To be preached at St. John's Lancaster 30 June, 2013
Think with me today of someone who modeled for you at some time what it means to be a Christian- someone upon whom the power and love and authority of God rested in a remarkable and unmistakable way. I’m not talking about someone who just did some good things for society or for other people. Remember that Mussolini did make the trains run on time, and even a broken clock is right twice a day. I’m not talking about the sorts of folks that we sometimes honor in our church commemorations such as “Holy Women, Holy Men,” people who were the first this or who were great social reformers or historical figures. Things like the first left handed Cherokee Indian to be the rector at St. John’s, or the priest who served his country so well by writing the religious services annex for the US Army’s avian flu epidemic response plan. I can make fun of those people because they are me, and neither of those things make me a saint, or a hero, or memorable in any way whatsoever. I once knew a real hero, who received the Navy Cross. He was a good man, but he is not what I am talking about. I once knew a man who marched with Dr. King and another who provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in free medical care to children. They did good things, but they are not the sort of people I am talking about either. I am talking about someone like Elijah, upon whom the Spirit and fire, the holy Shekhinah of God rested in such a way that to be in their presence is to be in the very throne room of God. I was privileged to have such a man as my pastor when I was growing up. While I was in the Army, his detractors managed to sack him because he was old, and not exciting, and didn’t plan great programs for the parish. But he was kind and decent, and humble, and preached the Bible faithfully and truthfully and with a quiet passion which came from years of belief and obedience. He never looked down on anyone, and was always there for the faithful and for others. After he died, his widow wrote me and told me about the secret of his closeness to God. She said that his knees were calloused heavily from the hours spent kneeling in prayer. In his demeanor and in his spirit, I sensed the very presence of God, and he changed the course of my life. I wish I had received more of his mantle, but unlike Elisha, I was young and vain and seduced by new ideas and modern methods, and pride. Oh that I had persevered and received the mantle of Wesley Bullis. I have known other such men: Dennis Kinlaw, the president of the college I attended and who seemed to me in both scholarship and piety as a modern day apostle, Loren Helm, a sort of Quaker-Methodist cross who taught me to “wait on God,” and Lowell Roberts, another Quaker, who taught me that true scholarship must be accompanied by hard work, honesty, humility and submission to the Spirit of God. I cannot claim to have received the mantle of any of these men, because as I said, I was young and vain and seduced by new ideas and modern methods, and pride.
Who are the people in your life in whom you have sensed the power and Spirit of God? Chances are they are not well known or properly appreciated. They may even be scorned and mistreated by the people around them. But like the prophets and martyrs of old, when you look upon them, you see not merely a man or a woman, or a hero or a good person. You sense the very purity and humility and fire and love of God. Sometimes it seems as if they can see inside your conscience and you grieve because you sense not their disapproval, but their heartbreak and their never ending love and concern for you. They are the ones you go to with really serious prayer requests, because you know that they pray often, and believe that God must know their voice even as they know his. On the days that you find the faith to believe in miracles, you can see in your heart how God might over ride the forces and laws of nature and time through such a person. And perhaps on those special days when by grace you are able to set aside the presuppositions and skepticism of this secular world, you can admit that you were there when God worked a miracle through this person you know. You were there when the cancer was cured in spite of every reasonable prognosis, or when the funds became available when there was no hope of deliverance. You saw the axe head float and the army of Sennacherib perish before the assault of God’s angels. In your heart you know it was true, because on an honest day you cannot doubt what you have seen.
But now return with me to the story of the translation of Elijah, and Elisha’s reception of the mantle of his teacher. When you think of that man or woman who showed you the power of God in such a memorable way; when you close your eyes and hear their voice, and see their face, and reconstruct in your mind the events that characterized their relationship with you; can you isolate those attributes of their life, those habits of their daily routine, those attitudes that set them apart from others; and can you yearn for them to be reproduced in your own life? Are you willing to be God’s man or woman as they were? Are you willing to be to others as they were to you?
God reveals himself to us in science, which the ancients and schoolmen called the book of nature. He made this revelation specific and inescapable when he came to us as Jesus of Nazareth, the Second Person of the Holy and Blessed Trinity. His life, and the Spirit inspired and superintended record of that life which is the Holy Bible, constitutes the Book of Revelation, which is his second volume given to us that we might know him. Unfortunately, many people are too lazy to fully appreciate the book of science, and too self absorbed to fully appreciate the book of revelation. And so God sends people like Elijah, and Wesley Bullis, and Dennis Kinlaw, and Loren Helm, and Lowell Roberts, and like the people who are remembered in your minds today, to give us a glimpse of the reality of his holiness, and his love, and his grace, and his truth, and his judgment, and his mercy. And then in the fullness of time he calls them home, and he calls us to take their place, to “receive their mantle” if you will.
This may well be something you have not thought too much about, and so I’ll not ask you to make commitments or decisions today about what you should do. But I do ask you as we come together to this Holy Communion, where we offer ourselves anew to God, to think about the example of Elijah and Elisha. I ask you to think about your relationship with that person or those people in whom you saw the very Shekhinah, the holy fire of God. As they go on to their heavenly reward, is God calling you to claim a portion of their mantle, and to follow them in a life of holy service to God, which will show his wonderful holiness and grace and mercy and power and love to some other person just as it was shown to you in the life of one of his saints? It is worth thinking about, and I commend those thoughts to you today as we stand and confess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed, found on page 327/358 of the Book of Common Prayer.
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