MEETING ANGELS UNAWARE

One of my all-time favorite people was Margie Hall. She used to remind anyone who would listen that showing hospitality to strangers may be the easiest way to not only entertain angels but also to meet Jesus.

When I first arrived at Margie’s church as her new Rector, I felt my highest priority was to get to know the people of the parish. The parish had a very active outreach ministry to the downtown community in which it was located. There was always a pot of coffee on so that the street people could come in out of the cold – it was winter when I arrived: my first Sunday it was 17 below – and grab a cup of coffee. There was always someone sitting on one of the chairs outside my office sipping coffee – the longer it took, the better; a second cup was the best.

One of the regulars was a young man named Larry. Only I never learned Larry’s name, not at first. Oh, I had been introduced to Larry. But I made no effort to learn who he was. You see, Larry was not that important to me at that time. Learning Larry’s name was secondary to learning the name of those who paid my salary, until I offhandedly heard Margie preach her one-line sermon to someone. I learned and remembered Larry’s name the next day as I sat down next to him and sipped my own cup of coffee as we talked about mostly nothing.

Was Larry an angel, a messenger of God? Of course, he was, in his own way. His message was very simple and very clear: I am someone; I am not a nobody; I have a name just like everyone in this church has a name; don’t take me for granted; don’t patronize me; get to know me.

Every stranger, every person can teach us something. Everyone is somehow in some way a messenger, an angel sent from God. Sometimes that message is profound. Sometimes that message is very simple. But we cannot hear that message unless we take the time to take time to be with that stranger, that other person. That does not mean that everyone we see we have to stop and talk to. That is impossible.

What it does mean is that there are people who come into our lives who seem to be footnotes, people we can skip over because the real text of our lives can be explained without them. And so often we treat them like footnotes, if that. We simply ignore them as I did Larry way back then. But like a footnote, they give a better understanding of that text, as Larry did for me.

Something more to reflect on: we are probably thought of as a footnote in someone else’s text of life: ignored, thought not to be of any importance or significance. We are all more than that, much, much more – each and every one of us

We must never take anyone who comes into our lives for granted. We need to see Jesus in them and they need to see Jesus in us. We are God’s angels one to another, whether we are aware of that or not.

FIRE ON THE EARTH

The late, great theologian and scientist Teilhard de Chardin: “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man [ad woman] will have discovered fire.” He was, I think, reflecting on Jesus’ words in Luke: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (12:49)

Jesus came to set the world on fire. His desire was to see the world ablaze in love for one another and see in come to fruition in his lifetime. That did not happen as is quite evident in our world today. It did not happen because it took the taking of his own life, his death on the cross, to get the fire going. And then, to continue to use this image, that fire was only no larger than a campfire.

Again, sadly, the truth is today, two thousand years later, while that fire has grown much larger, it still has not consumed the world. It is blazing, yes, but surely not to the degree that Jesus desired when he spoke those words in that Gospel passage. Jesus was the spark that started the fire. It was up to those who followed him to get the fire going. They did their best; but over the centuries, it has not been good enough.

And so it is up to us today to keep the fire going. We do it in the same way Jesus began the fire, at that is in and through our own lives. We have to live and give of our lives for the fire to grow. No, we do not have to lay down our lives the way Jesus did, but we must be willing to do so were that sacrifice be demanded.

Yet, the further truth is the reason why the fire Jesus kindled is not the worldwide conflagration he envisioned is that we hold back from the giving of our total selves in the living out of our faith. Were we all to live our faith as fully as Jesus lived his, the world would indeed be consumed and ablaze with faith in Jesus and our love for our God, for our neighbor and for ourselves.

All this is a wonderful image, of course. But images are based on realities. And the reality is that we are called to live out our life of faith as best we can each moment of each day of our lives. When we do, we enkindle in others that same faith. Others get caught on fire because they get too close to us – or we to them, which is how Jesus did it in his life. A fire cannot burn in a vacuum. Faith is not lived in a vacuum. We live out our faith in and among other people. The closer we get to them, the more we love them, the more susceptible they are to catching what we have.

For faith is indeed catching. That’s how we got it, if you will. We caught it from others who caught it from others as others catch it from us. We caught on fire because others shared their faith with us. We stay on fire because of that same sharing of our faith with those who are also on fire, and the fire grows larger. That was and is Jesus’s image of how his Gospel message of love is shared, grows and consumes the world. We are all part of that message, that fire, that faith. As the old camp song says, “It only takes a spark” to start the fire and to keep it going. We are to be that spark.

FAITH

The writer of Hebrews makes this observation about faith: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  (Hebrews 11:1) “Blessed assurance”, as one of those old Gospel hymns reminds us. And it is blessed to have such assurance in our lives.

Faith, in and of itself, is not knowledge but it is as close to knowledge as one can get. We do not know for certain if the sun will come up tomorrow. We believe it will and so we live accordingly. We do not know for certain if we will be alive at the end of the week, but we believe we will and so live accordingly. Most of us do not know how electricity works, but we believe that when we turn the light switch on, the light will respond accordingly – unless the bulb is burned out.

Whether we realize it or not, whether atheist, agnostic or believer, we live most of our life based on faith rather than sure and certain knowledge. We know and understand very much, to be sure, but there is so much more we do not know both about the present and the future. We are finite, fallible, limited human beings who must rely on faith or else we would not dare get out of bed in the morning.

The reason for all this, of course, is that we are not God, again, whether we believe in God or not. Faith is the operative force in our lives. It is the basis for all that we do. Without faith we would be unable to love another. Without faith we would be unable to dream about the future. Without faith life itself would not only not be worth living, it would be unlivable.

Faith problems arise only when our faith is put to the test, which, thankfully, is not all that often. Of course, on the other hand, when our faith is put to the test, it is usually about something that is traumatic: a love gone sour, a job gone south, a dream gone away. It is those moments when our faith in God, in others and even in ourselves is tested that we find ourselves so out of sync that we do not know where to turn.

And yet, it is in precisely those moments that we turn to the only one to whom we can turn, the one in whom we must place our trust: God. When there is a crisis of faith because of some form of betrayal of trust, it is only our faith that keeps us from falling completely apart. Our faith in God holds us together when our faith in everything else has deserted us.

If all this is true, as I believe it is, then we must do all we can to strengthen and increase our faith: faith in others, faith in ourselves and especially our faith in God. Faith is a gift; and as with any gift, if we do not use it, we lose it. If we do not cultivate it, it will not flourish. It will wither and perhaps even die. We neglect our faith to our own peril. We are attentive to it for our own protection.

May we always be thankful for the gift of faith, never take it for granted and live it to the fullest each and every day.

A LONG TALK WITH MYSELF

If you are like me, there are times when you come to the conclusion that what you need to do is put everything else aside, find a quiet corner off someplace where you will not be disturbed and have a long talk with yourself. We go from one day to the next doing what we normally do without ever giving any real attention to what we are doing or why. We’re just doing what we usually do.

That is not to say that there is something wrong or even awry with what we are doing or even our life itself. We simply get so wound up in our daily existence that we take for granted that what we are doing is fine and dandy and even our very personal being as well. There are no big issues that consume our waking moments. Life is what it is. We’re comfortable with it. No need to worry.

But then there comes that nagging feeling that we need to take stock with ourselves, our life, our being. So we make the time and find the place and start to have a serious conversation with ourself about our life. We start off in deep thought and self-reflection but then find ourself drifting off into La La Land somewhere else and not really listening to what we had to say to ourself.

The problem, I think, is not that we truly do not want to have a serious conversation with ourself. We do want that. Our problem is that we don’t seem to have the ability any more to concentrate on any conversation, ours of anyone else’s, that takes longer than seven minutes. We need a commercial break even with ourself and we take it. We will get back to that serious conversation, we tell ourself, and leave the room.

The art of conversation, real conversation, seems to be lost. We don’t even talk anymore. We text and tweet thinking that that is real conversation when it is only on the surface. If I have the phone in my hand to text someone, why don’t I just call that person and communicate voice to voice? Texting is so much easier, I know, especially if we know that the person we want to have a conversation with has the proclivity to make a short conversation into a half-hour experience, which, of course, may not be all that bad.

Maybe there is a solution to not being able to have those conversations with ourself. Maybe we should text ourself and ask a question about our life and how it is going and then have to reply to that question. The issue will at least be staring us in the face and hopefully force us to think about what we want to say before we respond. Maybe we won’t get that deep into the conversation and maybe we won’t stay with it for very long – seven minutes – but we can keep the conversation going by not deleting the text.

I don’t know. Just some thoughts. What I do know is that we all need to have some serious and honest conversations with ourselves about who we are, what we believe and why, what we do and why. If you don’t believe me, just watch the news.