17th week after Pentecost

 In God I trust… (Psalm 56:11)

I’ve been told I got it all wrong; that, our national motto is “In God we trust.” Maybe so, but I was thinking of our founders who would never go for a motto that wasn’t in Latin. A non-Latin motto is obviously a new comer.

The Constitution, our founding document which the Supreme Court guards and interprets, does not mention God. It’s a product of “We the People…” As human products go, it’s a wonder. Its purpose was and is “to form a more perfect Union…” There is, in this eloquent language of the preamble, an understanding of something or someone Transcendent—a Perfection beyond our reach. Fortunately for us it does not say, “To form the Perfect Union.” That’s the language of tyranny.

17th Sunday after Pentecost

Though many one… (Romans 12:5)

I should acknowledge that mortality continues to have its way with me. For the last few weeks I haven’t been able to walk without help. Medical folks are doing their good work. MRI reveals spinal problems. We pray for good results.

Meanwhile, with the assistance of a loving and caring wife of 56 years, I’ve been able to make it from the bed to the couch where I watch too much football and too much news. Yesterday, along with our daughter and granddaughter who also care for us, we watched the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to serve as the ninth judge on the Supreme Court. While watching we discussed some of the tumultuous events of the week—the demonstrations, the contention and violence, this nasty business of politics. We had our opinions. In the middle of it all, one is nominated to take her place on the Supreme Court to serve as guardian and interpreter of our founding document--the Constitution that holds our diverse and often frayed nation together.

What is this center that unites our 50 states—that make us a nation called the United States of America? What’s the center that holds such a diverse people together? On the battle field of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said it best: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal… We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.”

“Liberty” and “Equality” that’s our nation’s center for which citizens “gave their lives.” It’s the Unum that holds our Pluribus together: E Pluribus Unum. Our founders liked Latin. It means “Out of many one.” Will the center hold? Can such a nation live on?

 

16th Sunday after Pentecost

 I give my opinion… (First Corinthians 7:25).

On the Christian Calendar, these days between Pentecost and Advent, are called “ordinary days”—days when we live out our ordinary lives in the unseen presence of the Holy Spirit.

In First Corinthians, the Apostle navigates his way through a maze of ordinary day questions; like, what if a believer is married to a pagan—is such a marriage blessed? Jesus never addressed such a question. So, without a Jesus teaching, the Apostle comes up with his opinion—a breathtaking opinion (vss 12-16). And so it goes with the Apostle addressing an array of ordinary day questions concerning marriage, family and vocation.

He concludes his opinions with Apostolic restraint: “I think that I have the Spirit of God” (7:40). We might question an opinion or two; like his opinion that one might be better off not getting married because “the appointed time has grown near” (vs 29). Turns out “the appointed time” when ordinary days come to an end, and God makes known his Eternal Decision about us in Jesus Christ, has yet to come. Nevertheless, one hesitates to say the Apostle got it wrong. I suppose we should still live out our ordinary days anticipating that Day when ordinary days come to an end.

Meanwhile, during our ordinary days, we need the unseen presence of the Holy Spirit to guide us into good opinions leading to good decisions—decisions that follow the way of Christ. And if the Apostle can show a certain humility about his opinions; how much more ought we. Let our opinions be lower-case opinions; and, God’s opinion about us—about his creation, be an upper-case Opinion.

 

15th Sunday after Pentecost

 

In my inmost self…

(Romans 7:22)

“My inmost self”? I wonder where that is? How does one journey to their “inmost self”? And, what do we find when we get there? “I find,” writes the Apostle Paul, who dares to take the journey, “that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self; but sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting… making me captive to the law of sin.” The tenth commandment does him in: ^“I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.”

“All kinds of covetousness”—the tenth commandment does go on and on: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's." Paul does seem to resent, for example, how Peter got to travel about with his wife (1Cor 9).  Is that coveting? Maybe so.

The point being, that however deep we go into our inmost self; we find conflict, disappointment, and condemnation. We fall short—even the Apostle. We find ourselves “condemned”. That’s why we need Pentecost: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Ro 8).

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free for one another and even for our “inmost self”.

 

14th Sunday after Pentecost

 

There was a great multitude.

(Revelation 7:9)

Still scattered, and mumbling about how and when we will ever be gathered. It’s Pentecost—the out pouring of the Holy Spirit, that gives us this longing to be gathered. That’s how it goes in the Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy universal church, the communion of saints…” Not that we are saints of ourselves, but as the Holy Spirit tucks us away in Christ we become saints—holy and sacred to God and to one another. That’s the “Communion of Saints.”

Today, our gathering seems puny. That’s okay. Sometimes our way is lowly. Yet even in our lowliness, that Day of the eternal gathering is always on our horizon. On that Day “a great multitude that no one could possibly count, from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages, gathers before the throne and the Lamb…” (Rv 7:9). This Great Gathering that awaits us makes our puny gatherings not so puny.