St. Peter's By The Sea

August 17, 2008 - The Divine Feminie

Feast of St. Mary

Good morning. It’s good to be here with you this morning. Knowing that next Sunday is my last one with you makes being here together and worshipping together all the more special.

I think you all know the story of the woman who was caught in adultery and brought before Jesus by the scribes and the Pharisees. And they said to Jesus, “Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what do you say?” And after a time Jesus said to them, “He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” And after a moment or two a rock came whizzing by and hit the woman, thump. And Jesus turned and looked and he said, “Ah Mom, cut it out.”

On a more serious note, this morning as we celebrate the Feast of Mary, the mother of Jesus, I would like to share a few thoughts with you about Jesus’ relationship and attitude towards women, and the role of women in the early church, and a feminine spirituality that has been missing in the church for a long time, but which is being rediscovered in our own time.

In the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery which I just told, of course what really happened is that the men who were so anxious to stone the woman were convicted by their own conscience and left one by one until Jesus was alone with the woman. Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are your accusers, has no man condemned you?” And she said, “No man, Lord.” And Jesus said to her “Neither do I condemn you: go and sin no more.” (John

Jesus here undermines the whole religious and social attitude towards women of his time. The woman bears all the blame and the fault for adultery, no man is condemned or brought before Jesus. Jesus does not condemn the unjust law outright and so get caught in the trap the scribes and the Pharisees tried to set for him. Rather, he challenges them to look within themselves and to discover the projection of their own “sins” upon this woman.

And then he treats the woman with tenderness, he treats her with respect and with loving kindness, and he forgives her, for as Andrew Harvey says, “His kingdom is one of forgiveness and endless opportunity for transformation and growth.”1

We see in Jesus’ treatment of and respect for women one of the most radical aspects of his teaching as seen in the context of his own time. For again as Andrew Harvey writes, (In Jesus’ time …) “Women had few rights: they could not be witnesses in courts of law; they could not initiate divorce proceedings; they could not be taught the Torah; both childbirth and menstruation were considered ritually impure. In public life women were separated from men … middle and upper-class women did not go out of the house unescorted by a family member; adult women had to be veiled at all times when they were out in public. Meals outside the family were male-only occasions; if women were present they were thought of as harlots or courtesans. A woman’s identity in the world derived totally from her husband or father.”2

In contrast, Jesus travelled with women and ate meals with them and taught them. In short, he treated them as equals, which was unheard of. He was supported by wealthy women and at the cruxifiction it was his women followers who were present, while the men hid in fear. And it was a woman, Mary Magdalene, who was the first person he appeared to after his resurrection, and she was charged to tell the others. And this attitude of equality and openness and respect continued in the earliest churches, where women could teach, heal, prophesy and baptize. It was only later that the church was to suppress this aspect of Jesus’ teaching and ministry and claim that only men could be priests or broker access to the divine.

In our own time when Bishop Katherine Schori was elected Presiding Bishop, a number of Episcopal Dioceses found it impossible to accept the authority of a woman as Presiding Bishop. It seems we have lost sight of the teaching and practice of Jesus.

We have gained much new insight into Jesus’ relationship with women and their role in the early church with the discovery of lost early Gospels in Egypt at Nag Hanmadhi in the 1940’s. It’s only been in the last 30 years that we have had access to translations of the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Phillip, the Gospel of Mary and other early Christian writings that were later suppressed after Christianity became the official state religion, around 370 CE.

We see in these texts the special role that women played, and especially Mary Magdalene. We also see the opposition this aroused in some of the disciples and most notably Peter. In the Gospel of Mary, when Mary described to the disciples teachings she had received from Jesus, Peter became increasingly jealous. He says to the disciples, “Did he really speak with a woman without our knowledge and not openly? Did he prefer her to us?”

Then Mary wept and she asks Peter if he thinks she made all of this up, but Levi springs to her defense and says, “Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman just like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us.”

These new discoveries have produced much speculation on the nature of the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and much of that is simply that, speculation, because we don’t know. However, what has become clear is that what was taught and practiced in the earliest church included a valuing of women and a more mystical and feminine spirituality that the church lost sight of, except for the mystics.

For example, in the Gospel of John when Jesus appears to the disciples after the resurrection, he gives them his peace. In John 14:27 Jesus says “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you; … let not your hearts be troubled.” And in John chapter 20 Jesus appears to the disciples behind closed doors and twice says to them “Peace be with you.” And in Luke Jesus appears among them and says “Peace to you.” (Luke 24:36)

However in the Gospel of Mary we read, “When the Blessed One had said this, he greeted them all. ‘Peace be with you!’ He said, ‘Acquire my peace within yourselves.’ ” (Gospel of Mary 4:1) The Gospel of Mary emphasizes the inner realization of Jesus’ peace in a way that the other gospels do not.3 As Karen King says of this in her study of the Gospel of Mary, “Here the command of the Savior relates directly to finding the child of true humanity within.”4

We see a similar difference in Jesus’ warnings about looking for the kingdom. In Mark Jesus says, “If anyone says to you ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it … they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” (Mark 13:21, 26)

But in the Gospel of Mary we read “Be on your guard so that no one leads you astray, saying ‘Look over here! Or Look over there!’ For the child of true humanity exists within you.” (Gospel of Mary 4:3-5)

According to the Gospel of Mary, we are not to look for some external power to deliver us, but that salvation lies in discovering the image of God, our own essential spark of divinity that he’s within the self. That this was a widespread teaching found in the earliest church is attested by somewhat similar formulations found in Luke, where we read, “Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, “Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

And in the Gospel of Thomas we hear, “If your leaders say to you, “Look, the kingdom is in the sky,” then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, “It is in the sea,” then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father.” (Gospel of Thomas 3)

It is clear that one of the more radical aspects of Jesus’ teaching and practice was that he treated all people as equals, including women, children, and those who were considered sinners or outcasts. In his message of the presence of God and of God’s overwhelming love for us, he taught that we are all children of God.

So part of the meaning of the Feast of Mary lies in the straightforward question of gender in the history of the church, and the ways in which women have and have not been allowed to play the role Jesus seems to have envisioned for them. But another level of meaning is spiritual and speaks of the suppression of a more mystical relationship to the divine. For the feminine way, archetypically, is a more personal and intimate way, a more direct relationship with God. It is not mediated by the church or by men, or by certain rules or behaviors. It is a spirituality which springs from the interior, and is available to all of us.

My prayer is that one day each of you, will, like Mary, know the birth of God in you soul.

In Her Name. Amen.
1 Andrew Harvey, Fan of Man, p. 34.
2 Andrew Harvey, Ibid, p. 32.
3 I am indebted to Karen King’s wonderful book, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala, pp. 98 ff, for these insights.
4 Ibid, p. 100.

Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 2:02 pm
Category: Sermons

August 10, 2008 - Walking on Water

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Good morning. It’s good to see you and to be here with you this morning.

Last Sunday our gospel lesson was the story of Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and two fish. I suggested last week that there is a need for us to make room in our lives for the mysterious, and the miraculous, and the sacred. And again this morning we hear another miraculous story, another mythic story, the story of Jesus walking on the water. And I must admit it is a story which is initially difficult to understand. It is certainly a story we all know very well, and you all probably have an image in your mind of Jesus walking on the water.

But what does this story mean? Why did Jesus walk on the water? And what significance if any does this story have for us in our lives today?

The image of Jesus walking on the water initially just seems impossible because of the force we identify as gravity. So first let us consider the spiritual issue of gravity. An anonymous monk once wrote, “Now, the domain of … the spiritual life – is found placed between two gravitational fields with two different centres. The gospel designates them as ‘heaven’ and ‘this world,’ or ‘the kingdom of God’ and the ‘kingdom of the prince of this world.’ And it designates those whose will follows or is submitted to the gravitation of ‘this world’ as ‘children of this world’; and those whose will follows the gravitation of ‘heaven’ as the ‘children of light.’ ”1

First, it should be noted that the force of attraction from above is as real as that from below. We see it in the call of the apostles who left everything to follow Jesus. We experience it in our own lives at those times when we feel called or pulled to prayer, or to solitude, or to a desire to work with God, to be in the divine presence.

In the lives of the saints we find that this attraction of heaven can be so real and so powerful that it affects not only the soul, but also the physical body, which can be lifted off the ground. St. Teresa of Avila, who often had this experience, writes of it in her autobiography. She writes, “Then the cloud rises to heaven taking the soul with it, and begins to show it the features of the kingdom He has prepared for it. I do not know whether this is an accurate comparison, but in point of fact that is how it happens. Here there is no possibility of resisting … rapture is, as a rule, irresistible. In this emergency very often I should like to resist, and I exert all my strength to do so, especially at such times as I am in a public place, and very often when I am in private also, because I am afraid of delusions. Sometimes with a great struggle I have been able to do something against it. At other times resistance has been impossible; my soul has been carried away, without my being able to prevent it; and sometimes it has affected my whole body, which has been lifted from the ground. I confess that in me it aroused a great fear, at first a very great fear. One sees one’s body being lifted from the ground; and though the soul draws it up after itself, and does so most gently if it does not resist, one does not lose consciousness. At least I myself was sufficiently aware to realize that I was being lifted.”2

Let us look more closely at our gospel lesson. Jesus has just performed the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 and he sends the disciples on ahead of him to the other side of the water. Then he dismisses the crowds and he goes up on the mountain alone in order to pray and be with God.

During the night the boat the disciples were in was in trouble, being battered by the wind and waves, and early in the morning they see a figure walking towards them over the water, and they are terrified and they cry out in their fear “It is a ghost.”

After battling the wind and sea all night, the disciples are afraid because they think they will sink and all die, and when they see the ghost their worst fears are realized – it is a sign of their imminent death.

But Jesus speaks to them and says “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” And in the version of the story found in the gospel of Mark we are told “And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.” (Mark 6:51-52)

Jesus saw that the disciples’ hearts were still closed and I think part of the meaning of the story is his attempt, by walking on the water, to open their hearts and ours, so that we can see who he is and what is really happening. Surely the healing of the sick, the raising the dead, and the feeding of 5,000 people with some loaves and a couple of fishes and walking on water are miracles. But the deeper and more significant miracle is that in Jesus, God has come directly to us, so that we can see and hear and feel in a new way. So that we can see the world, and ourselves, and each other as fully alive and radiant beings, manifesting the glory of God.

When the disciples see Jesus they are terrified, they are afraid they are going to die and they cry out “It is a ghost.” In their fear I think they are asking two questions: First – Who is this? And secondly – How is he able to walk on Water? And Jesus responds “Take heart, it is I; have no fear.” Now the words translated as “It is I” can also be translated as “I am.”

“It is I” answers the first question – who is it? This is the concrete, factual question, and the answer is “It is I – it is Jesus.”

“I am” answers the second question, which is “How do you do this?” For “I am” is the formula for the revelation of the divine in the world. The whole gospel is the gradual revelation of this truth, such as,

“I am the true vine”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life”
“I am the door”
“I am the bread of life”
“I am the Good Shepherd”
“I am the light of the world”

Now, the words “I am, do not be afraid” spoken by Jesus walking on the water amount to him saying, “I am the presence of God and he who holds onto me will never sink or be engulfed.”

And this image of the disciples at sea, in fear of being overwhelmed and drowning, and Jesus walking to them, is an eternal one, and by that I mean: in our life’s journey and especially in those most difficult of times, Jesus is always walking towards us, on the water, to bring us into the awareness of his presence and the reality of God’s love. He is coming to bring us home.

And in the figure of our patron saint Peter, who walks on the water to meet Jesus, I think there is a two-fold meaning. On the one hand Peter, when he leaves the boat, steps out of ordinary consciousness and like St. Teresa he experiences a rapture of the soul in which he is carried into the indescribable joy of the divine presence.

But Peter becomes frightened and he then begins to sink, and here the disciples in their fear of drowning and especially Peter as he begins to sink, represent the fear of death, the fear of being swallowed up by the forces and gravitation of darkness. It is a fear that we all face at some point in our lives.

And here I think we touch upon the true mystery and significance of Jesus’ walking on the water towards the disciples and towards us. For he is showing us that he will never leave us, and that there is a field of gravitation, a celestial gravitation, that is greater than the power of death. This is the message of the immortality of the soul.

When Jesus lifts up Peter, like St. Teresa Peter experiences a foretaste of what comes at death – the experience of being lifted up into the divine presence. This is, I believe, the meaning of the story of Jesus walking on the water: that he is always walking to us: in our times of trial and distress, and in our darkest hour at the time of our death, he comes to lift us into the divine presence and to take us home.

In His Name. Amen.
1 Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot, p. 306. In what follows I am indebted to this work.
2 The Life of St. Teresa of Avila; trsl. J. M. Cohen, London, 1957, pp 136-138.

Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 9:20 am
Category: Sermons

August 3, 2008 - Feeding the 5,000

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Charles Swindol tells a funny story about a nine-year-old named Danny who came bursting out of Sunday school like a wild stallion. His eyes were darting in every direction as he tried to locate either mom or dad. Finally, after a quick search, he grabbed his Daddy by the leg and yelled, “Man, that story of Moses and all those people crossing the Red Sea was great!” His father looked down, smiled, and asked the boy to tell him about it.

“Well, the Israelites got out of Egypt, but Pharaoh and his army chased after them. So the Jews ran as fast as they could until they got to the Red Sea. The Egyptian Army was gettin’ closer and closer. So Moses got on his walkie-talkie and told the Israeli Air Force to bomb the Egyptians. While that was happening, the Israeli Navy built a pontoon bridge so the people could cross over. They made it!”

By now dad was shocked. “Is THAT they was they taught you the story?”

“Well, no, not exactly,” Danny admitted, “but if I told you the way they told it to us, you’d never believe it, Dad.”

With a childlike innocence the little guy put his finger on the pulse of our sophisticated adult world where cool skepticism reigns supreme. It’s more popular to operate in the black-and-white world of facts … and, of course, to leave no space for the miraculous.1

I can only remember one lesson from my time in Sunday School at St. Michael’s & All Angels … and that lesson was on the Feeding of the 5,000. I was in 3rd or 4th grade and I can still see Mr. Tillinghast explaining to us how the miracle took place. He told us that the people were so moved by the generosity of the little boy with the loaves and fishes and by Jesus’ generosity that they brought forth the food they had hidden under their clothes and in their travelling pouches. In this way everyone was satisfied.

I could see that our teacher was very pleased by this explanation, but even now I can remember the feeling I had of being cheated. His attempt to explain the event in rational terms had robbed it of its mystery, his explanation had robbed us of the miracle. And it is a very great loss, when we lose our sense of wonder in the face of mystery, and when we lose sight of the miraculous.

In the ancient world people perceived things differently than we do. They had two different ways of thinking and speaking, which scholars call myth and logos.

Mythic thinking was primary, and it was concerned with what was eternal and universal, rather than what was practical and every day. It explained everyday occurrences in terms of the sacred forces moving behind them. Mythic thinking was what gave meaning to life.

The second kind of thinking was logos and this was the rational, pragmatic and scientific thought that enable men and women to function in the world.

By the 18th century in Europe and America the success of science and technology had led people to think that logos was the only means to truth. For the most part we have lost our sense of myth today, so much so that the word myth has come to mean something that is false or fanciful.

What my Sunday School teacher had tried to do for us was to make sense of the story of the feeding of the 5,000 in rational and pragmatic terms, because he, like most of modern society, had lost the ability to think in mythic terms.

What I believe we need is not to demythologize our lives, and to recognize that there is a place for the mysterious, and the miraculous … there is a place for the sacred, there is a place for God in our lives. Without room for symbol and myth and miracle, we are an impoverished people and our hunger can never be filled.

The question that faces us in the story of the feeding of the 5,000 is not “Did it really happen?” or even “How did it happen?” The real question is simply this: What is the meaning of this event … what does it tell us about God, about our world, and about ourselves?

The story begins just after Jesus has received word about the beheading of his cousin John the Baptist. When he heard this he left in a boat and went to a lonely place in the wilderness. However, when the crowds heard this they followed him on foot from the towns and when he came ashore there was a great crowd of people waiting for him. Now, our text says that there were not 5,000 people, but 5,000 men, plus women and children. So I would imagine the crowd that followed Jesus into the wilderness was probably more like 15 to 20,000 people. And when he saw them he had compassion on them, and he healed their sick.

Several points stand out about the initial setting of the story, of the miracle. First, obviously, is the fact that Jesus has led a vast crowd of people into the wilderness. Any Jew of Jesus’ time hearing this account would immediately recognize the parallel with the experience of Moses leading the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to their sojourn in the desert. This is part of Israel’s mythic history and it means that in Jesus God is again leading his children from bondage to freedom. And it says to us that our journey with God is a journey from bondage, from whatever it is that imprisons us, to the freedom of one of God’s children.

The second point that strikes me is the hunger of the people who are willing to walk out into the wilderness to follow Jesus. They certainly didn’t go there to get a free meal – no, in their hunger they went, forgetting their need for food. They had a deeper need of nourishment … a need for freedom, a need for healing, a need for acceptance, a need for love, a need for justice … and above all a need for the experience of the Presence of God.

They walked out to a lonely place, to a place apart, with their worries, and their fears, their pains and their sicknesses … seeking that which could nourish all their deepest needs and desires. And when Jesus looked upon this vast crowd of people he had compassion on them and he spent the day healing the sick. Then it was evening and the disciples, who were practical people, came to Jesus and told him that they have only 5 loaves and two fish so he should tell the crowd to go away.

The other day as I was thinking about this scene and it was close to dinner time and I heard my 3 year-old daughter Ava pleading with her mother for some candy. Of course my wife Carol told Ava that it was almost time for dinner and she couldn’t have any. Well, you know sometimes you get really hungry or you get a craving and you can’t take no for an answer. It was that way with Ava and I heard her crying and pleading with her mother and saying, “The only thing that will make me happy is sugar.”

And you know, we’re not all that different from a three-year-old – we all get caught up in our hunger and our cravings and our needs that we think will make us happy. Ava also reminded me of the early Israelites in the desert. We are told in the book of Exodus that after all the congregation of the people of Israel had gone into the wilderness that the people murmured against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:3)

This was the mythic background, that is the context in sacred history, for what is to take place. In the Exodus story after the complaining of the Israelites God provides them with quail in the evening and then manna from heaven in the morning. And now in the wilderness again Jesus says to his disciples not to send the people away but to feed them. And the disciples bring him the 5 loaves and the 2 fish and he offers them up to God and he blesses them and gives them to the disciples to feed the crowd. And all 15,000 or 20,000 ate and were satisfied. And they took up 12 baskets full of leftovers.

Again there are echoes of Israel’s time in the desert, for Jesus first offers the food to God, and now it has become the food that comes down from heaven. As Jesus says in the Gospel of John “Truly, truly I say to you it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world” … And then he tells them, “I am the Bread of Life.” (John 6:32-35)

And now we come to what I think is the key point, the central meaning of the miracle of the feeding of the 20,000. Jesus came to us proclaiming a new reality, the reality of the Kingdom of God, the reality of God’s presence within us and among us. The reality of the amazing abundance of God’s love for us.

As I’ve noted before, over and over he tells us, “Do not be afraid”; “Do not worry”; “Do not be anxious” – That is our ordinary reality. And we are, being people of the world, afraid, worried, anxious. And Jesus calls each of us by name like he did Martha when he said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried about so many things, but only one thing is needful.”

Jesus tells us don’t be anxious about our lives, about what we shall eat, or drink, or about what we shall wear. He doesn’t deny our needs … he didn’t say to the vast crowd “forget about being hungry.” He tells us God knows all our fears and anxieties, God knows our needs … But seek first the Kingdom of God and all those things shall be ours as well.

Seek first the abundance of God’s overwhelming love and presence … and God will provide abundantly. That is what the feeding of the 5,000 means. The crowd sought first the Kingdom of God and they found God’s overwhelming love, and compassion and nourishment.

Do not be afraid, do not worry, do not be anxious … you are loved by God and it is his great pleasure to give you the Kingdom.

In His Name. Amen.
1 Brett Blair

Posted on: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 12:51 pm
Category: Sermons

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