A Poem
and Reflection for XXIII Pentecost (proper 25C) St. Andrew’s, Nags Head, N.C.
November 17, 2019 Thomas E Wilson, Supply
November 17, 2019 Thomas E Wilson, Supply
Creating A New Heaven and A New Earth
The Hebrew Testament lesson for today is from
the Book of Isaiah, which many scholars have divided into three parts. The
first part is set in the 8th Century BC. The prophet Isaiah is in
the Temple in the year that King Uzziah died (742 BC) when he has a vision
calling him to confront the leaders of the Kingdom with the rampant corruption
of the legal and religious institutions which end up with the poor and
vulnerable being abused. He calls on a reform to live into God’s vision for the
community of God in which there would be care and respect for the poor and
needy. He is in a tense relationship with the Temple, on the one hand he knows
the Temple has been part of his and the communities’ life for hundreds of years
and it is corrupt. While it is part of the problem, Isaiah still has hope for
the better angels of their natures to answer God’s pleas for justice and mercy.
The first
39 chapters of the Book of Isaiah belong to this 1st (or Proto)
Isaiah. He will gather a group of younger disciples around him who will
continue the message after Isaiah dies. There are some sporadic reforms, but
they are short lived, and the old ways do not die out. Finally, the Kingdom
falls to the Babylonians and the Temple is destroyed in 587 BC. The destruction
of the Temple was a horrible tragedy, but part of the cost of the arrogance of
the leaders. The exile was a horrible thing but one of the best things to
happen to the faith of the people. The exiles found that their LORD was to be
found not in a building but wherever and whenever two or three would gather together
in prayer.
The
school of the Prophet Isaiah holds on to Isaiah’s vision and will continue
sharing the original hope of the prophet with the exiles in Babylon. They are
to forget the Temple made of stone and remember a relationship with the God
that is not trapped in a building. 40 years later, the Babylonian Empire falls
to the Medes and the Persians and the Persian rulers allow the exiles to return
home. The followers of Isaiah write to
those coming home to look not for a Temple as the center of their worship to
solve problems but a to continue as a community working together to build a new
commonwealth of justice and compassion. True worship is in caring, sharing and
working together with God’s spirit. The part of the Book of Isaiah covering
this ministry to the exiles and the welcome of their return we call 2nd
or (Deutero) Isaiah.
The same
spirit of the original Prophet Isaiah now faces the time after the exiles
return and the hope for the future. These chapters are what we call 3rd
or Trito Isaiah, which sees God working through them to build a new Heaven and
a new earth. It is a vision of the future. There is no Temple there for the
true Temple will be in their hearts and in their lives.
However,
the people build a second Temple and place God in there instead of in their
lives. Four centuries later, the Temple gets all tarted up by Herod with Roman
help, so that it looks like a real downtown Temple like all the other Gods
have. Jesus looks at it and sees this corrupt and gaudy building, all impressed
with itself, with the eyes of Isaiah and sees a waste of energy and money.
People are putting their faith in a building and ritual instead of placing
their lives in relationship with God.
The
destruction of the Temple, while a real tragedy, was one of the best things to
happen to the followers of Jesus, because it sets them free to live fully into
the living Spirit of God. Jesus’ followers do not build Temples and buildings,
for they see the real temple as God’s resurrected Christ’s spirit living within
the changed people and in the space between them in the community coming
together in Christ’s name. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians warned about
people just going showing up instead of working by giving the gifts that they
were given by God; everybody had to work together to bring change into the
world. The English word “church” comes from the Greek word kyrios,
meaning Lord; church meant the people who belonged to the LORD, not the
building belonging to the people. Another Greek word for church is the ekklesia,
meaning the people gathered.
However,
that started to change when the church got legal in the Roman Empire and wanted
to look like a “real” religion and have fancy buildings with lots of gaudy trim
to impress the outsiders and themselves with how important they were. In that
configuration the church came to mean buildings and those who staffed them, hired
ministers. These churches tended to become as corrupt as the old Temple
concept, where the church was seen to meet the needs of the members instead of
the vision of God. Jesus kept reminding
them that stone buildings don’t last, only God’s spirit lasts. We are not here
to throw holy water on corrupt institutions. Billy Sunday used to say: “Going
to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes
you an automobile.”
Over the
coming centuries Prophets and saints would come and call us to return to the
vision of Isaiah and Jesus. One of those people was a man we remembered two
weeks ago at the Wednesday service. He was William Temple, Archbishop of
Canterbury during World War II. Who said: “The church is the only society that
exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.”
In the
history of Nags Head there was a chapel built in the 1850’s, during a time in
history when most Southerners had little problem with what they called “our way
of life” or “our peculiar institution” of the exploitation of fellow images of
God based on the color of their skin. The State of North Carolina’s
Constitution backed up what most of the churches in the state taught and put a
limit on the number of slaves that could be set free and laws kept slave owners
from Baptizing or educating their slaves because they realized that real
Christianity might help them to hear about God’s love instead of the state’s
fear. The time
came for facing that corruption and injustice in the Civil War, choices needed to
be made.
On one
side, for example, we have Bishop Leonidas Polk, of the Episcopal Diocese of
Louisiana, born in Raleigh and his first church was in Fayetteville. He took leave of his calling and, because of
his connections and previous military training, he was a classmate with
Jefferson Davis at West Point, he became a General in the Confederate Army of
Tennessee. He announced his decision because of his belief that Federal
Government had no power to ruin the “Southern way of Life,” meaning slavery. As
a North Carolina native, he believed slavery was God’s will for inferior
people, as well as an economic necessity for profitable agriculture in the
South if they would have to pay workers rather than own them.
On the
other side, runaway slaves escaped to the Outer Banks which was held by Union
soldiers and the slaves were kept as wartime contraband, not full human beings
until the Emancipation Proclamation a few years later. The runaways needed
shelter, so the chapel was torn down for timbers to build shelter for the
contraband. It was horrible to tear down the Chapel, but it was one of the best
things to happen to the church that replaced it. The metaphor of the loss of
arrogance helped future members of St. Andrew’s to start to remember what a
church was supposed to be: a community devoted to changing the world instead of
an institution to throw holy water on corrupt and unjust ways.
This is
where we are right now as we search for a new Rector. What are you looking for?
Are you looking for someone who will run an institution to meet the needs and
desires of the people who claim membership in this parish? Or, are you looking
for someone who can enter into, and challenge, a community with members and
model what it means to live in the Spirit working together to do God’s work in
the larger community of the Outer Banks? The buildings of St. Andrew’s are
beautiful, but they are not the mission of St. Andrew’s. The services are
inspiring, but they are not the mission of St. Andrew’s. We are here to change
the world, not retreat from it. We are, as Isaiah says, called to be
co-creators of a “new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be
remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;”
in what I am creating;”
Creating
A New Heaven and A New Earth
Third
Isaiah has a new vision for the people,
coming
back to the light, ending darkness,
clutching
hope, standing on ruined edifice,
to raise
a new faith, not just another steeple.
Centuries
later looking at a ruin soon to be,
Jesus
will repeat all the three Isaiahs hopes,
arrogance
brings ruin, but God changes folks,
to dream
of new times when they'll be free.
Free from
past seduction by tawdry grandeur,
being
able to see true worth of work meant,
to change
worlds, to sing rather than lament,
of
sharing riches rather than abusing of poor.
Timbers
of a church housed runaway slaves,
teaching
us churches are not religious caves.
No comments:
Post a Comment