdown in fellowship was succeeded by its fruit: Cain slays his innocent brother Abel. These are the two principal human lies documented in these opening chapters of Genesis: first the lie we tell ourselves when we say we don't need God, and then, the other lie we tell ourselves when we say that we don't need our brothers and sisters. If you're looking at your fellow human being and saying I don't need or want you, this is more the spirit of Adam than the spirit of the new Adam, our Lord Jesus. Today, we commit Charlie Belle to this communion with God, knowing that today she receives the greatest gift she will ever receive: the Holy Spirit, communion with the body of Christ here on earth, and a place in that heavenly city, New Jerusalem. Thanks be to God.