Jesus said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?...You are witnesses of these things"(Luke 24:38, 48)
For 3 Sundays now we have been witnesses of the Resurrection. In the Sundays to come, we will shift to Gospel readings that speak of Jesus not being with us in body, but with us in spirit. Last week, we heard in John’s Gospel how the disciples were so afraid of the Jews and the Romans, that they wouldn’t even venture out beyond their locked door. Even when Mary Magdalene told them, “I have seen the Lord,” they stayed behind their locked door.
Today, in Luke’s account of that momentous day, they have heard from Cleopas and his companion, “We have seen Jesus! He walked with us, yet we did not recognize him. Only when he broke bread before our eyes were they opened and we saw him, risen.” The disciples have heard from Peter, “Even though I denied him three times, he appeared even to me!” And yet there they still were, in a closed room.
So now Jesus himself stands among them and says, “Peace be with you.” And the disciples? Are they ready to believe and rejoice? Are they ready to go and spread the Good News? No, “They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.”
And so Jesus says to them, “Why do doubts arise in your hearts?” When some doubted his power to forgive sins and heal a lame man, he said, “Why do doubts arise in your hearts.” When others sought to accuse him for healing on the Sabbath day, Jesus knew the doubts in their hearts. As Jesus appears to his followers and offers them peace, he also warns them not to be like his enemies, full of doubt.
We must not doubt the power of the Risen Christ to make us his "outward and visible signs," as our mission statement says. And as we shine out beyond these doors in the world around us, we must also be prepared for doubt, opposition and resistance. But we must trust that when we open the doors of our hearts to let Christ shine through you and me, that nothing can stop us.
This is the last Sunday where we are given the privilege of witnessing the Resurrection. Next week will be Good Shepherd Sunday, and after that we will begin preparing the gift of the Holy Spirit.
But today we are witnesses of Resurrection. Why should doubts arise in our hearts?
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
On Vacation
Laura and I will be at Camp McDowell for the week, on our own Monday and Tuesday, then with fellow clergy and spouses for the Clergy/Spouse Retreat from Wednesday to Friday. Diane Hill will be your supply priest on Sunday. I'll be back on Monday, the 27th. May God be with you this week.
Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Easter
"When it was evening…and the doors were locked…Jesus stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.'"(John 20:19)
Why were the doors locked? They had heard the greatest possible news from Mary Magdalene. Jesus is alive! He has conquered death! What can we possibly have to fear? And yet they were still afraid? Perhaps the Romans were looking for any of Jesus’ followers to deal with them in the same way they had dealt with Jesus. Maybe the Jewish leaders would assume that they had broken into the tomb and taken Jesus’ body. After all, Mary’s first assumption had been that the body had been moved. It would only be natural for suspicion to fall on those closest to Jesus.
And assume for a brief moment that what Mary has said is true. She’s a woman. Her testimony is worthless in any legal or otherwise public context. And who’s going to believe something so outrageous?! Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. And what was the response? The chief priests made plans to out Lazarus to death as well. Whatever had happened to Jesus, nothing else in his disciples’ world seems to have changed. Not the resistance of the Jewish leaders, not the willingness of the Romans to crucify anyone daring to challenge their absolute authority.
And so there they are, still fearing for their fate, a fate over which they have no control.
And how does Jesus respond to this timidity and fear. How does he respond to their closing the door in Mary's, and by extension, his face? Does he satisfy himself with Mary’s faithful response? Does he wash his hands of the rest of them? No. He breaks through the doors of their fear and hopelessness. He opens the doors of their fearful hearts and gives them “Peace.”
Jesus does not promise his disciples, then or now, security or control over their fate. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). What he promises is peace. Peace that frees us from fear and the need to control. With the peace of Christ, we can open the doors to the risen Christ in whatever way and form he comes in. We can venture out beyond these doors and try new things. And every success, every cause for joy, as well as every conflict and every failure will be lifted up by Jesus just as he himself was lifted up on the cross, so that nothing would be beyond God’s power of redemption.
Control and fear equal closed doors. Open doors equal Peace.
Our first mission as a Parish is to “respond to God by becoming a visible and outward sign of Christ.” We become that visible and outward sign through our beautiful and timeless liturgy. But then we have to open the doors so that others can see the light of Christ shining from the holy place.
And we must look for Jesus beyond the open door. Jesus is here, every Sunday, just as he was with his first disciples. But he is also in our community in ways that may not seem obvious to us, just as his appearance to Mary was not obvious. We will not determine our mission by fashioning an agenda, or a to-do list, or by waiting for someone to give us orders. We must look for what God is already doing in our midst, and then jump in to help.
The mission of this Parish is not for us to decide. Just as Jesus sent his disciples then, so he sends his disciples today. Our task is to discern which way God is blowing. Open the doors so that Christ may come in. Open the doors so that Christ can get out.
Why were the doors locked? They had heard the greatest possible news from Mary Magdalene. Jesus is alive! He has conquered death! What can we possibly have to fear? And yet they were still afraid? Perhaps the Romans were looking for any of Jesus’ followers to deal with them in the same way they had dealt with Jesus. Maybe the Jewish leaders would assume that they had broken into the tomb and taken Jesus’ body. After all, Mary’s first assumption had been that the body had been moved. It would only be natural for suspicion to fall on those closest to Jesus.
And assume for a brief moment that what Mary has said is true. She’s a woman. Her testimony is worthless in any legal or otherwise public context. And who’s going to believe something so outrageous?! Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. And what was the response? The chief priests made plans to out Lazarus to death as well. Whatever had happened to Jesus, nothing else in his disciples’ world seems to have changed. Not the resistance of the Jewish leaders, not the willingness of the Romans to crucify anyone daring to challenge their absolute authority.
And so there they are, still fearing for their fate, a fate over which they have no control.
And how does Jesus respond to this timidity and fear. How does he respond to their closing the door in Mary's, and by extension, his face? Does he satisfy himself with Mary’s faithful response? Does he wash his hands of the rest of them? No. He breaks through the doors of their fear and hopelessness. He opens the doors of their fearful hearts and gives them “Peace.”
Jesus does not promise his disciples, then or now, security or control over their fate. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). What he promises is peace. Peace that frees us from fear and the need to control. With the peace of Christ, we can open the doors to the risen Christ in whatever way and form he comes in. We can venture out beyond these doors and try new things. And every success, every cause for joy, as well as every conflict and every failure will be lifted up by Jesus just as he himself was lifted up on the cross, so that nothing would be beyond God’s power of redemption.
Control and fear equal closed doors. Open doors equal Peace.
Our first mission as a Parish is to “respond to God by becoming a visible and outward sign of Christ.” We become that visible and outward sign through our beautiful and timeless liturgy. But then we have to open the doors so that others can see the light of Christ shining from the holy place.
And we must look for Jesus beyond the open door. Jesus is here, every Sunday, just as he was with his first disciples. But he is also in our community in ways that may not seem obvious to us, just as his appearance to Mary was not obvious. We will not determine our mission by fashioning an agenda, or a to-do list, or by waiting for someone to give us orders. We must look for what God is already doing in our midst, and then jump in to help.
The mission of this Parish is not for us to decide. Just as Jesus sent his disciples then, so he sends his disciples today. Our task is to discern which way God is blowing. Open the doors so that Christ may come in. Open the doors so that Christ can get out.
Friday, April 17, 2009
The 4 Marks of the Church: 4) The Prayers
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
In one sense, a personal relationship with God is like any other personal relationship. What you get out of it is equal to the time you put into it. The time we put into our relationship with God is a time of prayer. Certainly we all need to take time out for our own personal life of prayer. If on some occasions I am alone in the Church at 9 am, I take it as an opportunity for private meditation.
At the same time, the fourth mark of the Church is one of “common prayer. That’s why I offer Morning Prayer during the week, and offer meditations on Holy Scripture on this blog. I want to create as many opportunities as possible for us to be in “common prayer” together.
And to round off the circle, common prayer is essential to the “apostles’ teaching.” In the first part of the recent Lenten Series, I spoke of the phrase, “Praying shapes believing.” The more time we spend talking to God, the more considerate we will be about how we should talk to God. The Book of Common Prayer reflects a long tradition of learning how to talk to God. Study the Prayer Book. Examine how we speak to God through the Prayer Book, and you will learn what we believe about God.
We Episcopalians don’t have a very “systematic” theology. Our theology is in the way that we pray. And the more we pray together, the more we will understand the apostles’ teaching, which must be discerned in fellowship, which is created in the breaking of bread, which is itself a form of prayer. These are the four marks of the Church. They are inseparable. They have always been the essential marks of Christian community. And they always shall be, essential and inseparable.
In one sense, a personal relationship with God is like any other personal relationship. What you get out of it is equal to the time you put into it. The time we put into our relationship with God is a time of prayer. Certainly we all need to take time out for our own personal life of prayer. If on some occasions I am alone in the Church at 9 am, I take it as an opportunity for private meditation.
At the same time, the fourth mark of the Church is one of “common prayer. That’s why I offer Morning Prayer during the week, and offer meditations on Holy Scripture on this blog. I want to create as many opportunities as possible for us to be in “common prayer” together.
And to round off the circle, common prayer is essential to the “apostles’ teaching.” In the first part of the recent Lenten Series, I spoke of the phrase, “Praying shapes believing.” The more time we spend talking to God, the more considerate we will be about how we should talk to God. The Book of Common Prayer reflects a long tradition of learning how to talk to God. Study the Prayer Book. Examine how we speak to God through the Prayer Book, and you will learn what we believe about God.
We Episcopalians don’t have a very “systematic” theology. Our theology is in the way that we pray. And the more we pray together, the more we will understand the apostles’ teaching, which must be discerned in fellowship, which is created in the breaking of bread, which is itself a form of prayer. These are the four marks of the Church. They are inseparable. They have always been the essential marks of Christian community. And they always shall be, essential and inseparable.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The 4 Marks of the Church: 3) The Breaking of the Bread
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
Right teaching – healthy relationships with each other – none of these are possible without a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Where does that relationship start? Whenever we come together and repeat the meal He shared with his disciples the night before he died for us, and which he commanded to always do “in remembrance of me.”
The Greek word translated here as “remembrance” is anamnesis. But it actually means something closer to “recalling,” as when a person is recalled from one location to another. This is not a purely mental “memory.” It is a point in our time when the offering that Jesus made for all people, for all time, becomes present to us now by its effects. In this action, we are “recalling his death, resurrection and ascension,” so that Jesus himself is present with us in his self-offering, and the risen life with which he feeds us.
And the greatest effect of this great recalling is the community of fellowship created by Jesus. In the Breaking of Bread, we become “living members” of each other in the Eucharistic Body of Christ. To a world broken by mistrust and evil, where people live in lonely isolation, we say, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Reconciliation is possible with Jesus Christ. Join us.”
Those who have participated with me in our liturgy have heard me utter this prayer from the Prayer Book: “Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.” I commend this prayer to you all as a way of preparing yourselves for Jesus to join us at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
Right teaching – healthy relationships with each other – none of these are possible without a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Where does that relationship start? Whenever we come together and repeat the meal He shared with his disciples the night before he died for us, and which he commanded to always do “in remembrance of me.”
The Greek word translated here as “remembrance” is anamnesis. But it actually means something closer to “recalling,” as when a person is recalled from one location to another. This is not a purely mental “memory.” It is a point in our time when the offering that Jesus made for all people, for all time, becomes present to us now by its effects. In this action, we are “recalling his death, resurrection and ascension,” so that Jesus himself is present with us in his self-offering, and the risen life with which he feeds us.
And the greatest effect of this great recalling is the community of fellowship created by Jesus. In the Breaking of Bread, we become “living members” of each other in the Eucharistic Body of Christ. To a world broken by mistrust and evil, where people live in lonely isolation, we say, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Reconciliation is possible with Jesus Christ. Join us.”
Those who have participated with me in our liturgy have heard me utter this prayer from the Prayer Book: “Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.” I commend this prayer to you all as a way of preparing yourselves for Jesus to join us at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The 4 Marks of the Church: 2) The Apostles' Fellowship
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
It is the apostles’ teaching and the apostles’ fellowship that we promise to “continue” when we make or renew our Baptismal vows. The two go together. You cannot separate them. And yet, far too often, too many in the Church attempt to do just that.
To be fair, it is not easy to maintain both a strong teaching and a diverse community. And yet, we are called to maintain both strong teaching and diverse community. We are called as a Church to fulfill the vision of Psalm 85:10: “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
To continue in the apostles’ fellowship, therefore require a willingness, sometimes, to live with some level of disagreement. It means not sweating the small stuff. And when something happens in church that we don’t like, it means asking ourselves why we are so bothered before we express that bother. If we think about the causes for our personal anxiety, then we might find that what’s bothering us has more to do with us than the issue. And once we separate out our personal anxiety, then we can speak to the issue itself, to the truth that we perceive, without getting defensive or personal. And those with whom we disagree will likely be more receptive to our point of view.
To continue in the apostles’ fellowship also means a willingness to live in God’s time (kairos) than our own time (chronos). The Church has been discussing, debating and deciding lots of theological issues for a long, long time before any of us were here, and will be for long after we’re gone. Very few decisions are as final as we’d like to think they are. Sometimes, the Church may test something in a holy spirit of discernment (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21), and keep it, or not. Trust in God’s time, and be patient with your brothers and sisters in faith.
When we commit ourselves to continuing in the Apostles’ fellowship, we need not fear disagreements over the Apostles’ teaching, because we know that over our disagreements hovers the Holy Spirit, who guides us together, and comforts us together, always together.
It is the apostles’ teaching and the apostles’ fellowship that we promise to “continue” when we make or renew our Baptismal vows. The two go together. You cannot separate them. And yet, far too often, too many in the Church attempt to do just that.
To be fair, it is not easy to maintain both a strong teaching and a diverse community. And yet, we are called to maintain both strong teaching and diverse community. We are called as a Church to fulfill the vision of Psalm 85:10: “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
To continue in the apostles’ fellowship, therefore require a willingness, sometimes, to live with some level of disagreement. It means not sweating the small stuff. And when something happens in church that we don’t like, it means asking ourselves why we are so bothered before we express that bother. If we think about the causes for our personal anxiety, then we might find that what’s bothering us has more to do with us than the issue. And once we separate out our personal anxiety, then we can speak to the issue itself, to the truth that we perceive, without getting defensive or personal. And those with whom we disagree will likely be more receptive to our point of view.
To continue in the apostles’ fellowship also means a willingness to live in God’s time (kairos) than our own time (chronos). The Church has been discussing, debating and deciding lots of theological issues for a long, long time before any of us were here, and will be for long after we’re gone. Very few decisions are as final as we’d like to think they are. Sometimes, the Church may test something in a holy spirit of discernment (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21), and keep it, or not. Trust in God’s time, and be patient with your brothers and sisters in faith.
When we commit ourselves to continuing in the Apostles’ fellowship, we need not fear disagreements over the Apostles’ teaching, because we know that over our disagreements hovers the Holy Spirit, who guides us together, and comforts us together, always together.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The 4 Marks of the Church: 1) The Apostles' Teaching
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
Whenever someone is baptized in an Episcopal church, and the rest of us renew our baptismal covenant, we vow to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and in the prayers.” When we do that, we are vowing to live together as the first followers of Jesus did. During Easter Week, we hear this verse on Tuesday. For the rest of this week, we will stay with this verse, in which we see the 4 marks of the Church by which the risen Jesus continues to be present with us.
When I look in the religion section of a major book store, I’m almost overwhelmed by the number of authors offering a “teaching” of some kind. They all look inviting. They all offer to help you in your life of faith. How do you sift the wheat from the chaff?
Start with the Apostles and their successors, the Bishops of the Church. When we Episcopalians say that we are an “apostolic” church, we mean that we seek to maintain a visible connection to the original 12 apostles. We believe that they chose successors, handed on to them what Jesus had done and taught, then laid hands on them. Those successors we now call bishops. It is their responsibility to “guard the faith, unity and discipline of the whole Church” (BCP, p.855).
Our bishop, Henry Parsley, and his suffragan bishop, Kee Sloan, exercise their teaching authority each month in the Diocesan newspaper, The Apostle. They also exercise it through the priests under their authority. At the celebration of my ministry, Bishop Parsley asked me what I had been reading lately, and then made a specific recommendation, Tokens of Trust, by our Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Being guided by my Bishop, I intend to take that book with me on my vacation to Camp McDowell next week.
That is how I intend to “continue in the apostles’ teaching.” Check out the Diocesan web site. Make a road trip to the Diocesan book store sometime. There’s good wheat there. Eat and enjoy.
Whenever someone is baptized in an Episcopal church, and the rest of us renew our baptismal covenant, we vow to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and in the prayers.” When we do that, we are vowing to live together as the first followers of Jesus did. During Easter Week, we hear this verse on Tuesday. For the rest of this week, we will stay with this verse, in which we see the 4 marks of the Church by which the risen Jesus continues to be present with us.
When I look in the religion section of a major book store, I’m almost overwhelmed by the number of authors offering a “teaching” of some kind. They all look inviting. They all offer to help you in your life of faith. How do you sift the wheat from the chaff?
Start with the Apostles and their successors, the Bishops of the Church. When we Episcopalians say that we are an “apostolic” church, we mean that we seek to maintain a visible connection to the original 12 apostles. We believe that they chose successors, handed on to them what Jesus had done and taught, then laid hands on them. Those successors we now call bishops. It is their responsibility to “guard the faith, unity and discipline of the whole Church” (BCP, p.855).
Our bishop, Henry Parsley, and his suffragan bishop, Kee Sloan, exercise their teaching authority each month in the Diocesan newspaper, The Apostle. They also exercise it through the priests under their authority. At the celebration of my ministry, Bishop Parsley asked me what I had been reading lately, and then made a specific recommendation, Tokens of Trust, by our Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Being guided by my Bishop, I intend to take that book with me on my vacation to Camp McDowell next week.
That is how I intend to “continue in the apostles’ teaching.” Check out the Diocesan web site. Make a road trip to the Diocesan book store sometime. There’s good wheat there. Eat and enjoy.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Reading for Monday, Easter Week
Acts 2: 14, 22-32
In this first week of the 50 days of Eastertide, The Daily Office Lectionary takes us through the earliest preaching of the Church, found in the first 3-4 chapters of Acts. Today’s sermon from Peter is the first public proclamation of the Gospel on the day of Pentecost.
As his “proof-text,” Peter quotes from Psalm 16, which is attributed to King David. The Messiah (or in Greek, “Christ”) expected by the Jewish people was supposed to be the descendant of King David, the successor who would establish the Davidic reign over all the earth for all time. Now we know from the birth stories in Matthew and Luke that Jesus was, by adoption, a son of David through Joseph. He fulfilled that criteria.
But what about the great kingdom? Jesus, by all accounts, died a failure. How could he be the Messiah if the world looked just the same? Anticipating that argument, Peter teaches of the wider vision that David had, a vision so outlandish that he could only express it, not as prophecy, or as religious doctrine, but as song (which is what the Psalms are). No, this Christ does not look like the expected picture of a conquering general. His triumph is beyond our imagining. But of that triumph, “we all are witnesses,” Peter says.
In this first week of the 50 days of Eastertide, The Daily Office Lectionary takes us through the earliest preaching of the Church, found in the first 3-4 chapters of Acts. Today’s sermon from Peter is the first public proclamation of the Gospel on the day of Pentecost.
As his “proof-text,” Peter quotes from Psalm 16, which is attributed to King David. The Messiah (or in Greek, “Christ”) expected by the Jewish people was supposed to be the descendant of King David, the successor who would establish the Davidic reign over all the earth for all time. Now we know from the birth stories in Matthew and Luke that Jesus was, by adoption, a son of David through Joseph. He fulfilled that criteria.
But what about the great kingdom? Jesus, by all accounts, died a failure. How could he be the Messiah if the world looked just the same? Anticipating that argument, Peter teaches of the wider vision that David had, a vision so outlandish that he could only express it, not as prophecy, or as religious doctrine, but as song (which is what the Psalms are). No, this Christ does not look like the expected picture of a conquering general. His triumph is beyond our imagining. But of that triumph, “we all are witnesses,” Peter says.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Sermon for Easter Sunday
"Jesus said to her, 'Do not hold on to me…but go to my brothers and tell them…'"(John 20:17).
There have been several news stories this week touting "The Real Story" behind Easter. It seems that "Easter" comes the mythological German goddess of spring, Ostara. Like other Northern European gods, she went into hibernation in the winter, then returned in the spring, and brought with her the rebirth of life, fertile rabbits who laid eggs, or something like that.
When the Christian church evangelized Northern Europe, they grafted their feast of Resurrection onto the seasonal cycle of life and death. And so "Easter" and the Feast of the Resurrection coexist and mingle together. But they are not the same thing.
Does the cycle end with birth, or death? Is it always a new day, or just the same thing all over again? The Feast of the Resurrection is not the cyclical rebirth of physical life. It is not the same thing all over again. The cycle of birth and death has been overturned. The physical and the spiritual have become one. This is not spring. It is Resurrection. Of course we, like Mary, want to hold on to the risen Jesus.
But John wants us to be clear that in fact there was something for Mary to hold on to. Many of us in this scientific age need to hear that eyewitness assurance that Jesus was "transphysical," incorruptible, not less physical but more physical. The first disciples, many of whom faced the choice of denying their Lord or death did not give their lives because they had some inner, emotional “experience” of Jesus alive in their hearts. They saw something that changed their basic view of reality, of life and death. And that was the Risen Jesus.
And now, the charge to each and every one of us. Go and tell each other that the Son of God is our brother, and in Him we are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers to each other. And then go and tell the world, that co-dependency, enabling, dysfunction – all the euphemisms we employ to avoid the word, “sin – they do not have the last word in our relationships. If in Christ Jesus, God has removed all the things that alienate us from God, then there is no longer any cause for alienation between us.
There is no “personal relationship” with God that does not renew our relationships with each other, and with the entire human family. The gift of the Resurrection is to be shared with everybody.
Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice! This day, and for all time, Jesus Christ conquers death, in our hearts, in our families, our Church, our community, in our world. Fear nothing!
There have been several news stories this week touting "The Real Story" behind Easter. It seems that "Easter" comes the mythological German goddess of spring, Ostara. Like other Northern European gods, she went into hibernation in the winter, then returned in the spring, and brought with her the rebirth of life, fertile rabbits who laid eggs, or something like that.
When the Christian church evangelized Northern Europe, they grafted their feast of Resurrection onto the seasonal cycle of life and death. And so "Easter" and the Feast of the Resurrection coexist and mingle together. But they are not the same thing.
Does the cycle end with birth, or death? Is it always a new day, or just the same thing all over again? The Feast of the Resurrection is not the cyclical rebirth of physical life. It is not the same thing all over again. The cycle of birth and death has been overturned. The physical and the spiritual have become one. This is not spring. It is Resurrection. Of course we, like Mary, want to hold on to the risen Jesus.
But John wants us to be clear that in fact there was something for Mary to hold on to. Many of us in this scientific age need to hear that eyewitness assurance that Jesus was "transphysical," incorruptible, not less physical but more physical. The first disciples, many of whom faced the choice of denying their Lord or death did not give their lives because they had some inner, emotional “experience” of Jesus alive in their hearts. They saw something that changed their basic view of reality, of life and death. And that was the Risen Jesus.
And now, the charge to each and every one of us. Go and tell each other that the Son of God is our brother, and in Him we are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers to each other. And then go and tell the world, that co-dependency, enabling, dysfunction – all the euphemisms we employ to avoid the word, “sin – they do not have the last word in our relationships. If in Christ Jesus, God has removed all the things that alienate us from God, then there is no longer any cause for alienation between us.
There is no “personal relationship” with God that does not renew our relationships with each other, and with the entire human family. The gift of the Resurrection is to be shared with everybody.
Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice! This day, and for all time, Jesus Christ conquers death, in our hearts, in our families, our Church, our community, in our world. Fear nothing!
Friday, April 10, 2009
Sermon for Good Friday
“They will look on the one whom they have pierced.”
Let us not forget that what is happening today is an injustice, of which no one is innocent. No rationalization is sufficient. As the Christian Church moved from the Holy land into the Roman Empire, it was perhaps inevitable that many Christians would try to soft-pedal the image of the Roman Governor. There is even some evidence that Pilate was treated as a heroic saint, trying desperately to save Jesus. The testimony of John, whose testimony is true, and who knows he tells the truth, allows for no such rationalizations. Gentile or Jew, we are all guilty of a gross injustice.
Jesus is a pawn in the political machinations of the Jewish Leaders and the Roman Governor. Earlier this week, Jesus went in and threw out all those selling birds to be offered by pilgrims in sacrifice. In doing so, Jesus proclaimed that no longer did the Jewish people have to come to the Temple in Jerusalem in order to worship God and to know God’s forgiving presence. It might seem like wonderful news that God is present to all people everywhere, but not to the Priesthood that could claim descent from Moses’ brother Aaron; not to the priests who kept the Temple that God had commanded Solomon to construct. They had a deep tradition to uphold, and no backwoods upstart from Nazareth could be allowed to destroy it.
Jewish law decreed that someone defying the Law given by God to Moses in this way was to be stoned to death. And the Priests would probably have been content with having Jesus stoned to death for being a “blasphemer” against God. But the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, has taken away from the Jewish leaders the power to carry out executions. Pilate’s successors would give that power back, so that the first martyrdom, of Stephen, recorded in Acts, was in fact by stoning. But today, if Jesus is to be done away with, a convincing pretext must be found to get the Romans to do the dirty deed.
And so they drag Jesus to the Praetorium, the headquarters of the Roman Governor, who has to come out to the priests, out of respect for their cultural peculiarities. A Roman governor, going out to people under his power! Not the kind of thing that Pilate would ever want to admit to his fellow Romans. But it is a small price in irritation to pay in order to keep the peace in a city stuffed to the gills with pilgrims hoping that this Passover, they might see God’s liberation.
So Pilate is hardly inclined to do these people any favors. So first he asks, “What accusation do you bring about this man?” “He’s evil.” “And…? For this you get me up at 3 am, to mediate your trivial religious disputes! Deal with him yourselves.” “But we cannot put anyone to death.”
Ah, if they’re asking for his death, then this Jesus might be guilty of sedition against the Empire. And Pilate cannot ignore that. He has to at least question the man. And so he interrogates Jesus, and after hearing such lofty phrases as, “My kingdom is not of this world…I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth,” Pilate barely suppresses a laugh as he replies, “What is truth?” Whatever kind of king this guy is, he’s no threat to Caesar.
And so the dance between Pilate and the Jewish leaders continues. The more they cry for Jesus’s death, the less Pilate wants to do anything to help them. But they have asked for his death, which at the hands of the Romans comes to those who claim to be a king against the Emperor. And so Pilate decides to use Jesus for his own purposes. He has Jesus dressed in royal purple, he is given a “crown.” And if Jesus is to be crucified, then he needs to be prepared as anyone else is to be prepared for that fate, with a thorough whipping. Then Pilate parades a beaten Jesus, still dressed in royal purple and wearing his bloody crown, before his people and sarcastically proclaims, “Behold the Man.”
But when he hears that this Jesus has “made himself the Son of God,” he becomes “very much afraid.” For the first time, he suspects that this Jesus might be more dangerous than he first thought. But he will still play this for all it’s worth, to humiliate these people he has come to despise.
He’s really no threat to the Empire, Pilate says, to which the Jewish leaders retort, “If you release this man who claims to be a king, you are no friend of Caesar.” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asks incredulously. And those charged with preserving the traditions of their ancestors take the bait. In the Passover liturgy is this declaration:
From everlasting to everlasting thou art God
Beside thee we have no king, redeemer, or savior,
No liberator, deliverer, provider
None who takes pity in every time of distress and trouble
We have no king but thee.
And throwing away their faith in the promises of their one King they say, “We have no King but Caesar.” Pilate has gotten what he wanted. Now he can dispose of Jesus.
And so we see the human drama of two political forces jockeying with each other. And between them is this innocent man. He was not blaspheming when he claimed to be the Son of God. Just a few weeks earlier, only two miles from Jerusalem, He had shown his power over life and death by his raising of Lazarus from the dead. The response? They “made plans to our Lazarus to death as well.” Pilate understood that Jesus presented no threat to him or the Emperor Tiberius. But he was a useful pawn to be sacrificed on the chessboard in order to checkmate the Jewish claims to a king of their own.
On the human level, we see this day a deep injustice: a man falsely accused, mocked, tortured, toyed with for the purposes of others, finally subjected to the horrors of being nailed, hands and feet, to a wooden Cross and left to die.
Or at least that is how all this appears to us. But look more closely, and suddenly it becomes clear that Jesus is not the pawn. He is the King, Queen, Bishop, Knight and Rook all rolled up into one. And it is the supposed masters of their universe, Pilate the tribune of Caesar, and the Priests of the Temple, who are the pawns.
See how, when he is arrested, his mere speaking drives those come to arrest him to their knees. Do not doubt Jesus’s power to escape the clutches of mere human beings. If he is arrested, it only because He chooses to be arrested. When the High Priest’s officer slaps him on the face, do we see Jesus bristling at his wounded pride, coming back with the appropriate put-down, or spitting at the man? With no sense of personal wounding, Jesus simply says, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?”
I think that what frightened Pilate more than anything was to see a man so unconcerned with his supposed “authority.” “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” To which Jesus calmly replies, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” In a sense, Jesus answered him earlier, in chapter 10: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” Hanging on the Cross, he exercises his authority as his mother’s son to transfer her care to the disciple he loved. And at the very end, after he has decreed, “It is finished,” it is Jesus who gives his spirit to the Father with whom He is one. He does not gasp for his last breath, he goes to death, confident that he has accomplished something far greater than those who plotted his apparent downfall.
What did Jesus accomplish on the cross. First, he confronts each and every one of us in this world with the knowledge of how we have hurt each other. Note the final word in today’s Passion, “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.” Never has there been a clearer act of injustice. And it shines through the millennia. And it shines on all the other injustices that we commit against each other. But the light of the Cross does not burn. It was not, and is not, our Lord and Savior’s purpose to exact revenge, but to bring about reconciliation. But reconciliation takes two, and if the one who has done the piercing does not accept the offer, then as Jesus said, they “loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil,” and that is the judgment. They are in a desperate race against that darkness, a race they are bound to lose.
But should they turn to the One they have pierced, shining down on them, they will see the truth of what they have done, and find the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation. I remember my first Kairos weekend in a Virginia prison. While one shouldn’t assume that nobody there has been wrongly convicted, there’s no doubt that most of the residents are there for having pierced someone. They are all clearly in need of forgiveness. But the central point of the weekend is when each resident writes down the ways in which they have been pierced. For the fact is that these people do not live in the same world as you or I, where we can assume that our interactions with other people are based on reciprocity, on give-and-take. If these men and women have behaved as predators and treated others as prey, well they were prey first. Well having written down the ways in which they have been pierced, on a special paper, they are invited to come to a container with water, place their paper in the water, and watch it dissolve.
The truth here is that those who need to be forgiven must first forgive others. Only when they do that, can they accept forgiveness, and begin to trust that it is possible to live in a society that is not divided between predators and prey. Only then is reconciliation possible.
The cure for injustice is reconciliation. Anything else creates a wall between us and that darkness. That wall may be made of concrete and barbed wire. It may be made by the contracting muscles in our hearts that tense up whenever we are confronted by the memory of what was done to us. We can build all the walls we want. But the darkness will break out.
What Jesus begs us to do, on this day of all days, is not to turn to our personal darkness, our sin, our anger. Let us all turn around, together, and look on Him who has been pierced for all of us.
Let us not forget that what is happening today is an injustice, of which no one is innocent. No rationalization is sufficient. As the Christian Church moved from the Holy land into the Roman Empire, it was perhaps inevitable that many Christians would try to soft-pedal the image of the Roman Governor. There is even some evidence that Pilate was treated as a heroic saint, trying desperately to save Jesus. The testimony of John, whose testimony is true, and who knows he tells the truth, allows for no such rationalizations. Gentile or Jew, we are all guilty of a gross injustice.
Jesus is a pawn in the political machinations of the Jewish Leaders and the Roman Governor. Earlier this week, Jesus went in and threw out all those selling birds to be offered by pilgrims in sacrifice. In doing so, Jesus proclaimed that no longer did the Jewish people have to come to the Temple in Jerusalem in order to worship God and to know God’s forgiving presence. It might seem like wonderful news that God is present to all people everywhere, but not to the Priesthood that could claim descent from Moses’ brother Aaron; not to the priests who kept the Temple that God had commanded Solomon to construct. They had a deep tradition to uphold, and no backwoods upstart from Nazareth could be allowed to destroy it.
Jewish law decreed that someone defying the Law given by God to Moses in this way was to be stoned to death. And the Priests would probably have been content with having Jesus stoned to death for being a “blasphemer” against God. But the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, has taken away from the Jewish leaders the power to carry out executions. Pilate’s successors would give that power back, so that the first martyrdom, of Stephen, recorded in Acts, was in fact by stoning. But today, if Jesus is to be done away with, a convincing pretext must be found to get the Romans to do the dirty deed.
And so they drag Jesus to the Praetorium, the headquarters of the Roman Governor, who has to come out to the priests, out of respect for their cultural peculiarities. A Roman governor, going out to people under his power! Not the kind of thing that Pilate would ever want to admit to his fellow Romans. But it is a small price in irritation to pay in order to keep the peace in a city stuffed to the gills with pilgrims hoping that this Passover, they might see God’s liberation.
So Pilate is hardly inclined to do these people any favors. So first he asks, “What accusation do you bring about this man?” “He’s evil.” “And…? For this you get me up at 3 am, to mediate your trivial religious disputes! Deal with him yourselves.” “But we cannot put anyone to death.”
Ah, if they’re asking for his death, then this Jesus might be guilty of sedition against the Empire. And Pilate cannot ignore that. He has to at least question the man. And so he interrogates Jesus, and after hearing such lofty phrases as, “My kingdom is not of this world…I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth,” Pilate barely suppresses a laugh as he replies, “What is truth?” Whatever kind of king this guy is, he’s no threat to Caesar.
And so the dance between Pilate and the Jewish leaders continues. The more they cry for Jesus’s death, the less Pilate wants to do anything to help them. But they have asked for his death, which at the hands of the Romans comes to those who claim to be a king against the Emperor. And so Pilate decides to use Jesus for his own purposes. He has Jesus dressed in royal purple, he is given a “crown.” And if Jesus is to be crucified, then he needs to be prepared as anyone else is to be prepared for that fate, with a thorough whipping. Then Pilate parades a beaten Jesus, still dressed in royal purple and wearing his bloody crown, before his people and sarcastically proclaims, “Behold the Man.”
But when he hears that this Jesus has “made himself the Son of God,” he becomes “very much afraid.” For the first time, he suspects that this Jesus might be more dangerous than he first thought. But he will still play this for all it’s worth, to humiliate these people he has come to despise.
He’s really no threat to the Empire, Pilate says, to which the Jewish leaders retort, “If you release this man who claims to be a king, you are no friend of Caesar.” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asks incredulously. And those charged with preserving the traditions of their ancestors take the bait. In the Passover liturgy is this declaration:
From everlasting to everlasting thou art God
Beside thee we have no king, redeemer, or savior,
No liberator, deliverer, provider
None who takes pity in every time of distress and trouble
We have no king but thee.
And throwing away their faith in the promises of their one King they say, “We have no King but Caesar.” Pilate has gotten what he wanted. Now he can dispose of Jesus.
And so we see the human drama of two political forces jockeying with each other. And between them is this innocent man. He was not blaspheming when he claimed to be the Son of God. Just a few weeks earlier, only two miles from Jerusalem, He had shown his power over life and death by his raising of Lazarus from the dead. The response? They “made plans to our Lazarus to death as well.” Pilate understood that Jesus presented no threat to him or the Emperor Tiberius. But he was a useful pawn to be sacrificed on the chessboard in order to checkmate the Jewish claims to a king of their own.
On the human level, we see this day a deep injustice: a man falsely accused, mocked, tortured, toyed with for the purposes of others, finally subjected to the horrors of being nailed, hands and feet, to a wooden Cross and left to die.
Or at least that is how all this appears to us. But look more closely, and suddenly it becomes clear that Jesus is not the pawn. He is the King, Queen, Bishop, Knight and Rook all rolled up into one. And it is the supposed masters of their universe, Pilate the tribune of Caesar, and the Priests of the Temple, who are the pawns.
See how, when he is arrested, his mere speaking drives those come to arrest him to their knees. Do not doubt Jesus’s power to escape the clutches of mere human beings. If he is arrested, it only because He chooses to be arrested. When the High Priest’s officer slaps him on the face, do we see Jesus bristling at his wounded pride, coming back with the appropriate put-down, or spitting at the man? With no sense of personal wounding, Jesus simply says, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?”
I think that what frightened Pilate more than anything was to see a man so unconcerned with his supposed “authority.” “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” To which Jesus calmly replies, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” In a sense, Jesus answered him earlier, in chapter 10: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” Hanging on the Cross, he exercises his authority as his mother’s son to transfer her care to the disciple he loved. And at the very end, after he has decreed, “It is finished,” it is Jesus who gives his spirit to the Father with whom He is one. He does not gasp for his last breath, he goes to death, confident that he has accomplished something far greater than those who plotted his apparent downfall.
What did Jesus accomplish on the cross. First, he confronts each and every one of us in this world with the knowledge of how we have hurt each other. Note the final word in today’s Passion, “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.” Never has there been a clearer act of injustice. And it shines through the millennia. And it shines on all the other injustices that we commit against each other. But the light of the Cross does not burn. It was not, and is not, our Lord and Savior’s purpose to exact revenge, but to bring about reconciliation. But reconciliation takes two, and if the one who has done the piercing does not accept the offer, then as Jesus said, they “loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil,” and that is the judgment. They are in a desperate race against that darkness, a race they are bound to lose.
But should they turn to the One they have pierced, shining down on them, they will see the truth of what they have done, and find the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation. I remember my first Kairos weekend in a Virginia prison. While one shouldn’t assume that nobody there has been wrongly convicted, there’s no doubt that most of the residents are there for having pierced someone. They are all clearly in need of forgiveness. But the central point of the weekend is when each resident writes down the ways in which they have been pierced. For the fact is that these people do not live in the same world as you or I, where we can assume that our interactions with other people are based on reciprocity, on give-and-take. If these men and women have behaved as predators and treated others as prey, well they were prey first. Well having written down the ways in which they have been pierced, on a special paper, they are invited to come to a container with water, place their paper in the water, and watch it dissolve.
The truth here is that those who need to be forgiven must first forgive others. Only when they do that, can they accept forgiveness, and begin to trust that it is possible to live in a society that is not divided between predators and prey. Only then is reconciliation possible.
The cure for injustice is reconciliation. Anything else creates a wall between us and that darkness. That wall may be made of concrete and barbed wire. It may be made by the contracting muscles in our hearts that tense up whenever we are confronted by the memory of what was done to us. We can build all the walls we want. But the darkness will break out.
What Jesus begs us to do, on this day of all days, is not to turn to our personal darkness, our sin, our anger. Let us all turn around, together, and look on Him who has been pierced for all of us.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Good Friday
“The plunge from God towards the void which man in his revolt had begun (chute in which the creature can only despair or break) Christ undertook in love…There the endlessly Beloved One of the eternal Father brushed the bottom of the pit. He penetrated to the absolute nothingness from which the “re-creation” of those already created (but falling from the source of true life toward that nothingness) was to emerge: the new heaven and new earth…
“If anyone should ask: What is certain in life and death—so certain that everything else may be anchored in it? The answer is: The love of Christ. Life teaches us that this is the only true reply. Not people—not even the best and dearest; not science, or philosophy, or art or any other product of human genius. Also not nature, which is so full of profound deception; neither time nor fate. . . .Not even simply “God”; for his wrath has been roused by sin, and how without Christ would we know what to expect from him? Only Christ’s love is certain. We cannot even say God’s love; for that God loves us we also know, ultimately, only through Christ…Only through Christ do we know that God’s love is forgiving. Certain is only that which manifested itself on the cross. What has been said so often and so inadequately is true: The heart of Jesus Christ is the beginning and end of all things.”
(Bishop Romano Guardini, The Lord)
“If anyone should ask: What is certain in life and death—so certain that everything else may be anchored in it? The answer is: The love of Christ. Life teaches us that this is the only true reply. Not people—not even the best and dearest; not science, or philosophy, or art or any other product of human genius. Also not nature, which is so full of profound deception; neither time nor fate. . . .Not even simply “God”; for his wrath has been roused by sin, and how without Christ would we know what to expect from him? Only Christ’s love is certain. We cannot even say God’s love; for that God loves us we also know, ultimately, only through Christ…Only through Christ do we know that God’s love is forgiving. Certain is only that which manifested itself on the cross. What has been said so often and so inadequately is true: The heart of Jesus Christ is the beginning and end of all things.”
(Bishop Romano Guardini, The Lord)
Renewal
In many dioceses this Maundy Thursday, men and women gather together, with their bishops, to renew the vows they made at their ordination. It was on Thursday of Holy Week that our Lord and Savior broke bread and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). One of the few things that only a Priest can do in the Episcopal Church is to preside at the holy table during the Eucharist. So, it seems appropriate for priests to renew their vows on this particular Thursday.
What vows did I make on December 16, 2007, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Burke, Virginia? “To proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ…to love and serve the people among whom you work, caring alike for young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor…to preach, to declare God’s forgiveness…to pronounce God’s blessing, to share in the administration of Holy Baptism and in the celebration of the mysteries of Christ’s Body and Blood.”
Having committed myself to these and other awesome responsibilities, Bishop David Jones then said, “May the Lord who has given you the will to do these things give you the grace and power to perform them.”
Save for one week, I have been with you all for three months now. You all have begun to see how I try, and hopefully, succeed in the fulfillment of these vows more often than not. Bishop Jones’s words are a reminder that I will not always succeed, and never by my own efforts alone. It’s a strange profession to enter, in which you start with the assumption that your best will not be enough to guarantee success. In our achievement-driven culture, in a superpower country used to “winning,” it might even seem as foolish as the Cross (1 Cor 1:18).
The truth is that we who dare to stand before that hanging cross in the church know that it is the “self-sufficient” who are the fools. We know our need, of God, and our brothers and sisters in Christ. To make my best effort on behalf of you all; to accept the responsibility when I don’t succeed; and to praise God when I succeed, is my calling. And I thank you all for giving me the opportunity to fulfill God’s call.
What vows did I make on December 16, 2007, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Burke, Virginia? “To proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ…to love and serve the people among whom you work, caring alike for young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor…to preach, to declare God’s forgiveness…to pronounce God’s blessing, to share in the administration of Holy Baptism and in the celebration of the mysteries of Christ’s Body and Blood.”
Having committed myself to these and other awesome responsibilities, Bishop David Jones then said, “May the Lord who has given you the will to do these things give you the grace and power to perform them.”
Save for one week, I have been with you all for three months now. You all have begun to see how I try, and hopefully, succeed in the fulfillment of these vows more often than not. Bishop Jones’s words are a reminder that I will not always succeed, and never by my own efforts alone. It’s a strange profession to enter, in which you start with the assumption that your best will not be enough to guarantee success. In our achievement-driven culture, in a superpower country used to “winning,” it might even seem as foolish as the Cross (1 Cor 1:18).
The truth is that we who dare to stand before that hanging cross in the church know that it is the “self-sufficient” who are the fools. We know our need, of God, and our brothers and sisters in Christ. To make my best effort on behalf of you all; to accept the responsibility when I don’t succeed; and to praise God when I succeed, is my calling. And I thank you all for giving me the opportunity to fulfill God’s call.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Reading for Wednesday of Holy Week
John 13:21-35
“Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him." (John 13:27)
And so begins the final battle between the forces of good and evil, a battle not just on Earth, but in Heaven as well. One of the most striking aspects of the Mel Gibson film, “The Passion of the Christ,” was its eerie, almost attractive portrayal of Satan, who walked unseen, except to those who had made contact with him, Jesus and Judas.
Sadly, Satan has been sensationalized through the centuries as a tormenting demon, the stuff of horror movies and nightmares. Read the beginning of Job, and you see Satan as just one of the “sons of God.” But this son is not happy with the human beings that God has created. Yes, Job may be righteous, but only because God has blessed him. Take away the blessings, and he will curse God. At heart, Satan is, in the original meaning of the Hebrew word, the Accuser – the one who accuses humanity as not worthy of God’s love, and God as overly indulgent.
Not all accusation is wrong. In 1898, the French author Emile Zola published J’Accuse (“I Accuse) in a French newspaper. He accused the French government of railroading the French Captain Alfred Dreyfuss into prison on the false charge of espionage, based solely on the fact that he was a Jew. Sometimes, accusation is based on a genuine moral outrage that is not tainted by self-interest.
But more often, I suspect, accusation is based in the anxiety of the person doing the accusing. Indeed, there was much anxiety in French society in the 1890s about their German enemy. Dreyfuss became a convenient outlet for that national anxiety. The basis for the accusation against Jesus was national anxiety on the part of the Jewish leaders: “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48).
As we move closer to the Cross, let us examine ourselves, our anxieties, and be careful not to dump those anxieties on someone else. Accusation will not relieve us of those burdens. There is only one person who will bear all those anxieties, and our accusations, all the way to Calvary.
“Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him." (John 13:27)
And so begins the final battle between the forces of good and evil, a battle not just on Earth, but in Heaven as well. One of the most striking aspects of the Mel Gibson film, “The Passion of the Christ,” was its eerie, almost attractive portrayal of Satan, who walked unseen, except to those who had made contact with him, Jesus and Judas.
Sadly, Satan has been sensationalized through the centuries as a tormenting demon, the stuff of horror movies and nightmares. Read the beginning of Job, and you see Satan as just one of the “sons of God.” But this son is not happy with the human beings that God has created. Yes, Job may be righteous, but only because God has blessed him. Take away the blessings, and he will curse God. At heart, Satan is, in the original meaning of the Hebrew word, the Accuser – the one who accuses humanity as not worthy of God’s love, and God as overly indulgent.
Not all accusation is wrong. In 1898, the French author Emile Zola published J’Accuse (“I Accuse) in a French newspaper. He accused the French government of railroading the French Captain Alfred Dreyfuss into prison on the false charge of espionage, based solely on the fact that he was a Jew. Sometimes, accusation is based on a genuine moral outrage that is not tainted by self-interest.
But more often, I suspect, accusation is based in the anxiety of the person doing the accusing. Indeed, there was much anxiety in French society in the 1890s about their German enemy. Dreyfuss became a convenient outlet for that national anxiety. The basis for the accusation against Jesus was national anxiety on the part of the Jewish leaders: “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48).
As we move closer to the Cross, let us examine ourselves, our anxieties, and be careful not to dump those anxieties on someone else. Accusation will not relieve us of those burdens. There is only one person who will bear all those anxieties, and our accusations, all the way to Calvary.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Reading for Tuesday of Holy Week
John 12:20-36
“The light is among you still, but not for long. Go on your way while you still have the light…After these words, Jesus went away from them into hiding" (John 12:35-36—Revised English Bible)
The next time that Jesus has anything to say in public, he is being arrested. In John’s Gospel, this is Jesus’s last word to the world. What is his word? Companionship. Jesus is the “light of the world” (Jn 9:5). And he will not be in this world for long. The plans have been made for his arrest, show trial, and execution. Yet he is still here for a few days. So come to his light, and go with him while you still have time to reach a deeper understanding of Jesus’s message.
In a sense, Jesus’s last word is his first word. “When the two disciples heard what [John the Baptist] said, they followed Jesus…’What are you looking for?’ he asked. They said, ‘Rabbi,’ where are you staying?’ ‘Come and see,’ he replied” (Jn 1:37-39). Jesus certainly has had much to teach, and preach. But what he has to offer, more than anything else, is his loving presence. Even now, having said so much, and faced so much incomprehension, and rejection, Jesus implores his listeners thus: Alright, you don’t get my message. Just walk with me for awhile. You’re welcome to walk with me, even if you don’t understand me or agree with me.
There is certainly a lot of “content” to our Church, which is the Eucharistic Body of Christ in the world. There is doctrine to be understood, and teaching to be done. But we do not “test” anyone on their comprehension. We do not give out grades. We offer our message, but first and foremost, we offer our presence. We don’t wag a finger, we offer an open hand. Come and see.
“The light is among you still, but not for long. Go on your way while you still have the light…After these words, Jesus went away from them into hiding" (John 12:35-36—Revised English Bible)
The next time that Jesus has anything to say in public, he is being arrested. In John’s Gospel, this is Jesus’s last word to the world. What is his word? Companionship. Jesus is the “light of the world” (Jn 9:5). And he will not be in this world for long. The plans have been made for his arrest, show trial, and execution. Yet he is still here for a few days. So come to his light, and go with him while you still have time to reach a deeper understanding of Jesus’s message.
In a sense, Jesus’s last word is his first word. “When the two disciples heard what [John the Baptist] said, they followed Jesus…’What are you looking for?’ he asked. They said, ‘Rabbi,’ where are you staying?’ ‘Come and see,’ he replied” (Jn 1:37-39). Jesus certainly has had much to teach, and preach. But what he has to offer, more than anything else, is his loving presence. Even now, having said so much, and faced so much incomprehension, and rejection, Jesus implores his listeners thus: Alright, you don’t get my message. Just walk with me for awhile. You’re welcome to walk with me, even if you don’t understand me or agree with me.
There is certainly a lot of “content” to our Church, which is the Eucharistic Body of Christ in the world. There is doctrine to be understood, and teaching to be done. But we do not “test” anyone on their comprehension. We do not give out grades. We offer our message, but first and foremost, we offer our presence. We don’t wag a finger, we offer an open hand. Come and see.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Reading for Monday of Holy Week
John 12:1-12
“So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well.” (John 12:10)
Poor, poor Lazarus. John does not record the actual deed. But if Jesus’s enemies were efficient enough to get Jesus killed, it seems a safe assumption that they were equally efficient in disposing of Lazarus. Only days after being brought back from the dead, Lazarus would join Jesus in being murdered. So, a man shows that he has such power as to raise the dead. Does this convince his enemies to listen to his teachings, and be guided by his direction? No, it only persuades them to eliminate all evidence of that power.
As we walk the Way of the Cross with Jesus this week, we start with those who were responsible for his crucifixion. Why such virulent, hard-hearted opposition? John gives this as explanation: “So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Council and said…‘If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation’” (John 11:47-48).
The priests were the leaders of the people chosen by God from the time of Moses. They were responsible for the Temple where God housed himself among his people. And yet, Rome collected the taxes. Rome had the soldiers. And the power. And so the Priests tried to placate both sides – the people impatient for justice, and the Romans who wanted order. They feared that Jesus would start a popular rebellion that the Romans would crush, along with the Temple, and the dreams of the nation of Israel, which would cease to exist.
It was an old dream they had. Jesus was trying to expand their vision to a new dream, of God present in all the world, and not just in one single temple. But the dreams of the Jewish leaders had been reduced to self-preservation. And what of us? What might we be so intent on preserving, in our country, in our church, to the point that we lose sight of the bigger vision?
The message of Jesus Christ is a message of new possibilities, of old certainties overturned. It has been jokingly said that the last seven words of the Creed are, “We have always done it that way.” Let not that be said of us.
“So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well.” (John 12:10)
Poor, poor Lazarus. John does not record the actual deed. But if Jesus’s enemies were efficient enough to get Jesus killed, it seems a safe assumption that they were equally efficient in disposing of Lazarus. Only days after being brought back from the dead, Lazarus would join Jesus in being murdered. So, a man shows that he has such power as to raise the dead. Does this convince his enemies to listen to his teachings, and be guided by his direction? No, it only persuades them to eliminate all evidence of that power.
As we walk the Way of the Cross with Jesus this week, we start with those who were responsible for his crucifixion. Why such virulent, hard-hearted opposition? John gives this as explanation: “So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Council and said…‘If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation’” (John 11:47-48).
The priests were the leaders of the people chosen by God from the time of Moses. They were responsible for the Temple where God housed himself among his people. And yet, Rome collected the taxes. Rome had the soldiers. And the power. And so the Priests tried to placate both sides – the people impatient for justice, and the Romans who wanted order. They feared that Jesus would start a popular rebellion that the Romans would crush, along with the Temple, and the dreams of the nation of Israel, which would cease to exist.
It was an old dream they had. Jesus was trying to expand their vision to a new dream, of God present in all the world, and not just in one single temple. But the dreams of the Jewish leaders had been reduced to self-preservation. And what of us? What might we be so intent on preserving, in our country, in our church, to the point that we lose sight of the bigger vision?
The message of Jesus Christ is a message of new possibilities, of old certainties overturned. It has been jokingly said that the last seven words of the Creed are, “We have always done it that way.” Let not that be said of us.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Reading for Friday, 5th Week of Lent
Romans 11:25-39
“For without regret are the gifts and calling of God.” (Rom 11:29)
Next week, of course, is Holy Week. And so in the Daily Office Lectionary, we conclude our journey through Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
Throughout this letter, Paul has tried to convince Jews and Gentiles that they are lost in their sin, and have no power to help themselves. But the One who has the power to judge will even give himself, in Jesus Christ, to satisfy divine justice (Rom 3:23-26). Even when we accept the Good News, but fall short of the life of grace, God’s own Spirit helps us in our weakness, so that “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Rom 8:28).
This week, we have seen how God deals with outright rejection: with timeless patience. We still have yet to see how the fulfillment of God’s promises to the children of Abraham will happen. Yesterday, we heard Paul’s warning to the Gentile Christians not to become smug toward the Jewish people. Sadly, far too often, we Christians have been exactly that.
But Paul knew the depth of God’s grace in his own life. And if he was here today, I believe that he would continue to trust God’s grace to set things right, to bring about a time when there would no longer be any need to “regret” the wrongs we have done to each other. God in his mercy does not sneak a look back at some old memory of hurt. God does not pick at the old scar.
As we prepare to walk with Jesus on his journey to the Cross, regret is appropriate for us. But let us remember that for God, regret is not the last word. That last word is Grace.
“For without regret are the gifts and calling of God.” (Rom 11:29)
Next week, of course, is Holy Week. And so in the Daily Office Lectionary, we conclude our journey through Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
Throughout this letter, Paul has tried to convince Jews and Gentiles that they are lost in their sin, and have no power to help themselves. But the One who has the power to judge will even give himself, in Jesus Christ, to satisfy divine justice (Rom 3:23-26). Even when we accept the Good News, but fall short of the life of grace, God’s own Spirit helps us in our weakness, so that “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Rom 8:28).
This week, we have seen how God deals with outright rejection: with timeless patience. We still have yet to see how the fulfillment of God’s promises to the children of Abraham will happen. Yesterday, we heard Paul’s warning to the Gentile Christians not to become smug toward the Jewish people. Sadly, far too often, we Christians have been exactly that.
But Paul knew the depth of God’s grace in his own life. And if he was here today, I believe that he would continue to trust God’s grace to set things right, to bring about a time when there would no longer be any need to “regret” the wrongs we have done to each other. God in his mercy does not sneak a look back at some old memory of hurt. God does not pick at the old scar.
As we prepare to walk with Jesus on his journey to the Cross, regret is appropriate for us. But let us remember that for God, regret is not the last word. That last word is Grace.
Reading for Thursday, 5th Week of Lent
Romans 11:13-24
“For if you were cut off from your native wild olive and against nature grafted into the cultivated olive, how much more readily will they, the natural olive branches , be grafted into their native stock!” (Rom 11:24 – Revised English Bible)
Hopefully, you’ve gotten Paul’s metaphor. The Gentiles were the wild olives who were grafted onto the cultivated olive tree that was the people of Israel. For now, the Jewish branches have been cut off to make room for the wild olives. But as far as God is concerned, there is nothing about his creation that is “natural,” or to put it another way, immutable, that is, not open to change. The Gentiles were changed by God’s grace from wild olives to cultivated olives. And if, for now, the Jews have become wild, they could just as easily be regrafted, and the Gentiles cut off.
As creatures of God, we all were created with a certain “nature.” That nature is God’s gift. But we are also connected to this broken world. And as we grow and are exposed to the fallen nature of this world, our “nature” changes accordingly. Hopefully, as we accept and grow in God’s grace, our nature is changed back into that which God gave us at our beginning.
There was a time in my life when I was quite defensive about my opinions and outlook on life. I started observing the tradition of the Daily Office in the late 90s. I joined an Education for Ministry group in 2000, and was exposed to viewpoints different from my own. I can’t pinpoint when the change occurred. But thanks to prayer and the fellowship of ministries like Cursillo and EfM, at some point, I came to recognize a peace within me that allowed for disagreement without those different views becoming a personal threat. My nature was changed.
May all of us grow in God’s grace as he slowly, but surely, grafts us to the tree of eternal life.
“For if you were cut off from your native wild olive and against nature grafted into the cultivated olive, how much more readily will they, the natural olive branches , be grafted into their native stock!” (Rom 11:24 – Revised English Bible)
Hopefully, you’ve gotten Paul’s metaphor. The Gentiles were the wild olives who were grafted onto the cultivated olive tree that was the people of Israel. For now, the Jewish branches have been cut off to make room for the wild olives. But as far as God is concerned, there is nothing about his creation that is “natural,” or to put it another way, immutable, that is, not open to change. The Gentiles were changed by God’s grace from wild olives to cultivated olives. And if, for now, the Jews have become wild, they could just as easily be regrafted, and the Gentiles cut off.
As creatures of God, we all were created with a certain “nature.” That nature is God’s gift. But we are also connected to this broken world. And as we grow and are exposed to the fallen nature of this world, our “nature” changes accordingly. Hopefully, as we accept and grow in God’s grace, our nature is changed back into that which God gave us at our beginning.
There was a time in my life when I was quite defensive about my opinions and outlook on life. I started observing the tradition of the Daily Office in the late 90s. I joined an Education for Ministry group in 2000, and was exposed to viewpoints different from my own. I can’t pinpoint when the change occurred. But thanks to prayer and the fellowship of ministries like Cursillo and EfM, at some point, I came to recognize a peace within me that allowed for disagreement without those different views becoming a personal threat. My nature was changed.
May all of us grow in God’s grace as he slowly, but surely, grafts us to the tree of eternal life.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Reading for Wednesday, 5th Week of Lent
Romans 11:1-12
“Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?” (Rom 11:12 – King James Version)
Curiously, most modern translations get this verse wrong. Mostly they conclude with phrases such as “full inclusion,” suggesting that Paul is looking to the day when the people of Israel will become Christians. Maybe, but the old King James gets this verse right when it doesn’t try to modify or explain what Paul means when he speaks of the Jews’ “fullness.”
Before that, Paul speaks of all the people of the world having been enriched by the failure of his Jewish kindred to comprehend that Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of God’s promises to them, his chosen people. Perhaps Paul is saying that just as the Gentiles have been “enriched” by the Good News of Jesus Christ, so shall the Jews. But having tried, and failed, to persuade his Jewish brothers and sisters of this Gospel; perhaps Paul has come to understand that God’s purpose for the people of Israel is not necessarily their “inclusion” in the right club or organization.
Two millennia later, we who belong to the Church must also face doubt, skepticism and outright rejection. Do we therefore pray for their eventual “inclusion” in the Church? Or must our mission and prayer be simply for their “fullness,” their enrichment by God, even if that enrichment comes in ways that may be outside the Church?
“Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?” (Rom 11:12 – King James Version)
Curiously, most modern translations get this verse wrong. Mostly they conclude with phrases such as “full inclusion,” suggesting that Paul is looking to the day when the people of Israel will become Christians. Maybe, but the old King James gets this verse right when it doesn’t try to modify or explain what Paul means when he speaks of the Jews’ “fullness.”
Before that, Paul speaks of all the people of the world having been enriched by the failure of his Jewish kindred to comprehend that Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of God’s promises to them, his chosen people. Perhaps Paul is saying that just as the Gentiles have been “enriched” by the Good News of Jesus Christ, so shall the Jews. But having tried, and failed, to persuade his Jewish brothers and sisters of this Gospel; perhaps Paul has come to understand that God’s purpose for the people of Israel is not necessarily their “inclusion” in the right club or organization.
Two millennia later, we who belong to the Church must also face doubt, skepticism and outright rejection. Do we therefore pray for their eventual “inclusion” in the Church? Or must our mission and prayer be simply for their “fullness,” their enrichment by God, even if that enrichment comes in ways that may be outside the Church?
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