14 Pentecost
August 20, 21, 2005
The Rev. Barbara Schlachter

There are three things that make a vacation renewing and special for me.  Books, beaches, and family.  I have just come back from a few weeks enjoying all three:  praying, playing and reading by the lakeside on the family beach on Lake Erie in Ohio — which is very reminiscent of the Sea of Galilee.  I wish I could just take you all there for a morning of quiet joy to listen to the gentle lapping of the waves, the cries of the gulls, the squawks of the herons, to feel the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the water, the softness of the sand, and the breeze upon your skin.  

A Celtic scholar might tell you that when we go to beautiful places, we are contemplating the Big Book, the world of nature.  But our task this morning is to concentrate on the Little Book, the written word of scripture.  I took the lessons along with me so that I might receive inspiration about them while I was on the beach, and I read them to my sister who is Senior Warden of her church in Ohio .  

She was most struck by the passage from Romans.  She wished everyone in the church would realize that each of you has an important task to do by virtue of your God-given talents and that the church needs each member to offer his or her gifts to make the parish strong.   Spoken like a congregational leader.  Perhaps Elizabeth Cady Stanton who knew her Bible well was thinking of this passage from Romans when she wrote, “Nature never repeats herself and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another.”  We are unique and our gifts are unique; it is one of the things that makes this parish church such an exciting place.

When we read the lessons, though, I was most struck by the valiant bravery of the women in the reading from Exodus, including young Miriam, older sister of Moses.  When you think about it, it took a lot of courage to stand up to Pharoah and disobey his orders to put the Hebrew male children to death.  The women were courageous and shrewd about how they did it; they were not seeking martyrdom, and we think they survived.  Shiprah and Puah—how often do you hear about them?  Not as often as we should.  And  what about little Miriam, so clever that she arranges not only for her baby brother’s life to be spared, but for his own mother to care for him and be paid for it.  And then there is Pharoah’s daughter—who becomes part of the plan of salvation by making Moses her son.  These four brave women, plus Moses’ mother are the prologue to whatever action the man Moses will take as the liberator of his people.  

As important as both these lessons are, though, there is another story that needs prime time.  That is the story of the Gospel, of Jesus asking his disciples who people say he is.  It was easy to answer that one—John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets.  But then he put it to them—But who do you say that I am?  Peter who usually spoke before he thought must have thought about this one already:  “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”  And on the basis of this confession, the primacy of the Pope of Rome has been built.  But that’s another story, and we are not going there.

We are going to concentrate on the question:  But who do you say that I am?  Jesus finally is not interested in what other people think about him; he wants to know who he is for each of us.  I have had this grand fantasy of asking each of you to turn to one other person and share your answer.  Not the answer that you could read in the catechism, not Peter’s answer, but your own understanding, based on your own relationship with Jesus.

But I will keep that only in the realm of fantasy.  I can imagine that there would be that same sense of dread in here as when a school teacher says, ‘Okay class, put away your books and get out a piece of paper.  It’s time for a pop quiz.”

The Episcopal Church has this image of being a church where we do not believe in personal relationships with Jesus.  Some of my reading on the beach told me that: Exodus by Dave Shiflett, subtitled, “Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity,” fairly accuses us of dismissing the need for Jesus and belief in God.

And even Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics, also puts us in the category of losing the experience of a personal God.  That is why he says liberal Christianity is not growing and will not grow.  

Well, nobody told me that to be an Episcopalian I had to give up my belief in God or my personal relationship with Jesus.  And I can’t believe I am among the few who not only believe in God or have a relationship with Jesus.  

It is my experience that we Episcopalians have a hard time putting our relationship into words, and that we may not nurture our relationships with Jesus or God as much as might be good for us.  We can probably all describe our relationships with our parents, siblings, spouse, a particular friend.  But if we have never really felt we had to answer the question of who Jesus is for us, we might not be able to find the words.  Plus, what words seemed okay last year, or yesterday, might not work for us today.  Our relationship with God grows over time and changes from day to day.

One thing I am certain of, though, is that our relationship with God, or Jesus, takes time, just like any other relationship.  We can think of someone, pray for someone, but if we want to be close with that person, we have to spend time together.  It’s really pretty basic.  Phone calls and e-mail can help, but time together, where our hearts are connecting, is what will make a relationship deeper.  

Our relationship with God or Jesus is just like that.  It takes time and awareness.  It finally becomes not a matter of believing in God, but of being aware of God’ presence in our daily lives, moment to moment, experiencing the presence of God.  I think this happens when we have taken time to sit quietly and focus on God for some part of each day.  We can do that also with Jesus, using Bible stories to reflect upon, having a cup of coffee and conversation with Jesus in the morning, as if he were sitting on the chair across the table from us.  He meets us where we are.

He also meets us here in church, in our love for one another, in our passing of the peace, in our reading of the scriptures, in our sharing of the bread and wine, in our singing as of one voice.  

I would like to invite Dave Shiflett and Jim Wallis to worship with us some Sunday and experience the presence of God in our worship and then see if they think Episcopalians do not have the experience of a personal God.  

We come together and experience this God as one, as a corporate body, and yet each of us still needs to do our own work and find our own words.  Here is a little of how I would answer the pop quiz:  it will be different from what you would say and might be a bit different from what traditional theology might say.  But it is what I have to say honestly if the question is put to me, and if my answer does not reflect my personal experience, if it is only in the words that the church has used, is it really mine?  And if it is really mine, can you be critical of it—or can I be critical of yours?  In other words, are there really any wrong answers?

In the 6^th century St. Columba of Iona called Christ his Druid.  That wouldn’t be my way of speaking about Christ, but it was appropriate for Columba and his life, and I not only respect that but I see it as a mark of how deep his relationship with Jesus was.

I am indebted to someone else, possibly Dietrich Bonhoeffer for the first words I would use.  I experience Jesus as the “human face of God.”  I learn about God from studying who Jesus is in the scripture and experiencing him in prayer and worship.  Christ is my Center.  I know that the concept of center is from Bonhoeffer.  He brings all things together for me, brings me all together when I have become dismembered, he helps me be remembered, as I remember him.  He helps me know that what God has in mind for this world is atonement, at-one-ment, the state of being one with everyone.  Love your enemies; see the one you would write off as your neighbor; love one another as Christ loves us.  I find in Jesus teachings, his relationships, esp. with women, a strong path of how I am to live.  I find in his death the same courage that was in the foremothers of Moses.  He did not shirk the truth he believed God wanted him to live.   Even though he knew it might end in his death, he was not bitter or blaming but was sure to practice forgiveness, for he understood the mercy of God for everyone.  I find his resurrection the most important part of the crucifixion story; his experience of new life is the promise of eternity and new life for each of us.  I know that through him I experience this already; it doesn’t happen just when we die.  I understand that I will know Christ most fully in community, although I cherish our quiet moments alone.  

But you would not be here if you were not already on the journey.  Just don’t stop on the path.  Keep walking. Find your words, work on your relationship with Jesus, and bring that love that is both strengthened by your time alone and your time with the rest of us, to your work in the world and here at the church.  Give your gifts, so that Christ’s body, Christ Church , can be as strong as it can be.  We need to be strong so that we can create a safe space for one another, a place for our children to grow in love and faith, so that we can all learn how to be brave like Miriam, and Shiprah and Puah when our lives and faith come into a collision course with culture or with the trials of our lives.  

Blessings,
Amen.