SERMON ~ 05/15/2016 ~ “The Radical Dominion”

05/15/2016 ~ Day of Pentecost ~ *Acts 2:1-21 or Genesis 11:1-9; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; Romans 8:14-17 or Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-17, (25-27) ~  * During Eastertide a reading from Acts is often substituted for the lesson from the Hebrew Bible ~ Boy Scout Sunday ~ Strengthen the Church All Church Offering.

The Radical Dominion

“Rabbi, said Philip, ‘show us Abba, God, and that will be enough for us.’” — John 14:8.

I am what in some quarters is called a late bloomer.  As many of you know, I did not enter Seminary until I was 44 years old.  What that means is, having entered Seminary at that age, I was suddenly being treated as if I was an 18 year old just entering college.  At least that’s the way the banks looked at me.

Many here might be familiar with the interaction between banks and students because you are either about to enter into some advanced schooling or have gone through it recently yourself or watched your children or grandchildren go thought it.  The short version of this is, at age 44, I had to sign all kinds of paper work just to get student loans.

And, at age 44, there was no expectation that parents might countersign for my loans.  It was all on me.

Hence, Bangor Seminary tried to help starving seminarians by employing as many as possible with so called “student jobs.”  This did not do enough to defray the cost of the education but at least it provided a little income, since most students had moved to Bangor without any prospect of employment.  And one does have to eat on occasion.

My last job before I landed in Seminary had been as a library aide at a Public High School.  So, when I was offered a “student job” as a library aide at Bangor Seminary it seemed a perfect fit.

For me, it certainly was.  I became a better student because I needed to help others.  I needed to know where all the research material was and I needed to become familiar with the entire collection of books.  (Slight pause.)

The librarian, the Rev. Cliff Davis, was a fascinating fellow.  Outside of work, he tended a garden and created homemade beers.  When he found out I could, on my computer, print large, very nice looking labels on sticky paper, I became the exclusive producer of labels for the brews he concocted at that point.

Now, one of the duties for students who worked in the library was to write brief reviews of books sent in by publishers.  These reviews were published once a month.

Cliff, our librarian, had one dictum— one dictum— about how to judge a book before we read it.  “You can,” he intoned, “judge a book by its cover.  If the cover says the author has a Ph.D. from Oxford or Yale or Berkeley, review the book.”

“If, on the other hand, the cover tells you the author is a retired car salesman from Saint Louis who spent ten years doing research on the Bible, don’t bother.  These go to the circular file.  They should not be on the library shelves of this Seminary.”

Indeed, you would be amazed at how many books on religion and Scripture exist out there written by people with little or no formal training.  Well, given that I wrote reviews, I once wrote a review of a book by a Jesuit with a Ph.D. in theology.  Fellow seemed qualified.

The claim made by this book, by this scholar, was simple.  There is no church in existence today as radical as the church we find in the New Testament.  Let me repeat that: there is no church in existence today as radical as the church we find in the New Testament.  (Slight pause.)

We find these words in the Gospel According to the School of John: “Rabbi, said Philip, ‘show us Abba, God, and that will be enough for us.’”  (Slight pause.)

I need to offer a confession.  I do not remember the name or the author of the book I just referenced.  But that’s not unusual.  Why is that not unusual?

That the church we find in the New Testament is more radical than any church in existence today is a fairly common claim among real scholars.  That the church of the New Testament was not radical is, however, a claim you are likely to find coming from the pens of those who have spent their entire career selling cars and then write a book about the Bible.

I want to suggest this radical church of New Testament is exactly the place to which the reading from John points.  You see, in response to Philip Jesus says (quote), “Whoever has seen me has seen Abba, God.”  One way that response can be perceived is to understand that in Jesus we see an expectation of the Dominion, a foretaste of the Dominion of God.

That begs two questions: “what is the Dominion of God” and “what does the dominion of God look like?”  In older translations the Dominion of God is called the Kingdom of God.

Even though the word King is in the word Kingdom and that sounds like it’s oriented toward the masculine, the fact that we should translate Kingdom as Dominion has nothing to do with being gender neutral or gender inclusive.  The word Kingdom implies a territory, limits and a limited ruler.  One might argue Dominion implies the same.  I would argue it’s still a better word to use.

I would argue that because both Kingdom and Dominion are translations of one Greek word: bascillia.  Bascillia is the word from which we get basilica.  Basilicas are destinations of pilgrimages.  A pilgrimage— on the road one travels or at the destination— a pilgrimage is a journey or a place where we encounter God.  Hence, a Dominion is a place where we encounter God

That leads to the next question: if the Dominion of God is a journey or a place where we encounter God, what does that encounter, what does that Dominion look like?  The answer is look at Jesus.

Jesus is a radically new, radically different way of understanding existence and a radically new, radically different way of understanding God.  And the Dominion of God calls us to a radically new, radically different understanding of existence.  The Dominion of God calls us to a radically new, radically different understanding of God

Further, the Dominion is not just a place or a way of encountering God occasionally.  The Dominion of God is a place where God is encountered all the time and a way God is encountered all the time.  So what does this Dominion look like?

The Dominion of God is a place where healing takes place all the time.  The Dominion of God is a place where each person is made whole all the time.  The Dominion of God is a place where the needs of all people are taken care of all the time.  The Dominion of God is a place where we reach out to help one another all the time.

The Dominion of God is a place where there is no name calling, ever.  The Dominion of God is a place where there are no barriers, no walls, no impediments between people, ever.  The Dominion of God is a place where people respect one another no matter what differences might exist.  (Slight pause.)

As you already know, we have the Boy Scouts with us today.  It’s Scout Sunday.  Last Thursday I offered the Invocation at the Citizen of the Year Boy Scout Dinner.  In so doing I appropriated a part of the Scout Law and the Scout Motto.  This is in part what I said, this is what I said in that section of the prayer.

(Quote:) “We pray that we may all learn to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent and have the courage to stay prepared to receive Your grace.”  (Slight pause.)

You see, what is radical about the Dominion of God is that we are called to a wholeness.  We are not called to be tribes.  We are not called to be separate.

So, perhaps the hardest part of the words I used from the Scout Law and Motto is that we need to have the courage to stay prepared to receive the grace of God.  And God calls us— all of us— to be people of God, reaching out to each other and helping each other in any way we can.  And that’s hard.

Given that, the challenge of Pentecost is clear to me.  Can we live up to the task that God lays out before us?  Can we live up to the task of making this world a place where the Dominion of God is felt?

Can we live up to the task of making this world a place where the Dominion of God is lived out?  My experience is such a world, a world where the Dominion of God is lived out, would be a radical place.

A world where the Dominion of God is lived out would be a place where no one is homeless.  A world where the Dominion of God is lived out would be a place where healthcare is available to everyone.

A world where the Dominion of God is lived out would be a place where access to education is a given.  A world where the Dominion of God is lived out would be a place where no one went hungry.

That all these things are rights, human rights, not privileges— that housing, healthcare, education, food— that these are seen as human rights and not as privileges— because if you pay for them they’re privileges— if all these are seen as human rights not privileges your listening to a radical idea.  And this wholeness, this completeness, this integrity, this unity, this harmony, this oneness, this identity is nothing more than the picture of the Dominion of God which can be seen in Jesus.

So, indeed, we all need to pray for the courage to stay prepared to receive the grace of God.  And the grace of God will, in fact, lead us toward the radical Dominion of God.  Amen.

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction.  This is an précis of what was said: “Here is another way to conceptualize the message of the presence of the Holy Spirit: Play nice!  Play with each other!  Play together as one!  Don’t break out into tribes!  Tribalism— a different word for Nationalism— tribalism was not only the cause of two world wars.  Tribalism is the cause of many small wars all over all the time.  See us as God sees us: we are one people.”

BENEDICTION: The love of God is abundant and steadfast.  When we give God’s love away, it returns in breathtaking abundance.  Let us willingly participate in the grace God offers.  May we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much.  May we be in awe of God enough, that we need be in awe of nothing and no one else.  And may the Word of God be on our tongues, the wisdom of God be with our thinking and the love of God be present in our hearts.  Amen.