Month: May 2023

The Overview Effect

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year A.

The text is John 17:1-11.

Almost fifty-five years ago, something happened to planet Earth that had never happened before. The exact date was Christmas Eve 1968. On that day, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders (crew of the Apollo 8 spacecraft) became the first humans to travel to the moon. Their mission was not to land on the surface, but simply to circle the moon and take pictures. Of all the photos snapped on that trip, one stands out among the others.

At about 3:40pm, Bill Anders was taking scheduled photographs of the lunar surface when he looked up and exclaimed, “Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, that’s pretty.”

Commander Borman ordered back, “Hey, don’t take that, it’s not scheduled.”

Thankfully for the rest of us, astronaut Anders did not seem particularly keen on following orders that day; he lifted his camera and captured what nature photographers consider to be “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”

Image credit: Earthrise. Taken by Bill Anders on December 24, 1968. Public Domain.

The photo itself was quickly published after Apollo 8’s return to Earth. In it, we can see the gray horizon of the lunar surface and, floating just above it, a tiny blue marble that contains everything we’ve ever known and everyone we’ve ever loved.

Anders’ photo itself left people around the world breathless, but any astronaut would tell you that the photograph does no justice to the experience of actually seeing that sight with your own eyes. Psychologists have interviewed returning astronauts over the past several decades and recorded their personal thoughts and feelings after seeing the Earth from space. They call it “The Overview Effect” and describe it like this:

“The thing that really surprised me was that [the Earth] projected an air of fragility. And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile.” (Michael Collins, Apollo 11)

“[It’s an] explosion of awareness… [an] overwhelming sense of oneness and connectedness… accompanied by an ecstasy… an epiphany.” (Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14)

The Overview Effect is powerful because it is, in scientific terms, what we would call, in theological terms, a mystical experience. According to early 20th century philosopher William James, an experience can be described as “mystical” if it is given (not produced by the observer), transient (not lasting forever), noetic (having some kind of content or message), and ineffable (indescribable). The Overview Effect meets all four of these criteria, even though it is natural, not supernatural, in its essence.

The main thing that astronauts struggle with in the Overview Effect is how impossible it is to describe to people who have not gone to outer space and seen it for themselves. In this morning’s reading from John’s gospel, we hearers encounter a similar difficulty when listening in on Jesus’ high priestly prayer to his Father in heaven.

Jesus speaks this prayer during Holy Week, just after the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, mere hours before he is arrested and crucified by the Roman authorities. Up to this point in John’s gospel, Jesus has dropped various hints about his identity as God’s Son, but now he is speaking plainly about who he is. The only problem is that Jesus is using human words to describe a reality that is inherently beyond human understanding. He might have better luck describing nuclear physics to a Doberman!

So, as we eavesdrop on Jesus’ prayer to the Father, it sounds to us like he is talking in circles: “Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you… I glorified you on Earth… glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed… All mine are yours, and yours are mine… I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.” He goes on and on like this for quite a while. If you listen to the whole thing, you start to get dizzy after a few verses. I don’t blame you.

What Jesus is doing here is putting words to something that is, by its very nature, beyond all words. He is pulling back the curtain of this world so that we can get the briefest glimpse of the reality he lives in on a daily basis. In simpler terms, Jesus is showing us how he sees the world.

It’s not all that different from the way that astronauts saw the Earth from space. Down on the ground, people tend to be consumed by conflicts that seem to be of utmost importance, when seen up close. Up in orbit, an astronaut doesn’t see national borders, skin colors, or religions. The astronaut only sees the big picture of this little planet, suspended in space by a thread. In its obvious smallness and fragility from space, it becomes painfully obvious that all the Earth is one.

Now, Jesus was not an alien who came down from outer space (although I’m sure there are people on the internet who would debate me on that), but he did reach the same conclusion as astronauts through his own spiritual awareness. The path is different, but the destination is the same: “We are one.”

Jesus prays that his followers “may be one,” as Jesus and his Father are one. The oneness of Jesus and his Father was the hot topic of debate during the first several centuries of Church history. Bishops, popes, and priests spilled a lot of ink and spent a lot of time debating what this actually means. At the Council of Nicaea, the debate became so intense that St. Nicholas (yes, THAT St. Nicholas) slapped another priest for disagreeing with him about the nature of Christ. (SIDE NOTE: In my career as a Presbyterian and an Episcopalian, I’ve been in a lot of tense church meetings, but never one so bad that Santa Claus punched a guy.)

Based on this story, it’s safe to say that the oneness of Jesus and his Father was very important to the early Christians. Eventually, the Church came up with the doctrine of the Trinity to describe the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What we Christians believe, in some way that defies rational explanation, is that Jesus and the Father are one. Christians call Jesus “the Son of God” because of family resemblance. It’s the same as when we look at a baby and say, “She favors her mother!” To see Jesus is to see God. The resemblance is not physical, but spiritual. When Christians say that Jesus is the Son of God, we mean that God is the kind of person that Jesus was.

When Jesus prays, “that they may be one, as we are one”, he is inviting us all into the dynamic mystery of the Holy Trinity. In some way that defies rational explanation, we are joined together in that same divine unity of spirit. All distinctions of race, nationality, gender, language, sexual orientation, politics, and social class disappear. We are all one in Christ. As our patron, St. Paul, famously wrote in Galatians 3:28, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

What the astronauts observed fifty years ago from space, Jesus revealed two thousand years ago in spirit: “We are one.” The discoveries of science and the revelation of the Bible are unanimous, in this respect.

The oneness we all enjoy, as beloved children of God, is the central fact of our existence. Our central task, as Christians, is to celebrate and activate this oneness in our daily lives. When we gather to pray, sing hymns, hear the Scriptures, and celebrate the Eucharist, we are actualizing the fact of unity, as Jesus revealed it in the first century. When we live in this world as Jesus lived, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and welcoming the outcast, we are embodying the divine truth that astronaut Bill Anders saw when he snapped his famous photo of the Earth from space.

Jesus prayed to his Father that his followers “may be one, as we are one.” When astronaut Bill Anders saw the Earth rising above the lunar horizon, he heard the answer to Jesus’ prayer.

May we, in our lives, become the answer to Jesus’ prayer. May we look past our sad divisions of race, religion, politics, and economics. May we do our level best to tend this garden that God has given us. May we live as beloved children of God in a world that would divide us by any other criteria. May we be one, as Jesus and his Father are one.

May it be so. Amen.

Top image credit: Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson in the Cupola on the International Space Station. Photo by NASA. Public domain.

Divine Validation

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A.

Link to text: Acts 17:22-31

[TW: Discussion of suicide and self-harm.]

Many years ago, I was going through a particularly rough time, psychologically speaking. My self-esteem was at an all-time low, I felt trapped in a situation that I couldn’t see my way out of, and I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously if I spoke up about how miserable I was. Eventually, my mental health deteriorated to the point where I was regularly contemplating suicide.

[Since you can see that I’m still here, I obviously didn’t act in any final way on those self-destructive impulses, and I’m very glad today that I didn’t. If you, or someone you know, is struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, I strongly urge you to reach out to someone you can trust: friends, family, clergy, or therapist. If you can’t think of anyone you know, call 988 on your phone. This is the number for the new Suicide & Crisis Lifeline launched last year by the federal government. This Lifeline, the biggest project of its kind, exists to help people get immediate help in a mental health crisis.]

At the height of my own struggle, I finally spoke up during a prayer meeting at my church. I didn’t go into much detail, but simply said I was “going through a hard time.” Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what I was asking for, but thought it might be nice to hear someone say a prayer for me. The pastor leading the service surprised me by telling the group that I am “a very unselfish person.” His brief compliment, in that moment, took my breath away. I didn’t think of myself in that way (frankly, I still don’t), but those kind words gave me something I didn’t realize I needed: Validation.

Validation, in the sense that I’m using the word here, is about the basic human need to know that we matter and we belong. People go about trying to meet this need in all kinds of ways. Some seek validation in their professional or academic accomplishments; others seek it in their money or possessions; some seek it in their family roles or relationship status. The options are nearly limitless.

One place where I see this human need for validation in our world today is in the online world of social media. With every narcissistic selfie, every envious like, every enraged tweet, and every hormonal swipe-right, we are building a digital temple of idols to our ongoing search for validation. We desperately need to know that we matter and we belong, so we look for that assurance in the never-ending data stream of the internet. Like Athens in Paul’s day, social media is a marketplace of ideas. In some ways, the internet has united human beings with the ability to share information faster than anyone else in recorded history. In other ways, its carefully cultivated algorithms have made us more misinformed, divided, depressed, and angry than ever. We come to these platforms seeking the validation of our human dignity, but settle for the cold reassurance that we are right and everyone else is wrong. Each click fills our brains with a momentary rush of dopamine (the “feel-good” chemical in our brains) but leaves our hearts starved for the validation that comes from genuine relationships.

St. Paul the Apostle, in today’s first reading from the book of Acts, seems to recognize this universal human need for validation. The story opens with Paul teaching on Mars Hill in the famous city of Athens. Athens had been home to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and many other well-known Greek philosophers. It was the intellectual capital of ancient Europe, much like Harvard or MIT might be today.

By speaking his message in Athens, St. Paul was very intentionally bringing Christian faith into the marketplace of ideas in his time. One of the things I love most about this story is the way that Paul engages in dialogue, as a Christian, with intelligence, respect, and compassion. Paul doesn’t try to defeat his opponents with forceful rhetoric; instead, he offers them validation by affirming their deepest concerns and aspirations.

He says to them, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.” From there, he goes on to describe his experience of visiting their city and equates their “altar to an unknown god” with his own faith in the one God of Jewish and Christian tradition. Later on, he even quotes two Greek philosophers directly: Epimenides, who said, “in [God] we live, and move, and have our being,” and Aratus, who said, “we too are [God’s] offspring.” Both Epimenides and Aratus wrote these lines about the Greek deity Zeus, but Paul applies them to his God.

By doing this, Paul demonstrated that he could understand and appreciate the thought of pagan philosophers, even though they didn’t share his beliefs. It would have been so easy for Paul to berate the Athenians with insults about how ignorant and superstitious they were, but he offers them validation instead. He looked deep into their hearts, past their surface-level disagreements, and said to them, in effect, “I see who you are and what you’re trying to do here. You are searching for God, and the God you are searching for is not far away. In fact, God is right here, within us and all around us, just as your own philosopher Epimenides has said: ‘In God we live, and move, and have our being.’”

St. Paul’s method of respectfully and intelligently validating the Athenians is very much in keeping with the core message of the Christian Gospel. As Christians, we believe that Jesus, the Living Word of God, “took on flesh and dwelt among us.” In Christ, God validates humanity by becoming one of us and meeting us right where we are. Jesus came into this world offering validation to lonely, hurting, and sinful people who are, for all their brokenness, still beloved children of God.

This affirmation is not limited to human beings, either. In Christ, God validates the entire universe by incorporating elementary particles from the Big Bang and DNA molecules from life’s evolution into the incarnate flesh of the Divine Son. As that most well-known Bible verse says, “God so loved the cosmos (Greek for “world”) that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). The Christian Gospel is all about God’s validation of who we are, as beloved offspring of the Divine.

Kindred, this message of validation has the power to change our lives. If we believe that God truly validates the dignity of who we are, in our deepest selves, then we can find, in that faith, the strength to give that same validation to ourselves. We can stop abusing ourselves with words like, “I shouldn’t feel that way.” Instead, we can practice radical self-validation by asking ourselves questions like, “Why do I feel this way?”

The difference between those two statements is subtle, but important. First of all, that second statement is a question, which means we are cultivating curiosity about ourselves, instead of passing judgment. The question assumes there is an important message in whatever feelings we feel.

If we’re feeling depressed or anxious, our body may be trying to tell us that we are overwhelmed and need to rest or ask for help. If we’re feeling angry, it might be because our dignity is being attacked, so we need to set up healthy boundaries to protect our sense of self-respect. These are just examples. You’ll have to search your own feelings in a given situation to discern the message those feelings are trying to send you. The point is that, by asking a question instead of passing judgment, we are practicing radical self-acceptance and thereby coming into agreement with God’s validation of who we are, as beloved offspring of the Divine.

The second step of coming into agreement with Divine validation is to extend our radical self-acceptance toward radical acceptance of others. This is exactly what St. Paul does in his validation of the Athenians. Christians today can find, in Paul’s message, a helpful strategy for engaging in intelligent and respectful dialogue with science, philosophy, and other religions. These things are not enemies of faith, but products of the human mind in its God-given quest for truth and meaning.

As Christians, we might not agree with everything said by our neighbors of other faiths, but if we look deep enough, we might find significant points where we do agree, and those points of agreement might lend new insight to our own faith, as well as cultivate goodwill in our relationships with our neighbors. Let us remain open to these new insights, as they come.

In my own aforementioned experience of validation, from all those years ago, I discovered new strength for living. Across the year that followed my interaction with the pastor at that prayer meeting, I started making some necessary changes in my life, with the help of my family. I switched schools to a smaller environment where I felt less overwhelmed, I got myself into counseling and on medication that stabilized my mental health, and I started exploring my spirituality in a deeper way than ever before. Validation gave me the strength to change for the better in ways that self-criticism never could. May the same be true for you as you practice radical acceptance with yourself and with everyone you meet in the validating and unconditional love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Image: Ruins of the Areopagus (Mars Hill) in Athens, Greece. Photo by Daniel Nouri.

The Language of the Heart

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon on John 14:1-14.

Imagine with me, if you will, that you are a kid on a playground. You’re having a fine time running around on a lovely day. Then you decide that you’d like to feel the sun on your face and the wind in your hair, so you start to make your way over to the swings. Just then, the biggest kid in the neighborhood steps in front of you, blocking your path.

The big kid says, “Just where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m headed to the swings,” you reply.

“Is that so?” he says, “Well, here’s the thing: Those are my swings. If you want to play on them, you’ve got to get through me first. Let’s find out just how tough you are!” And he puts up his fists.

Now, most of us can understand exactly what’s going on in this situation: The big kid is being a bully. As parents, that’s the moment when we would probably step in and say, “Hey now, that’s not nice! These swings belong to everyone, so anyone can play on them. Why don’t you take a step back and let the smaller kids go play on the swings?”

As grownups, we wouldn’t just stand by and let that kind of bullying happen to our kids on a playground. So then, why do we just accept it when certain kinds of Christians do it to other people? In my job, I spend a lot of time on the highway. I regularly see religious billboards with messages trying to convert people to Christianity. A common Bible verse that appears on these billboards is John 14:6, which we just heard in our gospel reading this morning. In this verse, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Now, I’m not going to speak against this verse itself; it’s part of our sacred scriptures and I love it. What I am going to speak against is the fact that some of our fellow Christians use this Bible verse as a threat. When Christians post these words of Jesus, out of context, on their billboards and church marquees, they are sending the implied message that no one can have a genuine spirituality unless it looks like theirs. That’s a problem. In a country where Christians already make up a majority of the population, that’s bullying.

More than that, it’s a misrepresentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The word “Gospel” means “good news”, and those who post these billboards think they’re just “preaching the good news”, but frankly, I can see nothing “good” about it. The real Jesus didn’t threaten people with hellfire and damnation. The real Jesus fed the hungry and healed the sick. The real Jesus welcomed outcasts and forgave sinners. The real Jesus got himself in trouble for hanging out with the wrong kind of people. The real Jesus is more likely to be found at the Stonewall Inn than the National Cathedral.

[SIDE NOTE: If you don’t know what the Stonewall Inn is, then please watch the award-winning documentary The Stonewall That Didn’t Fall by Cadence Phillips, a parishioner at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in St. Joseph, Michigan. This documentary recently won first place in the state and has been nominated to represent Michigan in the National History Day film competition in Washington, DC. Cadence is currently trying to raise $1,000 for the trip to Washington.
Please consider donating here: https://gl.me/u/6zDcfFX7MQmv
You can watch the film here: https://bit.ly/stonewallstate
Thanks in advance for your support!]

Now that we’ve talked about what Jesus didn’t mean in that verse, let’s talk about what he did mean when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

First of all, it’s important for you to know that biblical scholars generally agree that these words were never spoken by the historical person, Jesus of Nazareth. There was a literary convention in the ancient world that feels foreign to our own. It was a common cultural practice, in the ancient Mediterranean, for students of a great teacher to honor their mentor by writing in their mentor’s name. The idea was that they were continuing their teacher’s thought where the teacher left off, so any credit for brilliance would be given to the original mentor and not the student. Outside of the Bible, we can see this happening in the writing of the great philosopher Plato, who wrote most of his Dialogues in the name of his mentor Socrates. There is little debate among modern scholars that most of Plato’s ideas come, not from Socrates, but from Plato himself (even though he writes in the name of Socrates). It is the same with the author of John’s gospel and the historical Jesus of Nazareth.

When John puts these words into Jesus’ mouth, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”, he is not committing forgery, but honoring the teacher who changed his life. The author, in this verse, is telling the readers of his gospel what Jesus meant to him.

This is a problem for us readers in the modern world, who value accuracy above all else, but it was not a problem for ancient readers, who understood that biography was more about “who this person was” than “what actually happened”. If we were to describe what the author of John’s gospel was trying to do, in modern terms, we might say that he was “speaking the language of the heart”.

Let me describe what I mean by “language of the heart” by way of analogy. Imagine a married couple, out to dinner on their wedding anniversary. One of them raises a glass to the other and says, “Sweetheart, you are the most wonderful person in the world and I am the luckiest person in the world. There’s no one else for me. I love you with all my heart. Happy anniversary!” Now, we would all agree that this person was speaking from the heart. So, imagine how inappropriate it would be if the waiter were to interrupt the speaker in that moment and say, “Now wait just a minute, Buster! You can’t possibly say that your partner is the most wonderful person in the world because you haven’t met all the people in the world! For all you know, there could be another person out there, more wonderful than your partner, so you shouldn’t say such inaccurate things on your anniversary!”

If you were sitting at a nearby table, you would be perfectly justified in standing up and saying to that waiter, “Hey now, that’s not nice! This person was talking to their partner on their anniversary. You had no right to interrupt them. In fact, you have no right to pass judgment on their relationship at all!”

When it comes to the language of the heart, most of us would agree with the philosopher Blaise Pascal, who said, “The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.”

This is also how it works, when it comes to Christian faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We owe no one an explanation when we say, “Jesus, you are the way, and the truth, and the life.” We are speaking the language of the heart, just like that couple out to dinner on their wedding anniversary. This is what the author of John’s gospel was trying to say when he put those words into Jesus’ mouth. Using the cultural conventions of his time, he was trying to express his love for the man who had changed his life for the better.

In our day, let us also be just as exuberant in our praise of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Let us proclaim to the world the good things he has done for us, not only in our words, but in our deeds. If Jesus is our way, our truth, and our life, then let us strive to become the kind of people that Jesus was. When we see the hungry, let us feed them. When we see the sick or injured, let us heal them. When we meet the outcast and sinners, let us welcome and befriend them. May we, like Jesus, get ourselves in trouble for hanging out with queers and freaks. When the bullies of this world come hunting for us, may they find more of us in Stonewall than they find in cathedrals. That’s how they’ll know we are there because we are following Jesus, and they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

Image credit: Billboards Portrush by Willie Duffin, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons