Romans, Ben Hur, and Adoption: A Homily for Trinity Sunday

 

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.”  (Romans 8.

Those of you who are film fans of a certain vintage will remember how Hollywood in the 1950s was fascinated by the ancient world.   These Techniclour epics, these so-called “sword and sandals” films, included The Ten Commandments, Cleopatra, Spartacus, The Robe, and of course, Ben Hur.  When I was a child, I think I learned more from these films than I did from Sunday School, even though I had the idea that that everyone in the Bible looked like Charlton Heston.

Of all these films, i think the most beloved is Ben Hur, the story of a young Jewish nobleman in the time of Christ.   The film starts with Ben Hur becomes a Roman slave while his mother and sister are imprisoned.   Paul’s words in our second reading abut a spirit of slavery and a spirit of adoption reminded me of Ben Hur, so bear with me while this homily becomes a bit of a Sunday matinee.

When Ben Hur becomes a slave, he’s sent to a Roman galley, a ship where the rowers are chained to their oars.   He comes to the attention of the commander, a Roman nobleman named Arius (played  by the great Jack Hawkins).    There’s a big sea battle, the ship sinks, and Ben Hur saves Arius’ life.   They are rescued and returned to Rome, where  in a show of love and gratitude Arius rewards Ben Hur by adopting him as his son.

In the film, Arius gives a party where he proclaims Ben Hur as “the legal bearer of my name and the heir to my property”.   The film does get the history right in that legal adoption was often practiced in the Roman world, usually to preserve a noble family’s name and prestige.   The adoptee was usually a close relative or the child of a family friend.  It was very rare for a slave to be adopted, and the movie sort of gets around that by Arius saying that he has come to love Ben Hur like the son he lost.

Paul’s letter to the Romans was written in the world that the film Ben Hur fictionalizes, and Paul’s language about slavery, adoption and inheritance would have been entirely familiar to his readers.   The difference is that most early Christians were of low birth, servants and slaves, who would never have dreamed of being adopted into a great Roman family.  But Paul offered them  far more wonderful, far greater prospect than what Ben Hur enjoyed.   Paul tells us that we can be “children of God, and of children, then heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ” (Rom 8    ).

I think we can pause and let that sink in for a moment.  God wishes to adopt us.   God, who has a son, wishes to make us heirs and joint heirs with Christ.   God, who would not give his name to Moses except to say “I am”, now allows us to call him Father in its intimate form, Abba, or daddy.  God, unlike Arius in the film Ben Hur is under no debt of gratitude, who owes us nothing, will do this for us out of love.  And finally, as if this wasn’t enough wonder for a Sunday morning, the God who will do this for us out of love is the same God who shakes the earth in the Psalm, the same God barely glimpsed by Isaiah, wreathed in smoke and glory, the same who’s temple shakes with awe.  

So why would this wonderful God do all this for us?   Let’s take a few moments to think about what Paul means to be adopted.   In films and literature, orphans dream of being adopted because it means rescue from poverty and loneliness.   Dickens’ novels are full of orphans, and they weren’t far off real life.  My wife’s grandparents were poor Barnardo orphans who found new lives in Canada that they could scarcely imagine.  

Now we may not be in some ghastly Victorian orphanage, but God does want to rescue us all the same.    Paul says that we are rescued from “debt to the flesh” and adopted by the “Spirit of God”, and this kind of flesh/spirit opposition is very typical of Paul but hard for us to understand because it plays into the idea that Christianity is opposed to the body and to the physical.     I think, rather, that it means something much more profound and deeper.

Let’s go back to out seat at the movies and watch Ben Hur some more.  After Ben Hur is adopted by Arius, you would think the film is over.   The hero has status and power.   But he hasn’t been healed.   He’s been driven by the desire for revenge over the Roman friend who put him and his family in slavery and prison, and even though he got his revenge ion his enemy in the famous chariot race scene, he’s still wounded.   He goes back to Judea and frees his mother and sister, only to find that they have leprosy.    The world and the power of Rome can’t restore these injuries.    

But, then we remember that when he was on his way to the galleys, a man gave him a drink of water.   Now, at the end of the film, Ben Hur and his family huddle at the foot of the hill where the same man who gave him  drink now hangs on a Roman cross, and as the rain washes the blood down the hill of Calvary, Ben Hur and his family are healed.     It’s then that we realize that being adopted by Arius was never going to save Ben Hur.  it was only being healed by Jesus, only by being named and claimed by as God’s child, that he would be saved. 

As of said before, the church’s language and thinking about salvation and being saved is in some disrepair, so let me finish with some thoughts about salvation and adoption from our friend C.S. Lewis.   Some of us have been working our way through his book For the last month some of us have been reading C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters,  which imagines Screwtape, a senior devil, advising a junior devil on the best way to tempt a human soul away from God.    Screwtape advises his young charge, Wormwood, to aim at the centre of the human being, at what he calls the Will, the very centre of the self.   

The will is where all the virtues live, those practices and habits that orient us towards God and which allow us to love our fellow humans.  Push those virtues and habits out of the Will, says Screwtape, and you can replace them with all those impulses - greed, vanity, etc - which make the self become selfish and which drive out all love of others.   In Lewis’ language, the will or the self become a lot like Paul’s idea of the flesh, something that pulls us away from God.

The cleverness of C.S. Lewis is that he helps us understand what it means to be God’s adopted children from the devils’ point of view.   Screwtape is horrified that God, who he calls “the Enemy”, loves humans and wants them to become “replicas of Himself - creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own … because their wills freely conform to His”.   As Screwtape says with disgust, whereas the devils want souls who will be their food, God wants “servants who can finally become [children].   

So dear saints, if we can learn anything on Trinity Sunday, maybe it is simply this, that if God as Holy Trinity is a loving family, then we are adopted into that family.    One of the great blessings of our faith is that we who follow Jesus as his students and servants can also call him friend and brother.     

Truth, Testimony, Love: A Homily on Asking For The Gifts of Pentecost

A homily preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, on 19 May, 2024, the Feast of Pentecost.

Readings:  Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104, Romans 8:22-27, John 15:26-267,16:4b-15

Today, the Day of Pentecost, all four of our readings, even the Psalm, mention the Holy Spirit and its work.   The Spirit is incredibly active in these readings:  it fills the earth with life, it descends on the apostles and enables them to speak in foreign languages,  it comforts and accompanies those who are weak and struggling, it bridges the very gap between us and God.

The Spirit does so much amazing work in our readings that its a wonder to me that we don’t call ourselves Spirit people, or maybe even, God forbid, Pentecostals. But we are instead, after all, Anglicans, and as is often noted, not all Anglican churches are comfortable talking about the Holy Spirit.

Even so, today I want to talk about the Holy Spirit, it’s role in our church and in our lives, about the gifts the Spirit offers us, and how we as a church can ask the Holy Spirit for these gifts.  I will define these gifts as having a truth to believe in, having the courage to speak about the truth of our faith, and having the generosity to love those different from ourselves.

In one of the Alpha Course videos, Nicky Gumbel tells a joke about a man who went to a very formal church.   Every now and during the service he would put his hands in the air and say “Hallelujah!”  or “Praise the Lord”.   Finally an usher came over to him and asked why he was making a disturbance.   “I’m sorry”, the man said, “but I just gave my life to Christ and I’m excited because I received the Holy Spirit!”

“Well, you didn’t get it here” said the usher, “so you need to behave.”

While I don’t think any of our ushers would ever say something like that, I think we find the joke funny because it plays on ideas of churches that are formally religious but spiritually dead.  Indeed, the whole point of the Alpha course is to help people find Sometimes people reject this offer to get to know Jesus because they distrust religion, even if they define themselves as spiritual.   The argument is that organized religion (it’s really not that organized) is hypocritical, hateful, and divisive.   When such people criticize religion, they are criticizing human institutions, but in fact, this is nothing new.  

One of the readings often used on Pentecost, the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of Israel as a valley of dead, dry bones, uses a familiar theme of the Hebrew prophets.  The prophets told the priests and leaders that God had not use for their rituals and sacrifices if they ignored oppression and injustice within their society.    Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees in the gospels is in this tradition.  As you recall from the vision of Ezekiel, it’s the Spirit of God which restores flesh, life and breath to the people of Israel and their dead faith.

Thankfully, today reminds us that the same life-giving spirit of God is given to us.   Today’s stories are all about spirit.  Religion is never mentioned.    Jesus promises his disciples an Advocate, a Comforter, who will come from the Father and who will continue to be present with them after he is gone.   Jesus does not promise them a religion.    In Acts, the apostles are visited with the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire which allows them to tell the story of Jesus in many languages.  The result, as often noted, is the birth of the church.  It is not the birth of a religion.

The story of Pentecost, then, is the story of the Spirit of God given to God’s people so that they may live well and flourish in the world.    If Ascension is about Jesus’ leaving the world, then Pentecost is about Jesus remaining in the world through the life-giving Spirit of God.    The message of Pentecost is not about us being religious.  Rather, it is about us being church, a people gathered by the Spirit, enabled by the Spirit, and led by the Spirit.

In the last part of this homily, I want to look briefly at three gifts of the Spirit, which I believe are at the heart of today

The first gift is truth.   In our gospel reading, Jesus tells the disciples “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth”.   Let’s face it, truth is elusive these days, in these world of “alternative facts”, and conspiracy theories.  Postmodernity has taught to distrust “truth claims” and to see them as ways to gain power over others, and some do use truth as a weapon, particularly in religious circles.   As a result, we’ve come to distrust truth.

I think that as believers, we need to trust the Spirit’s promise that our faith is real and true, that Jesus is Lord, that the church is called to do serve the world that God created and loves, and that following the way of Jesus is the key to human flourishing.  I think we can hold on to the truth of our faith in a way that is generous and attractive to others, spiritual seekers, who are curious about what we believe.

The second gift is testimony.  Jesus said to told his disciples, that the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.   Testimony as they say in court is about telling the truth.   In faith terms, testimony is about telling others about the truth of our faith.   

Now testifying sounds a lot like evangelism, which we Anglicans are supposed to be notoriously bad at, to which I say, “Pshaw”.  I saw more than a few of you stand up at last month’s women’s breakfast and talk about the difference faith in Jesus has made in your lives.    (We men, by the way, don’t do that as well at our breakfasts).   I was inspired to hear your testimony (when I should have been washing dishes).  Imagine how powerful it could be during our worship if from time to time someone could stand up and say that Jesus has made a real difference in their lives.   

The third and final gift I want to talk about is the generosity to love people different from ourselves.  Acts tells us that “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability”.  The Spirit wants to gather people, from across all nations, into God’s family.   We’ve heard this clearly through Eastertide, in the stories of the Ethiopian and of the Roman soldier Cornelius, reminding us that membership the people of God is open to all.

There was a recent article in The Anglican Journal about how our Communion is enriching the church in Canada as more and more people come to Canada and bring their faith with them.    Our Diocese includes people and clergy from Chinese, African, and Indo-Pakistani communities, and that same diversity enriches our parish life at All Saints. The Spirit allows us to love those who come to God’s because we are all God’s children regardless of gender, skin colour, or language. The Spirit gives us the generosity to invite others into God’s community.

So what do we do if we feel that we as church (writ large) are lacking in these gifts?   After all, many of our congregations are getting older, fewer younger people are interested, and we’re all getting tired.  Has the Holy Spirit passed us by?

I don’t think it has, but I think that we have to ask for what we need.   After all, Jesus tells us, I”f in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it” (Jn 14.14).   This month in our Diocese, Bishop Andrew has declared that the next two years will be called the Season of Spiritual Renewal.  We are church will be intentional about asking for the gifts of the Spirit, and trusting that we will receive it.   One of the things that you will be seeing and hearing a lot about is an emphasis on prayer, prayer in private, in groups, and across the church.  We will be looking at some the traditional spiritual disciplines of our faith and listening to the wisdom of voices across our Communion and in our indigenous churches.   I think it will be an exciting time.

It all starts with Pentecost, and Pentecost is about trusting that God will give his people the gifts of the Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, and that can bring new life to our churches.     These gifts are there for the asking.   So let me close with a simple prayer that says it all, from one of my favourite saints, Julian of Norwich.

God, of your goodness give me yourself,

For you are enough for me. I cannot properly ask anything less, to be worthy of you. If I were to ask less, I should always be in want.

In you alone do I have everything.

Amen.

Whitsunday or Pentecost?

This Sunday, May 19, is the Day of Pentecost, which is often called “the birthday of the church”.  On this day we remember the first appearance of the Holy Spirit which empowered the disciples and allowed them to go out and become the church in the world.

Pentecost always falls on the fiftieth day after Easter, and the old Book of Common Prayer says that this day is “commonly called WHITSUNDAY”.    This name is confusing, because “Whitsunday” literally means “white Sunday”, though the liturgical colour is red for the flames of the Holy Spirit that descend on the apostles (see Acts 2:3).  So why the name Whitsunday?

A brief dive into early church history tells us that while new believers being instructed in the faith (called catechumens) were usually baptized on the Vigil of Easter (the Saturday before Easter Sunday).   However, those who weren’t ready by the Vigil were baptized on Pentecost, when they received new white robes to symbolize their new identity as Christians.

In the Anglo-Catholic tradition, Whitsunday is the preferred name and it is seen as a day when we remember the gifts of the Holy Spirit which include the traditional seven sacraments (though the Thirty Nine Articles only recognizes two, Baptism and Communion, as “ordained by Christ” (BCP p. 708).  

In the old Prayer Book calendar, “Whitsuntide” runs from Pentecost/Whitsunday to Trinity Sunday, and includes three “Ember Days” (Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) when we pray for those who “are called to any office or administration in the church”.   

While many congregations often are asked to wear red for Pentecost Sunday, it is also appropriate to wear white in memory of the older name of Whitsunday.   So come to church wearing red, or white, or both, and you’ll be fine!