Rev. Michael Phillips’ Sermon – Easter
II, 2004 (
Our seats were down the left field line, under the overhang, which would protect us more from the sun on this cloudless day, than from the rain. The green wooden seats with their curved backs and fold down bottoms turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. The two dads, with their two sons (my son, Michael, and his friend from across the street,) both wearing their little league caps and carrying their gloves to catch foul balls, sat all four in a row. There is no greener green than outfield grass. There is no whiter white than foul line white. There is no truer game of baseball than one played in a brick stadium, with ivy growing along the outfield wall.
In the middle of the seventh inning, a great hush fell over the crowd, as people stood at their places, as if on cue. Heads turned upward and behind home base. I grabbed Michael by the shoulders and hustled him to the aisle, then down a few steps, so that the steel support beam was not blocking our view. I pointed him to the press box window that had just flown open, and even from that distance, we could make out the white hair, and big glasses of every Chicagoan’s grandfather, the play-by-play announcer, Harry Carey.
I whispered into Michael’s ear and said, “Remember this. You will want to tell your grandchildren someday, that you saw Harry Carey sing during the seventh inning stretch at Wrigley Field.”
And then, as he always does, with microphone in his right hand as music wand, Harry said, “All right everybody, let me hear ya now. A one, a two, a three…..Take me out …” and by the third word, the entire crowd had taken up the song, and sang it to the end.
Cub fans divide the world into two groups: those who have seen Harry Carey lead the baseball song in Wrigley Field, and those who haven’t.
It was one of the great traditions in a game of great traditions. Whenever I saw Harry Carey lean out of the window and begin the song, I always felt sorry for baseball fans in other cities. Who led their seventh inning stretch? The nameless, faceless, and invisible organ player? (Sorry John.) The Cubs may not have won a World Series in more than fifty years, but by God, when Harry Carey was alive, they had the best darn seventh inning stretch in all of baseball.
There is something about seeing for yourself. There is something about being there, and hearing and seeing and smelling and feeling what it was like for yourself, and coming to your own conclusions. There is no substitute for first-hand experience, and there is a certain authority to those who have been there. The power of that great hymn “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” is based upon that same kind of first hand knowledge. “Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?” The pain and sorrow become present to the singer.
The authority given to first hand knowledge is what lies at the heart of the story of “Doubting Thomas,” which we just heard. Thomas was not present when the risen Christ visited the disciples on Easter Day. But a week later, for the second visit, he was in the room. He saw the holes the nails had made, and the spear wound left in Jesus’ side, and he made his confession of faith, “My Lord and my God.” And then, the risen Christ speaks the punch line of the story, “Thomas, you believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”
This line could only have been written if in fact, within
the community of John’s gospel some of the people who had known Jesus
personally were still alive, and they were granted a higher status (a blessedness) than those who had gained their faith after
his death and resurrection, those who “have not seen” the man from
In this context, we can postulate a two-tiered community. The gospel writer has Jesus say, (in fact, it is the last thing Jesus will say in John’s gospel,) “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Jesus himself is telling the community to establish a level playing field. The basis for blessedness has very little to do with having seen or known Jesus personally. Instead, it is based upon one’s availability to God’s Spirit. We know from the encounter with Nicodemus, back in the third chapter of John’s gospel that that which is flesh is flesh, and that which is spirit is spirit. Blessedness is grounded in a closeness to God’s Spirit, and nothing else, and good thing. For by the time John wrote his gospel most of those who had known Jesus personally were dying off, and the majority of the community was comprised of people who had only heard of him; people who knew people who knew Jesus. If knowing Jesus personally was the sole criterion for spirituality, the Christian movement would have died out in one generation. Think about it.
We can conclude therefore, that within forty or fifty years of its founding, the Christian movement had to make an enormous cultural adjustment, as it went from a community in which every single member had known Jesus personally, and could tell their own stories about him, to a movement where some had known him and some had not, setting up a stratum of blessedness, until finally, it became a movement in which no one had known Jesus personally, which is also our situation today. In order to survive, it had to negotiate the cultural adjustment successfully. It did, and this story from John’s gospel helped, and two thousand years later, here we are alive in the Spirit of Christ.
We find however, that cultural adjustments continue to be necessary, even in our own day, in order to survive as a movement. In our lifetime we have witnessed the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate (bishops.) We have learned the Lord’s Prayer in contemporary English. Some churches, even some Episcopal Churches, have brought projection screens into their worship spaces to post the words to hymns, or photos that enhance the text of a reading or an anthem. In every case of cultural change, the criteria used for accepting it or not accepting it is the same as that found in John’s gospel: is it closely connected to the Spirit of God, or not?
Should women be priests and bishops? The correct answer is: Which women, and do they live closely to the Spirit of God? It is the same answer given about whether men should be ordained. Again, should the Lord’s Prayer be translated into contemporary English, or left in its earlier form? The answer is: does the new translation bring us close to the Spirit of God? If so, then “yes.” If not, then “no.” The criteria are never, “What are we most used to. Or, what is most familiar?” The Christian movement is about allowing the Spirit of the Risen Christ to form us and direct us.
In the past year, we have seen another cultural adjustment
made in the Episcopal Church, namely, the first consecration of an openly gay
bishop. The bible never says that openly
gay people should not be consecrated bishops.
Some people have taken the few times gays are mentioned in the bible,
and extrapolated that the consecration of Gene Robinson in
Change is hard, and cultural change especially so. We often like our world the way it is. We spend a lot of time, effort, money, and energy creating a world that satisfies us. We are devoted to our church and our local faith communities. When these sorts of cultural changes occur, they throw us for a loop. Some people thought they belonged to an Episcopal Church that did not ordain women as priests and bishops. Some thought they belonged to a church that would keep the same Lord’s Prayer for ever and ever. Some thought they belonged to a church that did not sanction the consecration of openly gay people to the office of bishop. When these sorts of events occur they felt like they have lost their church. They felt that their church, the church they loved and supported, no longer had a space in it for them to stand. I am sorry that some people feel this sort of pain, even betrayal. Personally, I am not happy about everything that happens in the Episcopal Church I know and love. Probably very few people are happy about everything in the Episcopal Church.
It is important to remember that the Christian movement is
not limited to a single cultural expression.
Cultures move and evolve.
Christianity can find a home in an infinite variety of cultural
expressions. I’m sorry that Harry Carey
no longer leads the seventh inning stretch.
I miss him. But they still play
ball at Wrigley Field, and many people in
In His Name, Amen.