The Gospel According to Ben Lee

May all in Albertville know that we're all in this together

Good Shepherd Sunday, in the Aftermath

This is not the sermon I planned to deliver this morning. I had finished a sermon, and even scheduled its posting on the Christ Church Blog: before the siren, the lights going out and the dead air of calm that told me something was terribly wrong. Laura and I got into the interior bathroom with no windows just before the explosion of glass and crash of ceiling that made for the longest ten seconds of our lives. Afterward, Laura and I found the Simmons safe next door, and we gave thanks that no one in our families had been hurt.

Russ got out in the dark, and left me with the reassuring news that the only damage to the church appeared to be a gash in the roof. When we arrived at the church this morning, in the cold daylight, the sad truth became clear: a much bigger hole in the roof, the two side walls of the church both leaning inward, and the entire structure having shifted to the left of the foundation. The 15 or so of us who were lucky enough to get through the trees and traffic stops got the most valuable things out – the altar, the patens and chalices, the prayer books and hymnals – and then we stayed out of a teetering nave.

And then we did what Christians have always done. We broke bread in remembrance, to recall the Resurrected Jesus so that He would be as present with us as he was with his first disciples. In joy and sorrow, war and peace, life and death, Jesus's disciples have obeyed the command He gave us at the Last Supper. We did so in the garden. In the coming weeks, we shall do so in Founders' hall, which escaped the howling winds. Wherever we have bread and wine and faithful people, we shall be able to celebrate the Holy Eucharist.

This Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday. We heard Jesus say, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27). The Good Shepherd called us to that holy place. It is a place of suffering. We all cried at the loss, the more than 100 years of faithful memories come to this sad place. We wept at our loss, and we shall do so again. It is right to grieve, just as Jesus's friends grieved the loss of their Lord and friend.

But the Good Shepherd lives, in each of us who are humble enough to be called his sheep. And his voice of love speaks through each of us who love each other in the name of Jesus Christ. And from that love, our parish will rise. We still have a beautiful and functional space, for worship and service to each other and the suffering community around us. And from the love that has brought Christ Episcopal Church thus far, our Good Shepherd will rise again through each one of us. I look forward to seeing that resurrection with all of you, whom I love dearly, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

A Passion for Christian Unity, Day 2

Day 2 of the Workshop was mainly devoted to a Bible Study led by Bruce Chilton, an Episcopal priest who is also fluent in Aramaic, the language spoken by the Jews of ancient Palestine in the time of Jesus. Since it is different meanings of the Eucharist that often define the differences between denominations, Chilton's focus was the different understandings of the Eucharist in the New Testament. He presented five models, which I've simplified into five functions of what the Holy Eucharist does for, and to us.

1. Celebration. The Eucharist is a celebration of God's kingdom in the world: a kingdom in which truth and mercy are no longer opposed to each other, a kingdom where more and more and people are fed physically and spiritually. That need to celebrate God's reign in our world is one reason I bid you all to stand after communion. We have been nourished by Jesus and now we are ready to charge out into the world, strengthened to feed those around us.

2. Atonement. The Eucharist is the means by which we are reconciled to God and our sins forgiven. When we repeat Jesus's words at the Last Supper, we recall his sacrifice for the sins of the world and receive the blessed assurance that we are no longer separated from God.

3. Fellowship. In the Eucharist we become "living members," that is, arms and legs of Jesus's Body. In that same action we also become living members of each other, bound together in a loving fellowship in which we become mothers and brothers and sisters and children of each other. And in that Eucharistic fellowship we care for each other.

4. Joining. When we share in the bread and cup, we join that community which confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. More particularly, we join that part of the Church called Episcopal, with its own particular understanding of the Christian faith and its customs that seem quite peculiar in this region.

5. Union. In the holy Eucharist, each of us becomes one with Jesus Christ. And in that incredible mystery, Jesus is as present to each one of us today as he was 2,000 years ago. And that, my friends, is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Which of those functions do you think our Eucharistic celebration best serves at Christ Church? Which of those functions speaks to your deepest need in Sunday? Perhaps Chilton's explanation doesn't quite fit your experience of the Holy Eucharist. What happens to you, and for you, on Sunday morning? The better we understand what we bring to the Lord's Table, the more we will receive from our Lord.

I have two workshops to attend tomorrow morning, then Laura and I are flying home. See you all Sunday.

A Passion for Christian Unity, Day 1

Here I am the National Workshop on Christian Unity, one of the premier "ecumenical" events in the country. "Ecumenical" means "universal." The Ecumenical movement has included Christian leaders from all denominations to understand each other better, and to achieve as much unity in the Church of Christ as possible. I'm here because I'm the Diocesan Officer for Ecumenical/Interfaith Relations, a position in which Bishop Parsley asked me to serve. Some are here for the 3rd, 4th, 10th time. Clearly, the breaking down of denominational walls is a passion for them. I confess that it wasn't as much a passion for me.

Over these past six years I have lived out greater disagreement within my own denomination than with other denominations. So much of my development as an ordained minister has been in the context of conflict and schism. From my internship with a parish that voted to leave The Episcopal Church (TEC) to my time with loyal Episcopalians forced to leave their church home, I had to develop a strong sense of what it meant to me to identify myself as an Episcopal priest.

As a result, I've found myself compelled to emphasize the strengths of TEC. I think that we Episcopalians try harder than any other Christian denomination to balance a healthy respect for tradition and an equally healthy respect for innovation. I think we try mightily to respect the basic statements of our Christian faith (the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds) and equally respect the individual spiritual journeys of those who explore their questions about those creeds. As a still new Episcopal priest, I have felt called to emphasize what it is that makes us Episcopal in my teaching and preaching. Now that I'm swimming in a sea of evangelical Protestantism, I often feel even more pressured to defend the Episcopal Church as "Christian." I want the children before me on Sunday to stay in TEC as they mature.

On this first day at the National Workshop of Christian Unity, I've felt a bit like the deep sea diver coming up from deep water and having to decompress, and finally coming up on a wide sunny shore, unsure of my bearings. Hearing Roman Catholic Archbishop Wilton Gregory deliver the keynote address has reminded me of those years when the Roman Catholic Church was my spiritual home. This afternoon I heard some good news that Episcopalians and Methodists may be getting past our mutual misunderstandings. This might actually allow us and Methodists to celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper together!

And tonight, The Episcopal Eucharist saw Episcopalians and Christians from other denominations join together, since non-Roman Catholics can't receive communion at their Eucharist. But a Nun came to our service, as an ecumenical sign of the unity we all desire. She could not take communion but she was with us in spirit. I loved our Episcopal worship tonight. But I am reminded this week that my mission, our mission, is ultimately not to make everybody Episcopalians, but to make everybody children of the Father.

The Daily Office: 3rd Week of Easter

Mon. – Exodus. 18:13-27
Tue. – Ex. 19:1-16
Wed. – Ex. 19:16-25
Thurs. – Ex. 20:1-21
Fri. – Ex. 24:1-18
Sat. – Ex. 25:1-22

This week, we look at the Old Testament, the beginning of the story of God's relationship with the human race, that began with one tiny nation, and ends with the Savior of the world. At this point of the story, the people of Israel have been liberated from Egyptian slavery, as we have all been liberated from the fear of death by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The inevitable question, after the gaining of new-found freedom is, Now what? This week, the people of Israel get their answer at Mount Sinai.

First, God says to the Israelites, "you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Ex 19:6). All the people of Israel are to be priests, who mediate between God and the people so that God saves the people on whose behalf the Israelites mediate. But just whom are the Israelites mediating salvation to, each other? No, the people of Israel are to be "holy," that is set apart, so that their light will shine for all people to see and be saved from the futile worship of man-made idols. The Israelites are to be a holy people. But they are not to stew in their own personal holiness. They are to make all people holy. But to do that, they must still stand apart as a distinctive people, worshipers of the One God who is Lord of all. That is the tension between holiness and priesthood. You can't be content to stand apart from the poor sinners and feel superior. But to help them, you have to offer a clear alternative to their current set of values and choices.

So, what values are the Israelites to offer to the rest of the nations? They are set out in the Ten Commandments, presented this week to Moses and Israel. They give a clear direction to the Israelites. At the same time, they are more than a checklist of dos and don'ts. Many scholars have noted that the first five delineate our obligations to God, while the second five spell out our obligations to each other. One of my clergy colleagues, Kevin Phillips, has highlighted how the 1st and the 6th, the 2nd and 7th, and so on, actually speak to the same Root Value. Key to making the Ten Commandments more than a checklist, or political platform, is understanding the Five Root Values that underlie the Ten Commandments. Some 3,500 years later, those values endure as sure guides for us in these changing times.

Sermon, 3rd Sunday of Easter

That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" (John 21:7)

How do we know something to be true, to be real?  How do we know anything to be true, to be real?  More to the point of today's sermon, how can we know the Resurrection to be true, to be real?  Last Sunday I said that if the Resurrection is real, then a whole new universe has been created, as real as the universe in which we live with its Newtonian laws of motion and inertia and gravity.  This new universe has its own laws.  Judging by the appearances of our risen Lord, its laws don't have much respect for the laws of space and matter which we material creatures are bound to accept.

So how are we to recognize the Resurrection when it appears to us?  If any lesson is to be learned from the resurrected Jesus, it is that He is not bound by the limits of our time and flesh.  He can take on any appearance, any outward form.  And He can show himself at any time, in any form.  The resurrected Jesus appeared then and He appears now.  How do we recognize Him?  How will know that it's Him?  What if he appears as a her?  Would we recognize the same resurrected Lord?  How would we know?

Is the Resurrection something we can examine "objectively," without our perception being colored by our emotional involvement in the object?  Or is the Resurrection something we can know only in our hearts, a "subjective" knowledge?  As many post-modern writers claim; it is difficult if not impossible for anyone to achieve an objective understanding of something, separate from our emotional attachment to that thing.  We know from the science of physics that our very observation of microscopic atoms can actually change the motion of those particles.  A man, who just appears out of thin air, looking completely unlike what he looked like yesterday, and then disappearing in a flash, is hardly a suitable object for scientific examination.  But if the Resurrection is only "true" as I "know" it in my heart; then this "subjective" knowledge does not justify the outlandish claim made earlier of a new world, a new creation with laws as irresistible as the laws of the universe in which we live day by day.

In the conclusion of the Gospel of the Beloved Disciple, we see once again the new creation breaking into the old.  We see the same challenge of recognition and knowledge.  We see Peter and the other disciples out all night on the Sea of Tiberias with not one fish to show for all their labor.  We see a stranger on the shore, but who seems to know them.  "Children," He calls them, "do you have any fish?  No?  Then try throwing your net on the other side."  Why in the world would one find fish in this one spot in the entire lake, just on the other side of where found no fish, much less in the entire lake they've been wandering over all night?  It's a wonder they didn't tell the stranger to stick his advice where the sun don't shine.

Thankfully they take the stranger's advice, and toss their net on the other side, and get the fish story to end all fish stories – 153 in all – with a net so heavy they can't even pull it up into the boat.  And now we see again, "the disciple whom Jesus loved."  The disciple who was apparently Jesus's best friend: the disciple who seemed to best understand what Jesus was really about.  Was that disciple John, the son of Zebedee and brother of James, one of the Twelve leading apostles?  Tradition says that the Beloved Disciple and the Apostle John are the same person.  But John, apparently, doesn't care for the readers of his Gospel to identify him as a leader of the Church.  What is most important is that he be recognized as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

It is love that recognizes the abundance, the overwhelming blessing and gift that is felt in this world but can come only from that other world.  Love is the bridge between the old and new creation.  The stranger on the shore is just another object to be regarded with skepticism.  The risen Lord is the One who loves us more than anyone else in this world could ever love us.  And when we recognize those gifts of love that come to us without warning, we recognize Resurrection.  Does this sound like I'm just retreating back into subjectivism ?  Am I just saying that we'll know the risen Jesus when we feel him?  Am I still stuck in the tension between objective knowledge and subjective knowledge?  Absolutely not.  Love is never subjective.  Love always requires at least two persons: a lover and a beloved.  There is no subjective love without the object of that love.  To love someone is to know their existence with certainty.  To love is to know.

Some two millennia, a group of people knew Jesus of Nazareth, and they loved him before his physical death.  And amazingly, their love became more intense after he died.  Why, because they recognized him.  It wasn't always easy to recognize him.  But whenever they saw the unexpected gift, of intimate conversation on the road to Emmaus, of an enormous catch of fish in the sea of Tiberias, they recognized their resurrected friend, and they dared not examine or question him.  They knew the one they loved, and who loved them.

What are the laws of this new creation called Resurrection?  You do not look for it in the expected or the routine.  Resurrection blooms in our lives when we least expect it.  So, how do you recognize the unexpected?  When you receive a surprise, a blessing you had not expected, there is Resurrection.  When you yourself become that unexpected blessing, there is Resurrection.  Wherever you encounter love, there is the Lover.  There is the risen Christ.  There is the new creation.  There is the Lord, and Lover, of all.

Sermon, 2nd Sunday of Easter

On my bookshelf is a book by N.T. Wright, the leading Anglican scholar on the New Testament today.  That book is called The Resurrection of the Son of God.  For 700 plus pages, Bishop Wright painstakingly argues, against all plausibility, that the most reasonable explanation for everything that happened in Jerusalem in the days after Jesus's death is that He rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples.  I'm sure that for many modern people, 7,000 pages wouldn't be enough to persuade them that Jesus's Resurrection actually happened.  I am more than happy to commend Wright's book to anyone for their summer beach reading.  His detailed argument certainly has its place in the debate between believers and skeptics. 

But ultimately, The Resurrection is not an argument to be won, a proposition to be believed, nor a doctrine to be defended.  I don't mean to say that it isn't any of these things.  I would not be here if I didn't trust that Jesus Christ was physically raised from the dead.  But how many of us have gotten ourselves out of bed on a beautiful weekend morning just to win a debate?  To believe in the risen Christ is to trust Him.  To trust Him is to move away from whatever theory, ideology or philosophy that we have devised to manufacture our own purpose.  To trust Him is to decide that only in the Resurrection will we find meaning and purpose in our life.

Does this mean that we accept the Resurrection blindly with no proof other than how we feel?  No.  The Gospel accounts of the Resurrection inspire many questions for which we reasonably seek answers.  What is resurrection?  What was the resurrected Jesus like?  On the one hand, he seems to have none of the limitations of a physical body.  You never see him coming from anywhere.  He just appears, seemingly out of thin air.  Other times, he's right in front of people, and they have no idea that it's him; until in a flash they recognize him, and poof, he disappears again.  That's not like any physical body we've seen.  So maybe the disciples just projected all of their inward grief, and hope, into some hallucinations.  That's one way people have found to get around the Resurrection of the Body.  But the Gospels won't allow us that neat psychological explanation.  This Jesus who appears in locked rooms out of nowhere, and disappears just as instantly as he appeared, also eats fish.  You can feel the breath blowing from his lungs.  He invites witnesses to stick their fingers into his open wounds.  You can't get more physical than that.

N.T. Wright has coined the word, "transphysical" to describe the body of the risen Jesus.  It remains physical, something you can touch, but somehow transformed, no longer bound by the rules of space and motion of this physical world.  In this world, everything must move from one place to another.  And when you are in the place to which you moved, you are no longer in the place you were unless you move back.  But that physical law didn't apply to the risen Jesus.  But that didn't make him any less physical, any less tangible, and any less present.  We who call ourselves Christians are suggesting that something happened about 2,000 years ago, that had never happened before, and has not happened since.  We are suggesting something so radical, so seemingly impossible, and so untrustworthy, that either we should be laughed off as lunatics, or else everything we call "normal" must be laughed away as ludicrous.  Over the next two Sundays, I hope that we can grasp what it means for each of us to live in this new transphysical world of Resurrection.

At the center of today's Gospel stands Thomas, who stands for the skeptic, the scientist, the historian who needs the evidence before he can place his trust in anyone's claims.  Thomas is probably the one who most needed to be in that room on that first Sunday.  He needs the proof.  No we believers might say, how silly to ask for proof of resurrection.  Except that resurrection is a transphysical process.  And that which is physical is usually something that can be proven, or disproven, by observation.  What if the Jewish leaders had opened Jesus's tomb, only to find a corpse wrapped in the same bloodied burial cloths?  Would we even know who Jesus was?  Would we be here on a Sunday morning? 

That we are here is evidence that after Jesus was crucified, his tomb was found to be empty.  The question that must be answered by believers and skeptics alike is: Where was he?  We are here because his disciples testified to his Resurrection as the explanation for the empty tomb.  And enough people were convinced by that testimony to hand it down to their children, and so one and so on.  Is the empty tomb, and the disciples' witness, by itself proof that Jesus rose from the dead?  No; but it does mean that those who testified to what they saw that first Easter morning cannot be immediately dismissed as lunatics.

Still, what they testify to is outlandish to say the least.  Thomas has spent three years with these people following Jesus.  If he thought they all were crazy before this, presumably he would have left them earlier.  They are his best friends.  Thomas knows they're not crazy.  But he sure knows how crazy they sound.  A man who is dead, dead, dead.  And suddenly he just appears in this room.  A dead man whose breath you can feel.  It is not possible, and I will not believe it until I have the only proof that counts, a body that I can touch.  And so, one week later, to the day, Thomas sees exactly what his friends saw: a body that just appears in an instant with no idea where it came from.  And what a body it is.  Go ahead Thomas.  Reach out with your finger, and look at my hands.  Reach out with your hand and put it into my side, if that is what you need to believe in me.  But don't doubt me, Thomas.  Trust me that I have rewritten the laws of the physical world.  Trust me that the cycle of life and death has been broken.  Trust me that you were not made to die, but to be resurrected.

One of the best known depictions of this Biblical scene comes from the Renaissance painter Caravaggio.  In it, you see two of the disciples seizing Thomas's right hand and forcing his finger into Jesus's open wound.  But look closely at the scripture.  Does the author of the Gospel say that Thomas took up Jesus's invitation?  No.  Without that physical examination, Thomas could still have convinced himself that he was hallucinating.  To touch the wounded body would have been the surest proof that He who was crucified and who died, was alive again.  But Thomas no longer insists on the physical proof.  He chooses to trust.  He now trusts that this man who has conquered death can only be, "my Lord and my God." 

Neither he nor his fellow disciples know all the laws of this new transphysical world into which they are following Jesus.  Two millennia later, we're still figuring out those rules.  If we who have not seen but believed are still trying to figure out those rules, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that there are those who doubt today.  Remember that Doubting Thomas's friends kept faith with him.  And Jesus came to make room for Doubting Thomas.  So we can certainly make room for the doubters today.  Jesus Christ doesn't need us to win an argument about His Resurrection.  He just needs us to keep the doors unlocked and open to all honest seekers of the truth.  But if Jesus rose from the dead and lives, today and forever, then it doesn't matter how long ago it happened.  Resurrection happened then and it happens whenever someone chooses to trust Him.  What are the rules of this new transphysical creation in which we live?  Come back next Sunday, and hopefully we'll learn or re-learn a few of them.  In the meantime and for all time, blessed are we who have not seen the wounded side, and still have placed our trust in the reality of Him who is risen.

Easter 2: The Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net

Homily for Tuesday, Easter Week

Mary Magdalene is "the Apostle to the Apostles."  It was she whom Jesus sent to the rest of the disciples to announce the greatest news of all time: Jesus is raised!  Except that Jesus doesn't tell her to announce his resurrection, but his ascension: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17).  Should we be saying on Easter Sunday, "Alleluia, Christ has ascended!  The Lord has ascended indeed. Alleluia!?"

For John, Jesus's Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension seem to merge.  "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself," Jesus said earlier (Jn 12:32).  In the immediate context, Jesus is certainly speaking of his crucifixion, only days away.  So that his being "lifted up" is to be lifted up on the cross.  But to be lifted up would also be to rise from the dead.  And to ascend would be the greatest lifting up.

All three are evidence of God's power and love.  We often separate those two.  But they are not separate in the God who created us, the God who died, rose and ascended for us, and the God who remains as close to us as our breath.  Lifted up on the Cross, Jesus Christ reveals how far God will go to drag us out of whatever hole we've dug ourselves into.  Raised from the dead, Jesus assures us that Death does not have the final word in our lives.  And ascended to his God and our God, Jesus makes that God known to us as His Father, and our Father.  For as the bodily Resurrected Jesus is with the father, so shall we all be on the last day of Resurrection for all of us.

In the meantime, the Spirit who comes from the Father and the Son is as close to us as our breath.  When Jesus spoke in Greek of the Spirit, he used a word that is the same as "wind."  Breathe in that Holy Wind.  And you will know the peace that comes from being reconciled with God the Father through God the Son.  Jesus has ascended to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God.  And he has taken us with him.  Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

The Daily Office: Easter Week

Mon. – 1 Cor. 15:1-11
Tue. – 1 Cor. 15:12-28
Wed. – 1 Cor. 15:29-41
Thurs. – 1 Cor. 15:41-50
Fri. – 1 Cor. 15:51-58

In this first week of the glorious 50 days of Easter, the Daily Office lectionary takes us through ch. 15 of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, his full-throated defense of Jesus's Resurrection, and ours.

The Gospels tend to focus on just the "big names" among Jesus's disciples – The Twelve, Jesus's mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene.  But we have Paul's testimony that the risen Jesus appeared to more than 500 people.  They are all witnesses that this man was more than a man.  He was God in the flesh.  And those 500 became witnesses of the Resurrection, testifying to what they saw.  They "handed down" that testimony to others.  In Latin, "handing down" is tradition, from which get tradition, that living witness handed down through the generations.  The doctrine of the Resurrection is not a philosophical statement.  It is a witness statement.

And Jesus's Resurrection is to be ours as well.  One of the key verses is this chapter is v. 44: "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."  What exactly is meant by "natural" and "spiritual" bodies.  One false turn would be to assume that Paul is referring to the "physical" body we have now and the free "spirit" we will have when we die and go to our resurrection.  That is not what Paul means.  The Jerusalem Bible is probably the best translation of this verse: "when it is sown it embodies the soul, when it is raised it embodies the spirit."

When we are finally raised, on the last day that will one day for ever and ever, our resurrected body will be physical, just as we have a physical body now.  But the physical body we have now is enlivened by own power, which will inevitable fail.  But the same power that raised Jesus from the dead will raise our bodies also.  And they will be as new and fresh as the day we were born.  But they will not age.  We shall serve our God for ever in the fullness of physical strength, in peace, love and joy, for ever and ever.  That is the Good News of the Resurrection.  Jesus's Resurrection is ours as well.

Easter Sunday: Feast of the Resurrection

"Then the [Beloved] Disciple went in. He saw and believed" (John 20:8)

I received in my email "inbox" this week, the Presiding Bishop's Easter Letter to the Episcopal Church. She began by recounting her conversation, just before Ash Wednesday, with Zache Duracin, Archbishop of the Episcopal Church in Haiti. The Archbishop had decided that the Haitian Church would not observe Lent this year. Clearly, the people of Haiti had suffered more than enough. And they probably didn't need to impose any added suffering, however minor. A meatless Friday, or giving up a minor pleasure like chocolate, would almost certainly seem trivial in the light of all the death and destruction around the Haitian people. But the biggest reason for not observing Lent, Bishop Zache said, was that the Haitian people needed to practice saying, "Alleluia." Truly, truly, it would take a lot of practice for the Haitian people to enter into Easter in the spirit of the Resurrection.

The Presiding Bishop goes on to say that we all need to "practice Resurrection…We are not born with the ability to insist on resurrection everywhere we turn." That's an interesting word choice, "insist." But we live in world where, all around us, life is born. And in the best-case scenario, that life grows, then slowly declines, and finally ceases. Resurrection is not so obvious. According to Bishop Katherine, "It takes the discipline and repetition that forms an athlete – in this case, a spiritually fit Christian. We practice our faith because we must – it withers and atrophies unless it's stretched."

Easter Sunday confronts each of us with what Bishop Katherine calls, "an immense stretching exercise." Perhaps the very idea of a man as dead as dead can be coming back to life seems so impossible as to be laughable. Perhaps the possibility of Resurrection brings you back here on this Sunday, to be reassured that the spring means more than just another round in the cycle of life and death. You want to believe. Perhaps you come here regularly. You've heard and you believe that 2,000 years ago, a man was killed, buried and yet is alive. And you still hope to share in the new life, someday. You just wish you could see it a little more clearly right now. Whatever has brought you here, I think that for all of us, practicing resurrection can be an immense stretching exercise.

Think of how immense it was for at least two of our characters from John's Gospel that first morning of the Resurrection. Mary Magdalene is so overcome with grief that first she assumes the theft of Jesus's corpse. Then when Jesus stands before her; something – eyes drowning in tears, panic at the thought of her master's body taken away – something keeps her from recognizing Jesus right in front of her. Peter is proof positive that fools rush where angels fear to tread. But at least his shame at having denied his Lord doesn't keep him from hurrying to his burial site. He sees the burial cloths neatly folded in one place, the head cloth in a different place. No one stealing the body or moving it to a different place would have gone to the trouble of unwrapping the burial cloths. But something – a mind clouded by guilt perhaps – keeps Peter from drawing the logical conclusion.

It is the Beloved Disciple who sees and believes, without seeing the risen Jesus. Somehow, he has practiced resurrection enough to recognize it. He has stretched himself enough to believe it. He sees the cloths neatly folded. He remembers that when Lazarus came out, he was still wrapped in his burial cloths and had to be unwrapped on Jesus's order. Lazarus was resuscitated, only to die again. But no human burial custom could contain the resurrected Son of God. The Beloved Disciple remembers, he sees, and he believes, without need the vision that Mary would need.

How had he stretched himself? What practices or exercises had strengthened his spirit to know resurrection when he saw it? Remember his name? Well actually, we are never told his name. He is only referred to as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." According to Christian tradition, this "beloved disciple" was one of the 12 chief Apostles, John. But for the author of this Gospel, his position in the hierarchy meant nothing compared to the fact that Jesus loved him. Now Jesus made it clear that he loved all his disciples. And surely anyone who followed Jesus loved him as well. But it's also true that in any relationship, we all bring at least some psychological "baggage" to that relationship. Peter had a need to be in charge. And Jesus met him where he was.

But this beloved disciple did a better job of practicing resurrection before the Resurrection because of his love. He was able to avoid projecting his anxieties onto Jesus. He was able to lay his own personal agenda aside and truly listen to Jesus. When Jesus said something that threatened to "push a button," the Beloved Disciple did not react out of fear or defensiveness. He remained open to Jesus in his mind, his heart and his soul. It was he, alone among the men, who was brave enough to stand with Jesus at the cross. He had listened to Jesus with an open mind, and thus could remember and trust his promise of resurrection, however impossible that seemed. And having stretched his heart and mind, the Beloved Disciple saw and believed.

I doubt that any of us are as spiritually fit as the Beloved Disciple. We all need to stretch ourselves beyond our preconceptions of what it means to be a Christian. We all need to stretch ourselves beyond the fears that keep us from responding to the Good News with trust and openness. We all need to stretch ourselves beyond the personal agendas that we would confuse with the Gospel. We all need to stretch ourselves beyond the doubts that leave us crouching in our shell with no hope. But there's no special exercise you have to learn to practice Resurrection. All you have to do is love. The Beatles sang that All You Need is Love. And that's true enough. But Love is something you have to do. It's something you have to practice. Helping those who can't get around as easily as they used to is practicing love. Feeding the stomach and souls of the hungry is practicing love. Learning with each other to be better disciples is practicing love. And practicing love will strengthen the eyes of your heart and mind and soul to recognize resurrection when you see it.

Exercising resurrection isn't easy. We will get discouraged at times. We will fall off the wagon at times. But that's alright. Some years ago, a breakfast cereal commercial began with the jingle, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life," which means that every day is first day of the rest of your life. I think the cereal company was trying to say that it's never too late to start exercising and eating right. Well, today, Easter Sunday, is the first day of the rest of your everlasting life. Never think it's too late to take the first step of practicing resurrection. You have forever to get it right.

Easter: The Preview

Courtesy of wordle.net

Sermon for Good Friday

"Behold your son…Behold your mother" (John 19:26-27)

We don't want to linger at the Cross. Who wants to dwell on such torture, such shame and such despair? In 2004, everybody was talking about Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, with its unremitting violence and blood and tears. But not everybody was interested. One member of my parish, when I asked him if he had seen it, sniffed, "I have no interest in seeing that movie." I think that he considered Gibson's film to be manipulative, an attempt to shock people into repentance for sin rather than winning them over to Christ by Christ's love. On the morning of Good Friday that year, I was listening to a Christian music station. The radio host began to speak in somber tones about Jesus's death on the cross. But soon I heard in the background the slowly building swell of violins and drums. I recognized it as the music you hear at the end of Gibson's film as the risen Jesus walks triumphantly out of his tomb. And as the music built to its crescendo, the man said, "It's Friday. But Sunday's coming!" And I thought, "My friend; could you not stay at the cross for one hour? Our Lord stayed for three."

I believe that too many churches want to hurry to the Resurrection. I've seen it at least twice this week. At the Palm Sunday community service, we sang a hymn that I hadn't sung in decades, "Because He Lives, I can face tomorrow." I may not have sung it in a long, long time. But I remembered it like it was yesterday in the Baptist church of my youth. And yet, here we were, on Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday, singing about the Resurrection, still a week away. At the Noon lunch on Wednesday this week at Mt. Calvary; our speaker gave his message from the story of Jesus and the two companions on the road to Emmaus. Again, a wonderful story, but why this week, when our Lord has been walking toward the cross, should we hurry ahead of him. That's not where he is today. Today, from noon to 3, he hangs on the cross to which he has been nailed. And in that vision, we look and see a strange glory.

According to our tradition, John is the "Beloved Disciple" who has written the Gospel from which we have read today. Unlike the rest of the early Christian churches, who celebrated Jesus's Resurrection on a Sunday, those churches founded by John celebrated the resurrection on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the anniversary of his crucifixion. I'm not advocating changing any dates. But if we want to know fully the glory of the Resurrection, we must first know the strange glory emanating from the cross. And no more strange is the glory than that which radiates between Jesus and his mother.

It was just last week that celebrated the Feast of the Annunciation, the announcement by the Angel Gabriel to the Blesses Virgin Mary that she had been chosen to bear God's Son if she would agree. The Annunciation is celebrated on March 25th, nine months before our celebration of Jesus's birth on December 25th. It is time for the wearing of white stoles, of decking the altar in white, and on that one day in Lent, having permission to say the A-word. And yet, in most years, Jesus's Incarnation is closely linked to his crucifixion. "Behold, the slave of the Lord," the teenage girl answered. "Let it happen to me as you have said." Could she possibly have understood how her "yes" would bring her to this day? Would she have said, "Yes" if she had known? Would any of us?

Our son was diagnosed with asthma at the age of four. For years afterward followed lots of inhalants and nebulizer treatments, and many missed days of school. The worst was in 7th grade, just two weeks before Easter, when he had pneumonia. After that, I began to fear that some germ might come along that was too strong, and our son too weak, to fight off. I wrestled with God in my prayers. I had lost my mother at the age of 17. Wasn't that enough tragedy for one lifetime God? I don't know for sure if this was the answer to my prayer, but as he entered adolescence, and his lungs got bigger, he improved quite a bit. He still needs regular medication to keep his allergies in check. But he has been much healthier, and for that I am thankful. But the truth I did discover is that our children do not belong to us. They belong to God, and we have temporary custody.

That was a truth that Mary discovered earlier in John's Gospel, at the wedding in Cana. The wine is running out. Knowing what Jesus can do, his mother says to him, "They have no wine," to which her son replies, "What does this have to do with you and me? My hour has not yet arrived." It's not a rebuke, but a gentle reminder that Jesus has greater things in mind that even his mother can imagine. And so his mother, and first disciple, says, "Do whatever he tells you" (John 2:3-5). Yes, Jesus does what his mother asks of him, but not on her authority, but on his. Mary was Jesus's mother, and his first disciple, his first apprentice. It's not easy being a student-apprentice. You mostly learn by doing, which means you learn by doing it wrong. And there were times when Mary got it wrong. When she came to Jesus and acted as though her status as his mother gave her access through the crowds around him, Jesus answered, "Who are my mother and my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother" (Mark 3:31-35).

But this, this is the hardest lesson of all! The Angel Gabriel had promised her that this child hanging on the cross would "be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:32-33). What of that promise now? But Jesus sees his mother, and proceeds to teach her one more lesson. "Woman, look at your son beside you," and to the Beloved Disciple, "Look at your mother beside you" (Jn 19:26-27). Jesus lives in all those who put their trust in his word. And all those who believe in Jesus, yesterday, today and forever; have for their mother, she who brought Jesus Christ into this world. Jesus says to all of us, "Look at your mother beside you." On this Friday, Mary lost a Son, briefly, but gave birth to billions of children.

What a strange glory it is to see in this death a birth. But of course, this is not just any death. This is Jesus, God in the flesh, who dies, and this assures that if God can die, then death never has the final word. And even in death there is birth. There are new beginnings. There are new possibilities. Yes, someone you love has died, and something in you has died. What will you do now? Will you give up on life? Or will you see all the life around you, and commit yourself to nurturing that life, to building up that life. God is not a God of death. God does not display his power by taking us or those we love when it is supposedly their "time." Our God is the God of the living. Even in his death, our Lord gives new life to his mother in his mystical body the Church. In all our deaths, the God who has gone before us in death gives us new life, new beginnings and new possibilities.

None of this is to minimize Mary's grief, or ours. We must grieve, as even the Father grieves on this day. But as we grieve in darkness, remember that Jesus is with us in that darkness. And so is his mother. And so are all those saints and sinners who have come, with their sadness, to the foot of the cross. And let us all see there, in the mother of us all and in each other, a strange glory

A Good Friday Meditation

"To prodigal children lost in a distant land, to disciples who forsook him and fled, to a thief who believed or maybe took pity and pretended to believe, to those who did not know that what they did they did to God, to the whole bedraggled company of humankind he had abandoned heaven to join, he says: “Come. Everything is ready now. In your fears and your laughter, in your friendships and farewells, in your loves and losses, in what you have been able to do and in what you know you will never get done, come, follow me. We are going home to the waiting Father."

From Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross by Richard John Neuhaus

Maundy Thursday

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.

Have you ever heard of how, in the middle of a boxing match, a hockey game broke out? Well in the middle of God raining down plagues on those nasty Egyptians and their Pharaoh, a liturgy broke out. There's that word again, "liturgy." We see it every Sunday. It's the principal means of communicating the news of this Parish. But what does it mean? We Episcopalians are "people of the Book" – The Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. We read from both every Sunday. And I expect that most, if not all, understand that "liturgy" refers to our worship, which is centered on the Book of Common Prayer. From the words of the prayer book, we go to the words with which we communicate with each other. And thus we have the weekly "Liturgy."

But "Liturgy" is so much more than a set of words. A hockey game has rules that at least in theory, keep it from becoming a boxing match. Those rules give an order to what would otherwise be an undisciplined boxing match, and make it into a liturgy of sorts. As a community of disciples of Jesus Christ, we are no different. We need rules to help us order our common life of service to God and each other. On this Holy Thursday, this Maundy Thursday, we hear our Lord and Savior set out the basic rules of our Liturgy. This Liturgy is our life, and we are called to make our life this Liturgy.

Remember that great Easter tradition, Cecil B. DeMille's, "The Ten Commandments?" Remember that scene where this black cloud is seeping through the land of Egypt, sucking the breath of life out of all the firstborn, expect for the children of Israel, with the blood of the lambs on their doors. We see inside the house where Moses and his family are eating the Passover meal according to the strict instructions we read this evening from Exodus. Occasionally a cantor breaks out into a solemn chant from the Psalms. A boy asks the question that children throughout the centuries have asked, "Why is this night different from all the others?" Outside that door, people occasionally cry out and chariots crash. But inside is a different reality. Outside in the world is terror and death. Inside the door is faith and new life. Inside the door is liturgy.

There is a strange disconnect between what's going on in the world and what is happening inside the homes of the Israelites. That same disconnect is found in the Book of Exodus from which we just read. God has just threatened to bring on the last plague upon the Egyptians for the hard-heartedness of their Pharaoh. But instead of taking us right to the next logical scene, we get this interruption, this 12th chapter, this long set of instructions on how the Israelites are to celebrate the Passover, not just for one night, but for all the nights to come. "This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time" (Ex. 12:14).

Time become a very fluid thing. In this reading from Holy Scripture, you see the historical Passover, that night when the Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites. But you also read of the liturgy by which the children of Israel would remember that night for all time. As the Lord God passed over the houses of the Israelites, they celebrated that Passover in their Liturgy. And for all time, as the children of Israel celebrate the Passover Liturgy, they become their ancestors: a people who were in bondage to earthly powers, but are now liberated to be God's people. In their Passover liturgy, the past, present and future become one moment in time. The centuries melt away, and the people of Israel, wherever they are, become once more the liberated people, the chosen people.

According to Paul, that is what Jesus did, and does, in the tradition that was handed down to him: "The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in order to recall me.'" (1 Cor. 11:23-24). That last part didn't sound right, did it? But that is actually the more correct translation. The Greek word translated as "remembrance" is anamnesis, which is much more than a purely mental memory that consists of some electric signals in our brains.

Because the Greeks believed that time went in a cycle, they considered it possible for an event in the past to be present again. They had a separate word for what we normally think of as "remembrance" or memory. But to make an anamnesis was to "recall" an event from the past so that it was no longer in the distant past but present us right now. Think of how governments "recall" an ambassador from another country back home, and you have a sense of what Paul is really saying here. Whenever we come together as a worshiping community and repeat these words of Jesus, we "recall" those events by which our sins are forgiven. We "recall his death, resurrection and ascension." And in that recalling, Jesus Christ the son of God is as present with us he was with his disciples 2,000 years ago. And we are given just enough of a taste of eternal life that we can continue to live as one people of Resurrection and hope.

To be a liturgical people is to be a people who know that when we hear the words, "This is my Body…This is my blood," we are with Jesus in that upper room, as he prepares to die. That hour is approaching. Will we walk with him? Will we, in Paul's words, proclaim his death until he comes in glory? Will we proclaim to a world that reeks of sin and alienation that it doesn’t have to be that way. Will we show forth in the world the unity in Christ that is ours this night? His path is the way to everlasting life, though it first pass through death. That path begins tonight, in our Liturgy. In our Liturgy is our life.

The Power of the Holy Eucharist

My favorite prayer from the Book of Common Prayer

"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."

Want to learn more? Come to the Maundy Thursday service tonight at 7.