May 25, 2014: Acts 17:22-31

Year A, Easter 6                                                    

            Last year my husband and I decided to try something a  little different for our vacation.  We found a yoga ashram (which is kind of like a retreat center) and decided to give it a shot.  I called before making the reservation because I was a little worried about the twice daily chanting and meditation.  I have practiced yoga for over 10 years, but I have never gotten into the chanting.  I was also concerned that we would be forced to bow to Hindu gods and that would not have gone over well with my husband.  He was already upset about the fact that there were only 2 meals a day.  They assured me that it was in interfaith center and no one faith was emphasized over the others. 

            We arrived and discovered a beautiful center with breathtaking scenery. Our first yoga class was on a platform right next to the ocean.  We had dinner, which was pretty good. Even my husband was happy.  Then we walked into the temple and both of us freaked out a little.  There were huge pictures of Hindu gods as well as statues of their guru.  In the corner there was a tiny picture of Jesus with a rosary hanging over the edge.  Then we proceeded to chant Sanskrit.  I looked at the translation and it was pretty clearly directed to Hindu gods.  There was also bowing involved. My husband started looking for an escape route.

            The Book of Acts is essentially a sequel to the Gospel of Luke because it was written by the same person.  While the Gospels tell the story of Jesus and his followers, Acts tells the story of the beginning of the church.  The church began in a place where faith and religion was already established. In the Gospels we hear about the Jews and the Gentiles.   Often the term Gentile and pagan are used interchangeably, which is not correct.  Pagans are people who believe in multiple gods.  A Gentile is someone who is not Jewish.  Not all Gentiles were pagans, but pagans were all Gentiles.  Jesus spent most of his time with Jews.  He had a couple interactions with Gentiles, but it was very rare.  Things changed after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.  In Acts the disciples began to preach to the Gentiles, who were often pagans. 

            In the reading from Acts today, the Apostle Paul addresses the people of Athens.  Athens was the home of the great thinkers and philosophers.   They were idol worshippers and had prolific idols to prove it. This is the first time that Paul addressed a group like this.  He was only in Athens because he was driven out of the previous two cities that he preached and he was really just waiting for his companions to catch up with him.  He had not intended on preaching to the Athenians.   

            However, while he was waiting, he walked around the city and grew exasperated at the sight of idols throughout the city.  He spent some time in the synagogue speaking to Jews but then engaged in conversation with some philosophers who passed by.   The philosophers were curious about this new idea that Paul was discussing and encouraged him to go to the Agora, which was basically the city center, and address the Aregopagus which was the prestigious court of the Athenians.  He was speaking to the philosophical leaders, which was a pretty big deal and the first time that Paul had addressed a crowd like this. 

            Paul took a slightly different tactic than normal.  Typically he was blunt and not too worried about who he would offend.  This situation was different.  It required some finesse.  So he preached the Gospel in a completely different way.  He started by flattering them remarking on how very religious they were with all their objects of worship.  It’s hard to believe he was sincere given that those objects of worship (idols) were the very same thing that exasperated him upon his arrival.  But perhaps in his conversations with the people, he started seeing these objects from a different perspective.  Maybe he realized that any community that would go to the trouble of creating these idols was clearly searching for something that was beyond their understanding.  

He then appealed to their common ground which was creation and nature.  The philosophers had a respect for creation and God’s part in creation.  They recognized that there was something bigger going on.  Then he pointed out that if God created all these things they worship, how could God possibly live in shrines created by human hands?  Paul did not rely on scripture to prove his point, as was his tendency.  Instead, he quoted two well-known philosophers.  He quote, “In him we live, and move and have our being.”  We can agree with that right? It sounds like something that would come out of the Bible.  The second quote was, “For we too are his offspring.”  If we were to use Christian terminology, we would say that we are all children of God.  What Paul was doing was brilliant because he was taking things from their culture and then putting it in the context of the Christian faith.   He wasn’t tearing them down; he was lifting them up.  He was not smashing their idols, he was changing the way they looked at their idols.  

What is fascinating is that he never even mentioned the name Jesus.  He referred to a man who had been raised from the dead.  And that is when things departed from typical philosophical ideals. After talking about us all being offspring, he said, “While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent…because he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and he has given reassurance to all by raising him from the dead.”  In other words, God proved himself when he raised Jesus from the dead.  Therefore, this man who has been raised from the dead is worthy to judge the whole world.  In my opinion that was a pretty big leap, but we probably don’t have the whole speech.

It was at that point (when he made that leap) that he lost a couple of people.  They ridiculed him.  But there were some who wanted to hear more and some immediately became believers.   This might not be the overwhelming response that was experienced in the beginning of Acts, but it’s not bad considering who he was talking to.   At least three people became followers and who knows whose lives they touched. 

My husband and I spent three days at the yoga ashram.  We went to the chanting sessions because it was required; but I resented it. I talked to almost no one the whole time I was there.  In the last hour we were there, we were killing time until our taxi came and one of the yoga teachers offered to give us a tour.  It was fascinating.  We had a wonderful conversation about their philosophy and why they did what they did.  I really regretted that I had been so closed minded that whole time, so unwilling to engage with others because I was uncomfortable.  I just did not know how to relate, even though we all had something in common, and that was yoga.  I’m not saying I should have evangelized to them, but I think we could have learned from one another.  They might have had some questions had they known there were two Episcopal clergy in their midst.

I think a lot of times we try to take things in our culture and change them to make them Christian.  We think that is how we might reach out to non-Christians.  But that is not really authentic.  Instead what we should do is what Paul did.  Find the common ground and put that in the context of the Christian faith.   That sounds harder than it is.   Because if we believe that God created heaven and earth, as well as humans….well then everything is God’s.  Everything belongs in God’s context.  It’s our job to make that real for people, to make it relevant.  We should never miss an opportunity to do that especially when you are not in church.

May 17, 2014: 1 Peter 2:2-10

Easter 5, Year A                                                                

 

            A few years ago the chapel of Virginia Theological Seminary suffered a catastrophic fire.  Much of the building was wooden and it burned in less than an hour.  Since it was in the middle of the day, many of the students witnessed their beloved and historic chapel burn.  A reporter asked a student what it felt like to see her church burn to the ground.  She replied, “That is not the church” and then indicating the people around her she said, “this is the church.”   I assume that the statement was not meant to dismiss the importance of the building, but to indicate that the Church of Christ was the people of Christ, not the structure that housed the people of Christ. 

            In our reading from 2^nd Peter, we hear about living stones.  Jesus is compared to a living stone as are the people who Peter is writing to.  It’s an odd phrase because we don’t usually associate a stone with life, which is one of the reasons why we can’t read this too literally. Peter makes that clear when he writes, “…and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.”

            In the very early church (when 1^st Peter was written), there were no physical structures dedicated to the Christian faith.  Most Christians were worshipping in homes either because they feared persecution or because there was nowhere else to worship.  There were no community centers or schools and they were no longer welcome in the temples.  They did not have a house dedicated to God (like the Jews were used to having at this time period and we are accustomed to now).  So Peter was urging them to create a spiritual house with themselves as the building blocks and Jesus as the cornerstone.  Thus wherever they went, as long as they were together, they could be in a sacred place.

            I suspect these words were a great comfort to the recipients of this letter.   In the beginning Peter writes “To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia…”  Because of this greeting, and other indicators in the letter, it is believed that the recipients of this letter were people who were displaced from their homes.   Not only did they not have a place to worship, but they might not even have a place to live.  It’s possible that some of these people were separated from their families and in many ways their heritage.  So the idea that they could create a spiritual home wherever they were and with all different kinds of people gave them the promise of belonging, the promise of a home.

            At the same time, it was a challenge.  Jesus, this stone that had become the cornerstone, was a stone that others had rejected, rather dramatically and violently.  It was a stone that caused some people to stumble. And the people who they were building this new spiritual home with were not necessarily the people they were used to worshipping with.   They were people from various ethnicities, religious backgrounds, and social status.   These living stones did not all look alike, nor did they necessarily fit together well…which is why that corner stone, that foundation of Jesus Christ was so critical.  They were not meant to be a community of like-minded people.  They were meant to be a spiritual house, a sacred space created to worship and honor God. 

Many people believe that Christians worshipped only in homes before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380.  This is not entirely accurate.  As the communities grew, in the 200’s and 300’s, special spaces were converted for the specific purpose of hosting a Christian community.  If we were to see these places now, we might not recognize them as a church; but they were in the sense that they were buildings designed specifically for a community of Christians to gather and worship Jesus.   They had created that space because they needed the space for more people to gather.

A lot of people today are questioning why we have church buildings now.  Some people would recommend that we go back to house churches like the early church communities.  Then we would not have worry as much about budgets and things like that.   And I thought about that when I was discerning a call to St. John’s.  What would it mean to be a pastor of community that was especially connected to the building where they worshipped?  Why not start a bunch of house churches if that is what the church of the future looks like?

In ancient times, things that were considered rooted in the ground (like Stonehenge for instance or other huge stone structures) were considered to be living because they “seemed to possess some inherent integrity; their vitality was a function of their being rooted in place.”[1]  So in a sense, these monolithic structures were living stones because they were connected to the past.  That is an intriguing idea when you consider that in the context of old church buildings like St. John’s.         It makes me wonder what it is that makes a building a sacred space.  I suppose there would be a different answer for each church and for each person.  But what makes St. John’s especially sacred to me is it’s connection to all those who worshipped before.  When I celebrate the Eucharist with the communion silver from 1618, it’s almost like I can feel the pulse of those who held those vessels in years past.  It’s a profoundly holy experience.  I have heard other people express that same connection; so I am fairly certain it’s not just me.    

While I value that connection, that rootedness in the past, I fear that sometimes the roots keep us from growing in different directions, in seeing ourselves as living stones that have come together to create something sacredly new.  The roots might be our rich history, but the cornerstone is always Jesus Christ.  That is the one thing that brings us together—that keeps us together.  That is who defines us.   And together as living stones, we are called as Christians to build a spiritual house.  That spiritual house is unlike any actual building because it is a building that is never complete.  It is a building that we work on our whole lives.  We work on it as individuals and we work on it as a community.  In terms of our physical space- we know what our building looks like (and soon we will know what our renovated tower looks like), but what does our spiritual house look like?  There are limits to what this beautiful building can do, but there are no limits to what our spiritual house can do—only those limits we inflict upon ourselves.  So let us maintain this building and honor the connection to Christians and to God—but let us burn those limits we put on our spiritual house. Let’s never stop building and stretching. 

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[1] Commentary by Daniel G. Deffenbaughh, www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=909

May 11, 2014: John 10:1-10

Easter 4, Year A                                                         

 

            The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, comprises the leadership of the Episcopal Church, and meets every three years.  I have had the pleasure of participating in the last three. Each diocese sends 4 clergy, 4 lay people and a bishop. This allows every diocese to have equal representation.  It also creates a fairly large group.  There are about 800 clergy and lay people in the House of Deputies.  A flimsy wall surrounds the 800 people so those who are not deputies (and therefore are not voting) have to stay on the outside.  Once you are inside, it is a hodgepodge.  There are people from all across the world. It really allows you to see the diversity of the Episcopal Church. 

            The last time I was there, our deputation was right next to the Diocese of South Carolina.  At the time, South Carolina was very close to deciding to leave the Episcopal Church.  Because most of us knew that, we were all watching them pretty carefully and for the most part going out of our way to be kind and welcoming.  There was another deputation near them that was known to be fairly liberal, so I was especially curious about their interactions. 

The Gospel reading for today tells part of the familiar story of the Good Shepherd.  Jesus refers to himself as both the Good Shepherd and the gate that the sheep enter through.  This passage comes right after Jesus had a pretty major altercation with the Pharisees.  He had cured a blind man and this created a huge disagreement in the community about where Jesus got his power from.  The Pharisees were trying to prove that he was not a man of God. Things did not end well.  Following this disagreement, Jesus told a story about bandits and thieves who tried to steal the sheep and strangers who tried to lead the sheep astray. 

It is natural for us to assume that these bandits and thieves might be the people who Jesus was disagreeing with.  In some ways, we can find the imagery of a gate…of separation, comforting.  It’s us against all those bad guys lurking around, trying to steal our book of common prayer, our church property and even our people.  It’s us against those thieves and bandits. 

            When John wrote this Gospel, the Christian Church was not yet established.  There was a contingent of Jewish people who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.  They did not yet see themselves as a separate group.  They were not trying to break off and create their own church.   They saw it as a natural progression for the Jewish people, and in time all Jews would come to know Jesus as the Messiah. 

But in the meantime, the Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah were in the minority.  They must have felt the pain of separation, the pain of being ostracized by a group that was essentially their family.  Therefore, it must have been very important to them, that they be right, that they be on the inside of the fence this time. 

            I do not believe that was the way Jesus thought.  Jesus did not see groups.  He saw individuals.  Jesus could see into the depths of each person’s soul.  Thus when Jesus referred to himself as a gate, it is not a gate that divides.  It is a gate that welcomes.  There were two different kinds of sheep folds in this time period.  One was the large communal sheep fold in the village.  These sheep folds had good fences and one very strong door or gate.  They were safe places for the sheep and the shepherd.

 But shepherds liked to take their herds out in the warm season and they would not necessarily return to the village at night.  In those times, the shepherd had to create a more rudimentary sheepfold.  Instead of having a door with a key, there was just a small opening.  Therefore, to protect the sheep, the shepherd would lie across the opening.  Anyone, or anything that would go in or out, would literally have to go over the body of the shepherd. 

That is how Jesus acted as a gate.  It was not simply a matter of dividing some sheep from everything else; it was about being the point of entry into the community.  Every individual would come by, or over Jesus.  People were not judged by what group they were part of, where they were on the spectrum of conservative or liberal.  It was about knowing the underbelly, the soul of each person coming through. 

            There are a lot of fences in the Episcopal Church now.  There have been for some time.  Of all the General Conventions that I have been to, this seemed the most amicable, although that might have been because most of the people who were upset had already left.  Everyone in that gated area knew that there was a good chance South Carolina would walk out and not return.  As the days went by, more and more of their deputation left.  By the last day, their table was empty. 

            I think we have to be careful about how we use the gates in our communities.  We do not have the shepherd with us…not literally.  We can’t always know for sure if what we are doing is what he would want us to do.  What I know is that he would want us to leave our doors and gates wide open.  There might be someone standing at the gate, but that person should be someone who would be ok with the underbelly of the individual.  

            We might think that we do not have to worry at St. John’s about things that are going on in the national church.  Perhaps not, but I believe each individual church deals with some of the same challenges.  We get so nervous about protecting ourselves from what is outside of us that we lock our doors and welcome people with caution.  We would not want someone to walk all over us, would we?  Yet that was exactly the model that Jesus was displaying.  The sheep walked right over the shepherd.   It was one of the reasons that the shepherd knew the sheep so well. 

I am not advocating having our usher lie across the entrance of the church.  That would make people a little uncomfortable.  I am just trying to figure out how our community can not only be welcoming to the outside but also be ok with the underbelly of one another who are already here.

            A couple days into the convention, someone I knew from the liberal deputation turned to one of the priests from South Carolina.  She shook his hand and said, “I’m really glad you are here.  We need people like you in our church to give us balance. If you leave, it will throw us off balance.”  I found this fascinating because I knew the person who was talking was gay and in a partnered  relationship.  She would not be allowed to serve in South Carolina and she knew that.  But he still wanted them to stay with us in the fold. 

            Maybe instead of just worrying about who we are letting in, we should also consider those who feel so different and alone, that they think they have to leave.  That is why it is so important that we know and love the underbelly.  Because once you really love someone as Jesus loves each of us, it’s harder to let them go and it is harder for them to go.  The church should not be an easy place to exit, not because we lock you in, but because we are committed to loving one another even when we are so incredibly different, even when we occasionally mistake one another for the thief or the bandit.

            There is no room in the Kingdom of God for thieves and bandits.   Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  The thieves and bandits only come out when we are stingy with our love.  Because then we are the thieves and bandits. Let us not be stingy with our love.

May 4, 2014: Luke 24:13-35 (youtube link included)

You can find this on youtube here: http://youtu.be/Xc-1ma_uY9o

Year A, Easter 3                                                                     

                                                                               

            This is a perplexing story. In some ways, I felt as though I was unraveling a mystery as I studied it…or at least trying to.  One of the many mysteries of this story is why the two followers of Jesus did not recognize Jesus when he appeared to them.  Was he wearing a disguise…speaking in a funny accent?  How is it that two people who had known him so well could perceive him as a stranger?  Of course this is not the only time when Jesus is not recognized after his resurrection.  Mary thought that Jesus was a gardener.  My theory which I shared with you on Easter is that she was not able to recognize Jesus because she was blinded by her own expectations. She was looking for him in the wrong place…in the tomb.  That is not where you find the risen Christ.  I think part of the reason these two followers of Jesus did not recognize the risen Christ was because they were moving in the wrong direction.  Instead of looking in the wrong place like Mary was, they had stopped looking at all.

            When Jesus first appeared to them, they were leaving Jerusalem…the place where Jesus was crucified.  They were leaving even though there were rumors that Jesus was alive again. You would think that if there was even a chance that Jesus was alive again, even a crazy rumor, they would have stuck around to see what all the fuss was about.  Why were they leaving the holy city?  When they told this stranger who ended up being Jesus what had happened, they said, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”  We had hoped. 

They stopped hoping, even though they had heard him talk about his resurrection before he died, even though they had heard from people that he was back, risen from the dead.  But this was not how it was supposed to be.  He was crucified by the Romans and Israel was not redeemed. If anything, things were worse than before.  Things had not turned out as they hoped and because of that they did not even recognize Jesus. 

            Yet in just a few short hours, Jesus reawakened their hope.  He didn’t do it with a spectacular light show.  The clouds did not break allowing rays of light to rest upon his head.  There was no voice from heaven.  All of these things had happened before while he was still alive, but not this time.  This time Jesus simply walked with them and listened to their grief and their fear.  He talked to them about the Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures…which is the place where they had first learned to hope. 

Yet their hope was still dead…at least it was dormant.  They still could not see.  So he sat down and ate with them because they begged him to stay.  Even though they did not recognize him as the Christ, they saw something in him that made them need his presence.   There were still walls around their heart, but the walls were beginning to crumble.  The scales were falling from their eyes. And then he broke bread with them.  Finally they saw and believed.

Well, duh…I mean how obvious can you be? Wouldn’t we all see Jesus if he broke bread with us?  It’s such an obvious allusion to the Last Supper.  But wait, these two were not with Jesus at the Last Supper.  These two were not one of the 12 apostles.  They had not read the Gospels because the Gospels has not yet been written.  When I see this scene in my head I imagine Jesus breaking bread and then winking at the television audience—now they are going to get it! It was not as obvious as it seems to us.  They were not at the last supper.  This was not an obvious hint.  Something else opened their eyes. Their hearts that were so closed off because hope had died, their hearts finally opened. 

            And I am not sure why.  But I believe it’s because like so many of us, faith took time.  When all hope is lost when hope has literally died on a cross, it’s going to take some persistence.  They had built walls around their hearts to protect themselves and it was going to take time for those walls to come down.  Jesus was going to have to do more than just preach a good sermon for them.  He was going to have to stay a little while, sit with them and share a meal.  You know, sometimes I think that if I can preach a good enough sermon, I can break through to someone who has lost faith.  And I know how that sounds, I know it is only God who can make such a difference, but I believe that my sermons come from God, at least the times when God can break through my walls. 

            You see we all have these walls around our hearts.  Some of us have been building them for years and years…some perhaps have temporary walls that go up occasionally when we need them, or think we do. Our walls are as unique as each of us.  Cleopas and his nameless friend had walls too.  And I suspect that the walls were always there.  The hope they had while Jesus was alive was probably a little fragile.  Hope can be a fragile thing, which is why we protect it with walls. 

            One of the many interesting things about this story is that Jesus doesn’t just stop them on the road to Emmaus, make himself known, give them a pep talk and tell them it is time to turn around.  He could have.  He could have done something dramatic, perhaps even forced them to see.  But he didn’t.  He knew they had to come to this a little more slowly. So he walked with them, even when they going the wrong way.  He stayed with them, even though they were still blind to his presence. 

Jesus’ love for us is persistent.  It is relentless.  Even when we are not persistent in our faith, even when we are moving in the completely wrong direction, Jesus never gives up on us.  Jesus knows that no matter how thick—how sturdy our walls are, they ultimately crumble in his divine presence.  And when we veer off course again…which we will, Jesus will always be there to guide us back.  

            Jill and Casey- I would tell you that your journey is just beginning, but I won’t.  In some ways it is true, but you both have already had profound experiences and challenges in your faith journey.  You will have more.  One of my favorite parts of this ceremony is the charge to the young people (your peers) and the congregation.  In this service, like in baptism, we agree to support you in your faith.  There will be times when you need that support.  There will be times when you will be a support to others.  One of things that the two people on the road to Emmaus discovered was the importance of sharing their faith and their doubt with one another.  I think that trip would have been much harder if they were alone.  Jesus came to both of them. I hope you know that church is a place where you do not have to be perfect.  You can have doubts and questions and you can share those doubts. We are companions on this journey together.  Wherever you may go, whatever you may do, remember this, you are always welcome here. Nothing can change that.  (That goes for the rest of your too.)

(The last part of this sermon was written specifically for our Rite 13 Celebration.)

Sermons now on youtube

I am experimenting with youtube right now.  Greg Brauer recorded my most recent sermon and you can find it here: http://youtu.be/RNylLMoL_z0

April 27, 2014: John 20:19-31

Year A, Easter 2                                                        

 

During my first year of seminary, I had to read a book called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families.  It was about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.  There are two main tribes in Rwanda: the Hutus and the Tutsis.  They lived in relative peace, often as neighbors. The Hutus made up 85% of the population.  In 1994 Hutu extremists began a plot to wipe out the entire Tutsi population.  It is estimated that 800,000 Rwandans were killed in a matter of months, the majority were Tutsis.  Seventy percent of the Tutsi population was killed. That book was one of the most painful things I have ever read.  It primarily covered what led up to the genocide, the killing itself, and then a very brief aftermath. While I think about that book every time I see an article about Rwanda, I have not read much about it until this week.

Just this week I saw a piece in the New York Times magazine called, “Portraits of Reconciliation.”  This piece ran on the 20 year anniversary of the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda.  It was here that I read more about what came in the years after the genocide.  When the killing and looting finally ended, the Tutsis (the tribe that was almost obliterated) returned to their homes to find that they were living next door to people who had brutally murdered their families and driven them out.  As you can imagine, this was a difficult way to live.  There were court trials and some of the people who had committed the atrocities were sent to jail, but they eventually got out if they were convicted at all.  The justice system was not equipped for this kind of mass slaughter, and it certainly could not help people emotionally.

A Roman Catholic group aptly called “Pax Christi,” [1] stepped in and introduced a totally different model, reconciliation.  They[2] worked with small groups of Hutus and Tutsis and counseled them over many months.  At the end of the program, the perpetrator would formally request forgiveness from the victim.  If forgiveness was offered, the perpetrator would present the victim with an offering (usually food and banana beer).  

I often wonder what it was like for the disciples to see Jesus after they had abandoned him and denied him.  It probably had not occurred to them that they would see him again, certainly not so soon.  Jesus was aware of their angst and guilt and started with a fairly standard greeting, “Peace be with you.”  But then he followed it up with something a little new.  “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

It might seem strange that he did not tell them that they were forgiven.  They had committed some pretty egregious sins. One would think they needed that forgiveness.  If you were here on Maundy Thursday, you might remember that Jesus had already forgiven his disciples when he washed their feet.  He forgave them before they even knew that they needed to be forgiven.  So he did not have to tell them again. Now he was commissioning them to proclaim God’s forgiveness to other people.  We forgive one another in one sense, but when there is a sin that is committed, it is only God who can forgive.  What we do is tap into that that forgiveness.  We proclaim that forgiveness…which you would think would be easier to do than the actual forgiving…but it’s still pretty hard.

Each portrait in the Times’ piece depicted two people: the person who had perpetrated the crime and the person who had suffered from that crime.  One of the pictures depicts a man who killed a family and the mother of the family sits right next to him.  One story was about a woman who was chased from her village.  She became homeless and insane.  She returned to find her home destroyed.  Her husband was gone and she had to care for her children.  One of the men who looted her home asked her forgiveness.  She granted it (although not easily) and he brought 50 people, many who had committed atrocities during the genocide, and rebuilt her home.  In the interview the woman said, “Ever since then, I have started to feel better. I was like a dry stick; now I feel peaceful in my heart, and I share this peace with my neighbors.”[3]

When she compared herself to a dry stick, I was reminded of a line from Psalm 22 that we heard on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  “My strength is dried up like a potsherd.”  A potsherd is like an old piece of pottery you might find in the ground.  Sometimes we all feel that dryness.  It’s that feeling of being brittle and weak, like we might fall apart at any moment.  Or maybe we are just thirsty, in need of something to sustain us.  The thing that quenched her dry body and heart was the freedom to forgive.  Once she forgave, she was able to find peace and share that peace.

It is no wonder that Jesus brought both peace and a challenge to forgive when he came to the disciples.  He knew that they would need to share this message of forgiveness with others because it is not something that comes to us naturally.  It can be a very hard thing to do.  I have always found the line “If you retain the sins of any, they are retained” to be a little strange.  Does that mean that we can withhold God’s forgiveness?  Of course not.  We cannot control who God forgives.  But we can withhold forgiveness in the sense that when we refuse to forgive, we hold on to that sin…we retain it.  We become like a dry stick, brittle and weak. 

            When you look at the portraits, and I encourage you to do so, you will not see warm and fuzzy images.  Most of the people look pretty awkward. Some have become close, but most have not.  Part of the reason they forgave was because they had to live with these people.  It was the only way they could survive.  We think that when we forgive, when we share God’s forgiveness that it will be easy and natural.  Usually it’s not.  That dry and brittle feeling might stick around for awhile.  When Jesus returned, he made sure to show his disciples his wounds.  Even though he was back from the dead, he still carried his wounds.  Forgiving others…forgiving ourselves does not erase the wounds, it transforms them into something else.  Sometimes that transformation will take longer than 3 days….maybe longer than 3 or 30 years.

            The man who looted the home of the woman I quoted also spoke of the process of reconciliation.  He said, “I had lost my humanity because of the crime I committed, but now I am like any human being.”  It is amazing to me that we can lose our humanity.  People can take it from us; sin can take it from us.  At least it feels that way.  But God never takes away our humanity.  That is God’s gift to us.  We are created in God’s image and no one can change that.  We tarnish ourselves and we tarnish others, but God’s image is always there, waiting to shine through.

            It made me smile when I read that part of the reconciliation process is for the perpetrator to bring an offering of food and banana beer. I thought, that seems like a pretty pathetic offering in comparison to what they did.  Then I thought of what we offer to God on Sundays.  We bring wine and bread.  We might bring some food for the local food pantry, and then whatever money we can spare.  This is the offering we give to Jesus for his sacrifice on the cross.  At least the food they offer in Rwanda is fresh!  Those wafers are the most stale bread you can imagine. 

But that’s not really what the offering is about is it? Psalm 51 says, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.”  The banana beer and wine is nice, but what God really wants is a contrite heart and heart ready to forgive.  A broken and contrite heart might feel brittle and weak to us.  To God, it is the most beautiful and powerful thing we can offer. 

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[1] http://www.paxchristi.net/member-organizations/rwanda/193

[2] Association Modest et Innocent (AMI) was the specific group that worked in Rwanda.

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/magazine/06-pieter-hugo-rwanda-portraits.html?_r=0

 

April 20, 2014: John 20

Easter Year A                                                               

            It was my first Ash Wednesday as a priest and I was a little nervous about leading the church through Lent all on my own.  I was planning on visiting someone and stopped in the sanctuary to retrieve the reserved sacrament from the aumbry.  The aumbry is the wooden box between the main church and the side chapel.  When we have left over consecrated bread and wine, we put it in the aumbry.  In the Episcopal Church, we believe that Christ is present in the sacrament.  We call the bread the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ.  Even once the service is over, Jesus is still present in the bread and the wine.   When I looked in the aumbry, I realized that the container that held the bread was gone.  That container is always supposed to be there, even when it is empty. The only time it comes out is when we take it out during the service itself.  Of course I panicked.  My first thought was, “Oh dear God, someone stole Jesus. It’s my first Lent and Easter as a priest.  I am all by myself and I have already lost Jesus.”   I realize that my reaction was a little irrational, but I was very sincere.

            When Mary Magdalene saw that the tomb was empty, her first reaction was that someone stole the body of Jesus.  That reaction might seem a little irrational to us now.  Who would steal a body?  Didn’t she know that he was going to be resurrected?  Hadn’t she been listening?  It was a fairly reasonable fear, one that the other disciples probably shared.  One of the concerns of the Roman and Jewish leadership was that Jesus would be worshipped after his death.  This could happen in a couple of ways.  His followers could steal the body and tell everyone that he came back from the dead.  Or…his body would remain there and his burial site would become a place of worship for his followers, which would create problems for the Romans. 

While there was a rationale for a missing body I am still surprised that disciples thought the body was stolen after all that Jesus had told them when he was with them.  Yet we look at it through the lens of already knowing the end of the story.  Jesus’s followers didn’t have the Gospels all written out. Jesus told his followers about his resurrection, but he did not give them concrete details.  They had no idea how it would happen or what it would look like.  We really cannot blame them for expecting to find the body of Jesus in the tomb where he was buried and then be confused and scared when it was gone.

            Peter and the beloved disciple reacted to this fear and confusion by leaving the garden and locking themselves in a room with the other disciples.  Yet Mary stayed.   She wept and continued to gaze into the empty tomb. Through her tears she saw two angels in white who asked her why she was weeping.  She told them she was weeping because they had taken away her Lord and she did not know where to find him.  The angels did not respond and then for some reason she turned.  She turned away from the tomb and the angels within.  Perhaps she sensed there was someone behind her.  Maybe the sight of the angels disturbed her.  When she turned, she found Jesus.  But she did not know it was Jesus.  She thought he was the gardener. 

            One cannot help but wonder how Mary, someone who knew Jesus well, was not able to recognize Jesus.  Some have hypothesized that it was her tears that clouded her vision, literally and figuratively.  Perhaps her grief was so great she could not see properly.  She was so convinced that this was a stranger was not Jesus that she asked him to tell her where he had taken the body of Jesus.  Then Jesus said one word, her name.  That was all it took.  She heard him call her name and she knew that it was Jesus.  

            I often run into people from the parish outside of the church.  It might be a restaurant, the grocery store, the gym, any number of places.  Usually I recognize the person, but occasionally I don’t because the person is not in the right context.  But most of the time, I recognize the person long before they recognize me because I am really out of context.  I am not wearing my robes or my collar. We tend to put people in certain categories-- in boxes and it can be disconcerting when we encounter that person in an entirely different environment.   It’s not that we do not want to see the person; we just don’t expect it.  And in that moment we don’t always recognize the person, even someone we might know well.  I wonder if that was what happened to Mary on a much more dramatic scale.   She had seen him die.  She was there to mourn him, weep for him.  She was there to close this chapter of her life. Yet when she saw that tomb empty, everything changed. The paradigm shifted.  Her role as a disciple of Christ was not ended; it was just beginning. 

            While seeing the living Christ was comforting and hopeful, it was also disconcerting.   The first thing he said to her after he said her name was, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”  What?  There was no, “So good to see you, thanks for being one of the few people to stick with me through the end.”  No big hug.  Not even a reassuring hand on her shoulder. 

            It’s not that Jesus didn’t want to show Mary that he loved her.  I am sure he wanted to comfort her. However, he knew that the person she was clinging to was the person who died on that cross…the same person she was expecting to find in the tomb.  But he was not that person anymore.   He was the resurrected Christ and he could not be confined to the tomb, nor could he be grasped by human hands or hopes.

            It would be nice if we could always find Jesus in the last place we left him, like a tomb or an aumbry.  That way when we needed him, we could just visit him there, or possibly take him out and hold on to him for a while.  Yet Jesus refuses to be confined to a tomb.  He likes to surprise us and come to us in different forms when we least expect him.  I fear that often we get so wrapped up staring at the empty tomb (because that is where he is supposed to be) that we ignore the stranger standing behind us.  We are afraid to turn around because while the tomb is dark and empty, it’s what we know and understand. 

            I eventually found the consecrated hosts.  Someone had mixed them with unconsecrated hosts…which really blew my liturgically correct mind.   I ate them all…and there were a lot.  I have no idea if that was the right thing to do.  I wanted to make sure that the consecrated host was consumed, but I did not want to jumble them all together since some were not consecrated. 

Often we find that things that are holy and sacred are jumbled in with the ordinary.  Sometimes Jesus looks more like a gardener than God.   What we have to decide is if we are going to leave him in a box or allow him entry into every aspect of our life.  God does not typically come to us in bite sized pieces.  God comes to us in inconvenient times when we have 1000 other things we are supposed to be doing.  As lovely as our Easter service is, this is a tiny tiny glimpse of God.  And if this all we are experiencing of God, we are missing out.  We could leave this service and consider our Christian duty complete.  Or like Mary who finally turned from the empty tomb to start a new life, we too can leave and realize that our role as a disciple is just beginning.