The Way of Love: Learn

Sermon for Sunday, April 28, 2024
"Walking the Way of Love" preaching series

Here we are at week 4 of our Easter-season preaching series about Walking the Way of Love. Each Sunday from Easter to Pentecost, we’re focusing on one of the fundamental spiritual practices that our Baptismal Covenant gives us.  Every time we have a baptism or confirmation, we all stand up with the candidates and promise that we, too, will take certain steps on our walk with God.  You can see all seven steps in the article about the sermon series, at the beginning of the bulletin this morning.

Along with preaching about these seven steps, we’ve been asking you to take a spiritual inventory called My Way of Love, and that’s mentioned in the article, too.  The results will help you see where you are in your own walk with Jesus, and follow-up emails will suggest next steps you might take in your own spiritual practice.  I know some of us have had trouble finding the replies to the inventory, and we’re reaching out to the provider about that.

Anyway, you might be asking: “OK, then what?  What’s the end game here?”  Well, I’ve mentioned this before, but just to recap:  For your clergy and Vestry, our major project this year is creating something we’re calling the Pilgrim’s Pathway to Heaven on Earth.  I’m imagining this as a guide for your spiritual journey, an answer to the question, “If I want to follow Jesus’ path and grow closer to God, what could I be doing?  And what resources can St. Andrew’s offer to guide me?”  So far, we’ve been describing these seven steps along the path of spiritual growth: turning toward God, resting, blessing, learning, worshiping, praying, and going into the world to live like Jesus lived.  Practicing these seven actions is how we walk the Way of Love to find heaven in our earthly lives.

OK, so what’s the “deliverable” with this effort?  My prayer is that, by the Annual Parish Meeting in January, we’ll have a guide we can put in your hand, or maybe an app we can put on your phone, to help you use the resources of this parish to make your journey toward heaven on earth.

So … today’s spiritual practice is to “learn.”  Now, you may hear that and flash back to Sunday school – memorizing books of the Bible or answering questions from the catechism.  That’s not all bad, but it’s not the kind of learning I have in mind.  The learning that leads us toward heaven on earth isn’t about racking up points on a heavenly scorecard; it’s learning that changes your heart and empowers your life.  It’s learning that shows us how God’s story is our story, lighting our path in ways we never expected.  The amazing thing is that for the big questions and challenges we face – like, “Who am I?”; “Where’s the meaning in my life?”; “How can I bear pain that seems fundamentally unfair?” – the answers to those big questions come to us when we learn God’s story and find ourselves in it.

I think that’s what’s happening in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.  Philip, one of the first deacons of the Church, is in Samaria, telling the story of Jesus and healing people.  It’s part of fleshing out what Jesus had said just before he ascended to heaven – that his followers would proclaim his good news to “Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8)  Well, in the category of proclaiming “to the ends of the earth,” the Holy Spirit sends Philip down through the desert wilderness toward Gaza, though Philip doesn’t know why.  And along they way, Philip meets this surprising character who rides into the story out of nowhere – a powerful official from the court of the queen of Ethiopia.  Now this man is about as different from Philip, and Jesus’ other followers, as anyone could be.  He’s powerful, in charge of the queen’s “entire treasury” (Acts 8:27).  He’s a eunuch, a man who’s been castrated as a sign of submission to his monarch.  He’s from Ethiopia, so he looks different from the people of Judea and the Romans who ruled over them.  Actually, his African darkness was highly admired in Greco-Roman culture, seen as a mark of beauty.¹  And, although this Ethiopian official was returning home from worshiping in Jerusalem and was reading the prophet Isaiah, he wasn’t Jewish – wasn’t allowed to be, actually, because he’d been castrated, which Jewish law didn’t allow (Deuteronomy 23:1).²  The Ethiopian was what they called a “God fearer,” someone inspired by the God of Israel but not fully part of the community.

So, why would this Ethiopian court official have gotten the Holy Spirit’s attention?  Because of God’s promise in Isaiah that outsiders like him would be welcomed into the family of God when the messiah came to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth (56:3-5).  In fact, Isaiah says specifically that foreign eunuchs will be welcomed in, no longer seen as “a dry tree” who can’t raise up children to honor the one true God.  Instead, the messiah will welcome these outsiders to join with the people of Israel and “come to the water” of blessing (Isaiah 55:1).

Well, the Ethiopian is reading the prophet Isaiah when Philip comes alongside his chariot.  Philip hears him reading out loud where Isaiah describes God’s suffering servant who will be exalted as messiah, the one who will be struck down and “cut off from the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8) – much as the Ethiopian has been cut off from his future because he can’t have children.  Turns out, this messiah has suffered right alongside the people he’s saving, even right alongside this Ethiopian stranger, Philip explains.  And when God exalted this suffering messiah to glory, God welcomed even this stranger to share in that glory.  So, this powerful, castrated, dark-skinned court official says to Philip, “Sign me up.”  “Look,” he says, “here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36).  And the ultimate stranger becomes part of the family of God, a full citizen of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

To me, this story is all about the spiritual practice of learning – learning that changes your life.  It’s not just that the Ethiopian needed some new information.  The significance of spiritual learning goes beyond that in at least two ways.  First, the new information he needs is powerful enough to change his heart and change his life.  Through this new learning, God says to the Ethiopian, “I don’t care who you are.  I don’t care what your background is.  I don’t care what your past has done to you or how much you feel like a stranger in a strange land.  What I care about,” God tells the Ethiopian, “is you.  You are my beloved child,” God says, “and with you, I am well-pleased.”

So, that’s the first significance of what the Ethiopian official learns – that it changes his life.  And here’s the second: This life-changing learning comes to him from another pilgrim walking along the road.  Philip is willing literally to come alongside someone whose life has intersected with his.  In that right place at that right time, Philip simply enters into a conversation with the Ethiopian about how Jesus’ good news had changed his own life.  He begins with an invitation to chat: “Do you understand what you’re reading?” he asks (8:30).  Do you want to talk about it?  And the Ethiopian says, “How can I [understand], unless someone guides me?” (8:31).  In other words, learning happens best in community.  We can read books by ourselves all day long, and that’s great.  We can listen to a hundred podcasts, and that’s great.  But life changes for us when we come alongside other pilgrims and let the Holy Spirit take head knowledge and plant it in our hearts.

That happens here all the time, and not just for kids in Sunday school.  Here’s a case study, a glance at the church calendar from just the past week.  Last Sunday, people here gathered in Café 9:15 to learn about the readings for that morning’s worship, while others gathered as the Christian Journey group to discuss the book The Meaning of Jesus by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright.  On Tuesday, people gathered for Sacred Ground to explore the theological dimensions of race and racism in America.  After that, people gathered to learn how to listen to each other with open, loving hearts.  On Thursday, guys gathered for a Men’s Bible Study; women learned about hospice care at Trinity Guild; and that evening, others gathered to learn about the Sacraments at Trailside.  That’s a typical week, and more is coming.  In May, we’ll offer our All-Parish Read of the book Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life by Harold Kushner, and we’ll discuss that book on Thursday nights at Trailside.  After that, watch for a new offering of Bible study at Trailside Thursdays, led by your clergy.

And, of course, we don’t just learn together through groups or classes.  Sometimes, what opens our eyes to God’s kingdom in our midst is the learning that happens when we’re doing something else.  For example, today, we’re celebrating the centennial of our Altar Guild.  For a hundred years, sacristans have been preparing the elements for Communion, and ironing linens, and tending candles, and cleaning holy hardware.  But the Altar Guild experience doesn’t stop with that service.  I can’t count the number of times over the years that sacristans have said to me, “One of the best things about Altar Guild is what you learn about how and why we worship.”  And right alongside that is this holy truth – that maybe the best thing about Altar Guild is that their blessed service and learning happens among a community of friends.

And the great thing about both the learning and the people who share it here is this:  No tests – not in any sense, actually.  There’s no required list of Scripture’s greatest hits to memorize.  There’s no background check:  Wherever you’re coming from, you’re part of this band of pilgrims seeking heaven on earth.  And there’s no dotted line to sign:  Whatever questions you bring, whatever doubts you hold, you’re part of this journey we take together. 

Let me share one more snapshot from last week.  I was talking with someone who’s been following this sermon series, someone who’s been involved in our work to serve people in the community, someone who’s been going to church for a long time.  And now, she’s getting a sense there’s more to discover and deeper places to go.  So, she tried reading a scholarly work on the nature of Christ, but it left her dry.  She said, “It would be so much better discussing it with a group.  Basically, I want to have faith,” she said; “I want to believe in all things Christian.  But,” she said, “I wasn’t born with that trusting-God gene.” 

Well, neither was I.  My hunch is that very few of us were.  It sure would be convenient if we could hear the right story, or read the right book, or listen to the right podcast, and just get this faith thing.  But we don’t do that on our own.  It takes the rest of the folks on the journey, too.  We trust God so much more deeply when our hearts are formed together.  As the Ethiopian stranger said to Philip, “How can I [understand], unless someone guides me?”

1.      HarperCollins Study Bible, 2073 (note).

2.      HarperCollins Study Bible, 2073 (note).

Turn: Pause, Listen, and Follow Jesus

Sermon for Sunday, April 7, 2024
"Walking the Way of Love" preaching series

As we begin this sermon series about Walking the Way of Love, I want to share a story from a long time ago now, when Ann and the kids and I were in seminary in Austin. 

It was my senior year, and Ann had been hospitalized for several weeks.  I was doing field education at a parish there – the time when you get a little foretaste of what life is like as a priest.  Another student, who had just begun her time at the seminary, was doing the first-year students’ version of field ed at the same congregation.  This other student was blind, and I got to know her by being her ride to our field-ed parish.  She’d had a strong vocation even before coming to seminary, having made her way through law school and practiced as an attorney for several years.  I can’t imagine the dedication and talent it took for her to overcome all that she’d overcome to be a lawyer … and now she was starting professional training all over again to follow her calling as a priest.  On one of our rides back to the seminary, I said all that to her – how much I admired her strength, and resolve, and commitment as she headed down this new vocational path.  She said, “Well, you know, this isn’t just about professional dedication.  I’ve come to see that following Jesus Christ pretty much means everything to me.  So, this isn’t a career transition.  I stake my life on this.”

So much for the wise senior encouraging the new seminarian. 

I didn’t realize it at the time, with Ann lying in the hospital and our path rather foggy, but this was a turning point for me – not in the sense of changing my direction but in the sense of understanding it.  As I said last week – for me, going to seminary had felt like more like a change in career than a change in identity.  But in that semester when I had no idea what was coming next for Ann and the kids and me, and as I was relying so deeply on our families and the seminary community to get us through, I heard this other student’s witness and thought, “What do you know?  That call to follow Christ in the darkness – that’s my call, too.  It turns out, I am staking my life on this.”  And though I haven’t spoken to this other student since I graduated and now can’t even remember her name, I’m very grateful for how clearly she could see where God was leading her and for how deeply she trusted in that.

In this sermon series about Walking the Way of Love, our first step is “turn.”  Now, in our Baptismal Covenant, those promises we renew at every baptism and confirmation, we frame this step in terms of repentance, turning from sin and evil; and that’s certainly part of our journey.  But turning can be much less dramatic yet even more life-changing.  And, as a spiritual practice, turning happens more often than we might think.  In fact, as we walk Jesus’ Way of Love across our lives, I think we come to one turning point after another.

In the Gospel reading today, we got to hear about a famous turning point involving the much-maligned disciple Thomas.  Now, when you hear that name, what descriptive word always comes before it?  Right – “doubting Thomas.”  Well, that’s just unfair; he wasn’t the only one struggling to believe in resurrection.  All the other disciples were hiding out on Easter night, scared to death about what the religious authorities might do to them, having crucified their leader.  They had the doors locked and the lamps burning low … despite the fact that Mary Magdalene had told them what she’d seen that morning – that Jesus had risen, and was walking around, and was telling her to go share the news.  The disciples had an eyewitness, and two of them – Peter and John – had gone to see the empty tomb for themselves.  But there they all were, with the doors locked, paralyzed in fear.  So, who was doing the doubting?

Anyway, they were then blessed to witness the risen Christ for themselves, as his transformed and transfigured physical body passed through the locked door.  He gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Pentecost moment in the Gospel of John; and he empowered them to bear his peace and his power of forgiveness to the world. 

Unfortunately, Thomas missed it.  And when the rest of the disciples told him what happened, he reacted just like they’d reacted to Mary Magdalene:  “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,” Thomas said (John 20:25).  Bookmark that last word, “believe,” because we’ll come back to it. 

But for now, the story then jumps ahead seven days to the next Sunday, when Thomas is back; and the risen Jesus again walks through the locked door and stands with them.  It’s not just a courtesy call.  Jesus has come to give Thomas precisely what he needs.  “Put your finger here and see my hands,” Jesus says, letting Thomas “see” the way little kids need to see things, by touching them.  “Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.” (20:27)

Press “pause” there for a minute, and let’s think about that word, “believe.”  We postmodern folks don’t use it like ancient people would’ve used it.  If you ask me, “Do you believe in the resurrection?” you’re probably asking, “Do you think that Jesus really was dead, and that God really raised him from death, and that Jesus really experienced bodily life again?”  In other words, do you think it’s factually true?  For the record, the answer is “yes,” but that’s not the point.  The point is that when the writer of John’s Gospel used the Greek word pistos, which we translate as “believe,” it meant much more than just thinking something’s true.  And when the bishops of the early Church got together in Nicaea and consolidated the faith of the Jesus movement into a creed and began its three sections with a Greek word we translate as “We believe,” it meant much more than just thinking something’s true.  For the ancients, believing something wasn’t just acknowledging its veracity.  Believing something meant trusting in it, setting your heart on it, guiding your life by it.

So, back to Jesus and Thomas.  “See my hands and my feet,” Jesus says.  “Do not doubt but … trust in this.  Set your heart on this.  Guide your life by this.  Because resurrection happens.”

And Thomas turns.  As he walks the Way of Love, Thomas comes to a crucial moment, a cross in the road, where he sees where he’s heading and sets his face toward it.  “My Lord and my God!” he exclaims (20:28).  Now, the verb there matters.  Thomas “exclaims,” not “explains.”  There is nothing logical about Thomas’ turning point.  His logic was sound right up until Jesus walked through a locked door.  It made all the sense in the world – all the worldly sense – for Thomas to say, “Dead people don’t walk into the room and start talking.  I’d have to see that to believe it.”  Wouldn’t we? 

Jesus knows this – which is why I don’t hear him chiding Thomas at all for not setting his heart on something he hasn’t experienced.  Jesus is simply inviting Thomas to look and see precisely what Thomas said he needed to see … and then set his heart on it.  And Thomas responds with the single clearest ascription of divine authority any character in John’s Gospel ever speaks about Jesus.  He isn’t just the rabbi anymore.  He isn’t just the king of Israel anymore.  He’s “my Lord” – in Greek, kyrios, the same word used for the Roman Emperor – and he’s “my God.”  God has been crucified, and has risen, and is walking through locked doors to find Thomas. 

And the call to us?  As today’s step in Walking the Way of Love puts it:  “Turn – pause, listen, and choose to follow Jesus.”  In other words, notice what God’s up to in your life.  Notice how it might be precisely what you need in order to set your heart on this illogical and transforming reality.  It’s the risen Christ who called a blind attorney to turn in a new direction and trust in a new path.  It’s the risen Christ who called a lost seminarian to trust in friends and family and a parish yet to come, all of whom would show that the Spirit could carry him far better than he could carry himself.  It’s the risen Christ who comes to find us when we pause, and listen, and choose to follow – when we say, “You know, actually, I stake my life on this.”