Wounded Jesus: April 12

   John 20:19-31                                     Year A Easter 2   

             I grew up with three older brothers.  They were a rowdy group, often getting in trouble, frequently injured.  They taught me to judge potential friends by how many scars they had.  They said, if someone doesn’t have any scars, they clearly aren’t good friend material. (I guess it was just a measure of toughness for them.)  I didn’t use that tool for judgment very often, especially since I was 9 at the time, and not many 9 years old have a lot of scars.  That said, it’s something I have always noticed.  Scars can provide snap shots of you life on your skin. 

For a long time, my most impressive scar was from a knee surgery I had in 10^th grade. I gained a few more scars over the years, but they all pale in comparison to my MRSA scar.  A few years ago, I got a serious infection in my leg.  It was resisting all antibiotics and since they were worried I might lose my leg, they decided just to open it up and pour the antibiotics in.  They did this three times over a one month period.  The problem was, when you open up the same part of a leg that many times, it doesn’t heal well.  I had an open wound for almost 6 months. They tried everything: stitches, staples, several wound vacuums and finally they cauterized it….which is burning. 

The whole time that was going on, I prayed fervently for a scar.  I didn’t care what it looked like, I just wanted that wound closed.  I have to admit, it’s one ugly scar…I mean truly ugly.  Yet even though I kind of hate it….it’s so much better than an open wound.

            When I was praying for my scar, I thought a lot about Jesus’ wounds.  I was confined to a bed for 2 months, so I had a lot of time to think of such things.  I have always loved that Jesus came back with scars, that there was evidence of his pain and his vulnerability.  But as I contemplated my wound, I wondered why Jesus didn’t come back with wounds instead of scars, like open wounds, maybe bleeding a little.  Because the wound that he experienced being nailed to the cross and pierced by a sword, would never have scarred over in just a few days.  Then again, coming back from the dead wasn’t an expected  outcome, so I suppose a wound healing a little more quickly isn’t exactly the headline of this story.  Still, it’s something I think about a lot.

The Gospel of John was originally written in Greek.  If you look at our Gospel reading, you will see it doesn’t say scar.  It says mark. The Greek is unclear, probably purposefully so.  When Jesus came back and offered his body to Thomas, he didn’t refer to his wounds as scars or marks.  He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”  Notice, that the word scar isn’t used.  Maybe Jesus did  have open wounds. There is one famous painting that pops up a lot when reading commentaries about this text.  It’s by Caravaggio.  I can’t look at it without grimacing a little because Thomas is actually putting his finger into the open wound. I thought it was just Caravaggio being a little dramatic, but it’s certainly possible that Jesus still had an open wound and he was offering it to Thomas. 

Now some of you might be thinking, who cares if it’s a wound or a scar.  That’s not what this text is about.  It’s about Thomas doubting and needing physical evidence.  That is one perspective.   But I think Jesus’ wounds or scars matter.  He could have returned from the dead completely whole, without blemish or flaw.  He didn’t.  He returned to his disciples, the very same disciples who had denied him and abandoned him and were now hiding in a locked room.  He returned wounded. He didn’t return that way to shame them or make them feel guilty.  He returned with those wounds because they were part of the story, not just his story, but the story of what would become the Christian Church.  They were also evidence of not just his horrible death, but his humanity, his willingness to be vulnerable, even to the point of death.

Sometimes I make the mistake of reading the comments section in an article or social media. Ok, I do it a lot.  You will remember that not too long ago the panels which told the story of those enslaved by George Washington were removed from the president’s house just a few blocks from here.  This was as a result of an executive order from the president called, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History".  Many of the comments were against the removal.  They wanted the story of those enslaved people to be told.  But many comments were along the lines of, that’s in the past. Why are we still talking about slavery? What does that accomplish?

 I am sure those same people would wonder why we read the names of those children of God who were auctioned and sold in the one of the largest slave auctions in the history of our country.  What is that accomplishing? Are we trying to tarnish the history of our nation? No, that history was tarnished long ago.  What we are trying to do is honor the names that we know.  We don’t know their whole stories.  We just know their names, not even all their names.  We know this one portion of their story because they were sold like cattle to the highest bidder.    We know the very worst days of their life.  So that is the part of the story we tell.

Slavery isn’t just a scar on our nation. It’s an open wound.  True, we stopped most forms of slavery.  We stopped the wound from gushing blood. But we, as a nation, we did very little to aid in the healing of that wound.  Some people think in talking about slavery, we are reopening the wounds, but I think we are finally pouring in some necessary antibiotic.  We are letting the light in, the possibility of healing.  We still have a lot more to do when it comes to the healing of our nation.  We will one day have to repair the wounds that are currently being inflicted.  It’s a never ending process.
            Jesus taught us all an important lesson when he returned to his disciples wounded and open.  He wasn’t there to assign blame. He was there to provide peace and forgiveness.  He could have shared the peace and forgiveness without the wounds. However, in showing the wounds, he showed us how we get to peace and forgiveness.  First we have to acknowledge the hurt, the shame and the sin.  We have to allow ourselves the same vulnerability that Jesus showed.  Because even when wounds heal, there is still a story to tell, a story to understand. That is the only way to get to true peace.   It’s the only way we heal.

Easter Drama: April 5

Year A, Easter                                                               Matthew 28:1-10                                                                                 

            I will always remember the first Maundy Thursday service I participated in as a priest. I was working for a rector who was very particular and attune to presentation. There was a big wooden cross on the wall…about 15 feet tall.  At the end of the service, after we removed everything from the chancel (which is referred to as stripping the altar), there was a large black cloth that was pulled (with some sort of pully system) over the cross. It didn’t cover the cross, just kind crossed over it like a sash.  As we were pulling the cross over the cross, there was a big clap of thunder and then lightning.  We all kind of jumped a little and then the rector whispered, “Just so you know, this doesn’t happen every Maundy Thursday.” Ever since then, I have longed for that kind of visceral feeling.  The closest I ever came to was last Good Friday when Parker played some of the pieces that went with the Stations of the Cross. It was like feeling the crucifixion in your bones, not the pain, but the meaning and resonance.

            The story of Jesus’ resurrection is in all four Gospels.  Each Gospel tells it a little differently and in my mind…way too quickly.  Every story has things in common---like the fact that women are always the first people to witness the resurrection, there is always an empty tomb and it’s always on the third day.  These are pieces that are consistent across all four Gospels.  Then there are the differences. There are two things that differentiate Matthew from the other Gospels…the earthquake and the presence of the guards. 

Matthew is the only Gospel that mentioned guards at the tomb. The previous chapter says that the religious leaders went to Pilate and asked him to post guards at the tomb as they were worried that one of Jesus’ followers would steal the body to convince others that Jesus had risen.  No one, not even Jesus’ most devout followers actually thought that Jesus would rise from the dead. The women came to grieve, not because they expected to meet the risen Lord.  That is the amazing thing about our God, God can never be confined to our narrow expectations.

            The other thing unique about Matthew is the earthquake. It’s certainly possible that everyone experienced it and Matthew was the only one who mentioned it.  It’s more likely that Matthew used the imagery of an earthquake to demonstrate how earth shaking the moment was.  The Greek word that is translated to earthquake is used three times in the Gospels and they are all in the Gospel of Matthew. 

The first is when he entered the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  The second is the moment Jesus died.  The third is when the stone rolled away and the angel descended from heaven.  According to Matthew, the earth shook on those three occasions. I get the sense that Matthew wants us to feel the earth quake (Organist plays here).  Can you feel that…reverberating through your body?  Now multiply that feeling times 10.  That is what Matthew wants us to feel when we consider Jesus’ death and resurrection.  If you have been through a serious earthquake or any major storm, you know that nothing is exactly the same afterwards. Even after everything is rebuilt and put together, the world is still changed.

            The timing of the earth quake in the resurrection story is interesting, because it’s not when the risen Jesus appeared, it’s when the angel descended and rolled the stone away.  That was the moment when hope was awakened.  It wasn’t the moment that hope was guaranteed, it was when it was awoken.  Notice how this angel is described.  His appearance was like lightening.  This was not the kind of angel we imagine or what we might see on TV.  This was not a Willow Tree angel.  I love those things, but they are not Biblically accurate.  This angel had one purpose: to deliver a message and God wanted everyone to know this message was earth shaking, lightening striking important. “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here: for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead…’”  The angel is shockingly brief—gets right to the point.

            I love that the angel encourages them to come see the place where his body was supposed to be. Even with the earthquake and the lightning bright angel, it was still hard to take in for these women.  The angel understood that. At the same time, the angel didn’t give them time to hang around and debate what actually happened.  The women were told to go tell others as soon as they witnessed the emptiness of the tomb.  Hope was awakened and it could no longer be contained.  It was bursting out.

            I understand that there are probably many in this church (or watching online) who aren’t quite sure about this resurrection thing. You came for the music and the flowers. You came for the traditions. You didn’t come to have your mind changed. I have been ordained for long enough to know that my job today is not to change your mind or your heart.

Instead, I want you to imagine what it would look like to be a little shaken, a little out of control. Imagine something—anything that you have experienced that was life changing.  After it happened, you realized your life was never going to be the same (like the birth of your first child).  That was what the resurrection was for the followers of Jesus.  It didn’t just change their lives. It changed their world.  A well known theologian and preacher, William Willimon once said, “On the cross, the world did all it could to Jesus.  At Easter, God did all God could do to the world.”[1]

            I understand how hopeless many people feel right now…for whatever reason, whether it’s the violence that we witness daily in the news, the division in our country or even the despair we feel in our lives.  I would love it if God could send us a big sign, perhaps a small earthquake right now, or a lightening bolt that came out of nowhere (Organist plays). But if I can’t have something that dramatic and obvious, I am going to be content with an awakening of hope. 

The evil powers of this world will continue to throw all they have against us as we try to hold on to hope and love. But as long as we have communities like Christ Church, then I will never despair.  I hope you won’t either. When Jesus came back to life, we were given this hope that could never be crushed.  When we say “Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed” it’s not just words of our liturgy, it’s our own little earthquake and lightening strike. It’s a rallying cry that just won’t die.

The other thing that is a rallying cry for our faith are baptisms and the promises the parents and godparents make and we as a community make.  Whether it’s a baby like Benjamin, or an adult, baptisms are our protests to the darkness---that hope is still alive, that we haven’t given up.

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[1] https://www.preaching.com/sermons/easter-easter-as-an-earthquake-matthew-281-10/

Bad Guys on Good Friday: April 3

 Year A, Good Friday                                                       John 18:1-19:42                                                         In my first church, my job as the assistant rector was organizing what had become a somewhat elaborate Palm Sunday production.  There were costumes, props and a lot of people involved.  Every year I had to recruit the people and it was never easy.  One year someone said, “Why do I always have to be the bad guy?” I replied, “No one comes out looking good in this story except Jesus and no one wants to be him either.” 

            When you read the passion story, which was that very lengthy reading from the Gospel of John, few people come out looking good.  Judas betrayed Jesus.  Peter denied him. The Jewish leadership condemned him on false pretenses and Pilate (who could have put a stop to the whole thing) went along with the crowd, not because he believed Jesus to be guilty, but because he was trying to prevent a riot.  That was his job, to keep some semblance of peace, even if he had to do that by killing an innocent man.

Then there was the crowd— that is the part where we all get to chime in on Palm Sunday.  We demand that Jesus be crucified even when given a choice between him and a real criminal.  The only people who were loyal to Jesus to the end was his mother, his aunt, Mary Magdeline and the beloved disciple.  By the way, John is the only Gospel that says one of the disciples was there at the cross, which makes it a slightly dubious claim. 

            It used to bother me, all the people who turned on him, the fact that so few were near him as he died.  It still bothers me, but I also find some degree of kinship with Judas, Peter, even Pilate.  Judas betrayed Jesus for reasons we can never understand, but it probably wasn’t a malicious act. One theory is that he was trying to protect Jesus, he hoped the arrest would just scare him—that he never expected that they would crucify him.  If that was the case, that means he didn’t trust Jesus enough to let him be the Messiah he was meant to be.  He assumed that he had to do God’s work himself.  It was pride.  I imagine we can all think of some times where we have assumed we know what’s best and taken God out of the process.  There are times when I have heard God’s faint pleas and I have just ignored them, making elaborate excuses for why I had to ignore them. 

            Peter was scared.  He had seen the guards.  He must have known what was coming.  He loved Jesus, but did he love him enough to die for him?  We know Peter had family as there is a story in the Gospels involving his mother in law.  There were people counting on him. And if Jesus died, someone had to take care of the remaining disciples.    Eventually Peter would die in defense of the Gospel, but he wasn’t ready yet. It takes an incredible amount of strength and love to die for someone else. 

            We know from other historical evidence that Pilate was a brutal leader.  The Gospels make him sound better than he was.  Yet his impulse was one that many can identify with.  Let one person die to keep the peace.  So much violence has been waged using this logic.  It’s ok if some innocent people die as long as we cripple our enemy.  That will save lives in the future.  It sounds logical and many of us love logical reasoning.

            There were the Roman guards, who were just doing their job. They probably didn’t want to do it, but they knew they would suffer if they didn’t.  Roman leadership wasn’t exactly known for their understanding and flexibility.  The Jewish leaders were scared and confused. They might have had a similar motivation as Pilate.  Caiaphas (one of the Jewish high priests) even said in our reading, it was better to have one person die for the people.  The irony in that statement is that was exactly what Jesus was doing.  He was dying for the people.  They just didn’t understand it at the time. 

            Who knows what was going on with the crowd.  They were probably not the people who had known Jesus, who had been healed by Jesus.  It’s possible they were people who only knew him by what they heard from others.  Afterall, if the Jewish leadership and the Roman leadership agreed that this man was a trouble causer, then it must be true. 

            There is a certain degree of shame I feel in identifying with these people, but there is also consolation.  Even though few stood with Jesus in the end, and some were cruel, Jesus still died for everyone.  The Bible is clear on that. Jesus died for everyone, including those who betrayed and denied him then, and those who continue to betray and deny him.  This doesn’t mean we don’t try to be better disciples.  Faith is a journey that we never complete, at least not in this life. We just keep trying, keep believing, especially those times when it is really hard to do so.  We will have our times of unbelief (some for years, maybe some for a briefer time) but those periods of struggle and pain don’t mean that we aren’t still loved by God. 

            One of my favorite parts of the story of Jesus and Peter, was that when Jesus returned to his disciples after his resurrection, he took Peter aside.  He asked Peter if he loved him— three times.  It kind of annoyed Peter near the end.  But Jesus did it so Peter could know he was forgiven, not once, not twice, but three times…the same number of times he denied him.   

            Back to my parishioner’s question about why he always had to be a bad guy. I guess the right answer is that none of us are bad.  We make bad decisions.  We do some bad things. We sin, and then we sin again.  Yet we were created to be good. We were created in God’s perfect image.  Jesus lived and died so that we could be redeemed, so that we would receive mercy.  That’s why we call this day Good Friday.  Horrible things happened that day, but Jesus’s love and grace made that day and this day….good.

Palm Sunday: March 29

Palm Sunday                                              Matthew 21:1-11                                                                         I remember when the Berlin wall came down.  I was young, but it made an impression, seeing the joy and exultation that the people experienced as they walked over and through the wall without being stopped.  The image of the wall coming down became a symbol, not just of a unified Germany, but the end of the Cold War.  In the United States, many associate the words of President Reagan demanding that Gorbachev “tear down that wall” with the fall of the Berlin wall.  Many would probably say that it was reforms that Gorbachev, the Soviet leader at the time, enacted during his long tenure.  No doubt it was a combination of many things.  What people don’t usually talk about is the role that prayer played in the reunification of Germany and the destruction of the wall that divided them for so long.

          After World War II, Germany was divided into 4 occupied zones.  England, France and the United States had three zones and the 4^th was controlled by the Soviet Union.  Eventually this evolved into East and West Germany, with communist controlling East Germany, officially named the German Democratic Republic.   St. Nikolai Lutheran Church is located in Leipzig and was in East Germany.  In 1982, individuals from the church and the community began meeting every Monday night to pray for peace.  While that probably sounds benign to most of us, the pastor at the time (Christian Fuhrer) knew that they were being spied on as the communist party was not friendly to Christian Churches, which made it a dangerous endeavor. 

For awhile, it was 10-15 people, but they continued to meet and pray every Monday.  Eventually, the prayer group grew, sometimes in the 100s or even 1000 of people attending.  Leadership from the Soviet Union became anxious and they demanded that the group stop meeting.  There were arrests, beatings…but they kept on praying. 

October 7^th 1989 marked the 40^th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic, which increased the tensions in an already very tense time. The prayers turned into protests and demonstrations, still meeting in front of or near the church.  The month before the 40^th anniversary tens of thousands were gathering.  Finally word came down that the government was giving the military permission to shoot to kill anyone who showed up on Oct 9^th for the prayer and protest. The pastor made an interesting recommendation.  He asked people to bring candles.  If you are carrying candles, it’s harder to be accused of violence.  Seventy thousand people showed up, many carrying candles.  The military and police stood back and watched.  Later the police said, “We were ready for anything except for candles and prayer.”  The wall fell one month later.[1]

          We call this day Palm Sunday and churches everywhere hand out these palms even though only one of the Gospels records people waving palms. Matthew’s Gospel says that people cut off the branches from the trees and laid them on the ground before Jesus.  I always feel a little disappointed when I see the palm.  There is really not much to it.  It seems counterintuitive that this is what we are given to welcome a king.  At the same time, it’s appropriate that it’s a little underwhelming. 

Matthew wrote that Jesus arrived on a donkey and a colt. No one is sure if he was riding two animals, but Matthew was obviously trying to make a connection to an Old Testament text that said, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations…”

          Matthew is obviously trying to connect Jesus, to the king and the Messiah that the Hebrew scriptures anticipated.   This king was different as he would not be on war horse.  He would not carry a weapon.  He would be on a donkey or even a young donkey…possibly both.  The point is, this was a different kind of king.  And yet, he would still defeat the great powers and command peace, but not in the expected way.  Instead of ascending a throne, he was arrested, beaten and then lifted onto a cross.  The cross (that labeled him as King of the Jews) was his throne. 

          I have often referred to Palm Sunday as liturgical whip lash as we start the service with joy and attempted enthusiasm, and then we all shout “crucify him” as we listen to the story of his trial and death. Yet as I read and the studied the Gospel that we began with (the one that is often referred to as the “triumphant entry”) I realized it really isn’t that triumphant.  The last verse is: “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’” Who is this who arrives so humbly yet still commands worship from the crowds and fear from the Roman Empire? Who is this Jesus of Nazareth and why did such a humble and peaceful man bring such turmoil? The whole city was in turmoil.

          Not only that, but who are we to think that waving these palms means that we actually understand who Jesus is, understand what he did, what he sacrificed? Are we being foolish to think that our faith can bring change...that we can stand before the powers that be and demand change?  Were those Germans who carried candles and prayer almost 40 years ago thinking they could break down an actual wall—were they foolish? Maybe they were, but they were also victorious… not because of who they were, but because their prayers.  Remember, this gathering of people who were praying for peace, started in 1982.  The wall came down in 1989.  Change takes time, more time than we would like.

          That crowd that welcomed Jesus carried only branches and cloaks.  That is all they were equipped with.  Seems like feeble praise, feeble protest---especially when you compare that to what the Roman Empire had.  But that’s the thing about the God that we worship.  We come with our meager offering, our weakness and our fear.  We come a little jaded, maybe a little bitter.  Thankfully, it’s not about us.  It’s about this God who we worship---this God who rode a donkey into the city where he would be condemned to die.  He must have been scared. He had to be terrified, but he rode on, over the cloaks and the branches, through the hoards of people who were not quite sure who he was…except that he was worthy of their hosannas and their praises. 

          I know many of you are weary…so weary.  Many of you have been praying and protesting, and working for longer that I have been alive (and I was alive when the Berlin wall came down).  Then some of us have only been doing this for a little while and we are still tired.  I don’t know how they schedule the No Kings rallies, but I would be shocked if it has nothing to do with Palm Sunday, the day when Christians everywhere welcome a king…a different kind of king, but a king none the less.

          In our reading from Isaiah, the writer asks to be given the “tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.”  People give me a lot of reasons why they worship, or don’t worship at a church.  The reason I hear most often for why people come to church is that it gives them strength for the week. 

Consider all those who have worshipped here over the last 330 years…in this very place. They worshipped through revolutions and wars, through economic depressions…through so very much.  Imagine the prayers that these very walls have heard, that our God has heard.  No doubt, there were many times people wanted to give up. Perhaps a few people did.  But I think the reason we are still here worshipping after 330 years is because even in our weakness and our weariness, we still keep praying, we keep speaking out and reminding ourselves and others what our king—Jesus Christ-- looks like and sounds like.  Hold on my siblings in Christ.  Easter is coming.

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[1] This story was told as part of the following commentary. I  verified the story using several other sources as well: The church out in the world (Matthew 21:1-11) | The Christian Century