Christian Hope
Saint Paul's Cathedral, San Diego
April 22, 2007; III Easter C
Scott Richardson +
Christian Hope
Gracious God,
Let these words be more than words and give us the spirit of Jesus.
Amen.
Northumbria; 625AD: King Edwin asks his nobles for their opinion; should they accept the Christian faith as presented by his wife's chaplain? During the deliberations, one of them notes that life is both brief and uncertain, similar to a small bird flying through the king's hall on a cold afternoon. "For a short time he is safe from the wintry storm, but after a little space he vanishes from your sight, back into the dark winter from which he came." Such is life here on earth, a short space in the warmth and light between the darkness that precedes birth and the unknown into which we pass at death. "Of what went before and of what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If therefore this new faith can give us some greater certainty, it justly deserves that we should follow it." (H.R Ellis-Davidson, Gods and Myths of the Viking Age, quoting the Venerable Bede)
Someone following this week's events at Virginia Tech might conclude that the description of life offered by the king's friend is all too accurate. Dozens of young people enjoyed the light and warmth of life for just a moment before they flew out again into darkness. This is raw tragedy, a loss so immense that no one really knows how to focus. Thinking and feeling our way through horror takes time and there's a lot here to sort out. We could keep it simple and talk about a deranged and isolated young man with easy access to powerful weapons. Or we could examine the meta-narrative - nineteen similar incidences in the U.S. in the past decade. Or we could turn away from the carnage and focus on courage - all those acts of spontaneous valor now being reported. Or we could follow the sound counsel of Tuesday's LA Times editorial and remain mournfully, respectfully silent. Or we could return to the heart of our faith and offer prayers for those afflicted and affected; we'll do so shortly.
And we can once again settle around our best truth, the truth our pagan friend dimly sensed in the early decades of the 7th century. We do indeed have something better to offer the world and today's readings bear witness to that higher truth. In the Acts of the Apostles, the man soon to be known as Paul is accosted by Christ - he is tossed about, roughed up, interrogated, blinded, brought to his knees, disoriented, enfeebled, stripped of everything precious and true, and thrown at the feet of his enemies. Through the ministrations of his former prey he is healed and brought into a new relationship with God. He grows in faith, love and wisdom; in time (a period of several years) he comes to understand his mission and the reason for the assault on the road to Damascus. He is chosen - the person who will, more than any other in history, haul in the great catch.
Now there's not a lot of biblical evidence supporting the notion that Paul knew the whole story - the gospels were written several decades after his epistles. We don't know what he knew about the day-to-day life of Jesus; the ethic of neighbor love and radical hospitality, the parables of the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son, the Sermon on the Mount, the birth stories, the miracles. If he was familiar with much of that he doesn't reveal it. But he did know what we call out every time we gather for Eucharist: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. He knew that and he told that story in cities, towns, and villages for as long as the Empire allowed it. He told that short story in jail and in court, at home and abroad, on the road and aboard ship, in several tongues, chained and lashed, received and rejected, in Jerusalem, Corinth, Athens, and Rome, on the way to the chopping block. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again; that's not the whole gospel but it was certainly enough to get things rolling.
And because Paul knew that story, he knew this too: nothing could ever separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus; neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation. He was an Easter person and he calls us to be that too; because Jesus was raised from the dead, we will be raised. True for Paul, true for us, true for the dear departed, and, we pray, true even for those who commit shocking acts of senseless violence. We don't believe in cheap grace but we do proclaim extravagant hope - we hold that God's mercy is always greater than our most grievous sin.
Northumbria; 625: the small bird metaphor wins the day. A people beset by violence, threat, and chaos throw in with Christ. This spiritual shift is enormous, tectonic, but it doesn't drastically alter temporal circumstances. King Edwin converts, his wife's chaplain is named Bishop of York, and construction gets underway on a stone church. That effort ends abruptly when heathens invade; Edwin dies in battle in 633 and his kingdom flies apart.
And so it goes. If Edwin thought that converting to the Christian way protected him from the changes and chances of life, then he was sadly mistaken. If he thought that converting gave him more power to deal with life on life's terms, and promised everlasting salvation, then he was spot on. We pray that he went down to his grave with his noble friend's words, uttered just eight years before, confirmed in his own experience: "If this new faith can give us some greater certainty, it justly deserves that we should follow it."
Amen.
Scott Richardson +
April 22, 2007; Easter Sunday