Transform, not Conform: September 13

Year A, Pentecost 16                                       Romans 14:1-12                                                   

I have been a vegetarian since I was 16. No one else in my family was and my parents were particularly devastated when I told them.  It took my Dad about 10 years to stop attributing every ailment (emotional or physical) to the lack of meat in my diet.  Moving to Southern Virginia was tricky for a vegetarian.  My first church had an annual fundraiser that was a pig roast.  I hated it with a passion and spent the whole afternoon avoiding the roasted pig.  At one potluck, a well meaning parishioner shared the vegetarian meat balls she made for me. I was touched she did this as I knew it was out of her comfort zone.  I ate a few and then asked what was in them.  They were turkey.  She had assumed that counted as vegetarian.  When I interviewed at the church I was at before here, they had a dinner for me.  Somehow, they had learned I was a vegetarian and the entire meal was vegetarian. I was so touched that they all ate the vegetarian meal with me.  It was an incredible display of hospitality. I later learned they had it catered because none of them knew how to make an entire vegetarian meal.   

Whenever this reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans comes up, I am reminded of my years as a vegetarian in very meat centric places.  While Paul does seem to say that vegetarians are weak, his point is a larger one about hospitality and welcome.  That welcome does come with a slight insult… but when you consider it light of the other times Paul talks about weakness, it’s not as bad as it seems. 

I would think that if you heard this part of Paul’s letter to the Romans and had not read very much of Paul’s writings, you might find Paul’s description of people who are “weak in faith” a little off-putting.  On the one hand Paul encourages us not to pass judgment on one another.  Yet isn’t describing someone as “weak in faith” passing judgment?  It would seem so.

Butt consider how Paul talks about weakness in other letters that he wrote.  When he wrote to the Corinthians he wrote of something he described as a thorn in his flesh.  We don’t know what that was, but it was something he perceived as a deficiency or a weakness in himself.  He begged God to take it from him and God responded: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  Paul then resolved to boast more boldly in his weakness. 

For a good portion of Romans and much of his other writings, Paul is preoccupied with how Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians could learn to be a part of one worshipping body.  It’s unlikely that Paul was planning for the long term viability of the Christian church.  He was just trying to find a way to spread the message of Christ as far and wide as he could. 

There were Jews who had started following Christ.  Paul was one of them…as were all of the apostles.  Many of them were still trying to figure out what this looked like.  Did they need to follow all of the rules they had followed as Jews?  Many thought they did.  Some weren’t sure, so they followed them just in case.  That is probably what Paul was talking about when he spoke of those who just ate vegetables.  They abstained from meat because they knew that a lot of the meat that was sold in the market had been sacrificed in pagan rituals.  That meant it was unclean and their Jewish faith told them that they could not eat the meat.

Some of these Jewish Christians felt that those who had never been Jewish should still take on the Jewish customs as well as the new Christian customs.  Paul was of the mind that was not necessary.    What to eat and when to worship were sticking points between these two groups. The “weak in faith” were the ones who could not let go of the old customs and were perhaps…not fully convinced of this new way of being and worshipping.

But here is what is interesting about what Paul was saying…just because one group had different perceptions of what the practice of faith should look like, didn’t mean that the other group needed to correct them or force their way of doing things on them. Remember, a big part of early Christian worship was sharing a meal together…so what people ate together was directly related to worship. Paul was saying: if having meat at a gathering of the faithful makes those who abstain uncomfortable and could potentially cause a crisis of faith, don’t eat meat around them.  That’s why this reading begins with “welcome.” Being welcoming and hospitable isn’t just about being friendly, it’s about meeting someone exactly where they are, with no expectation that they will change to be more like you. 

          At Christ Church, we say, “whoever you are or wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcome here.”  That doesn’t come with any unspoken assumptions.  You are welcome here. Hard stop. We don’t mean, you are welcome and once you get the lay of the land, then you can adapt to our customs and be more like us. I have been at churches like that. They want you to feel welcome, but they also want you to be more like them in time.  They will give you a few months, but eventually, you need to conform to their expectations.      

          Today we are handing out information about a program we are embarking on called, “Invite, Welcome and Connect.”  It’s not about being a friendly church…although that is part of it. It’s about being a community where you can be welcome without having to change. It’s about training our current members on how to meet people where they are.  That might mean that we have to change a little—that can be the hard part.  But change brings growth and new ideas and that is the way a church not just survives, but thrives.

          One of my favorite quotes is, “God loves you just the way you are, but God loves you too much to stay that way.”  Being a Christian means that we seek transformation in our world and ourselves. A faith community should be a place that helps you grow, that supports your relationship with Christ.  But there is a difference between supporting someone in their journey of growth and transformation and demanding that someone conform to a specific type of Christian.  We want people to transform, not conform.  We want the whole community to transform together, to create something beautifully and unique.

          I realize that to some, the idea that we have to change to be truly welcoming and loving seems unfair.  Consider what God did when Jesus was born to a woman and became human.  God changed the way that God related to humans. God came to this earth to meet humans exactly where they are. That is an incredible to display of hospitality.  A chapter later in Romans, Paul continued this theme of welcome when he said, “Welcome one another therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”  Invite, Welcome, Connect is a church program…but it’s also more than that.  It’s not simply about growing a church.  It’s about learning how to welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us.

Faint Heart: August 9

 Year A, Pentecost 11                            Matthew 14:22-33                                 

          You of little faith.  I have always struggled with that phrase when I see it in the Gospel of Matthew.   Matthew uses some variation of that phrase five times.  The other three Gospels (in total) use it once.  What annoys me about the use of this phrase, is that it’s often in the context of a few verses that I really love.  Then Jesus just ruins the moment by reminding the disciples (and us) of how little faith we have. 

The interesting thing about the use of this phrase is that it’s always used with the apostles. It’s never the Pharisees or the scribes—those who Jesus tends to be a little critical of. It’s the apostles with whom Jesus uses this phrase.  These are the men that Jesus chose to be closest to him and then carry on his message after he Jesus ascended to heaven.  Two of the times, this phrase was directed at Peter…the man he would refer to as the rock on which he would build his church.  Jesus called Peter the rock in chapter 16, only 10 verses after he had referred to the apostles as having little faith for the 5^th time. It just doesn’t make sense to me.  The context is all wrong.

          Here is what I am wondering, what if “a little faith” is enough? What if Jesus isn’t castigating his chosen apostles for not having enough faith, instead he’s saying, “you’ve got a little, and that might just be enough.” There a book called “The Message.” It’s not a translation of the Bible as much as it’s an interpretation that is supposed to help us hear the words a little differently. Sometimes I read this version, because the work was done by a scholar and pastor, using the original Hebrew and Greek texts, but it’s more accessible.  Anyhow, instead of Jesus saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Jesus says, “Faint heart, what got into you?” That makes more sense to me.  Because it was never about Peter’s ability to believe.  It was never about the amount of faith he had.  It was about where the faith was placed—with whom his faith was placed.

          When the apostles saw Jesus walking across that choppy water, they were confused and afraid, which is understandable.  He said, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.”  The more literal translation here is, “Take heart, I am…”  The phrase “I am” is the name of God.  In that moment, he was not just saying, “It’s me Jesus.”  He was saying, “I am the one true God.”  The use of the phrase “I am” is especially important in the Gospels, because it connects Jesus to the God of the Hebrew Scriptures.  It’s the way that God identified Godself to Moses in the Book of Exodus.  In saying that, Jesus was revealing who he really was.

Peter knew in that moment that not only did it mean that Jesus could walk on water, but his command alone would give him (a mere mortal) the ability to walk on water.  Peter didn’t suddenly have this crazy belief that he too could walk on water.  He was so convicted of the power of Jesus which meant that Jesus’ command would enable him to walk on water.  That is what gave him the courage to get out of that boat.  It wasn’t faith in his own ability, it was faith in Jesus.

Can you imagine the courage that would have required just to step out of a boat in the middle of a storm? The apostles were already terrified because the boat was being battered by waves in the dark.  Peter left the relative safety of the boat to walk through the very water that was the source of the fear.  It would be like driving on the Schuykill at rush hour at night and then deciding to get out and walk through the traffic.  Peter was able to get out of the boat because he had put his trust in Jesus. 

When he started to sink, it wasn’t that he stopped believing in Jesus.  It’s not that he suddenly became plagued by doubt.  It was just that he wasn’t sure if he could keep going.  You see, if he had stopped believing, he would not have called out of Jesus to save him.  He knew that he wasn’t in control, but neither was the storm.  It was Jesus who was in control and it was Jesus who saved him.  “Faint heart, what got into you?”  Who knows what the answer to that question is.  It could have been the waves.  Maybe he suddenly felt the water and it was cold.  Maybe he thought, ok, I am walking on water, now what?

          Have you ever been there?  You are feeling pretty good, like maybe you have just figured this “how to be a grown up thing” and then something happens.  It could be major, it could be just a feeling, a build up of anxiety or worry. Then you think, now what? Where do I go from here?”  Sometimes those moments pass.  Occasionally those moments turn into much longer periods and can be paralyzing.  In those moments, Jesus asks us: Faint heart, what got into you?

          If you have heard enough of my sermons, I hope you will know that I am not the kind of preacher who tries to make Jesus’ words more palatable.  I am always talking about how hard it is to be a Christian. We have to put effort into our relationship with God, just like we have to put effort into any relationship that matters.  There were times that the apostles let Jesus down. There were times he reprimanded him, but it wasn’t in these moments of fear and panic.  It wasn’t when they were putting their faith in him and taking risks.  Those were the moments that Jesus reached out and said, “Do not be afraid…”  A few weeks ago I talked about how the Apostle Paul talks about weakness.  In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he quotes God as saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Jesus encourages us to acknowledge our weakness because it gives us an opportunity to depend more heavily on God.

          There are so many times in life when we forget that God is in charge, when we think we can just put our head down and power through whatever we are facing.  Sometimes it’s when we feel we are at our strongest when we become faint hearted and we forget the one who saves us every single time.  But the good news is that no matter how far you might sink, no matter how bad the storm gets, all you have to do is call out to Jesus.  “Lord, save me.”  Jesus won’t reprimand you. He will pull you up and then ask you, “Faint heart, what got into you?” Again, that’s not a reprimand, it’s an opportunity to remind that you aren’t in control and maybe this is a time to consider where you are in relation to God. As long as you have that connection to God, it doesn’t matter how meager your faith may be…it’s always enough. God’s grace is always sufficient.

Jesus wasn't sensible: July 12

 

 Year A, Pentecost 5                                          Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23                                                                      

Growing up, my father liked to extol the virtues of two foods—potatoes and peanut butter. He told us a story of a man who lived on a jar of peanut butter for 30 days when lost at sea…so we ate a lot of peanut butter. When he was trying to get my older brothers to eat their potatoes (before a 2^nd helping of steak), he talked about the Irish who survived on nothing but potatoes.  Consequently, when I took a pilgrimage to Ireland about 10 years ago, I found myself intrigued by the stories our guide told about the potato famine that led to mass starvation in Ireland in the mid 19^th century.

Our guide, who was also a farmer, explained that during the potato famine, they had to make the most of the land and they needed as much as possible.  They couldn’t just rely on the good soil; they had to dig the rock out of the terrain that was considered bad soil...so it could become good soil.  He said it required a tremendous amount of work to remove all that rock. It was fascinating to hear the stories while seeing the land that they transformed. 

The people Jesus was talking to were farmers or people who knew farmers.  In this time and this area, everyone knew where their food came from and generally how it happened.  It is likely that the people he was talking to were not well off and were unaccustomed to having more than they needed. Unlike today, they did not have food stored in their pantry or their freezer.   If there was a bad crop or a drought, they would very likely go hungry. 

Because of that scarcity, I suspect that this parable of the sower seemed a little ridiculous to them even though the imagery was familiar.  What kind of farmer wastes ¾ of his seeds?  If you only have so many seeds, why throw some on hardened paths, rocky ground, and ground covered with thorns? According to this parable, there was good soil available. Why not stick with that?  Instead of spreading it all over, put all of the seeds in the good soil. That would be the sensible approach. 

As much as it pains me to admit this, Jesus was rarely about the sensible approach.  Let’s face it, the virgin birth—not sensible, the crucifixion—not sensible, the resurrection—not sensible.  This does not make these things any less real, they were just extraordinary.  Yet this is a parable.  Parables are supposed to make sense.  When Jesus spoke in parables, he told a story that people would have been able to identify with and then used that story to teach a lesson about God.  However, just because it was a simple story, did not necessarily mean it was a simple lesson. 

In fact, often, the lessons were counterintuitive.  If this was a sensible and realistic story, the sower would have carefully spread the seeds where he knew there was good soil.  That means all of the seeds would have had growth potential.  As a result, there would have been an even greater harvest and the seeds would not have been wasted.  And this parable is about results, right?

Perhaps not.  You might note that when Jesus explains the parable he refers to it as the parable of the sower, not the parable of the ground or the parable of the crop.  It’s about the sower; the person who is tossing seeds around with wild abandon.  Jesus explains that the seeds are the word of the kingdom or the word of God.  He never says who the sower is, but if the seeds are the word of God, it would be safe to assume that the sower is Jesus.  It could also be whoever spreads the word of God, which means it could be any one of us.

One of the things I cannot help but wonder about is the amount of seeds.  I mean this sower could not have had an unlimited number of seeds.  At what point did he run out?  If we told this story today, it would be all about how careful we are with what we have.  We might talk about the importance of good stewardship of resources.  In other words, how are we using our limited resources as effectively as possible? Instead of talking about the countless supply of seeds, we might talk about how we could get the most out of every seed.  We would discuss each seed and its chance of success. Then in our modern day version of the story, the careful and practical farmer would develop a machine that would distribute each seed in fertile ground.

But this sower isn’t a farmer and the seed is not something that will run out.  This seed is the word of God. The word of God isn’t just the Biblical text; it’s also the experience of God.  It’s God’s love and grace.  And those things don’t come in packages of 100.  They are countless.  Because of that, Jesus is not worried about wasting because there will always be enough.  

But it’s tempting to be strategic in our faith.  We might talk to some people about faith, but only the people we think will be receptive.  We might invite a couple people to church, but only the people who might say yes.  We take the safe road because we fear rejection and we fear failure.  We also wonder if we are capable of being the fertile ground? How can we share with others when we don’t understand everything as well as we should?

Even Jesus realized that he would only reach a portion of the people he was speaking to.  When he taught this parable, the crowd was so large he had to move out to a boat to address them.  Yet in the end, the crowd that sat at the foot of the cross was one or two people.  The crowd that condemned him to death was countless.  He preached to them even when he knew they would not stay with him to the end.  Even his disciples would abandon him in some shape or form.  Yet he kept giving abundantly.

A lot of people read this parable and say the point is that it’s all about God and how God provides.  We can’t change the soil on our own.  We can only pray that God will change it.  Therefore it is not about how we can become better listeners or disciples.  It’s about a God who is so relentless with the love that God gives even to those who might have trouble receiving it.  I agree with that, to an extent.  This text is about God’s abundant love. 

But I also believe it’s about the soil and how that soil can change.  As followers of Christ, we can change.  Some days we are the hardened path.  Some days we are the rocky ground.  Some days we are the good soil.  We might go back and forth. At times, we might even convince ourselves that we are too far gone, we can’t possibly receive God’s word.  That is when it’s important to remember that this is the parable of the sower.   The sower has already thrown the seed everywhere.  God’s loves has been spread to every crevice of this world.  You might feel like you are rocky ground, but God still shared God’s love.  God didn’t wait for you to be in a good place. The sower knows that every type of soil has potential. 

No matter what kind of soil your soul might be feeling like right now, God has already shared God’s love with you.  God is like those Irish farmers, doing that hard work of digging rocks out of the soil that was once considered totally useless.  Not one of you is too far gone to receive God’s love…not just to receive it, but to help others with their own receptivity to God’s love and compassion.  Because if you have been the hardened path, you know how to talk to other people who are experiencing hardened hearts and thorny spirits.  You are not going to say, “Hey, it’s actually really easy and straightforward.”  You might even say, I know what that’s like, and I am still trying to figure it out.  Let’s figure it out together.

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.

---

[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.

Lest We Judge....: March 15

Year A, Lent 4                                                         John 9:1-41                                                                  

“Who sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” When we hear this question in our modern ears and with a basic understanding of science, it sounds like a ridiculous and offensive question.  Two thousand years ago, they had a limited understanding of illness and disability.  Those who were monotheistic (meaning they believed in one God) believed that God was in control of all things.  If you were blind, or had any illness that was because you or your parents sinned. This unfortunately made people who were already isolated for practical reasons, become even more isolated, because obviously, it was there fault.  At the time, this was an almost universal belief, especially among those who worshipped an all powerful and all knowing God. 

However, when Jesus answered the disciples, he said, “neither this man nor his parents sinned.” Obviously, they had sinned at some point, but Jesus was saying that this man’s inability to see had nothing to do with sin.  It’s unlikely that he convinced the disciples in that moment.  It’s hard to let go of deep-seated beliefs, especially beliefs that allow you to feel superior to another just because you are relatively healthy and have no disabilities.  That belief helped them feel safe and secure.  Any belief that allows you to feel safe and secure is really hard to release. 

          Jesus often subverted the assumptions that people made about sin and judgment.  People assumed that those who had been cast out, those who had a disability, those who were poor---they were in that situation because that is what God decided they deserved.   Yet just in these last 2 weeks, we have seen 2 examples of people in the Gospel of John who were cast out by society, but welcomed by Jesus.  Last week we heard the story of the woman who had been married 5 times and this week is the story of man who was born blind.  These two people were living on the margins and assumed to be sinners, yet they were not the people who Jesus condemned.  In fact, they were the people Jesus raised up. It was the people who were self righteous, the people who were convinced of their own favored status…the people who pushed others out and judged them---those were the ones who received Jesus’ harshest judgments.   

          Now there is nothing that unites a group of Episcopalians more than talking about how bad it is to judge other people.  Just this week I saw again…Robin William’s top 10 reasons to be an Episcopalian.  They are mildly amusing, and if I hadn’t already seen them many times, it’s possible that I would find them riotously funny.  The one reason that I have heard most often quoted is that “you don’t have to leave your brain at the door.” The reason that is on this top ten list is because the Episcopal Church has long prided itself on being the “thinking person’s church.”  The not so subtle implication is that other Christians aren’t thinking critically about their faith. 

Before we a judge those other non thinking Christians too much, let’s remember who were the deep thinkers and most educated people in Jesus’ day---the scribes and the Pharisees.  Do you remember who Jesus judged and condemned the most? The scribes and the Pharisees.  Now before you think I am judging my fellow Episcopalians too harshly, I should point out that Palmer and I are the two people in this room who are most like the Pharisees...at least in the respect that we are trained religious professionals.

          So how do we free ourselves from this quagmire of judgment? The last line of our Gospel reading provides a good clue. After Jesus heard that the formerly blind man was pushed out of his worshipping community, he found him and told him who he was.  When the formerly blind man saw and heard Jesus, he worshipped him and said that he believed that Jesus was the Son of Man.  Jesus then said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.” Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?” Jesus said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”

At this point, we are no longer speaking of literal blindness.  The Pharisees showed some degree of self awareness, at least enough to ask the question.  But they were still unwilling to take the next step. They were unwilling to admit that they might be wrong, that there might be another perspective on faith and God.  I think that is an important thing for us to acknowledge, none of us knows that we are right all the time. The only way that Jesus can teach us and reach, is if we are willing to admit that we need Jesus.  We are all unfinished products.  We all have more that we can learn, and some things that we need to unlearn. 

          The violence that we see in our country and world right now has a lot of causes.  I would love to blame it all on our current administration, but it’s so much more than that.  It comes (at least partially) from our unwillingness to admit our need and dependence on God. It also comes from this desire to separate ourselves from those who are different.

This week had been a particularly horrifying week.  We have seen images and videos of bombs in Iran and Lebanon. We hear of those who have died from our military and then children who have died just because they happen to be in the wrong place, the wrong country. Just over the last few days we have also seen targeted violence toward the Jewish community when someone drove their car into a synagogue and violence against future service members.  On Thursday, a man walked into a college classroom in Norfolk Virginia, asked if this was a class for ROTC students and then opened fire.

We all know that violence begets violence.  We know that Jesus abhorred violence and condemned his disciples when they engaged in it.  We know this.  Yet what I find particularly disturbing in the recent years is our reaction to violence.  We immediately start blaming one another.  Because at some point we stopped trying to end the violence and instead focused on how to justify it.  We have put blinders over our own eyes so that we no longer see the humanity in one another. I don’t think we did that on purpose.  Our sight has just gotten more and more limited and we eventually forgot what it looked like to see the whole picture.  

That is what happened with the Pharisees.  It didn’t seem to occur to them to be grateful that someone was cured, someone’s life changed for the better.  Instead it was all about finding fault with the people who weren’t following their rules. If you need to see a modern example of that, just listen to people analyze how the war and the rising costs of oil price will affect the midterms.  It seems like we are always trying to find ways to leverage disaster into a future win for our side.  

Who sinned? That is how this reading began.  Jesus didn’t reprimand the disciples for their ignorance.  What did he do? He healed the person.  There are all kinds of good reasons for examining the cause of something and making sure we don’t make the same mistake.  But then we need to move on and find places of light, love, and healing.  Those places exist. 

Our reading from Ephesians tells us to live as children of light (not grown ups arguing about the light, children who are so quick to believe in goodness and love).  Children of the light.  Jesus brought light to the world and it’s still here.  It hasn’t been defeated.  There are examples of light, even in these dark times.  After the man drove into the synagogue in Michigan, the children from the day school took shelter in a Chaldean country club across the street.  If you are not familiar with the term Chaldean, they are Iraqi Christians. Not only did they care for the children.  The next night they hosted Shabbat for the synagogue.  That is light...communities that once would not have interacted, now providing support for one another.  Instead of making enemies of one another, let’s find more reasons to see the light in another.

Heavenly Army: Christmas

Christmas                                                                                 Luke 2: 1-20                              Christmas Eve is my least favorite time to preach…partly because there are no new takes on this story.  It’s a story we all know so well, in so many different forms.  Yet, I would guess, that there are some things we don’t know as well as we think we do.  I remember my first New Testament class in college. I thought it would be an easy class for me as I had been going to church and Sunday school (which was called CCD in the Catholic Church) every week for my whole life. The professor, probably understanding that some of us were a little overly confident, started with a series of questions that seemed obvious, but were not.  We got most of them wrong.  One he liked to ask was, how many magi were there?  Well?  Anyone?  We all said three but then he pointed out, it never says how many there were, just how many gifts there were.  And the magi don’t even appear in our reading from Luke. 

It is the Gospel of Matthew that has the Kings and the star.  In Luke, we have shepherds and the heavenly host, but no star, no kings.  Those poor shepherds had no star to follow.  The angels told them that the sign they were to look for was “a child wrapped in bands of cloth lying in a manger.”  Bethlehem was (and is) a fairly small town, but it wasn’t that small.  They had to do some searching. 

                Those shepherds were motivated.  An angel had spoken to them and informed them that the Messiah, the Lord, had been born.  It wasn’t just one angel, it was an angel with the multitude of the heavenly host.  Now, when we see this depicted in movies or art, it’s usually a very gentle and bucolic scene.  There is a soft light, maybe one to two angels who don’t look scary or intimidating.  But if that was the case why would it say that the shepherds were terrified?  And that was before the heavenly host showed up. 

Until I started preaching this text, I never considered what a heavenly host meant.  Perhaps a few angels with harps? The Greek word that is translated to host is army. This was heaven’s army, all there to deliver a message.  Ironically, it was a message of peace: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those who he favors.”

                It’s an interesting juxtaposition, an army delivering a message of peace.  God sent this army not to fight, but to tell a few powerless shepherds that the Messiah had come down in the form of a helpless baby.  Most of us have probably held a newborn baby at some point.  They are tiny.  They can’t even hold their head up.  That is how God decided to show up, not with the heavenly army that would have probably been a lot more impressive, but a baby dependent on two humans who also had little power.

                I understand the symbolism of God coming to earth as a human so God could have the experience of walking with us. But sometimes I wonder, why wasn’t God born to a great king or political leader? Then God would not have to sleep in an animal trough.  Jesus would have been protected and his message would have gone farther because important and influential people would have been listening.  Jesus would never had to die because he would have been related to the people in power.  It would have been so much easier.  Or…if you are not liking that idea, Jesus could have been born to the same parents in the same place, but that heavenly army could have stuck around…just in case.  That would have been a lot less risky.  No one would mess with the guy who had the heavenly army backing him up.

                God could have taken any of those options, but no.  God chose to be born like any other child, to parents who were good and holy, but not people with power or influence. I love that about God, but sometimes it also makes me crazy and frustrated.  There are days when I think, we could use a heavenly host right about now, to straighten things out around here.  God has yet to take this recommendation from me. 

                Most days, I feel powerless and a little overwhelmed.  Sometimes that makes me feel weak.  What if we could take our perceived weakness and understand it for what it actually is, vulnerability. The beauty of that vulnerability is that it is something that our creator and savior understands, because he experienced it—as a baby who couldn’t hold his head up, as a young child learning to speak, as a teenager struggling with all the crazy stuff that happens, as a young man who would be abandoned by his friends and then die a horrible death.  That death didn’t make Jesus weak (even though some chose to believe it and maybe still do).  That death allowed him to rise again.  Could he have called on the heavenly host to rescue him from that gruesome death? Yes. But once again, God chose the path that aligned Godself with the most powerless and dejected human beings.

                That is what we celebrate on Christmas, a God who displayed power not with might and armies, but with compassion and love.  Don’t get me wrong, Jesus did miraculous things in his time on earth, but it was never to control people or display his greatness…it was to heal people (their bodies and their souls).  Jesus didn’t defeat the tyranny of the Roman Empire.  If he wanted to do that, he would have brought the army.  Instead, he lived in a way that displayed humility and service.  He died in a way that showed courage and surrender.  He rose again not to bring vengeance on the people who abandoned him, but to forgive them and inspire them.   

                On Christmas, we can and should bask in the warmth of his glory, but also remember that God’s work is not yet done, not even close.   It is up to us, to do that work.