The Fifth Sunday of Easter: Eastbridge Chapel 6.30 p.m. 6/5/12
† O God; open our hearts to your word - a word that passes swiftly and faithfully from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the life. Amen.
Those were the proper readings, the ones we’re supposed to have at Evensong on the Fifth Sunday of Easter according to the B.C.P. Lectionary. Even the Psalm was right.
Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
And, I know I could have changed them but I kept them for tonight because I love them all. Not the bit about the Church in Sardis (they’re in for big trouble) but all the rest have got that ‘Woo hoo!’ factor that feeds a normal human exuberance.
That chunk from Isaiah is like a glorious poem: a superb promise of the future Jerusalem. It’s a stimulus and a target to that generation of Israelites.
And then from Revelation, we had that dear letter to the rather small unimpressive church in Philadelphia: ‘The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem.’
I love these readings but there’s one problem. They tend to feed our desire to keep busy.
For some of us, being busy is a pressure but it’s a desired pressure. We like it. It makes us feel wanted, our talents are being used by God. Other people think we’re great to be so successful, so in demand.
The disciples, then, at the time of those three frantic years of hearing the Gospel and spreading it , they must have been gobsmacked when, in the middle of all that buzzing activity, the unrelenting demands from other people, Jesus told them to drop it all and follow Him into the desert.
But Jesus calls us to be in fellowship and friendship with Him first; we could end up letting the demands of our Christian lives squeeze out any time of being close to Him. We end up working for Him, rather than being with Him.
I’ve just returned after a few weeks in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the United States. There the churches are full of well-dressed families wearing nice badges with their names on; there are loads of activities every day of the week. The buildings are beautiful: modern, stylish with up-to-date kitchens, coffee and dining rooms and loos with fresh flowers, exotic soaps and hand-creams and there are relaxing rooms where you can do just that and sit in comfortable chairs. As a new visitor, I was given a welcome bag which included a delicious loaf of bread. And it was wrapped in this green linen cloth: ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’
And they envy us! Just for a moment, as I was wallowing in this lavish, luxurious hospitality, there flashed across my inner eye a picture of the loos at St. Mildred’s and St. Peter’s and I thought, ‘They must be mad!’ To hanker after our dry rot, falling masonry, roof appeals!
In Chapel Hill, one of them, the Episcopal Chapel of the Cross building dates from 1848 – and that was the oldest church I went in. What they yearned for was the reverence and mystery that comes with age. Their perception of us was a venerable congregation filled with reverence and spirituality that comes of just being aware in the presence of Christ. I didn’t dare tell them we’re just as frenetic as they are.
One a last look at that letter to the Church in Philadelphia. It contains no word of blame. It is small and weak but it has maintained its Christian allegiance in spite of hostility from the synagogue. It keeps God's Word and upholds His name. It has an open door policy. It has kept God’s word about patient endurance. And it listens!
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
For a Quiet Mind
May we be aware of our thoughts: that they may be as words written on water which vanish even as they are written. If we cannot quieten our minds, let our thoughts be of Eternity, free of sorrow, free of doubt. Let the veil which is the mind be lifted that we may be our True Selves.
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.