March 2009; Maundy Thursday 2009, Easter 2009, August 2, 2009, Sept 6,09, October 3,09, November 1,09, December 27,2009
Sermon, March 1, 2009
Pam’s surgery. I want to give thanks to you all for the prayers the past week for Pam.
World of letters, especially in state of Minnesota, suffered a great loss this week
Bill Holmes, remarkable and renowned poet and essayist of the Minnesota prairie, died a couple of days ago.
Bill lived half time in Minneota, Minnesota, on the farm where he was born and grew up and lived half the time within sight of the ocean in Reciavec Iceland, where his ancestors came from.
Bill was a sort of a peripheral kinda shirt tail member of my parish St. James in Marshall.
Bill was not what you would call a “church goer.” But he taught at the University, as did our primary organist and occasional choir director who, on every Christmas Eve would troll the University for the sort of misfits who, while they didn’t go to church, they had a certain affinity for music and an affinity for the language of Scripture and the language of the Book of Common Prayer. Every Christmas Eve, again, our choir director would gather this group of folks together to be part of the choir.
The presence of this small group of highly learned, emotionally sympathetic but intellectually and theologically skeptical visitors every year made task of preaching on Christmas Eve interesting and challenging. Bill Holmes was one of this small band of brothers.
Bill Holmes had the emotional warmth and charm of Santa Clause and he looked like Santa Clause dressed up like an Iowa Farmer in bib overalls. At the same time he had the intelligence, sharp insight, and verbal facility and eloquence of a Robert Bly or John Updike.
Bill was a loveable, utterly contemporary, classically scholarly, a man of deep poetic searching – deep poetic doubt. He had faith in life as some kind of gift, but resisted any and all creeds or dogmas.
Bill Played the piano well and loved the old Lutheran Hymnody that he had grown up on. But Bill was, in no conventional sense of the word, a “believer.” He had a faith of life as a gift of some kind. He had no trust with and resisted any and all creeds or dogmas.
The scripture today speaks to, what is for me, a very real question. Where, and more importantly, with whom, is the one I knew as “Bill Holmes” today? Where and with whom?
The rapid fire story of Mark – Mark reads like a race – there’s so much crammed into a few sentences. But today we have the very beginning of Marks gospel where Jesus is baptized by John. And coming out of the water, Jesus sees the vision of a dove. And then a voice says, "This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased”. We don’t know if anybody else heard this or not. We know that Jesus is the one who saw the vision but it doesn’t say if anyone else heard this or not. Immediately, (everything in Mark is immediately) he goes into the desert and is tempted by Satan – 40 days tempted by Satan was the prefiguration of our Lent. A time of testing – a time through which, after his proclamation of who he is, goes into the wilderness and through some process of testing, he becomes clear about what his mission and ministry is. This process of 40 days of testing by the devil leaves him clarity about his mission and his proclamation. His core proclamation and what the last verse of this reading today – this is the gospel of Jesus Christ the “Kingdom of Heaven is near, repent and believe the good news.” The heart of this gospel – that’s what he preaches. He doesn’t preach himself; he preaches the kingdom of God.
The psalm today, the psalm was a plea for compassion – for God to have compassion upon us. The sixth verse reads “Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; rather remember me according to your love.” Remember me according to your love. In Noah, the first lesson we read today refers to the conclusion of the story of Noah after the holocaust. Remember the story of Noah when all flesh is destroyed – the world is wiped out. All humanity except for 8 people, destroyed in a flood. Right before the text we read, “The Lord repented of the evil he had done.” Then we have the story we hear today that God makes a covenant, not just with humanity, but with all flesh, all creation. The sign of this covenant is a bow in the sky. Whenever I see this bow I will be reminded of my covenant with you and with every living creature. Never again, never again shall there be a flood that destroys the earth. Never again.
This is all straight forward. And now, we get to this extraordinary
The writer of 1st Peter refers back to this story of Noah. And he talks about baptism as prefigured in the story of the flood in Noah. What he basically says is that just as Water destroyed life in the time of Noah and, in this case, water is the outward and visible sign of our spiritual death “we are buried with Christ” In baptism, we are buried with Christ. We are dead even as all creation was dead in the flood.
As water cleansed the earth and cleared the way for a new covenant between the creation in general and the humanity in particular and the divine signified this transformation with the rainbow, the waters of baptism clear the way for a new covenant between the individual Christian and God, accomplished by the Holy Spirit and signified by Jesus’ sign in the form of the cross sealed on our foreheads at baptism. In the days of Noah, the sign was a bow in the sky – for us, our sign is the sign of the cross on our forehead. We have this remarkable, extraordinary sentence: Jesus was “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison.” What the writer of first Peter is saying – alive in the spirit is not the resurrection. That happens three days later. Alive in the spirit – dead in the tomb, not yet risen, but alive in the spirit in which he makes a proclamation to the spirits in prison. He names some of these spirits – talks about those who were alive in the time of Noah, who perished. These are the kinds of people to which Jesus was making proclamation. Extraordinary text very different from Paul.
In the Apostles creed – the baptismal creed that we read – we read that Jesus descended, after he died, he descended to the dead and then he rose again. Descended to the dead. In the 1928 version and in our Rite I version of the creed, we say not simply that he descended to the dead - we say he descended into hell. He descended into hell before he rose. And according to Peter, he makes a proclamation. What is the proclamation of Jesus in Mark? We read it in the very beginning – it is the core. In the very depths of hell, Jesus proclaims “the kingdom of heaven is near, repent and believe the good news.”
This isn’t a text that gets read every day in lots of places. I want to reflect a little about baptism. Jesus was baptized by John, but it was a different kind of baptism than the baptism with which you and I are baptized. What we do in baptism is two things. We make a decision – a conscious decision - to renounce evil, turn to Christ, and become part of his “body,” that is the Church. We make a conscious decision. Every school, denomination, sect, family of Christians agrees on that. In Baptism we turn from evil and we accept Christ. For the radical reformists – evangelicals, Pentecostals – they add a baptism. Those who re-baptize people who were baptized as infants. It is a decision of the will to renounce evil and turn to Christ. The catholic tradition, the members of the mainline reform traditions, Lutherans, Methodist, Presbyterian, the mainline Anglicans, orthodox traditions, catholic traditions all say that in addition to that something else takes place in baptism. It’s not simply a personal decision, a decision of the will; it is a sacrament of the church. What our traditions say, is that in addition to being a decision of the will, It is a sacramental transformation – something actually happens beyond my own personal will and decision, something actually happens in which the church, that is the body of Christ, grasps this new person into the body of Christ. It actually happens - something real happens. It’s not just the mind of the convert but God actually does something. Something happens, something changes. The evidence of that is clear. We baptize infants. If something real wasn’t going on besides the act of will of the person being baptized, baptized infants would be absolute folly, it would be ridiculous. It doesn’t depend upon the personal will of the person being baptized. It’s the community, those who sponsor the child who raise the child up. It is the community that baptizes this new person into the body of Christ. Something real happens. We use the language of faith – it’s a baptism of faith.
What of the un-baptized? How many of us adults have known and loved people - who continue in many ways - to love someone who has gone before us, has died un-baptized. What of them. What does the tradition have to say?
Now I’m speaking from the vein of Anglicanism that looks back on our catholic heritage. Remembering that reading in 1 Peter, in our creed, our baptismal covenant that says Jesus descended into hell. Catholic tradition speaks of three kinds of baptism. Sacramental baptism that I just described; but there’s a second kind of baptism – the baptism of blood. It’s the baptism of martyrs in the early church. There were those who were martyred before they could be baptized. Baptism in the early church was a big deal. It was like going to seminary now, it was a long process. You went through a long process as a catechumen and you were part of the community long before you were baptized. Many people were martyred before they had a chance to be baptized. What of them. The ancient’s traditions were there was such a thing as the baptism of blood. The baptism of the martyrs-- It is completely effective – entirely effective. A legimate baptism. They are safe.
Again the Ancient catholic tradition refers to a third type of baptism. It’s called the baptism of desire. This desire can be explicit or implicit. It is similar to the baptism of the martyr, there are those who die before they were able to be baptized – they intend to be baptized, they desire to be baptized but they die before they are actually baptized. This baptism of desire again according to the ancient strain of our traditions is fully effective. Those who desire to be baptized. That’s the explicit form. There’s also an implicit form of baptism. The baptism of desire that’s implicit – I’m going to name 2 major theologians of the 20 century. Charles Curran, an American. Karl Rahner from Europe
Charles Curran is a catholic theologian, part moral theologian, speaks of the exercise of the pre conscience, fundamental option, that we track away from evil and toward Christ. What he’s saying that the process of conversion up here, the conscious decision to renounce evil and turn to Christ up here– it happens a long time before it gets up here, it’s happened in here Its’ an internal processing, a pre conscious processing, in which we spiritually turn away from the dynamics of destruction, self centeredness and evil and open ourselves up with real longing to the lord and giver of life. He described that as the fundamental casting of an option in the direction of god that is a desire – an implicit desire to be baptized and is therefore effective.
Karl Rahner speaks of what he calls the anonymous Christian. He goes so far to say there are many pious people of various traditions Jewish, Hindus, Buddhist even complete unbelievers, who will in time, when they find themselves before that lord of life we worship as Christ, will fully recognize the reality of that holy one that they knew by another name in another way. But they will fully recognize the holy one we who is Jesus Christ. So Rahner refers to what he described as the anonymous Christian who in the same way has got the fundamental option away from evil and to life and openness and redemption and healing.
Where, and more importantly, with whom, is the one I knew as “Bill Holmes” today?
Bill was baptized and and according tour sacramental reality, is fine, but even if I do not accept the sacramental efficacy of the sacrament…even if I do not take that as absolute
Bill’s life and work was testimony to a fundamental option cast away from evil, from self deception and delusion, selfishness – an option away from evil and towards the author of life, redemption, restoration, and resurrection. His whole life signifies the renunciation of evil and an affirmation of the Lord of life. He never would have been to get to that point.
Bill is OK.
Moreover, as a priest of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, I will assert that there are ones you have loved and lost who never explicitly accepted Christ as their individual personal savior, but who, never the less, exercised a similar implicit fundamental option away from evil and toward the lord of life. I will assure that are also in good hands. Very Good Hands. Ultimately and Absolutely Good Hands.
I do not deny that there are some who may exercise a fundamental option away from life and redemption toward evil, death, and corruption. I know that is a possibility. But my experience is that such persons are relatively few and I trust God to deal with them according to a divine sense of justice and mercy that I confess passes my own understanding.
In my minds eye, I can see Bill standing in his overalls, squinting into the visage of one who shines like the sun, saying something like “well, I will be damned, expect for your sacrifice and grace, and I do appreciate it, sir.”
In Jesus’ name, Amen