Sermon for June 10, 2014 ~ 10:00 Healing
Service
Feast Day of Ephrem of Edessa
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse
St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish, Tucson,
AZ
For online access to the readings click here
I speak to you in the name of One God:
Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit. Amen
My
mother always had a tune under her breath.
She
was constantly humming
and
occasionally breaking out in song.
As a
music major, she studied all the major composers
and
practiced diligently on the piano,
modeling
for us how to be faithful to a passion.
My
mother always had a tune under her breath,
a
gift that did gladden my heart.
When
I read about Ephrem of Edessa,
that
the Syrian Church called him
“the
harp of the Holy Spirit,”
this
sense of having music “at hand” –
both
literally and metaphorically –
framed
how God’s grace was in his being.
What
do you know about this deacon
from
the very early church?
We
hear that he was
·
Born
in 308 in Edessa, near Antioch (Syria)
·
Baptized
at 18 by and traveled with the (then)
Bishop James of
Nisibis
to the Council of
Nicea in 325.[1]
You know what that
council created, right?
His journey to
Nicea must have formed him
in a deeply
profound way,
as pilgrimages in
our day, do, too.
·
Upon
his return, he taught and founded a School of Nisibis, the center of learning
for the Syriac Orthodox Church.
·
He
wrote commentaries of the OT and NT
as well as homilies
– having been credited
by one historian as
having authored 3 million lines
·
Ephrem
gained his moniker
“The Harp of the
Holy Spirit” from
the Christian hymns
that he wrote
to defend
Trinitarian theology
against Gnosticism
(which challenged
the nature of Christ’s divinity).
To counter the
popular songs of the Gnostics,
he composed hymns
in defense of the Nicene faith.
Hymn 443 is one of
them,
filled with
scriptural references from
the Gospels, Paul’s
letters and the Psalms.
·
Sounds
a bit like a reality show –
which community can
capture
the popular
imagination of the people?
Regardless, God
gifted Ephrem
with the sense of
beauty and artistry
from which he could
spread the Gospel.
Think of how Paul
was so gifted with words,
in this way Ephrem
was gifted in song.
·
He
retired to a cave where he lived simply,
devoting himself to
writing
and going into the
city to preach.
·
During
a famine in 372-373,
he worked
distributing food to hungry people
and organizing a
ministry of an ambulance service.
He worked long
hours
and eventually
became exhausted and died in 373
God
blessed Ephrem with many gifts
– hymn-writer,
teacher, poet, devotion to God –
but
he didn’t use all those gifts all at once.
Like
us, we have many gifts
but
they are called upon during our life
in
different degrees and in different situations.
Little
did he know that when he was baptized
he
would use his gifts in these different ways.
He
didn’t know how his life would unfold.
Nor
do we, do we?
Do we
sometimes wonder
what
good are these gifts,
such
as our faith, in an uncertain future?
What
gift have you been given that
has
yet unfolded in the service of God’s reign?
*pause*
Today’s
Gospel speaks directly to
living
into our faith
in
the midst of that uncertainty.
Jesus
said,
“I
still have many things to say to you,
but
you cannot bear them now.”
Jesus
guides the disciples (that would be us, too)
to
understand the role of faith in community.
He
uses “to bear” metaphorically –
the
burden that is unbearable is the future.
Jesus
assures disciples that
the future
will be something
that
they cannot now articulate.
So it
is with us –
our
faith will unfold in ways that
we
are not able *now* to bear how the future unfolds.
Theologian
Rudolf Bultmann said,
“The
believer can only measure
the
significance and claims of what one has to undergo
when
one actually meets it.
The
believer anticipates the future in faith,
not
in foreknowledge.”
Three
times, Jesus uses the word “declare”:
When
the Spirit of truth comes,
“… he
will declare to you the things that are to come… he (the Spirit) will
glorify me…
and declare
it to you…
all
that the Father has …
he
(the Father) will declare it to you.”
Here,
Jesus invokes the Trinitarian presence of God
to proclaim
how faith forms the community
for
the future.
This
is the early church rendition of
“When
the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
Today’s
good news is that
Jesus
promises the presence of the Spirit
in
the life of the community.
The
Spirit softens the hearts of believers to be
open
to fresh expressions of God’s love
and unpredictable
ways to use God-given gifts.
May
we, today,
anticipate
fresh expression of God’s love
in
our community.
May
we, today, (while we are uncertain of the future,)
know
the love of God that arises from the Spirit.
Our
teacher is ready when we are.
Our
sacred songs will gladden our hearts
and
fuel our devotion.
Our
God will love us through the end of the age. Amen
