“I have come as light into the world.”

It has been sometime now since I have made an entry on this site. I am afraid that Hurricane Ike got in the way. In the Gulf Coast area many of us are still without power. In the evenings, we sit in the darkness and under order of curfew. That’s why today’s reading from the Gospel according to John was such a blessing. John writes:

Then Jesus cried aloud: “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me.”

“I have come as light into the world.” Even in the midst of the darkness imposed by Hurricane Ike, Jesus is indeed our light who brightens the darkness. We see the light of Christ working in this area. There has been an outpouring of neighbors helping neighbors. People who have electricity are offering their washing machines to those who have not yet had the power restored. People we have neglected to meet previously have now come together in friendship. In my sister’s neighborhood, they had a good old fashioned block party. On the radio I have heard accounts of people reading their Bibles using flashlights.

Jesus is indeed the light of the world, and all those who believe in him are not in darkness.

Alexander Crummel

Today the Church remembers Alexander Crummel. James Kiefer writes:

Alexander Crummell was born in New York City in 1819, and wished to study for the priesthood, but received many rebuffs because he was black. He was ordained in the Diocese of Massachusets in 1844, when he was 25 years old, but was excluded from a meeting of priests of the diocese, and decided to go to England. After graduating from Cambridge, he went to Liberia, an African country founded under American asupices for the repatriation of freed slaves. Crummell hoped to see established in Liberia a black Christian republic, combining the best of European and African culture, and led by a Western-educated black bishop. He visited the United States and urged blacks to join him in Liberia and and swell the ranks of the church there. His work in Liberia ran into opposition and indifference, and he returned to the United States, where he undertook the founding and strengthening of urban black congregations that would provide worship, education, and social services for their communities. When some bishops proposed a separate missionary district for black parishes, he organized a group, now known as the Union of Black Episcopalians, to fight the proposal.

The Collect for the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God, we thank you for your servant Alexander Crummell, whom you called to preach the Gospel to those who were far off and to those who were near. Raise up in this and every land evangelists and heralds of your kingdom, that your Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

We Should Not Be Quick to Stir Up People

Today we hear from chapter 14 in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul and Barnabas are spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ crucified and risen:

The same thing occurred in Iconium, where Paul and Barnabas went into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks became believers. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who testified to the word of his grace by granting signs and wonders to be done through them. But the residents of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles. And when an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to maltreat them and to stone them, the apostles learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country; and there they continued proclaiming the good news.

I am continually amazed, both in myself and with the others, how our fear can control us, and even poison the good work of others. In today’s reading, Paul and Barnabas are preaching the Gospel, and they are also manifesting God’s power working through them. Yet there are those who for one reason or another, but most likely because of fear, refuse to see God’s hand in Paul’s and Barnabas’s work. Sometimes we can be like those folks in today’s reading who are quick to run people out of town because they bring us a different view of who God is. God is so vastly infinite and other that we cannot possibly comprehend Him, but we can experience Him and others do as well. God touches us in ways as unique as we are. Unlike those who were trying to stir up the gentiles in Acts and poison minds, we should allow the holy Spirit to work through whomever the Spirit chooses.

God Is the God of Creation

One of today’s readings comes from the Book of Job. In it, Job is lamenting:

My face is red with weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids, though there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

O earth, do not cover my blood; let my outcry find no resting-place.

Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high.

My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God, that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God, as one does for a neighbor. For when a few years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me. If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness, if I say to the Pit, “You are my father”, and to the worm, “My mother”, or “My sister”, where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?

The Book of Job, which is, to say the least, a very troubling and puzzling book. It seems to raise more questions than it answers, and the answers it offers seem to be less than satisfactory. The book raises the question of God’s moral providence in the light of evil which is directed to Job, who, as it turns out, is absolutely innocent. Some of the key questions raised by the book include whether people will be religious, fear and honor God, apart from rewards and punishment; and it raises questions about God’s brand of justice.

The book opens with a question, God asks Satan, the accuser, or prosecutor, if you will, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.” Satan, the prosecutor, responds, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side?” Then God let’s the accuser lose, and evil after evil befalls Job.

Job starts to complain about his plight, and rest assured, Job’s three buddies, in an attempt to console him, wind up having answers as to why all this is happening to him. Bildad takes the traditional view of the day and tells Job that God doesn’t distort justice, Job’s children must have done something to offend God, otherwise this stuff wouldn’t happen. Zophar takes the position that Job himself must be guilty of something, and God is punishing him because after all, God rewards good and punishes evil.

The problem of evil is always with us, but the answer is in the miracle of the Incarnation.

God is the God of creation. As Bishop Tom Wright says, “the doctrine of creation is indeed the foundation of all biblical answers to questions about who God is and what He’s doing.” So what is God doing?

John starts out his Gospel account: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Unlike Job’s friends who offer clean, black and white explanations for why things happen, the miracle of the Incarnation is at once mind boggling and anything but easy and clean. It is a bit messy. The Word, the perfect expression of who God is, pitches his tent among us. The creator becomes the creature who is present to us and for us. He too was totally innocent, but He took on evil at its worst.

The Incarnate Word who dwells among us does not promise us that we will have lives shielded from pain and anxiety. Nor does he promise us that we will never suffer the loss of a loved one, or endure personal set backs. He doesn’t promise us that our parents won’t get divorced, or that our marriages won’t fail. Nor does he promise us that we will have perfect children who always make the right decisions. He doesn’t promise us that we will never be hurt or experience doubt and confusion.

We have someone who is “compassionate” in the true meaning of that word, “to suffer with.” We have one who suffers with us, not someone who takes the pain away, not someone who gives easy answers. Jesus is steeped in our humanity and all that it entails. But there is more, after the cross, there is the Resurrection.