FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

April 24, 2005

1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE

In the wake of the Papal election, I’d like to paint you a word picture of contrasts; a then and now reflection.   Over the last few weeks, people of every religion and none watched with their Roman Catholic brothers and sisters the unfolding events in Vatican City.  One need not be Roman Catholic to appreciate the universal influence of the pope.  Extensive coverage of the death of John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI could be found in newspapers from Israel to Jordan; from Hindu India to Communist China as well as largely Christian Europe and the Americas.  Leaders from all over the world attended John Paul’s Funeral and are back for the formal installation of Pope Benedict. 

No sooner had the white smoke wafted up through the chimney than Commentators and news reporters began their speculation on the reign of the new pope.  How will the new Pope address Muslim concerns?  Will he continue dialogue with China?  What is his position on Israel/Palestine?  The spiritual leader of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics is also an influential actor on the world’s geo-political stage. 

Conditions were very different between 70 and 90 A.D, when First Peter was likely written. The Bishops of Rome were important persons in the life of small and struggling immigrant Christian communities hidden in the homes of largely poor families in the back streets of the capital of the empire.   And the influence they had beyond their communities was non-existent.  Those early Bishops of Rome were persons of unbending faith and great courage because as they accepted servant leadership positions, they knew that there was little likelihood that they would survive the persecutions that flared up and, indeed; many of them and many of their congregations died at the hands of Rome.  

By the end of the first century, there were Christian communities all through the empire and in each location, the Christians were scorned and maligned.     The Romans respected if not worshipped all that was ancient.  The gods of Rome were the re-named ancient gods of Greece.  The norms and traditions of society were built on those of Greece.  Wherever Roman armies claimed land for Rome, local governments adapted to Roman ways; children were educated according to Roman models and Roman temples were built beside those of local deities.  In part, because after its break up with Judaism, Christianity was considered to be a new religion with no traditional foundation. The small Christian communities were viewed as a dangerous infection in the body politic of Roman Civilization.  In contrast to the strict social classes of Roman society, the wealthy, the poor and slaves were all accepted as equals within Christian Communities.  Increasingly in those communities, young women were encouraged to choose virginity over their traditional role as wife and mother.  This threatened the system of arranged marriages that united families of similar social status.  Families were torn apart when members abandoned those traditional family roles and joined Christian communities.  This trend challenged the powerful authority of the Pater Familias; the family head whose word was absolute law in Roman legal and societal tradition.   The worship of the Roman state in the persona of Caesar was unacceptable to Christians who gladly prayed for but refused to worship him. 

When the author of First Peter wrote the beautiful and richly symbolic words:  “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house” he did so amid that aura of tension and distrust that surrounded the Christian communities.   “Let yourselves be Built,” he encouraged,  “even as the storm rages around you.  Be built although the winds roar and blow.  Let yourselves be built within the heart of chaos and hopelessness that constantly threatens to overwhelm faith itself.  I cannot grasp the power of faith among the members of those fragile communities; a faith that gave each of them the ability to persevere despite family, society, culture and government.   And I wonder today, as storms and winds of religious, cultural, economic, nationalistic force batter us; do we have the faith and strength to listen to the God who still speaks and build according to the truth that we hear from the still speaking God? 

 2000 years after those words of First Peter we joined billions around the world in watching or reading of the events in Rome that have both spiritual and political implications across the world.  From our place in time, perhaps as confused as theirs, we do well to recall that small group of stubbornly persistent living stones whose faith laid the foundation for both the Vatican and also First Congregational Church of Burlington. 

Over the last weeks, as I read comments on the life and work of John Paul and later saw the excitement in the faces of all those thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square, as the new Pope was announced I had very conflicting thoughts.  John Paul was admired and respected by both Jews and Muslims.  He understood the terrible enduring memories of the holocaust that have fashioned the position of Israel in relationship to the Islamic world.  He equally understood the injustice that has been done to Palestinians and he cried out to both sides for a just and peaceful resolution.  He was opposed to the war in Iraq and was appreciated by the Islamic world for his stand.  For these reasons, Jews and Muslims felt the loss of his passing.   Yet within his extended Christian family he would not accept the reality of living stones apart from his theological perspective.  Believing firmly that all truth has been revealed and set down in church law, he could not believe that God is speaking and is being heard in other places; and that there is yet more light and truth to be revealed.  During his papacy many thousands of “living stones” including many of us here, in order to continue to live, attached ourselves to other walls in the living house of God.  When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected, I heard pain in the voices of many in the Roman Catholic community, including two of my sisters. 

Beneath the joys and concerns being expressed at the election and further, beneath the gathering of world leaders who came and have come again, in tribute to the papal influence; I sensed a hunger for something undefined, yet real.  All those billions of people in our world are in search of someone who can rise above political clashes and inter religious rivalries.  They seek someone who can name and interpret all the pain and suffering caused by both poverty and wealth.  They want someone who will care enough about their land; their tradition; their values and beliefs to kiss the soil of their land.  They want someone who sees not borders but people; not politics but human beings.  Those billions of people all over the world want to be told that God is still speaking in Arabic and Hebrew; in Farsi and Swahili; in Spanish and Russian; in German and English.  They want someone unafraid to speak words of truth that apply to Hindu nationalists; Chinese peasants; Muslim mullahs; Buddhist students; Catholics, Protestants, Jews and millions with no spiritual foundation at all.  They want to know that life holds meaning for them as individuals and all of us as world community. They want to be assured that there is a power greater than human imagination can grasp who intimately cares about them, about us and seeks to bring into wholeness this large, rowdy, hurting and searching human community.

This yearning was acted out during John Paul’s funeral.  Peter Valenti of Worldpress writes that:

Among the foreign dignitaries seated on the steps of the basilica were Iranian President Muhammad Khatami, Israeli President Moshe Katsav and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, each just inches from the other. According to Katsav’s initial statements after the funeral, he talked at length with Khatami in Farsi, Katsav’s mother tongue since he was born in Iran. Khatami later denied this but incidental photographs seem to confirm the encounter. Furthermore, Katsav and al-Asad reportedly shook hands twice and exchanged a few verbal pleasantries, and Katsav, racking up the handshakes, also added Algerian President Abd al-Aziz Bouteflika to his list. Elsewhere at the Vatican that day, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom had a tête-à-tête with his Moroccan counterpart, Muhammad Ben Issa.

Meanwhile, back in the Middle East, audiences, equally engrossed and saddened by the pope’s funeral, had these historic handshakes to add to the day’s events. Yet despite the positive connotation that the handshakes represented, it was ephemeral. Each leader eventually downplayed or outright denied the encounter.

What is so sad is the political spin that each leader felt necessary to place on that gracious act of human interaction that somehow had seemed natural in Rome but dangerous in Israel, Iran and Syria. 

Perhaps that for which we all yearn is as ephemeral as that moment of human recognition and contact among Middle Eastern antagonists.  But that hunger remains.  We desperately want to be reminded that we are one human community and that we can solve our problems and learn to work together. 

Two thousand years ago, men and women accepted the invitation to follow Jesus Christ.  In doing so, they set themselves apart from all that was comfortable, safe and natural, because the good news of Jesus Christ made more sense to them than any philosophical argument or family threat ever could.  These men and women became the living stones upon which we continue to build.  Our heritage is as vibrant and diverse as the twists and turns of the walls we build.  Because we are human most of us can see only the section of this magnificent structure in which we dwell and think it a miracle unto itself.  God, the architect of this wonder sees every beautiful section with all the colors and unique twists and knows that it is one glorious whole. 

Would that any of us could set ourselves apart from our comfortable spaces and our preconceived ideas that we might see with God’s eyes the miraculous structure continuing to be built out of the living stones that began 2000 years ago in the marginal communities of Rome.  And perhaps our collective yearning may gain strength enough to be given voice in popes and mullahs and rabbis and faithful souls in temples and shrines and churches and synagogues and mosques.  For we are, all of us, God’s beloved children.  We are, all of us “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”