Knocking on Heaven's Door

Matthew 7:7   "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

I'm not a big fan of knocking on doors.  No matter whose door it may be, a friend or a stranger, I always worry I am interrupting them if I have to knock. What if they don't want visitors right then?  What if they're asleep?  Or using the bathroom?  I always assume, anyhow, that I would be the last person someone would want to see, let alone to disturb their peace out of the blue.

So maybe my funny issue with door-knocking led me to think twice about Jesus' statement, "Knock and the door will be opened to you."

This is one of those verses so familiar to us that it is hard to look at it afresh.  In studying this verse recently, I found myself asking, how does it fit with Jesus's statement in Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."  If Jesus is knocking on our door, and we are also invited to knock on a door, well, is the Bible describing the same door?  It may sound silly, but I had to reconcile the image in my mind.

First, let's think about Jesus standing at the door and knocking.  There are many artist representations of this scene, such as Holman Hunt's Light of the World or Warner Sallman's Christ at Heart's Door.  But in my mind Jesus is not tapping on some cute cottage door.  He is instead knocking on a door of our own making, a door composed of sin and ignorance, of fear and disobedience.  It is a door we have reinforced with several locks and bolts, all designed to keep Jesus out, and keep our sinfulness safe within.  We may not even know about the door (such as Jacob Marley's unseen chain, forged during a selfish life), but it is there, separating us from God's love.

Yet sometimes we hear the message and we hear the knocking and we find the strength to open that door to Jesus.  When that momentous moment occurs something special happens.  That ugly door is torn down and discarded.  It never has to separate us again.  And yet, the reality remains that we live in a broken world, and so there is still a threshold between where we dwell and where Jesus dwells (though he has dominion over all things).  In his mercy, Jesus gives us a new door, one without locks and bolts.  It is a door we are encouraged to knock upon.  In describing this door, John Wesley spoke of our knocking on "the Gate of Righteousness" (see paragraph 19 of this sermon), and we as believers can be assured that whenever we knock on it, Christ will be there to answer.  Every time.  And every time he answers, he will listen, and act upon our needs. 

Which door is next to you right now?  Have you let Jesus in yet?  If not, unlock the locks and unbar the bars.  Let him in to care for you.  If you already have, then remember the righteous door, made especially for you.  Jesus is right there on the other side.  Whenever you need him, just knock, and the door will be opened to you.

Everlasting Words

Luke 21:33   "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."

This spring I had the chance to wander the halls of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for the first time in many years.  The floor plan eventually leads the visitor to a smallish room of religious art from the Middle Ages, a room I recall first entering almost two decades ago.  Among the breathtaking works inside is one truly astounding piece -- a painted wooden sculpture of the crucified Christ dating to the 11th century.  This carving, originally from some long-lost church in present-day Austria, hangs off the wall toward the viewer, making an instant connection.  Painfully three-dimensional, any photo is but a sad copy of the original.  One has to stand there, looking up at this figure of pathos, in order to truly appreciate what the artist has offered. 

Indeed, looking into the frozen face of this ancient carving, it is easy to imagine the sincerity and

loving care of the artisan who created it nearly a millennium ago.  The sculpture is life-sized, with some faded color left, but realism was not the goal of this anonymous craftsman.  Instead, he wished to convey the spirit behind the story, the cruelty as well as the compassion behind the crucifixion.  Without a doubt, he succeeded well.

I am reading a book on the history of silence in Christianity, and it reminds me of this carving.  The carving itself, taken merely as an object, is dumb and unable to speak to us.  It would seem to entrance only the sense of sight, and yet, as I think of it more, I realize it is not so silent after all. 

The endurance of this work of art is what strikes me most.  A thousand year old piece of wood -- such an object does tend to speak to our imaginations and to our souls.  Even if the carving itself does not make sounds, it certainly speaks, and through it we hear many voices.  We hear the voice of the craftsman, pouring his own faith into his work.  We hear the voice of worshippers, long-since vanished, who found comfort in the sight of this piece.  We hear the voice of the Gospel writers, preserving the tale of the Messiah's brutal death for generations to remember. And we hear the voice of Jesus reminding us that words are more than sounds, they are ideas, and in fact, they can represent life itself.  "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."

Our own words are far more than the sounds which come out of our mouths.  Our words are an accumulation of our actions, our inactions, our love, and our hate.  Our words extend beyond us, and

indeed, outlive us, for better or for worse.  The words of God are eternal, and we need to seek them out, cherish them, and repeat them.  We will find them, as Elijah did, in still, small voices.  We will find them in sacred books, in saintly people, and in our lifelong bonds with others. And we will find them, on occasion, in wooden faces, carved in faith, by those who have reached heaven before us.

Coronation

John 19: 22   "Pilate answered, 'What I have written, I have written.'"

All four gospel writers mention that Pilate placed a sign on the cross declaring Jesus "King of the Jews."  However, none give us as much detail as John does about the incident.  On Good Friday, it is especially worthwhile that we take a closer look at what he has to say about that sign, and consider the implications of his message.

Unlike the other Gospel writers, John tells us that the sign read, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."  It appeared in three languages: Aramaic, Greek, and Latin (famously remembered in art as INRI -- Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum).  By using the languages of the people, of commerce, and of the state, Pilate ensured all who could read would read it.  Finally, John explains that Pilate brushed aside the Jewish leaders who insisted he change the sign to say that Jesus claimed to be king, by simply answering, "What I have written, I have written."

Making a criminal hold or carry a sign that declared his crime was not unusual in Roman times.  However, we see in this passage that Pilate used the sign more to poke fun at the local leaders who he controlled than to communicate the reasons for Jesus' execution.  By pointing out that this beaten, condemned, and dying man was the king of the Jews, Pilate was humiliating the Jews and their leaders.  However, despite Pilate's personal reasons for the sign, he was in fact making a proclamation far beyond his own comprehension.  He was indeed declaring a truth, that this man was -- and is -- a king.

After his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding not on a warhorse but on a donkey, John relates this statement of Jesus:  "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." John then explains, "He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die." (12:32-33)  He is speaking here of his crucifixion, a moment in time with eternal implications.  He is speaking, in fact, of his coronation.  Indeed, when we ponder it, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is in its own unique way a coronation, and one which turns our thinking about kings and kingdoms upside down.

There is the king, before his subjects, raised up high upon not a throne, but a cross.  In fact, some Roman crosses included a tiny seat called a sedile, which allowed the condemned the slightest bit of support, not for comfort, but to prolong the agony of death.  Such was the throne of our Lord.

Jesus was given a crown, not of gold and jewels, but of thorns, to emphasize his role as king.  And as if this weren't enough, the Holy Spirit moved even the brutal Pontius Pilate to publicly proclaim, through his written words, the kingship of the Christ.  Every element is there for a coronation, but it is not a worldly one. It is an other-worldly one. It is a coronation of a servant king whose kingdom is indeed not of this world at all, but of another.

Only twice in the New Testament is Jesus proclaimed a king during his lifetime.  First is when the Magi arrive seeking the infant Jesus. "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?" they asked Herod.  Second is Pilate, who through the sign on the cross declares Jesus king.  The wise men of the East and the governor from the West, at the beginning and at the close of Jesus' earthly life, as different as they were, spoke despite the silence of hardened hearts unable and unwilling to recognize their royalty when he arrived.  Do we recognize Jesus the King today?  How do we view him...as friend, as teacher, as comforter, as healer...as revolutionary, as sage, as mystic?  Do we truly recognize him as king?  Do we treat him as king in our lives?  As we ponder the mystery and the majesty of a man crowned in the midst of his torture, let us sincerely ask if he sits upon the throne in our hearts today.

From the Hagia Sophia

My Baptism: 25 Years Later

Acts 2:38-39   Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Twenty-five years ago today -- January 31, 1988 -- I was baptized.  It was an unusual event in that I was baptized side-by-side with my grandmother.  She was 69; I was 15. 

Just a few years earlier my grandmother, Betty J. Taylor, had started to attend church, at South Salem [Ohio] United Methodist Church, soon after her husband's death.  In 1986 I began riding to church with her.  In the fall of 1987 the minister offered a series of confirmation classes, which she and I both attended.  Our baptisms would be the culminating moment of this experience.

The question arose of whether my grandmother had ever been baptized before.  Her grandfather, after all, had been a Methodist minister.  However, she had no knowledge of it, and no one knew of her having been baptized as an infant, so we had to assume she had not been.  Baptisms at our rural church were rare events, and in fact I had never seen one conducted before.  "We can do pouring or sprinkling, or I can even take you down to Buckskin Creek and dunk you if that's what you'd like," the young pastor, Rev. Swann, mentioned.  Grandma chose sprinkling, so of course I chose the same.



My Certificate of Baptism signed by Rev. Gregory Swann

I distinctly recall not really feeling any water...the pastor dipped his thumb into a bowl and made the sign of the cross on my forehead as he recited the words, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Another thing I remember was not kneeling for the sacrament as I had planned.  My grandmother could not kneel due to hip problems, and when the minister turned from her to me, I had an instant of self-consciousness as a teenager in front of a much older congregation, where kneeling was simply never done for anything, and so I just stood there.

These two memories used to bother me somewhat. I used to wish I had undergone a more tactile form of baptism, and I also regretted not having knelt.  But over time I have become reconciled with these two minor details.  I realize that God was there anyway.

Baptism means a great deal to me.  I am glad my own baptism could be a special event, shared with a person who in many ways introduced me to church.  It is a meaningful experience for individuals, for families, and for congregations.  And so I am continually distressed and, quite frankly, confused, by the manner in which baptism has become a dividing point among so many Christians.  There are people reading this who will have decided already, I'm sure, that my baptism was not valid because of the method used.  That argument, which has torn apart churches and kept groups of Christians bickering for years, is getting old. 

I once read a book by a woman who had lost her faith, but in thinking back to her early years in the church she remembered the panic she felt when she was immersed and a bubble caught under her gown.  A tiny bit of fabric was buoyed by this bubble, and she was terrified this meant she was not truly immersed and thus not really saved.  Her experience is not far removed from the arguing so many Christians undertake over the exact form of baptism, as if God can't help us unless we do it just right.

While in divinity school I once heard someone mention "magic wand" theology -- something Christians would vehemently deny even if they practice it.  This is the belief that performing a sacrament in just the right way will lead to God's favor, action, or even salvation, whereby if done incorrectly, we will miss out on all grace.  Wave the magic wand just right and God loves you.  Wave it wrong, and God condemns you.  What a small God that would be.

Surely, God is able to accept our baptisms as we best understand them meant to be conducted.  And God is surely able to embrace us in eternity even if only our hearts, and not our heads, have been baptized.  Baptism is the one thing that almost draws all of Christianity together, but even here, too many prefer to argue over details rather than bond together for the sake of Christ's name.


As the Apostle Peter pointed out in Acts, it is through baptism that we enter officially, publicly, into the family of Christ, and we receive the promise that only corporate life in Him can fulfill: an eternal bond together, living in forgiveness, led by the Holy Spirit, across generations.  Baptism defines us as a family.  It defines us as a body. 

Sometimes those definitions are quite pronounced.  I mentioned above that my grandmother's own grandfather had been a minister.  From 1909 to 1914 he acted as the very first pastor of a brand new church in southern Ohio -- the Methodist church in South Salem -- the very same church where we would happen to be baptized nearly eight decades later.





Shepherd Soul

Luke 2:15  When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

The shepherds are an indispensable part of any nativity scene, as they represent the first people outside the Holy Family to know that the Christ has just come into the world.  The angel's appearance to them has a great deal of symbolism.  Not only do the shepherds foretell the life of The Good Shepherd, but the birth has happened in David's city, and he was, of course, a shepherd himself.  But above these things, by appearing to these lowly and lonely members of an agrarian society, the angel shows that the Messiah has come for all people, no matter their status or role.

That universality of the announcement to the shepherds should not be lost on us.  Even though we may feel far removed from them today the message still applies.  The poet George Herbert understood this.  Herbert, a saintly Anglican priest with Welsh origins who died in 1633 at age 39, left behind many well-crafted verses on various subjects, most especially religious ones.  In his poem, "Christmas," Herbert writes:

My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
     Of thoughts, and words, and deeds,
The pasture is thy word: the streams thy grace
     Enriching all the place.

What a beautiful way to see one's soul, as a shepherd, just as those shepherds of Bethlehem.  And as a shepherd, our soul feeds our thoughts, words, and deeds, for better or for ill.  But through the help of Christ, through the presence of his Word, we are better able to care for our thoughts, our words, and our deeds.

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep," Jesus tells his followers in John 10.  And again, "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep."  Not only did Jesus lay his life down for the sheep, he left heaven in the first place for them, appearing to us in Bethlehem on that first Christmas.  That in itself was a sacrifice.  And just as the angels made clear to the shepherds in the fields that special night, so too does Jesus make clear to us -- he came for all people: "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd."

On this day after Christmas, as we sort through the mess and reheat the leftovers, let's not forget the lesson of the shepherds who first saw that child.  And like George Herbert, may our souls be shepherds, too.  Good shepherds, inspired by the best shepherd of them all. 

Walking on Water

[Adapted from last Sunday's sanctuary re-dedication sermon.]

Matthew 14:28-29  "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  "Come," he said.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

There have been many symbols of Christianity and of the Church over the centuries.  We are all familiar with the cross, of course.  And many people are aware of the fish as a symbol of the faith. In Mark 1 Jesus tells his first disciples, who were fishermen, that he will make them fishers of men.  This and other references to fish in the New Testament led to the fish being an early symbol of Christianity, and one that has certainly made a resurgence in modern times.

Another important early symbol is less seen today -- the boat.  Have you ever considered the church as a boat?  This symbol has many scriptural bases.  Moses and his family and the animals were saved on a boat.  The early disciples, as fishermen, worked with boats.  And it was from a boat that the Apostles saw Jesus miraculously calm a storm and also walk on water.



Logo of the World Council of Churches

But the symbolism goes deeper than that.  A boat is a place of safety, even on turbulent waters.  It is a place of stability when everything around you is unstable.  A boat can take you almost anywhere you want to go.  And wherever that might be, you can still keep fishing.

Think of the sea's waves as the turbulence of sin and of a broken world.  The boat -- the church -- is a refuge from that turbulence.  It is a refuge but it is not a hiding place.  Quite the contrary, we are encouraged to sail our boat out across those frightening waters in search of others who are floundering, needing to be saved.

The boat would not be carrying us if Jesus had not first entered our world.  He broke into history first in Bethlehem, in that stable, over two millennia ago, but he continues to reenter our lives even still.  He comes to us again and again, knocking at the door, seeking entry, and he asks only one thing of us -- to follow him. 

When Jesus approached Simon and Andrew, and James and John, he invited them to follow him, and they did so.  They had no way of knowing at that moment just what following Jesus would truly mean, but they could be assured then, as every day after, that he would always be there to protect them.  Likewise, when Jesus appears, in Matthew 14, walking on the water toward his disciples in a boat, he calls upon them not to have fear.  He was their source of all security.  And so when Peter asks Jesus to call him out upon the waters, Jesus' answer is immediate -- "Come!"

We normally focus on what comes next.  In a panic, Peter begins to sink, and Jesus has to grab him to save him, and gently chastises his lack of faith.  However, pondering that passage, one has to ask what deeper meaning there might be here.  Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus perform a miracle just to show off.  His miracles have meaning and symbolism, if not immediate comfort and healing.  So why has Jesus chosen to walk on water?  Why does he allow Peter to do the same? 

I believe Jesus is teaching Peter, and us, a lesson.  He teaches here that through true faith we can walk across the waves of sin and brokenness, and Jesus will sustain and lead us.  That's what walking on water truly means.  It is more than the ability to perform a physical miracle.  Instead of sinking into sin and despair, you can rise above it.  You can take the safety and security of your boat, the church, into places even the boat itself cannot go.  Because Jesus is always there to lift you up, to sustain you and protect you.

The church is your boat.  With Jesus piloting us, this boat can bring you through every turbulent storm you may face.  It can ride the waves day after day.  But the blessings don't end there.  Because yes, the church is your boat, but when you walk out the doors, even you can walk on water.

Living as a Saint: A Tribute to Dr. Susan A. Keefe

Psalm 116:14  "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."

I'll never forget that amazing morning.  It was August 29, 2000, and I had settled into my seat in the middle of a small and crowded classroom, waiting for one of my first classes at Duke Divinity School to begin.  That course was Church History 13: Early and Medieval Christianity, a staple of the curriculum.  A hush fell on the room as the professor walked through the door.  She was a small, wisp of a woman, emaciated, her hair clean but limp, her face sunken, her frame fragile.  She was wearing what looked to be a homemade dress and carrying a stack of books and papers that appeared to outweigh her.  She settled into place, and breathlessly began...

"The history of the church...is a love story."

She went on to describe the story of Jesus' sacrifice for the Church -- for us -- as told in the Gospels and expounded in Acts, in such a way that any of us could have believed she had been there, witnessing it all, from the foot of the cross to Pentecost.

That woman was Susan Keefe, and after that day, I would never view the church, or my role in it, quite the same again.

In all I would take three classes with Dr. Keefe, Associate Professor of Church History at Duke, and I would spend countless hours over five years in conversation with her.  Since my leaving Duke in 2006, we kept in touch through letters, cards, and emails.  News of her death at age 58, which reached me on August 8th, left me chilled to the bone, and yet then almost immediately comforted, as I realized, in some special way, she would always be near me now.  She was, after all, a living saint.

It is hard to describe this exceptional woman, in part because she was not exceptional in ways we are used to describing.  She eschewed professional attention. She was also very private. This is not to say she kept to herself -- quite the contrary, she was gregarious and caring at all times.  However, she did not make herself a topic of conversation.  I knew almost nothing about her.  I knew she was Catholic and came from a close-knit family in Connecticut. She was rumored to have once been a nun, yet to this day I don't know if that was indeed the case.  She was, doubtless, an ascetic.  No one I knew had ever witnessed her eat or drink anything.  It was rumored she lived on the Eucharist alone (though I didn't believe that).  Reactions to her appearance were wide-ranging.  Those who did not know her at all could be forgiven for wide-eyed shock. Among her students, there was reverence for her self-denial, fear for her health, and assumptions that she suffered from an eating disorder disguised as a spiritual discipline.  Some were drawn to her, some repelled by her.  But I believe that in virtually every case, Susan Keefe didn't even notice. She was too focused on her love of God.

Dr. Keefe's office was a small, top floor space crammed full of well-worn books and pictures.  She had travelled throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East to study ancient baptismal sites and find primary sources still extant in places like monastery libraries. Postcards and snapshots of these amazing places were everywhere in her office, as well as pictures of saints.  She adored the saints.  She had a true love of those holy men and women who had gone before and reminders of them were everywhere.  In December 2007 we visited St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana, founded by the newly canonized St. Mother Theodore Guerin.  Shortly thereafter I mailed a package to Dr. Keefe containing a small framed picture of the Saint, as well as a few other items.  Her reply speaks volumes:

I am utterly flabbergasted, and profoundly moved by St. Mother Guerin in my lap at this moment, and SS. Bill and Brooke, to have understood my love for the saints and endowed me so richly with a new one. This is indeed the communion of all saints! Indeed, indeed, your package DID arrive, to my great delight as I went to my mailbox this morning. When you sent me photos by email of Mother Guerin, I had secretly said in my heart, Oh, how I wish I could save the pictures of her, and her reliquary with the bones, and the church…but I had no way to download colored pictures. So your package was an answer to prayer, as well as a total surprise. You are both sweet beyond measure to have thought of me when you visited her shrine, and then to have collected and sent me the framed picture, the photographs, the medal, and the holy card. I am doubly touched at your letter, Bill, in which you took the time to explain your own emotions about the visit and about touching her reliquary, and then laying the holy card you sent me on it. I pray she becomes a special patron for both of you in Indiana. Her recent canonization makes her especially fascinating to me. She will hang beside me in my office, so that every time I see her, I also think of you both, and recommend you to her care.

Dr. Keefe lived out her faith in the subtlest of ways. She was always doing little things for people, almost unnoticed, in order to share her love through Jesus.  When we shared the news that my wife, Brooke, was pregnant, she proceeded to pray daily for the baby. When he was born she came to me with a little box, wrapped in paper, that weighed far more than I would have expected.  Inside were six rolls of quarters, each one slipped into a baby sock.  Those 240 quarters paid for our loads of laundry for weeks and weeks. In fact, they took so long to run out that they almost seemed to have miraculously multiplied.

During my last year as a student, Dr. Keefe's two-volume book was finally published -- Water and the Word, a beautifully bound collection of ancient texts on baptism, along with Dr. Keefe's commentaries on them.  I was working in the mail room the day the shipment arrived, and had the joy of carrying the box to her office for her.  I opened the box and laid my eyes on her book -- her life's work -- at the very first time that she did.  For my graduation, Brooke purchased a copy of the book from the school bookstore as a gift to me, and she went to Dr. Keefe asking for her to sign it.  She literally cried when she learned that Brooke had bought her "expensive book" for me.  Not only did she inscribe it with a sentiment that deeply touched me, she also exchanged it.  She gave Brooke her own copy, her only copy, which she felt was in slightly better shape, and kept the store copy that had a ding on the cover.



Me with Dr. Keefe, May 2003

That book is among my prized possessions, along with the many Christmas cards -- drawn and inscribed individually, by her hand -- postcards and letters Dr. Keefe mailed us over the years. But above these objects is her memory, and the lessons she had to teach.  The Bible mentions "saints" many times, always as the holy family of people set aside by God to advance His church.  We are all "called to be saints" as Paul says in Romans 1:7 -- we are called to be holy.  And indeed, perhaps we rightly reserve the term, in our culture, if not our theology, for those who display a special holiness, who truly light the way.  And so I thank God for my opportunity to have known such a Saint.  She has now gone home, after her sojourn in this foreign place.  Surely, "precious in the sight of the lord" was the death of Susan Keefe.