Fiery Conversion

 on this Sunday (Pentecost 23) the opening hymn was 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing."

Yes, we did. This morning’s opening hymn was a Christmas Carol, as surprising as the words read from the prophet Malachi. Malachi, a prophet not read throughout the season of Advent or Christmas, provides the lyrics of the third verse of the hymn, Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!/ Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all he brings,/ risen with healing in his wings

 

After the initial surprise, how do you experience singing a Christmas carol outside of the Christmas season?

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Christmas carols are the kind of music that is bold and powerful. It fills our spirits, our voices sing loud, there is joy and expectation. The music and lyrics carry the prophetic word, just as in the Book of Malachi, the text proclaims that evil is rooted out, those who revere the Lord’s name shall be healed, and that day is joyous. The theology of Christmas carols runs deep singing of incarnation, salvation, the cross, the kindom, and end times.

Like the prophecies of Malachi, carols balance the challenging reality of our lives together, coloured by evil, suffering, war, and so on, with the loving and healing presence of God in our midst.

 

On the last few Sundays of the church year, we read alarming and fiery scriptures, apocalyptic texts that warn of calamity upon calamity with exhortations to listeners to remain faithful. Malachi’s audience asks question after question from their lingering doubts of both the love God and justice of God. The peoples’ weariness shows as they repeatedly ask, “How have you loved us?” 

 

The people question God’s love and justice, for their lived experience – our experience- is a world shadowed by despair and heartache, where millions live a daily struggle for survival. Malachi points to a lived truth that there is no such thing as getting through life unscathed. The text’s focus draws people of faith to ponder the bare bones of the matter: to this truth how does one respond and where does one find refuge? We are told what we already sense and know: impermanence, inevitability, and unpredictability are intertwined in earthly life. The Gospel reminds us that we are unable to prepare for every eventuality. There is no amount of planning or worry that will save us. And when it all seems bleak and we are about to stop reading the text because it is depressing, the writer reassures the hearer of God’s presence.  Jesus’ comments about the Temple and its destruction preface his apocalyptic talk. Jesus is warming hearers to faith, a faith that is called away from fortifications, and whatever the large stones are in our time and place – to place trust not in the perishable but rather in the persistent presence of God, and the working of God’s love and justice.

 

Charles Wesley wrote Hark the Herald Angels Sing within the first year of his conversion. It was said by Albert Bailey that, “the inspiration of [Charles] newly-made contract with God was still fresh.” The point being that the hymn was filled with emotion and passion; it was an expression of faith that was experienced and embodied more than an intellectual exercise or pursuit.

Charles Wesley’s conversion is not what you might think. Charles and his brother John were raised as Christians. As students at Oxford University, they formed a student organization called the ‘Holy Club,’ a group that met for prayer, Bible study, and practiced pious discipline. They lived directed by good works not by faith. The brothers were ordained pastors and missionaries.  John described being Christian before his conversion as living a “fair summer religion.”

On Pentecost Sunday in 1738, Charles, influenced by Moravian friends who bore witness to salvation by grace through faith, had an experience of Pentecost.  He felt the conviction of the assurance of being a child of God, justified by faith. Charles expressed the experience of the Spirit as one who “chased away the darkness of my unbelief.” Three days later John was at a meeting house and heard a reading of Luther’s preface to the Book of Romans, describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ. John describes the conversion experience, “[I]felt my heart strangely warmed.”

The conversions were not what we generally expect. The brothers, Charles and John were not unbelievers or those deemed heathen, they were Christians – preaching and teaching pastors and missionaries. Conversion was not a change of faith, but rather a change in conviction – much like that of Martin Luther – a sudden experiential knowing of God’s grace.

 

Every pastor has a particular kind of situation that cuts them to the bone. For me it is when members, people I have taught, baptized, confirmed, and have relationship with – choose to be re-baptized in a church community that requires re-baptism for membership. It has happened a few times over my career. It happened this past Sunday. It always hurts. I feel in some way that I have failed, failed to communicate the gospel, the work of God through baptism, and the use of the affirmation of baptism as a liturgy of recommitment. I get angry when a shiny new package of faith – full of emotion and couched as salvation- tempts people into a conversion – that isn’t really conversion, but rather an experiential recommitment to Christ and to God who is already present and working in their lives. That which is shiny and new, in the long run isn’t going to chase away troubles or make living life easier. When the emotion of the experience wears off, when the community rallies around the person less, when the pressures of life surround, when God’s love and God’s justice seem once again overshadowed by the troubles of the world, what then? Where is one’s trust and faith when the ashes of life settle over emotion?

 

Malachi’s listeners continue to question, “how have you loved us?” They have lost faith in the persistent presence of God, and the working of God’s love and God’s justice. Jesus addresses listeners to put their trust in that which although intangible is steadfast and sure.

I get frustrated with a change of church based on emotional experience because I hear in the prophets and from Jesus a message of perseverance and steadfastness regardless of circumstances. I hear the necessity of persistence in faith, persistence in placing trust, which is aided by a persistence of practice, at all times, and especially in the times when our hearts aren’t in it, or our minds journey in doubt. I feel sadness and grief, that restless souls and troubled spirits are unable to wait for an experience of God’s love and God’s justice. I spend much time and energy crafting worship with purpose and intent. Worship designed in connecting head and heart, exploring complicated world views side-by-side with experience and emotions to embody theology deeply. The feeling of commitment, or renewed commitment, a fiery passionate embrace of an experience of God or an exhilarated emotion – won’t happen every week -but with persistence, faith and trust are planted and nourished so that we may be rooted deeply in the mystery of God.

 

I am currently playing in a Scrabble tournament called, “Everybody Loves a Baby.” While I am not all that comfortable around babies, I get it. Bonus words in the tournament include love and joy. Babies bring both emotions to the forefront, along with possibilities and hope amid whatever is going on in the world. In some ways the mention and/or presence of a baby is a conversion experience; our hearts and emotions are activated. We feel something. It is no wonder that God’s love and God’s justice appear in this form, in a baby. Deep theological concepts are diffused through the presence of a baby, the feeling – the emotion around a baby. I am reminded of this each year as I hear you sing the carols of Christmas. I hear your emotion, your longing and thanksgiving, joy, and power, presence – I hear a conversion of heart and a conviction of faith.  

 

Outside of Christmas and the emotions of that season, this morning has been a gift. We have heard the power of a carol and sung together. We have sung theology deep into our bones, in facing fiery apocalyptic texts and articulating the challenging reality of our lives together, coloured by evil, suffering, war, and so on, through a singing with herald voices, we have experienced the Sun, with light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. In fiery text comes the loving and healing presence of God.