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A Safety that Lasts · Faith at Work

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  I believe that there is a question that most of us carry into a
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  room like this on a
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  SPEAKER_00: day like this without really ever putting it into words.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not really a theological question so much as a practical question,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it's one that I think is pretty urgent in most of our lives.
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  SPEAKER_00: The question is simply,
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  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to be okay?
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  SPEAKER_00: We ask it in different ways depending on the seasons that we are in.
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  SPEAKER_00: We ask it when a diagnosis comes back that we don't particularly like,
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  SPEAKER_00: when a relationship that we have appreciated for years unravels,
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  when a news cycle leaves us feeling like the world is spinning
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  off its axis.
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  SPEAKER_00: We certainly have had a few of those lately.
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  SPEAKER_00: We even ask it in good days, okay?
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  But today I want to point that question to the two texts that
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  were read this
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  SPEAKER_00: morning,
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  SPEAKER_00: John 14 and Acts 7.
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  SPEAKER_00: where these stories,
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  these people in these stories are hoping desperately that Jesus
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  will answer this
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  SPEAKER_00: question in the most direct way possible by saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: yes,
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  SPEAKER_00: everything is going to be fine.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nothing bad is coming your way.
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  SPEAKER_00: You are safe.
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  But the texts do not say that exactly the way that we would
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  like them to say it.
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  SPEAKER_00: The reason is because there are two different kinds of safety.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is temporal safety and there is timeless safety.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'm using timeless intentionally instead of using eternal safety.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you'll understand a little bit later why.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is temporal safety and there is timeless safety.
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  SPEAKER_00: And these are not the same thing.
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  And the church has spent a lot of energy confusing one for the
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  other,
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  I think.
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  SPEAKER_00: Temporal safety is what we usually mean when we pray for protection.
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  SPEAKER_00: Keep the bad thing from happening to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Keep the danger away from my children.
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  SPEAKER_00: Keep the church
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  SPEAKER_00: safe from conflict and turmoil.
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  SPEAKER_00: Keep my body from illness.
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  SPEAKER_00: And these are not wrong prayers.
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  SPEAKER_00: They are honest prayers.
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  SPEAKER_00: But temporal safety is by definition temporary.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is safety inside of time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Timeless safety is something different in kind, not just in duration.
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  It is not temporal safety that sort of stretches out infinitely
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  into the future.
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  It is a security that exists outside of,
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  above,
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  and underneath the circumstances of our lives.
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  And it is the kind of safety that Stephen experiences in Acts
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  chapter 7 while the
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  SPEAKER_00: stones are coming at him.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is not temporarily safe.
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  he is dying and yet there he stands face shining eyes open to
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  something that the
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  SPEAKER_00: crowd cannot see praying for the very people that are killing him
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is not stoicism, this is not a coping mechanism for Stephen.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a man who has found something that the stones cannot touch.
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  Now we spent last week in John chapter 10 with Jesus describing
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  himself as the
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  SPEAKER_00: gate,
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  SPEAKER_00: the gate of the sheepfold.
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  And the shepherd,
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  if you remember,
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  lay himself across the opening of that sheepfold at night.
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  His body was the gate and anything trying to get to the sheep
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  had to go through the
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  SPEAKER_00: shepherd laying across as the gate.
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  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus says in John 14, do not let your hearts be troubled,
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  SPEAKER_00: He is not telling the disciples to pretend the danger isn't real.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is saying the gate is still in place.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am still in the opening for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Whatever is coming, it is coming through me first.
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  SPEAKER_00: And in three days, not even death will be able to hold that gate shut.
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  Now it is important for us to remember as we read John that
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  John is writing an
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  account of Jesus' sayings and doings with the resurrection in
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  his rear view mirror.
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  SPEAKER_00: Why?
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  SPEAKER_00: So that we might believe.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that we might trust in times of difficulty
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  SPEAKER_00: John also writes,
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  SPEAKER_00: understanding that safety,
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  SPEAKER_00: the safety that Jesus offers is not the absence of suffering.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is the presence of the one who has absorbed everything,
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  SPEAKER_00: all the worst suffering that could ever come to us,
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  all the worst suffering that the world has to offer and has
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  come out on the other
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  SPEAKER_00: side.
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  Acts 7,
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  55-60 is one of,
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  I think,
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  the coolest and most troubling moments in the New Testament.
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  SPEAKER_00: Stephen has just given the longest speech in the book of Acts.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as I thought about having that read in church,
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  SPEAKER_00: I realized that if I did,
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  SPEAKER_00: all of you would think,
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  SPEAKER_00: oh my goodness,
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  SPEAKER_00: is this speech ever going to end?
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  SPEAKER_00: And you might think about stoning me as well.
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  Stephen has just walked the council through the entire arc of
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  Israel's story.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end, he sees a vision.
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  SPEAKER_00: The heavens open up.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Son of God's standing at the right hand of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Stephen says, look, Jesus is standing with God at God's right hand.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, just a pause here.
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  SPEAKER_00: Notice, Jesus is standing at the right hand of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly,
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  there are about 30 or more instances where the New Testament
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  talks about Jesus at
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  SPEAKER_00: the right hand of God.
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  But this is the only time that it says that Jesus was standing
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  at the right hand of God.
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  SPEAKER_00: All the other cases, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God.
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  So some scholars read it that Jesus is rising to receive
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  Stephen as a host rises to
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  SPEAKER_00: receive an honored guest.
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  Whatever the precise meaning or reason for this is,
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  the message to Stephen is the same.
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  SPEAKER_00: Stephen
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  SPEAKER_00: You are not unseen.
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  SPEAKER_00: You are not abandoned by me in this situation.
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  SPEAKER_00: You are safe and you can speak the truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he does.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the stones, they still come.
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  This is where we have to be honest about the gap between the
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  safety that we ask for
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  SPEAKER_00: and the safety that the gospel actually offers to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: We want God to stop the stones.
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  But tradition tells us that Stephen gets something better than
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  stopped stones.
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  SPEAKER_00: He gets an open heaven.
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  he gets the face of Jesus standing looking at him in this
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  terrible terrible time he
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  gets the strength and the grace to say and pray as he dies Lord
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  do not hold this
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  SPEAKER_00: sin against them the man is being murdered
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  SPEAKER_00: and he is free enough to pray for his murderers.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is something the temporal world cannot manufacture.
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  Richard Rohr who's certainly one of my favorite author mentors
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  in his book
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  Everything Belong makes a claim that the foundation of the
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  spiritual life is the
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  SPEAKER_00: capacity to be present to what is
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  SPEAKER_00: rather than constantly resisting or escaping it.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is not advocating for passivity.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is pointing towards a particular kind of inner freedom,
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  SPEAKER_00: a freedom that comes not from circumstances improving but from
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  Learning to rest inside of reality rather than constantly
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  fighting against it.
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  Rohrer writes out of the contemplative tradition and what the
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  contemplatives have
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  SPEAKER_00: always known is this,
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  SPEAKER_00: suffering does not go away when we pray more or trust harder.
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  SPEAKER_00: But when we do those things,
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  SPEAKER_00: something can shift in us,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that changes our relationship with the suffering.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Franciscan tradition calls this accepting the given,
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  SPEAKER_00: not celebrating the bad thing,
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  SPEAKER_00: not pretending it's not happening,
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  SPEAKER_00: but allowing it to be
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  SPEAKER_00: real without allowing it to become our whole reality.
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  Now that sounds very woo-woo and abstract until you watch it
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  happen in person,
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  in real life.
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  And then it is one of the most concrete and profound things you
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  have ever seen.
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  It is what Stephen looks like in Acts chapter 7 Face like an
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  angel Eyes on what is
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  real beyond what is visible Stone still coming and he still is
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  free He still is
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  SPEAKER_00: safe
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  Contemplative practice in Rohr's mind is not about achieving a
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  state of calm,
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  SPEAKER_00: of sort of Zen calm.
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  It is about learning to hold the tension between the world as
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  it is and the world
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  as God intends it without needing to resolve the tension before
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  you can be at
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  SPEAKER_00: peace.
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  SPEAKER_00: The peace is available inside the tension, not after it.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is precisely what Jesus is offering in John chapter 14.
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  SPEAKER_00: Do not let your hearts be troubled.
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  SPEAKER_00: The original Greek word for troubled is the word that means stirred up,
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  SPEAKER_00: agitated,
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  SPEAKER_00: like water shaken out of its stillness.
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  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not saying the shaking will stop.
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  He is saying there is something in you that can still be calm
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  even when the water
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  SPEAKER_00: is shaken,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you know what you're grounded in.
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  SPEAKER_00: St. Patrick gave us a prayer to help us in these times.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christ with me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christ before me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christ behind me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christ beneath me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christ above me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christ on my right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christ on my left.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he goes on.
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  SPEAKER_00: In John 14, 2, Jesus continues.
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  SPEAKER_00: The translation of John 14,
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  SPEAKER_00: 2 that most of us have grown up with,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was traditionally the King James Version,
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  SPEAKER_00: uses the words house and mansions.
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  SPEAKER_00: My father's house has many mansions.
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  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard that?
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  SPEAKER_00: Sure you have.
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  SPEAKER_00: These words have created a lot,
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  SPEAKER_00: in my opinion,
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  SPEAKER_00: of misunderstanding over the centuries,
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  most of which had to do with the size and the grandeur of these
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  homes and mansions
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  SPEAKER_00: becoming a kind of celestial real estate market.
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  SPEAKER_00: The actual Greek words here are okiya,
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  SPEAKER_00: and Monet.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sort of sounds like a Renaissance painter, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: But no, Okia and Monet.
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  SPEAKER_00: So,
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  SPEAKER_00: a more literal translation of the verse would be,
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  SPEAKER_00: in my father's family,
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  SPEAKER_00: there are many places for abiding.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some scholars translate it as stopping places,
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  SPEAKER_00: resting points along a journey,
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  SPEAKER_00: the ancient equivalent of waypoints on a long road.
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  SPEAKER_00: What Jesus is describing is not an eternal heavenly place.
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  SPEAKER_00: He is describing accompaniment, presence.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are places of rest,
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  SPEAKER_00: he says,
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  SPEAKER_00: and presence prepared for you at every stage of the journey,
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  SPEAKER_00: no matter what that journey looks like.
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  SPEAKER_00: You will not be left without a family and somewhere to belong.
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  SPEAKER_00: That reframing matters enormously for how we understand timeless safety.
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  It is not a destination we finally arrive at after surviving a
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  dangerous road.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is a series of abiding places.
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  SPEAKER_00: Each one always prepared.
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  SPEAKER_00: Each one always waiting for us.
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  SPEAKER_00: The safety and presence of God is not deferred to the end.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is present.
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  SPEAKER_00: at every waypoint along the journey.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rohrer would say this is what contemplative practices open up for us,
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  SPEAKER_00: the experience of abiding rather than always striving,
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  being present in the now instead of always pushing towards the
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  next tomorrow,
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  SPEAKER_00: belonging rather than always seeking acceptance.
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  everything belongs is not a vague spiritual sentiment it is a
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  calm and a claim
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  about the nature of reality that nothing is outside of God's
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  presence that no
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  moment in our lives is unsanctified that even the stoning is
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  held within the safe
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  SPEAKER_00: presence of God
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  SPEAKER_00: May we too, like Stephen, see that reality in our difficult days.
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  SPEAKER_00: When we wonder, am I going to be okay?
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  SPEAKER_00: And may we leave this place today knowing, yes, we will.
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  SPEAKER_00: Amen.