Living in cornavirusworld 57: We have not been orphaned

5/18

a place to start

So it turns out today is Victoria Day in Canada. (A uniquely Canadian holiday.) So our International Sanctuary working group meeting has been postponed until June 1. Four of us didn’t get the memo as they say and were waiting in the ZOOM room until we reached someone and figured it out. 

After planning out the week, it’s a good opportunity to do the errands left over from a busy.  weekend.  Stops at the drug store, and Best Market for groceries. On my walk back home, I notice a solo trombone player at the corner of 116th and Fredrick Douglass. 

solo trombone

Heading  home on 115th, I recall that there have been volunteers in Luigi’s Garden all weekend, clearing and cleaning, getting the garden ready.

cleaning out the garden

After preparing my BibleStudy, I go for my walk and at 110th and 5th Avenue, there’s the same trombone player, bracketing my day. He’s at least a mile away from where I saw him before. I wonder where he began, how many stops he made and how his take has been on his busker’s journey.  He's playing 'When the Saints..." a taste of  New Orleans in Harlem. 

trobone player reappears

Tonight we’re studying John 14: 15-21. But there will of course be lots of conversation about yesterday’s meeting. This section of John is about “the power of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus is preparing his followers for the fact that he will  not be with them in the flesh. In the midst of our 50 day Easter season, we are reflecting on the risen Christ’s earthly appearances between his resurrection and ascension.  So the church finds these word of Jesus a helpful parallel for preparing  us for the post-Easter time of the risen Jesus’ departure and the season of the Holy Spirit. On first hearing, the passage that strikes Marsha is verse 16, the comforter. What does that mean? Like a warm blanket to wrap round you? An arm around your shoulder?  Russ bemoans a theology of comfort that ignores social responsibility. I am most taken by v.18, I will not leave you orphaned. We will later talk about how in Jesus' day, orphan had not only sociological, but economic. Orphans were among society's most vulnerable, and therefore the constant concern of the Torah as in ...widows, orphans and the stranger at your gate...Which sounds like the current administration's deportation list.

There is a strong emphasis on the keeping of Jesus’ commandments. (See also 15:9, 14:15, 21-24) In John’s circular argument, a connection between keeping the commandments, knowing Jesus and loving Jesus. 

The word translated in King James as “comforter’ (v.16) is actually the Greek word for advocate, as a defense attorney. In ancient Hebrew cosmology, Satan was the prosecuting attorney (as in Job) and the Holy Spirit the defense attorney.  In personal terms, the voice that tells you you can’t do it, you’re no good, why even try, that’s Satan. The voice that tells you that you have value are worthy of love and can do it, that’s the Holy Spirit. The Greek word paraclete can mean “helper” or “comforter”as well, depending in the context. It’s important to note that in the gospels, John is the only one to use this term, four times: (14:26, 15:26, 16:7, 1 John 2:1).

Further, the Holy Spirit, the advocate, is the Spirit of Truth. There’s that word again. Like in I am the way, the truth and the life.... Again, this is uniquely John’s language. (Although we find similar language in the Dead Sea scrolls.). 

In essence, John’s argument comes down to the Spirit of Truth is connected to Jesus.  The world does not know or receive Jesus, therefore the world does not know TRUTH.  Truth is a big word. The fullness of truth is always and always will be beyond us. BUT, if you truly see Jesus, you see the TRUTH. There is a common narrative in popular Christianity to see the Holy Spirit as what Jesus left us with after he left earth. As if it didn’t exist before. In fact, in the Jewish tradition, the Holy Spirit has been there since the beginning. The breath that blew across the primordial waters to separate out the dry land was ruah, the Holy Spirt.  The breath that breathed into the lifeless clay Adam (earth-man) was the Holy Spirit. In John’s cosmology, Jesus was cosmic. The Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit were all present at creation, three distinct persons and yet one. Trinity.  Which maybe only Buddhists and readers of Marvel comics can understand. 

In 18-24, Jesus speaks of his return as abiding presence.  But notice, he’s talking about his return after crucifixion, not a second coming. ‘In a little while, the world will not see me but you will see me because I live and you will live. I am in my father and you in me and I in you.” 

(‘I am the walrus” again: I am he as you are he as you are me And we are all together’) It’s a circular argument: Those who keep my commandments love me, therefore they are loved by my father, therefore loved by me and I will reveal myself to them.” 

The popular concept of a “second coming,” that is Jesus coming back in triumph, is basically not a concern for John. Because he’s been here all along. Never left. And where does he live? Inside us. 

The earliest witness to the resurrection textually is Paul. He meets the risen Christ in an internal experience on the Damascus road. For him, Christ is not seen, but experienced. This happens after Paul witnessed the stoning of the apostle Stephen. Even holding the cloaks of stoners. My riff here is that in seeing Stephen, Paul saw Jesus. Later he will tell us that we will know him as he has. (1 Corinthians 15)  Likewise, in writing about the resurrection Bishop Spong argued that it was breakfast on the beach (John 21) when eating together, they experienced him within themselves and their companionship.  

Simply, we don’t see Jesus (except in others) we experience Jesus. 

We are not talking about belief in doctrines here. This is something else entirely.  To love Jesus, follow his commandments. When you do so, you will know him. Acting precedes belief. 

We finish by talking about the meeting. Beyond concerns about the lack of coherent vision at any level of denominational institution, despite the frustrating moments of conversation, coronavirus inspired uncertainty about the future, nevertheless the actions taken indicate hope. And remaining possibility.  Acting precedes belief. 

No we have not been orphaned. He is with us still. 

The sixth Sunday in Easter: Memorial Day reflections

5/25

Stephen arrives and Samantha soon after to watch Steve’s son. Cute little guy. Dion and Deacon James helping  get everything set. Outside, Anna is there with puppy and Sergeant Keith disappearing up the street with an older woman. Apparently he’s doing OK.

It’s Memorial Day weekend so I know it will be a slow day.

We start with Acts 17: 22-31. We’re looking at Paul as a preacher. Paul, far from Jerusalem, meeting the Athenians where they are,.praising their religiosity. Riffing off of their altar to an unknown God. (23) he speaks of immanence… though indeed he is not far from each one of us (27) and finishes with that zen-like formulation, (28) In him we live and move and have our being. I say it’s like swimming in the ocean. We’re in it. We’re surrounded by it.  Sustained by it.

The  we read Psalm 66: 8-20 responsively. I stop with verse 12:

you let people ride over our heads;
          we went through fire and through water;  which of course makes me think of James Taylor, Oh I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen

rain…and then  …yet you have brought us out to a spacious place….I ask how many have ever been to a Passover Seder. And how in Hebrew, the word for Egypt, for slavery, is mizraim, the narrow place. That’s where we live. Squeezed in. Restricted. Constricted. And instead God leads us out to a spacious place, a place where we can breathe. And I ask folks to reflect on what are, where are our narrow places? What would a spacious place feel like?

The Epistle lesson, from I Peter 3: 13-22, raises the idea of suffering for righteousness sake again….¹⁷For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. ¹⁸For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God….as Andre always reminds us, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s reference to the power of unmerited suffering.  And this very tactical advice, . Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, ¹⁵but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; ¹⁶yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. And Jeremy reminds us how the tactics of non-violence push the powerful to expose themselves. Like the firehoses and dogs of Selma. The Tiannamen tank. The bodies of Mississippi when searching for Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner. Gandhi took this as tactical advice from Jesus. And King took it from Gandhi. Circle complete.

Finally the Gospel, John 14: 15-21.  At this point in Eastertide, more than half-way through, Jesus is  preparing his disciples for life after he is no longer with them in the flesh.

He is sending another advocate. As Anna reminds us, in Spanish, abogado, attorney. How Satan is the accuser, the prosecutor,the voice in our head that tells us that we’re no good, that we can’t make it. And that it si the Spirit of Truth, the voice ta reassures of of our worth, our value, our belovedness. The defense attorney, as it were.

Then it moves to ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you which gets 

us back swimming in that cosmic ocean again. And if I could do  it , we’d go to

 I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together

You know, I am the walrus...

But no way even Jeremy and I could pull that off.

It’s Memorial Day weekend. I think of how my dad always wanted to put flowers on his father’s grave. And I wish I could be in Washington, Pennsylvania and visit my father’s grave. I see it in my mind’s eye.

John R remembers Vietnam veterans coming home to no recognition. I remember my steel town.Only 40 % of my classmates going to college, The disproportionate numbers who went to Vietnam. And the children of lower classes sent off to war without any notice by the rest of us. Somehow the major league baseball players wearing camo isn’t quite enough.

It is Fleet Week, Times Square and the tourist areas with sailors in their dress whites, Marines in their khaki and blue.I miss  the foreign sailors and ships.

Anna recalls how her father was a pacifist inside militarist japan. And I remember the man I met last week who was born in an internment camp. And took 20 years to regain hsi citizenship. We all have our stories. 

Or maybe Memorial Day’s just the day the beaches open. Where so many of our folks are. And I wish I was.

The service ends. We make our circle. .Go our separate ways. I'm alone .I’ll go see Rachel this afternoon.