Acts 2:14a,36-41
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying
All too often and usually without much thought or particular intention on our part at all, we can find ourselves looking at our world and maybe even ourselves, in a sort of fixed and rigid way. Seeing things, if you will, through a particular lens, one to which we have grown accustomed and, in their familiarity to us, have become comfortable.
Some of us see our world through rose-colored glasses, especially when we look back upon a particular time and place and all those stresses and strains that may well have caused more than a few vexations are now thankfully faded memories, and we idealize the way things were, and maybe we feel ought to be now.
Others of us tend to be more oriented to the present. And of those present-minded folk, some of us are “uniquely” blessed with such exacting vision that we are able to see with amazing clarity all the cracks in the walls and even the ever-so-slight discolorations and imperfections in the way things are.
Yet there are still others who seem to have an uncanny clairvoyance, the remarkable ability to peer into future, imagine the way things not only could be but can be with initiative, guidance, and, if need be, blood, sweat, and tears. “Visionaries” we call them.
John Hughes, the late bishop of Kensington, will apparently not go down in history as such a visionary. In the mid 1980s, an oil executive in his early 30s went to see the bishop in order to share with him his growing sense that God was calling him to leave the business world and become a priest. After some time Bishop Hughes declared rather flatly, “I see no future for you in the Church of England.”1
That young oil executive with no future in the church?
Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, having at the time of his appointment to Primate of All England and head of the worldwide Anglican Communion been a bishop for only a year. Where Bishop Hughes was unable to see Justin’s potential, a warlord in the swamps of the Nigerian Delta would soon encounter it.
As a priest who had to raise his own salary and was charged with a ministry of peace and reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral, Justin was often sent off to hotspots in Africa to mediate disputes. On one occasion, Justin, while being held at gunpoint, was told, “Well, it looks like we’re not going to kill you. We’ll have to take you hostage instead.” But this one without potential for a future was able to prolong that future by apparently convincing the warlord that “nobody would pay to have me back.”
Those lenses through which you and I view the world and ourselves are not always clear, not always so accurate, are they?
Whether it is about the past, the present, or the future, you and I don’t always get it right because, as is often the case anyway, our knowledge of and our expectations for others, ourselves, the communities in which we live, and the organizations to which we belong, are woefully inadequate and, at the very least, incomplete.
But, if by chance we have the good fortune, or by God’s providence we are blessed, then like Cleopas and his friend, another may come alongside us on the way and in that often unexpected encounter we may make new connections, gain deeper understanding, to see ourselves and our world through a clearer lens and in a better, and truer, light.
Sometimes those insights may help us soar to great heights. Other times they may be more humbling but nonetheless helpful.
Perhaps you remember Robert Burns’ poem, To A Louse. The persona is sitting behind a prim and proper lady at church and then he spies a louse on her bonnet and declares in brogue, “O wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!”
“O what some power, the Giver give us, to see ourselves as others see us.”
If we are intentional in listening carefully to those who come alongside us on the way, we may indeed discover all kinds of new things about ourselves, our world, the institutions and organizations with which we have a history and love. We may begin to see anew the events of our past, how they prepared us for the present and position us for the future.
With new lenses (or at least ones freshly cleaned) we may encounter Jesus in unexpected and exciting ways. We may even be able to see the myriad ways that resurrection is breaking forth among us even now and, at one ever age we may be, new possibilities, plans, dreams can take root in us and begin to grow within us.
Or what we grasp may be much more subtle.
Like the time I realized that I probably should have shaved that morning.
I was working at a children’s home as a houseparent in my mid 20’s. It was Saturday breakfast in the dining hall when a little girl, about 4 years old, came up to me and with affection in her eyes exclaimed warmly, “You look like my grandpa!”
A little young to be a grandfather, I nevertheless felt a twinge of pride welling up inside of me, just as she went on to say, “Yeah, he’s in jail.”
I couldn’t help but laugh and think to myself, “Yep, I should have shaved this morning.”
1 Cole Morton, “Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘You have no future in the church’” The Telegraph, 11 Nov 2012. (Information about Hughes and Welby are based on this article from The Telegraph.)