Reports, musings, sermons, happenings from a Presbyter (Priest) of The Episcopal Church who loves Jesus, the natural world, ice and snow, and is raising 3 children with his artist-wife, Erin McGee Ferrell. (This photo is of the Presidential range in NH taken from Vermont.)
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wilmot NH travel day
Greet One Another With a Holy Kiss
A Sermon for Trinity Sunday (RCL A) 6-19-2011
Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry
Texts: Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20
Themes: creation, the great commission, perichoresisDuring the period from the 5th to the 8th of May in this year, the Gallup company conducted a random poll of American citizens and discovered that 92% of all Americans say that they believe in God. This is only slightly lower than the 94% who responded affirmatively to this same question in 1947. (see the website: http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/Americans-Continue-Believe-God.aspx )
Even today, nearly all Americans say that they believe in God – 92%. What is more, a poll undertaken by Gallup in 2002 revealed that 93% of all Americans, regardless of their religious background –if any, claim that Jesus has had some impact upon their lives as a moral and ethical leader. Going back a bit further, a 1993 Gallup poll found that 84% of all Americans at that time said they believe that Jesus is God or the Son of God. (see the website: http://www.gallup.com/poll/7471/Who-Jesus.aspx)
What does all of this professed belief among Americans mean? And what, if anything does all of this have to do with Trinity Sunday?
Well, let me ask you this: what is the value of belief without action? What is the importance of belief with commitment? What is the purpose of thinking thoughts that make no difference in one’s actions?
In the Gospel of Matthew, the very last words spoken by the Lord to his closest friends have been recorded and handed down to us as the Great Commission. They are powerful words, direct and forceful. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. ”
Let me suggest to you that there is absolutely no correlation at all between the kind of insipid belief in God that is so ubiquitous in American society and the call of Jesus to make disciples who are baptized and who obey what Jesus actually taught us.
To say that you believe in God but you are not really interested in following what God has taught us is the same as saying that you believe in marriage but you are not willing to make the full commitment of your entire life to another human being!
There is nothing wrong with that kind of belief. The problem is that it has no real value, because it is devoid of a relationship.
What our Lord Jesus is interested in is not some kind of general belief in some vague idea that makes no real difference in real life, but rather in a living relationship with those who love him.
And this is what Trinity Sunday is all about: real, loving relationships between living beings.
On the sixth day of creation, God said: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” In the Church, we understand this Divine “We” to be a conversation within the Blessed Trinity, and we see this as a plan by all three Persons of the Trinity to crown this wonderful new creation with sentient, aware beings capable of love and relationship.
What, after all, does it mean to be made in God’s image, according to the likeness of the Trinity?
We can never answer this definitely, but surely at the very least it points to the relational nature of human life, in just the same way that God is always, eternally in loving relationship.
The great theologians of the Church have spoken of this as the perichoresis of the three Persons of the Trinity.
This is a beautiful word, but it is foreign to most of us. It comes from two roots: peri – which means around, and choreio – which means to contain or to embrace. Think of one of our words which come from this root, choreography: the planned, intentional, deliberate movements of an entire group.
Perichoresis was first coined by St. Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the 3 great Cappadocian fathers of the 4th century. It is all about the intimacy of relationships within the Trinity: how three can be perfectly united together so as to act and think and be as one.
It’s a beautiful image, a lovely reality, worthy of our contemplation.
But the reason it is so important for us is that God has created you and me to manifest that same type of loving relationships in this world in our real, daily lives.
The shocking fact of the matter is that the Church is God’s message to the world – and that’s you and me and all those who are disciples learning to obey all that Christ taught us.
“The work of God is the calling of a people, whether in the Old Covenant or the New.
The church is then not simply the bearer of the message of reconciliation, in the way a newspaper or a telephone company can bear any message with which it is entrusted. Nor is the church simply the result of a message, as an alumni association is the product of a school or the crowds in a theater are the product of the reputation of the film.
That men and women are called together to a new social wholeness is itself the work of God, which gives meaning to history” (quoted in Common Prayer).
We are a crucial part of God’s plan to change the world, and we fulfill our part through the relationships that we build with God and with one another.
This is the primary reason why I believe that any healthy, vibrant congregation today will inevitably be shaped by small group ministries. What we do on Sunday morning is crucial and vital. There is no replacement for our gatherings on the Lord’s Day to celebrate Christ’s resurrection and to be formed together by the Word of God and the Body of Christ.
But Sunday morning worship is not enough; it is never enough. If we only gather on Sunday mornings for the Eucharist, then we will not be faithful in being the Body of Christ in the world.
One of the reasons that small fellowship groups are essential is that they connect what happens here on Sunday mornings to what happens in our lives throughout the week. These groups are a reminder that this place is not the Church of the Holy Spirit (or the Ascension, or St. Luke’s Church).
It is not. This building is a place where the disciples in this area gather together.
Remember this, please: you cannot ever go to church! What a silly thing to say.
Let’s work on changing our language, because how we speak affects how we think and how we act. It is impossible for you to wake up on Sunday morning and go to church, just as much as it is impossible for you to leave work on Tuesday afternoon and go to family.
Church is who we are; family is who you are with those related to you. You can never GO there, because it is you! You are it, no matter where all of you might be at any given moment.
On Sundays, we gather for worship; we do not go to church. The difference in mindset is critical.
In the Autumn, when many of you begin to meet together during the week in home fellowship groups for Bible study and prayer and conversation, you will be the Church of the Holy Spirit (or the Ascension, or St. Luke’s Church) meeting in that place. The bonds created in reading and studying and learning and praying together in small groups are vital. They are true reflections of the perichoresis of the Trinity: that intimate union of distinct persons in one mind and will and heart.
I am convinced that this is the great truth that we need to understand and embrace today.
We are God’s plan to redeem, change and restore the world! And our primary task is to be the people whom God has called us and re-created us to be.
We are the yeast of Christ that is sprinkled into the dough of humanity, to slowly leaven it by being the channel through which the influence of the Holy Spirit can spread to all people.
Listen once more to these beautiful closing words of St. Paul’s second letter to the disciples gathered in the city of Corinth: “Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.”
May it always be so among us here in this fellowship gathered around Christ our Lord. Amen.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Don't cry, LeBron. Don't cry.
I know it's not very compassionate to kick someone when they are down, but I can't help it! Lebron James has this coming. He asked for it. I must admit that it is wonderful to see him and Wade lose. I have never seen such a pair of complainers and whiners. Anytime a call does not go their way, they raise their arms in the air and cry and rant to the officials. And that is after all of the phantom foul calls that Wade receives whenever he drives the lane. As far as I'm concerned, they deserve to be disappointed! So much for the Big 3! Fire and Water
A Sermon for Pentecost (RCL A) 6-12-2011
Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry (annual outdoor liturgy)
Texts: Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:24-35, 37; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 7:37-39
Title: Fire and WaterFire and water. These are the elements that the Church has always used to speak of the Holy Spirit.
I want us to think about this together a bit this morning. Here we are, gathered by a major body of water, and there is fire burning right back there in those grills!
These two elements – fire and water – are crucial and necessary for human life.
We cannot live without water. As you know, up to 60% of our bodies are water.
We also cannot live without fire. Fire is the source of our heat and our light; it is also how we cook our food, like we hope those guys are doing over there!
There are other things that we need to survive: food and shelter, of course. But the Bible and the Church have been clear in pointing to fire and water as symbols of the Holy Spirit.
Why do you think that is?
First, I think it is because they are elements essential for life. We call the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of life”.
This is what the Psalm said today: “You send forth your Spirit and they are created, and so you renew the face of the earth.”
But I also think we speak about the Holy Spirit as fire and water because these things are so notoriously difficult to control! We human beings have never been very good at controlling water and fire!
Just look at the news right now: a massive wildfire is raging out of control in Arizona. Devastating floods continue to affect large areas along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, as well as up in Vermont.
Fire and water are crucial and vital for us only when we have them in small quantities that we can control. But when the quantity becomes too much, we lose all control and those forces act as if they have a mind of their own.
This is how it works with the Holy Spirit as well. We really like it when there’s a bit of the Spirit moving in our midst. That means that things are growing perhaps. There is some energy in our community, some new people are joining us. There’s a feeling of joy and excitement among us.
This is all wonderful, but only so long as there’s not too much of the Holy Spirit. We don’t want things to become out of control, do we?
We don’t want the fire to burn out of control! We don’t want the water to flood our community!
We want the Spirit to stay controlled, where we can manage it.
But the Spirit always has a mind of its own, and whenever possible, the Spirit is always pushing the edges of our control.
What did St. Paul say of the Holy Spirit in our reading from his first letter to the Church in Corinth?
All kinds of different gifts handed out by God to those in the community “just as the Spirit chooses.”
And what happened after all on that day of Pentecost among the disciples there in Jerusalem? Tongues of fire came upon them and took control of them in a very real way.
Why did the bystanders think that they were drunk? Because it appeared that they were acting out of control? And why is that? Because the fire of the Holy Spirit had come among them!
Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher, as well as a disciple of the Lord, who died in 1662. A few years before his death he had a profound experience of God coming into his life, like an uncontrollable power bursting upon his consciousness.
The experience was so profound that he wrote it down immediately in these words raw with passion, almost chaotic in ecstasy:
“The year of the Lord 1654. Monday, 23 Novemeber, from about half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve at night: Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not the God of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. He is only found along the ways that are taught in the Gospel. Tears of joy. I had parted from him. I fled from him, denied him, crucified him. Let me never be separated from him. Surrender to Jesus Christ.”
Fire. For two hours, the Holy Spirit touched Blaise Paschal in a direct and powerful way.
And what was the first word that he could use to describe that experience? Fire.
There’s one more thing that is special about fire and water and that points to the purposes of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Both fire and water are used to clean. We wash with water; we sterilize with fire.
Even in nature, the waters from floods are used to cleanse the land and to bring new and fresh soil into the river bottoms.
And after forest fires, new seedlings are enabled to sprout as the old dead wood is cleansed away.
In the Bible, think of the flood in the days of Noah sent to cleanse the earth of evil, and the promise of fire in the last days for the same purpose.
The Lord Jesus spoke of rivers of living water that would flow out of our hearts when we drank in all of the truth and goodness that we experience in him. That river cannot flow if it is blocked by the cares of the world, by the desires for things of this world. The Spirit wants to cleanse us so that this living water might flow unhindered for the blessing of all those around us: our families, our neighbors, our friends, our co-workers.
So welcome the Holy Spirit into your lives, my friends. Let the Spirit cleanse you. Do not be afraid to let the Spirit be in control. And do not be afraid when the Spirit brings new life and new possibilities into your life. Amen.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Eternal and Glorious Plans
A Sermon for 7 Pascha RCL – A (6-5-2011)
Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry
Texts: Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; John 17:1-11
Title: Eternal and Glorious Plans
Have any of you ever been on a visit, either as tourists or as pilgrims, to the Holy Land? To Palestine and Israel and Jordan?
Well, neither have I! Perhaps one day I will get there, but that certainly does not seem likely anytime in the near future!
It is said that shepherds in that part of the world behave much differently than they do in the western countries, like they would here in the US. Even today, it is said that Middle-Eastern shepherds tend to develop a close relationship with their flock. Do you remember when the Lord called himself the Good Shepherd who knows each of his sheep by name? He was referring to this type of relationship between the shepherd and the sheep. This would have been common knowledge to his original listeners, but it is difficult for us here in this time and place to understand.
Chua Wee Hian, the founding pastor of a Korean church in London, tells the story of a group of tourists visiting the Holy Land and touring the countryside by bus. Their guide was a local Arab man. As they drove through hillsides with flocks of sheep grazing on them, he explained to the people the reality that we were just considering; that is, how Middle Eastern shepherds are very close to their sheep. So close, in fact, that these shepherds nearly always lead their sheep. They do not drive them from behind with dogs, as is common in the West.
Middle Eastern shepherds lead their sheep by going in front of them, by calling to them, perhaps by using a pipe or a whistle to call them. The sheep know their shepherd and so they trust him and they follow him. It’s a very different relationship than what we might expect here, and it helps us to understand what the Bible means when it speaks of the Lord as our shepherd who leads us beside still waters.
Well, on this tourist bus, the Arab guide was explaining all of this when a number of the tourists noticed a man on one of the hillsides driving a small flock of sheep down a hill with a large and menacing stick! So the people started to mumble, “Look at that! Maybe he is wrong! Does this fellow really know what he is talking about?”
When the guide saw what the people had noticed, he immediately stopped the bus and ran off across the fields to intercept this man who appeared to be a rather scary kind of shepherd after all.
A few minutes later, the guide returned to the bus, his face beaming with relief. And he announced, “I have just spoken to that man. Ladies and gentlemen, he is not the shepherd. He is, in fact, the butcher!” (See The Contemporary Christian by John R.W. Stott, p. 284.)
You see, the shepherd acts very differently than the butcher, doesn’t he? Here in this amazing 17th Chapter of the Fourth Gospel, we are given a glimpse into the shepherd heart of Jesus. Here, the Gospel opens up a window onto the secret prayer communication between the Son of God and the Father. We are allowed to eavesdrop into this intensely personal prayer.
Here, our Lord is about to face his betrayal and passion. Just before this occurs, he stops to pray once more, and to intercede on behalf of his rag-tag group of followers who have gathered around him.
Most of what we hear in this high-priestly prayer is Christological: that is, it carefully explains the relationship between Christ and the Father.
But throughout this dialogue, his love and care and concern for his sheep continuously breaks through. And over and over again, Jesus prays: “Holy Father, protect them.”
We who know and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Lord, who have experienced his grace in our lives in profound ways – we believe in his protecting presence as our Good Shepherd.
And yet, it does not always feel this way, does it? You and I continue to experience all types of pain and suffering in this life, even when we live as a sheep of Christ’s own redeeming.
How are we to make sense of all this pain which seems so senseless and meaningless?
Let me suggest that in all of these things, when the suffering and death and pain which we see feels so pointless, what matters is the perspective which we take.
Remember this: what you and I see is but a tiny, small view upon the whole panoramic landscape of God’s activity in the world.
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| Cabin under construction |
Let me explain this matter of our perspective in this way. When our family first bought our little cabin way up in the woods of New Hampshire, it was a small A-frame built in the 1970’s as a hunting camp. A family had been living there before us, so it was – technically - livable as it was (though I don't know how anyone could have lived there!). But our family had a different vision for what that place could become. So, right away, even the very day that we closed the sale, we began to tear it apart. Over the course of the next 3 years, we literally tore that place apart. There were huge piles of debris and garbage all around it, sometimes left there for months until I had time to return and continue the project. We couldn’t really get a dumpster up to the cabin. So I made piles of the debris, some to burn in a big bonfire and some to haul away in my truck.
Now, to anyone who passed by and gazed in over the course of those years, all of the chaos of that place must have appeared as completely senseless and pointless. I’m sure the few neighbors around there thought we were crazy.
BUT - what they could not see is that we had a plan: a long-term plan to completely renovate that place and to transform it. The process of getting there was going to be messy and painful and costly, but in the end, all of that was necessary to complete the transformation.
This is a good way for us to think about the trials and sufferings in life that we see and experience.
We see messy and painful things, we experience chaotic, sudden tragedies, and these things appear so meaningless, unjust and capricious. But the problem is that we can only see just a tiny sliver, a momentary glimpse of what is happening in the universe. We cannot see the long-term plan that is in place to renovate and transform humanity.
Somehow, in some way which is beyond our understanding, we can trust that God will use all things for good for those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose. We can embrace each experience of our life as training, as preparation, for the task that is before us. We do not know what God has in store.
Consider this: in each person’s life, there are a few moments when a decision will be made, or an action taken, that can change the course of history for their family, or their community, or their nation. Each experience of our lives is preparing us, so that when those critical moments arrive, we are prepared to decide rightly and to act with generous love and compassion.
If we can welcome each experience in this way – whether they be good things or painful things, then we will be able to be trained by Christ and prepared for what lies ahead.
Listen to this contemporary translation of our reading today from the 1st Letter of St. Peter. These verses are taken from The Message (by Eugene Peterson):
“Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job.” And the end of this passage is translated here in this way: “So keep a firm grip on your faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ – eternal and glorious plans they are! – will have you put together and on your feet for good. [God] gets the last word.”
Jesus has prayed, and continues to intercede, for the protection of his people. God has eternal and glorious plans for us. Long-term plans which we cannot see or understand. But we can trust that the renovation is in process, that the transformation is underway, even if it appears messy to us.
The Good Shepherd has gone before us and he leads us toward good things. Let us never forget that God always gets the last word. Amen.
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