April 3, 2022: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
So, I am a Star Trek fan – I know that is no surprise to any of you. I love the vision of Gene Rodenberry, the creator of Star Trek. See – unlike much of the science fiction stuff today, where everything is always so dimly lit and dismal, the future that Rodenberry wrote was always light filled and hopeful. And, while I have given up on the old series – too many Styrofoam rocks and tin foil bikinis for my taste, I do love Star Trek The Next Generation and all the later series that followed (the acting and writing is waaaayyyy better). I am fascinated with space exploration – to boldly go where no one has gone before. Just to think of that expanse – that unknown – it excites the imagination.
And on this last Sunday in Lent, we hear in Paul’s letter to the Philippians a bit of boldly going where no one has gone before too. By his own admission in the beginning of this passage, he was and remained a Jew, like Jesus, and like all who followed Jesus in his ministry. But Paul was no ordinary Jew….oh no… Paul was a Pharisee, and not just any Pharisee, but one who, by his own words that we heard today was beyond what any other Pharisee had ever dreamed. He writes, “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” Wow! Now THAT’s a resume! But then he goes on to say… “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.”
So, he starts out with great credentials there – the Pharisees were a respected group among the people. Their beliefs, founded on the teaching of Moses and dedicated to the law of God became the basis for Rabbinic Judaism. But he wasn’t just a Pharisee, he was like a super-Pharisee (or at least in his own mind he was), even persecuting the followers of Jesus – you know, back when his name was Saul. And Saul – well, he was absolutely sure about who he was and what he believed, and no one – certainly not some crazy followers of Jesus – were going to tell him different.
Now, maybe we should have some compassion for Saul – heck, we may even know folks like him – we may even be one of those folks, right? The thing is, even without realizing it, we can become rigid in our views, passionate about our routine, and stagnant in our expression. In fact, we see it in the way our divides across this nation and around the world have only grown deeper over the years. We even see it sometimes in the church. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.
I am reminded of something that happened a few years ago. It was the moment when white smoke billowed out of the pipe of the roof over the Sistine Chapel, announcing that a new pope of the Roman Catholic church had been named. There was a question that folks wanted to know – would the new person be one of the insiders – part of the Vatican Curia that had been rocked in scandal with the Vati-Leaks of wrong doing, or would it be an outsider who might bring reform to this rigid institution, an institution that was dying in all the places where it formally reigned supreme, and rising only in new territory in the Southern Hemisphere. Before we point fingers, btw, this could describe a number of denominations, including our own.
Now, I have to say that, while I don’t typically care about these things, I do believe fully that the Holy Spirit was in the Sistine Chapel that day, because the one that they chose, this man, now called Pope Francis, moved me deeply when it was reported that at his dinner with the Cardinals who elected him, his toast to them was, “May God forgive you.” His life in Argentina prior to this was also inspirational – abandoning the opulent home he could have had as Archbishop for an apartment and taking the bus to work.
Perhaps the most striking thing about Pope Francis was his willingness to live as Christ would have him live – to serve the poor, to not have people wait outside for a long while in the rain while he greeted the Cardinals inside – to ask the people for their blessing before pronouncing his, to wash the feet of a little girl on Maundy Thursday (breaking with tradition), and more, as we have witnessed over the years since. Perhaps he is a fan of St. Paul as well as his St. Francis, whom this Jesuit chose to be his papal name.
Now I told you this about Pope Francis, because it is a reminder that as people are changed, so are the institutions in which they participate, and I believe that Pope Francis has changed the Roman Catholic church in ways that will reverberate for generations. It doesn’t mean that everyone across Christendom is a fan of what he says and does – and he wouldn’t be doing much good if that were so. As one preacher said years ago at an ordination of a priest “if everyone likes everything you do all the time – you aren’t proclaiming the gospel.” So, with that in mind, let’s get back to Saul, because we know that folks weren’t crazy about all he said and did either.
Paul thought, no he KNEW, what was right and what was wrong. So much so that he was persecuting anyone who would challenge the status quo.
So, what happened?
What happened to Saul – this zealous witness for the faith?
Something happened because Saul was willing to give it all up – all his notions about how things were done, or what it means to be a faithful Jew.
Well, Saul encountered the risen Christ.
And it changed him forever.
He came to understand that he had a new calling – and a new name too. He was to go out and share the good news of Christ to everyone – male or female, Jew or Greek. It didn’t matter to him if you worshipped in a synagogue or in a house church, were circumcised or not, followed the dietary restrictions of the Jewish faith or ate whatever. That was Saul – that was who he was before. This is not Saul – this is Paul, and he is about one thing – spreading the good news of Christ as far and wide as possible.
Now, I want to be very clear about one thing before I go on – there is nothing wrong with being a Pharisee, being a faithful Jew, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or anything else. I am not talking about the transformation of Saul to Paul as being from Jew to Christian because it wasn’t. Paul lived and died a Jew – as did all the earliest followers of Jesus, and Jesus himself. This is about a personal change in this man.
Paul left his comfort zone, his neighborhood, his synagogue. He left all that he had fought for so long to protect, and started a new journey. And here is the kicker – if Paul had not bravely gone where he had not gone before – to the Gentiles to proclaim the Gospel, if Paul had not considered the possibility that maybe things could be done in a new way, if Paul had chosen instead to stay in the box of how things had always been done – we might not be worshipping here today. The followers of Jesus as Messiah would likely have continued as a small sect of Judaism, never gaining much traction outside of it. That is what happens when you “press on toward the …call of God in Christ Jesus.”
That is the power of calling…if we accept it.
Yet, what exactly was Paul’s call he so fervently was pressing toward? Well, part of it was, as I mentioned, broadening the hearts and minds of others in the early church based in Jerusalem to imagine going where none of them had gone before. Another was doing that himself.
Paul was creating what he once sought to destroy – followers of Jesus – and he was doing it not in Jerusalem, but across the known world. He created church after church, and when he did, he didn’t stay there long – just a year or perhaps a few – and then he was off – along with others who went with him – to create another one. He was church planting as we like to call it today.
So, I started thinking about that… how exactly was he able to do it. I mean, he wasn’t offering exciting new educational programs – he wasn’t amassing large choirs with sound systems and robes – he wasn’t creating beautiful places with stained glass windows and pews – and there is no evidence he was starting soup kitchens or anything of the sort. He wasn’t even all that great a preacher if you ask the young man in Acts 20 about it, who sank “into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on,” falling “to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead – thankfully, Paul healed him (and hopefully shortened future sermons). I know…note to self.
So, if he wasn’t some sort of charismatic icon – what was it that allowed him to make such an impact?
He had a calling – a calling of Christ.
And the thing is – you do too!
You are called by Christ.
You are called, just as much as Paul, just as much Pope Francis, or as much as any saint of the church. And your call is uniquely yours. Even Paul knew that – reminding those in his early church plants that everyone has gifts given to them by God – but not necessarily the same gift.
But if those gifts are to mean anything, we must use them – we must discern our call, and live the life we were born to live – going perhaps, even where we have not been before – and taking the church with us! Not necessarily to new cities, as Paul did, but to new ways of being the body of Christ!
Think that isn’t possible – well, a few years ago, a photographer captured a moment in the life of our own Episcopal Church. It was at General Convention, and it showed the members of the House of Bishops descending an escalator in their vestments. It was a photograph that rocked the church. Why? Because it showed a sea of nearly all white men. So, what happened? As one of those in that photo shared with me – “We were stunned by it. We knew we had to participate in changing what was to what could be.” Today, if that picture were taken again, we would still see white men, but there would be a lot more women, people of color, and lesbians and gays among them. Thanks be to God!
And, if you are watching our service via our livestream – or here in the pews seeing Tom Reynolds work his magic with the camera feeds – you know that the church universal has had a another transformation of its own recently. We are, like Paul, going places no one had thought to go before.
See, St. Paul understood that if we are to follow Christ’s teaching, we must model Christ’s willingness to walk toward a future that held risk. We must be as Christ’s apostles were, leaving their nets behind. We must be willing to step boldly into the future, knowing that any future in Christ is a future filled with joy, with hope, and with life. The question to ask is…where are we, individually and as the church, going next?
Because the thing is…St. Paul’s work is done, but we are only getting started.
Maybe in some way, the pandemic was our proverbial road to Damascus. Now, I am not saying that I am glad it happened, or that God caused it – not at all (that is really bad theology folks). What I am saying is that sometimes the challenges we face in life can be transformational. During this long time of pandemic we faced a future that was hard to predict, we got knocked to the ground – over and over again too – and we ended up on an unintentional mission to boldly go where we have never been before – mostly because we had no choice.
We faced the uncertainty of the future, grieved the darkness of disease and death, and fought against the demons of oppression and violence.
We also rejoiced in new beginnings, in new ways of gathering, in victories of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hate.
Star Trek’s journey of exploration has nothing on what we all have been through together of late. So, let us also not do as Paul writes, “forget what lies behind.” No, let us instead build upon it, and as he did, strain forward to what lies ahead. Let us also press on toward the goal – the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
What will that look like for you?
What will that look like for the Episcopal Church or the church universal?
God knows…and we can too – if we are willing to prayerfully discern where the Holy Spirit is leading us.
If we are willing to pick up our cross and follow Jesus – to Jerusalem and beyond.
If we are willing to have our expectations of how things ought to be knocked to the ground and instead embrace the Jesus in our midst calling us to new life in him.
If we are willing to go where we have never been before, even if some others wish we would not.
Then…our lives, our church, our very world will be changed forever.
And perhaps we will bring about a world that is light filled and hopeful – like the Star Trek world of Gene Rodenberry – and one day experience the vision of Shalom the creator of this vast universe has for us all.
Amen.
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
April 3, 2022
Fifth Sunday of Lent – Year C
1st Reading – Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
2nd Reading – Philippians 3:4b-14
Gospel – John 12:1-8
