Concentrated Contents

This coming Sunday’s Gospel lesson seems short to me. After several weeks and months of lots of words from accounts of the Good News of Christ Jesus we stumble upon this passage from John 14. Do not let its brevity deceive you though, as its contents are like a concentrated beverage mix, without some liquid, or in this case time and space they may taste or seem overwhelming.

This passage opens with a doozy of a first line. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Wow! If we are not careful we may very well read this as an ultimatum or law and not as the graceful invitation that it is. God’s grace hits us where we are, but the transformation that comes with that grace typically leads us into following not some prescriptive path without any creativity or latitude, but rather into a life full of exciting co-creative moments when the Spirit of God moves through us. Not surprisingly, the next words of Jesus’ mouth pertain to the Spirit.

Jesus pledges that he will ask the Father to send the Advocate that is the Spirit of truth. Dangerously we may distinguish too much the persons of the Trinity making them separate entities (Father creates, Son saves, and Spirit sustains, or something like that). Maybe this is why Jesus warns of how the world has trouble receiving the Advocate. It cannot see the Spirit and does not know the Spirit, but in an attempt to nail down the mystery of the Divine Community that is the Trinity, we who make up the world **try to** pigeonhole God into the compartmentalized, dichotomous, either/or boxes in which we live our own lives. Said more concisely, the language of this world breaks down in the face of the Trinity, so Jesus speaking of Father and Spirit can come off sounding confrontational—and it is. However, this confrontation stems from Jesus’ love of us, his desire for us to live within this holy community, and the truth that we so often sell the gift of our lives short by not living in the Trinity.

If any of this worries us we only need keep reading this passage, for Jesus reminds us that we will not be left orphaned, alone, or abandoned. “I am coming to you,” Jesus promises, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” Sometimes the words through which John shares the Good News tend towards an esoteric realm that may be tough for us to fully grasp. Sometimes I find it frustrating, but typically I find it strangely reassuring. Christ—whom we identify as the eternal salvation-bearing person of the Trinity—continues to live now and always. But really we need say God lives always, which also means that Christ and the Father and the Spirit live always.

When Christ made himself fully known in the person of Jesus what also became fully sanctified was humanity. Yes, our bodies even in their varying degrees of failing, but not just that physical part. All aspects of our humanity were swept up in Christ Jesus’ divinity. Take a moment to remember at once both the Incarnation and the Ascension, for these were not just about God coming to earth and leaving to go to heaven, but rather providing a divine eraser for the perceived space between heaven and earth and earth and heaven. Christ lives on beyond that moment of Ascension, and through this we live. To expand this further, the divine community known as the Trinity is where we came from and it is where we are going, so certainly it is what we are made of at this very moment and it is who we are at our core. We may not currently see this reality with the eyes in our heads, but hopefully we observe it deep down with the eyes of those deeper parts of ourselves.

These Holy Words challenge us this week (and beyond) to merge the deeper vision with the way we look at the world. Christ’s Incarnation, life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension speak of the grand truth of the stages and seasons of our lives too. We do not live separately from God, but eternally dwelling in the community of the Trinity. This does not mean we always get it or see it or that life is a piece of cake. Rather, we live in this reality in which we must practice trusting that God’s Word is true that we live in Christ and Christ lives in the Father and the Father sends the Spirit and the Spirit lives in us. And yet, this statement is way too clean. For the life of the Trinity of which we are a part is both more interconnected, interwoven, and unified and at the same time more precise, distinguished, and specialized than my words can ever describe. So, it’s time I stop typing for awhile and instead experience life in the Trinity!

Trust in God

Often we will gloss over large swaths of human history because the complex details of various movements require too much attention to the minutia. Invariably this appears to be the case when we talk about how Christianity came to be the imperial religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine. Once he came to power Christianity swept the globe without another religion existing until modern day, right? Not exactly.

The Fourth Century was a free-for-all. Perhaps a wrestling cage match might be the most appropriate analogy for that time period. On one side there were Arians who believed that Jesus the Christ was created by the Father and subordinate to him. On another side were the Athanasians who believed that the Christ was completely God in the same way that the Father is God. At the same time that these two sides were going at it there were also other beliefs namely paganism that captivated some. Throughout the 300s these sides struggled against one another creating a complex view of religion.

Into this conflict a man named Gregory was born in the town of Nazianzus. That is the only time I will refer to that place because honestly it is too difficult for this novice Greek scholar to pronounce. Various relatives of Constantine reigned after he died when Gregory was only six years old. Some were Arians, while others were Athanasians, and then there was Julian the Apostate who was a pagan. Gregory grew up in this pluralistic world, but his father who was an Athansian bishop sent him off to school in Athens with another famous student, Basil the Great. Well, he was not yet the great.

After school Basil went on to become the Archbishop of Caesarea, while Gregory went home to help out his father fight off some Arians. Basil soon appointed his friend to a post as bishop of Sasima, which sat in an unhealthy community that was viciously fighting over whether the Christ was God or subordinate to God. Gregory hated the post and thought Sasima was not even part of civilization and he even felt like he was flung to the dogs like a bone. This ministry tested everything about Gregory including his friendship with Basil. Eventually Gregory had a major breakdown and retired from his ministry.

Sometimes we think that the stories of our saints, those men and women throughout the ages who have clearly shown to us the love and grace of God by living out the Gospel of Christ in their lives, sometimes we believe that they are infallible. At times we mistakenly believe that saints are not really people, or they are not people like me or you, but that is simply not the case. Gregory perfectly exemplifies the imperfection of a spiritual journey, a walk with Christ, the struggle that is following after Jesus. Some will say that God does not give you more than you can handle, but that is not the case. Sometimes God does, and you may end up like Gregory who needed some time and space to recover.

After the death of an Arian emperor named Valens, Gregory was asked to go to Constantinople, which was far more the center of the world in those days than Rome was. For thirty years the place had been an Arian stronghold. Perhaps Gregory was chosen because if he failed it would not have been that big of a deal. He had nothing to lose. It was already an Arian city, he had already failed, and so in that moment Gregory instead of relying upon his own strength trusted in God.

Gregory preached a series of five sermons on the Trinity and the divine nature of Christ. Many people came to hear him preach, and the city was converted to the Athanasian point of view. Gregory soon became bishop of Constantinople and helped to confirm at the Council of Constantinople what had been started at the Council of Nicea. His greatest contribution came only after he failed. Soon after the Council of Constantinople being sick of the ecclesiastical life, he retired.

We may think that being a saint means being perfect; however Gregory proves that wrong. Sometimes we must fail and fail mightily. Only then do we recognize that we must trust in God fully.

The Only Time I Want To Finish Second

Who are you following? (Picture courtesy of Bondiband)

During this Holy Week we have been wandering together as we follow Jesus and pondering together what does it mean to follow Jesus to the Cross?

I feel the need to confess something that may not seem all that sinful to you: I do not like to lose. I never have liked losing. My family knows this. My friends know this. Maybe even some of you know this. Certainly no one likes to lose, but I actively avoid it almost to the point that I have a diagnosable phobia of losing.

Lately though I have been actively trying to push myself to the point of losing. Not just to get over my fear of it, but also because by actually avoiding challenges in which I might fail my gifts and skills atrophy away. Plus, I will never learn how good I might be at something I am afraid to try because I might lose at it. This reminds me of one experience in which failing brought new insight and new growth in my life.

When I was in college I switched from being a life-long soccer player to a first-time track and cross-country runner. I was terrible. Not just bad, but awful. I was the last placed runner for most of the first track season I ran. In the slowest heat of the 800 meter or 1500 meter race I was often a distant last placed finisher too. For some reason though instead of quitting I kept with it.

Eventually I learned to push through what I perceived were my barriers and with the encouragement, advice, and pacing of others I actually turned out to be an okay student-athlete. Yet, what I learned in this endeavor of failing over and over again was not so much my strengths or my weaknesses, but rather the truth from the letter to the Hebrews we heard today.

“Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Running a race with perseverance requires some skills, good training, and sound advice. And yet, some more pertinent pieces, albeit less catchy ones, from the author of the letter to the Hebrews get overlooked. First, we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. We have help in this race that we call life. People who have gone before us and those alive now can give us aid in this journey.

Next, to run a race with a weight tied to your ankle or strapped to your chest sounds torturous. On this journey of following Jesus lay aside the burden of sin that we so often carry around our necks. In this vein, do not think about the past times of failure either. They have brought you to this very moment.

Finally, and most importantly, you are not running this race without someone who is pacing you, someone who is blocking the wind for you, someone who has run the race before you. Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of this journey that is our race. Somehow I often overlook the leader who goes before me, instead focusing on how I might fail.

In today’s Gospel story from John, Jesus goes before us in a very direct way. In the synoptic gospels we find Judas to be a traitor who seeks only more money. Yet, here we find that Jesus tells Judas what to do. Even in how he was handed over to torture and death the Son of God remained aware and in control of the race he was running.

We cannot control all things. However, we do have the power to control our interior spiritual life, the thoughts to which we give energy, and the feelings which ebb and flow our mood. Jesus did not let the shame of the Cross destroy him. He knew guilt lay with others and that he was God’s Son worthy of praise and devotion not riotous murder. We too are called to cast aside the shame of whatever it is that haunts us, whether it is the irrational fear of losing, the pain of a bad decision, or something else that clings to us. Within us we have inherit worth for we too are children of God adopted through the all-encompassing love of Christ.

This section of the race brings us every closer to our yearly remembrance of Jesus’ death. Run it with perseverance, or better yet slow down to walk the way of the Cross. For we have been given a perfect pace-setter to follow. And for me, trailing after Jesus might be the only time when I want to follow finishing second instead of leading.