Easter 2, 2022

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title: Easter 2c 

author: St. Paul's, Monroe 

date: April 24, 2022

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April 24: The Second Sunday of Easter

Lectionary

Revelation

For a long time I wanted to stay as far away from the last book of the Bible as I could get. Typically Christians that I didn't want to be associated with thought very highly of the last book in the Bible -- "The Revelation to John" -- and used it in ways that seemed inappropriate to me. Even before I had a very good understanding of what the book was all about I had the sense that using it as if it was a book of predictions, like Nostradamus, was an example of inappropriate use.

At the same time I really didn't know what to make of it. Eventually I decided that what I needed to do was find out a little bit about the book, to read it to begin with, and then begin to explore the variety of ways that the book has been interpreted.

One of the things to be learned about the book is that it is a prime example of a kind of writing called apocalyptic. Apocalyptic has a number of quite specific characteristics that distinguish it from other kinds of writing. Among them is a very creative use of imagery in the narrative. Steven Spielberg, for example, is a very good story-teller and combines his narrative with stunning images. Apocalyptic writing uses startling imagery, often fantastic visions, esoteric language, and concerns itself with the end times.

When trying to understand apocalyptic writing one of the first things that you learn to appreciate is that the writing was not intended to frighten a population, but rather to encourage people who were under persecution, conflict, or war. It's an elaborate and colorful way of communicating with a population that "everything is going to be OK because God is in charge."

Through the years one of the most important things that I encountered in that first class on the Book of Revelation was that the book has worship as a major theme. It has several scene of heavenly worship and can be read as if the whole narrative was a form worship directed toward the one true God, the Living God. Next week's reading will feature a passage that emphasizes the worthiness of God to be worshiped. One of the basic conflicts present in the book is between those who worship God and those who worship the beast.

One author observes that, "There are numerous worship elements found in Revelation: amens, antiphonal singing, doxologies, gifts (crowns placed before the throne), hymns, incense, maranathas, palm branches, prayers, a prostration, robes, sacred meals, shouts of celebration, silence, thanksgiving, trumpet-blowing, victory songs ..." ^1

The word worship is first used about eight or 900 years ago. It is not a word that would have been used by the people who first heard and read the Revelation to John. At the same time it is an exceedingly common word especially among evangelical Christians.

For myself worship is always in the context of liturgy. The word liturgy literally means the "work of the people." It is a word familiar to first century Christians, so I think I'm in good company to make comparisons. What we do as liturgy ought to be colorful and passionate the same way the Revelation to John is. It ought to leave us built up and replenished. In times of depression or persecution our liturgy ought to strengthen us and encourage us.

These are things that the Book of Revelation can do if "we have ears to hear it."

In today's reading from scripture we hear from the opening of the Revelation to John. We will continue to hear readings from it throughout the season of Easter. This is a good opportunity to study and read further about the book if any of you are so inclined.

However you approach the readings, I hope you can enter into the glorious spirit that is portrayed there.

Glory

It is a glorious season that we have entered into. Today is the octave of Easter. A week after Easter. The glory of Easter ripples down week by week for a week of weeks until the day of Pentecost.

Every year on this day we hear John's Gospel describe the events of a week after the Lord had risen. Every year on this day we hear about the disciple Thomas. Every year on this day I try to think of ways to salvage Thomas from the epithet that he is the doubting one. Christian faith in most people's minds is built on faith and doubting is contrary to that for many. The one apostle who is known for doubting is this Thomas. I do know that I'm not responsible for Thomas's reputation, but when some image has so entered the tradition as to be a source of humor and caricature, my own suspicion is that we have missed something in the hearing. That's what I think about "Doubting Thomas." I think, "There's more to the story than at first appears."

When the other disciples report what they have seen and heard for whatever reason their account is not persuasive to Thomas. He says he needs to touch the wounds before he can believe. Whenever I think about it I imagine that I am where Thomas is. It's not just the need for evidence but somehow to experience the reality of the risen Lord. The other disciples had already experienced it. Thomas wanted the same.

It seems to me that the first part of the episode indicates that the other disciples did not yet have a persuasive message to give others, such that it would have the effect of changing the life of those who heard. There are good preachers and there are bad preachers. I am persuaded that one of the things that marks good preachers is that they speak from what they know. It's why I continually ask myself, "What is it that I really know?"

The message Jesus gives Thomas makes explicit reference to "those who come after" -- namely you and me. We have received the testimony of countless generations who have gone before us that Jesus wounds are real and his victory is as well.

I’m thinking of the people who taught me, spoke to me, witnessed to me, in such a way that I am more sure of Christ’s presence than I was when I was young.

I stand before you because of counteless others who have gone before me to make sure that I could stand here before you this day. The 20th chapter of John’s gospel ends:

… Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

That might well be the way the gospel ended in its earliest edition. In any case, the next chapter which is the actual last in John’s gospel ends with almost the same words. Clearly what we call the Gospel of John was compiled in order to build up the faith of those who "come after."

Let us see Jesus

Pasted on the inside of a high and ornate pulpit in Germany were the words:

“Sir we would see Jesus” (John 12:20)

The story was told by a Lutheran turned Episcopal priest in one of the few sermons I've through the years that I actually remember -- at least I remember that part of it.

The message from the priest was straightforward. When you preach, do it in such a way that the people who are thirsty to “see Jesus” can actually do so.

I’ve never forgotten those words in 30+ years of preaching. It’s a daunting goal. One that I alone cannot meet. But sometimes it happens.

Tony Campolo preached a sermon once in which he made the case that in order to put our faith into action, a good way to do that was to sponsor a child living in poverty. He ended with something like a "command", and I felt myself lifted from seat, sent through the rear doors, and signed up to support a child in South America. I helped to support her through high school and now I am helping another child.

That’s the kind of power and effectiveness John is talking about. And the effect of that kind of preaching is a community like that described in the Acts of the Apostles, from which we will hear throughout the season of Easter.

I want to read to you a short excerpt from an Easter sermon, written some 1700 years ago. The words are powerful speak to us today. [^2]

Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I am glorified with Him. Yesterday I died with Him; today I am given life with Him. Yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise again with Him. Today let us offer Him Who has suffered and Who has risen for us—you think perhaps I was about to say, gold, or silver, or precious things, or shining stones of rare price, the frail material of this earth, which will remain here. . . . [R]ather, let us offer Him ourselves, which to God is the most precious and becoming of gifts. Let us offer to His Image what is made in the image and likeness of this Image. And let us make recognition of our own dignity. Let us give honour to Him in Whose Likeness we were made. Let us dwell upon the wonder of this mystery, that we may understand for what Christ has died.

Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become God's because of Him, since He for us became man.

Easter is the key proclamation for Christians, it has been repeated over and over again to make that possible. On the one hand I think that every generation has to make the truth their own. At the same time I think that I am only here because of the countless saints who have gone before – many of them having done a better job of it than I.

We live in the echo of Easter. The Christian year is like a repeated echo – each week concludes with the “Day of the Lord” in which Easter is the underlying message. We are here only because of the empty tomb discovered by those women all those years ago. If they had been able to anoint and bury their teacher as they intended, they would have been impacted the rest of their lives with the sadness and disappointment of that. But instead they found the Lord Risen again and the rest of their life was one of joy.

The whole of history since that day is a repetition, an echo, of that event.

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[^2]: St. Gregory Nazianzus “On Holy Pasch”

Morris Funeral

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title: Janice Pyron Morris Funeral 

author: St. Paul's, Monroe 

date: April 19, 2022

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Note:

The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too, shall be raised.

The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn.

Opening

The second to last chapter of the Bible begins an awesome vision that culminates with words fit for end of a great symphony by a great composer.

20 The one who bears witness to these things says, “Yes, I’m coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! 21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.

That's how the Bible ends. Every time I read it or hear it I feel awe and wonder.

The passage we heard today is the beginning of that vision.

A new heaven and a new earth. Underscore "new". Not a reproduction of the old Jerusalem -- a new Jerusalem.

It's a fit place for God to move in and make a home. This is a new thing God is doing.

When I try to fathom what that's all about, I think it might make a difference that I'm old. The perspective is different when you've been around a while.

I'm going to make all things new. Not a repeat of the old, but something entirely new. Not new like, do it over, but made to the perfection fitting for God to dwell in.

Alpha and Omega, beginning and end.

I get shivers inside when I read these words. It's not just that I'm old and impressed by all the things I can't do now that I used to be able to do.

This is a cosmic vision of where everything is headed, beyond what we can imagine. And it's all good.

We can readily say, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."

These are words that some claim was the earliest Christian proclamation. The earliest faith statement. Maranatha. Come, Lord.

It's all good, and we give thanks.

A life together

When I spoke with Henry, and he described a little of the last week, I heard him speak of Janice with a deep intimacy, born of the 62 years together, a deep love. And then his voice kind of broke off, as if he began to see a vision. Not unlike the one I have just described.

Something new was being born out of the old. A new heaven and a new earth were about to born.

I had the distinct sense that he was ready to say, "Yes. Maranatha."

I can't begin to fathom the depth and breadth of what Janice's life was all about, or of what Henry and Janice's life together was all about.

For me it's like the ocean. Deep and largely beyond my knowing. Yet I know deep in my own life the truth of the final vision of John and the testimony of Jesus with his friend Martha.

I am the Resurrection and the life.

Resurrection

"Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."

At my age, I am so aware of what I don't know. But I know that if there's anything at all that's true in my life, it is that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life.

That's what it's all about.

In ways I can't fathom, but in the end is the rock upon which I have built my life.

Words of gratitude

In a moment we will hear some of the grace and details of the life of Janice Pyron Morris.

I know you will hear them with awe and wonder. Really what there is to say is simple.

Yes. Come, Lord. I give thanks to the Lord, for he is gracious, and his mercy endures forever.

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Gaertner Funeral

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title: Christian Burial for Frank Gaertner 

author: St. Paul's, Monroe 

date: April 18, 2022

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Opening

It’s the day after Easter and drizzly out. We find ourselves gathered into a church, probably not the first thing we thought we'd be doing the day after Easter.

Death personified

I’m just one person and my experiences are limited by the fact that — well, it’s just me. But my experience of death is that it comes to us unbidden. Unwelcome. So often a surprise. Sometimes when a person has been in great pain and suffering, death is in fact longed for, but with some kind of rascally contrariness it takes its own sweet time.

Death takes us by surprise. But, again, my own experience has been that, at such times, God’s presence is more palpable than at any other time. The bold, large, emotions are quite familiar to us then: laughter, tears, stories to tell, poignant memories silently remembered, faces of loved ones not seen in years.

The boundary between God’s realm and our own is dependably reduced, no longer locked or guarded.

Always an Easter Liturgy

The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too, shall be raised.

The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn.

The Gardener

Few are as equipped to know these things as are gardeners. Priscilla was quick to share her own vision of Frank, newly entered into the wider paradise, as having a new-found garden to plan and tend to. Jesus was quite comfortable using images and stories from the garden. Fig trees that needed pruning. Seeds that needed planting. Weeds that needed removal. Mary at the empty tomb mistook Jesus for the gardener. Priscilla said that some of their neighbors, having recognized her, respond with, “Oh, you’re the gardener’s wife.”

We gather today to celebrate first and foremost the victory over death through the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him are all of us bound together in the love of God which passes all understanding. For today, at least, seek not to understand but to embrace that love of God which may, to us seem remote at times, but which to Frank today is closer than we can possibly imagine.

Eulogy

Frank Jr. is now going to share a few thoughts with us, for and about his father.

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Easter 2022

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title: Easter Homily 2022 

 date: April 2022 

author: St. Paul's, Monroe

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Opening ^1

Wearing new clothes

There is a tradition that Easter is the day to show up at church in new clothes. That tradition goes back to the association of Easter with baptism, with the incorporation of new Christians into the body of Christ. Baptism as it was practiced for many centuries entailed being stripped of your old clothes before entering the baptismal font and as you emerged being clothed in new white robes. New clothes for the new life given in the Risen Lord.

This morning

I am particularly attracted to the women at the tomb, to their tenderness, sensitivity, intensity, awe, wonder, and not a little bit their trepidation. I am drawn to Mary who heard the Lord call her by name. And with that was ready to run to pass on the news that she had seen the Lord.

I am in awe of the power of one person’s testimony, be it a story or just the look in their eye, that the world has just changed. That God has spoken. That in the empty tomb & Resurrection, life was transformed.

The scripture readings today are primarily about those who, having been touched in various ways by the sacred encounter with Jesus, were able to pass on their account in such a way that one person after another, stretching now into the billions, believed and followed him to become his students and friends.

That is powerful story-telling.

Peter began to speak:

We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.

Tell it for healing

How one tells the story. To tell it with power. It has moved men and women, young and old, for thousands of years.

Eli Wiesel illustrated this with a story:

“When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.”

In succeeding generations, when their people were threatened, rabbis would return to the forest seeking salvation for them. But in the next generation, a rabbi had forgotten how to light the fire. In another, the rabbi forgot the prayer. In the third generation, the rabbi does not even know the place.

This last rabbi prays to God, ‘‘I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is ask You to redeem us, and this must be sufficient.’’

The whole point of the book of Acts is that as the followers of Jesus began to tell the story, their lives and the world around them began to change. As they tell us again and again, “The reason we do this is for all those who come after.”

Tell it for power: the monk^2

Stories are powerful.

In ancient times there was a conquering army going through villages wreaking havoc and mayhem. The soldiers killed indiscriminately and were especially harsh on the monks, taking special care to humiliate and torture them, before killing them. When the army arrived in a town the general asked for a report. His subordinate replied, “The population is subdued and terrified!” This gave the general some satisfaction. Then the subordinate continued, “In the local monastery all monks have fled, except one.”

Hearing this, the general became furious. He rushed to the monastery to meet the monk who dared defy him. When he saw the monk he pulled his sword out and pushed it towards his stomach and hissed in a low but terrifying voice, “Don’t you know who I am? Why, I could take this sword and run it through your belly without blinking my eye!”

The monk was not fazed, he replied gently, “And don’t you know who I am? I could have your sword run through my belly without blinking an eye.”

The general was awestruck by the fearlessness and the deep spirituality of the monk. He sheathed his sword, bowed, and left without uttering another word.

Those who heard the disciples knew they were in the presence of a power far greater than the Roman Empire that stood so proudly around them. And so it is to this day.

Tell it loud for all to hear

I once heard a whoop sweep through an entire city: the city of Milwaukee.

In 1982 the Milwaukee Brewers won the pennant.

I was the associate at a parish in a suburb of Wauwatosa, WI. The baseball team – the Milwaukee Brewers was having a tremendous season. They made it to the series that would determine the winner of the American League. For that series I rented a television. We had not had one in our home for many years.

As the final out came with a ground out to the short stop, Robin Yount, and the pennant won, my son Owen – age 5 at the time – and I jumped up and gave a yell. We ran outside to the street in front of our house, Wisconsin Avenue, one of the main roads leading into downtown Milwaukee Ave. There was not a car on it. And then we heard it. A whoop and a holler that began to grow out of the asphalt of Wisconsin Avenue until it was like a mighty storm. The city of Milwaukee was celebrating their first pennant.

The Easter good news that went up that day in Jerusalem, has grown and grown up to the present day. God has won a great victory.

Tell it so that fear is cast away

The Easter message has the ability to bring hope and confidence to the weakest and most fearful. I have watched my own children learn to ride bicycles. At first there is great fear. Shaking. Caution. Then finally they’re up. My youngest, Emma, was so excited the moment she got up on her own she completely forgot that she had no idea how to stop the bicycle. She rode around the circle in front of our house until she finally crashed the bike into a large bush.

I had my own slow starts, but eventually rode century rides around the mountains of Colorado and took my brother to college in Santa Fe, 300 + miles away, by bicycle. That’s like the craziness of the Resurrection message.

Big enough God

To hear this story for healing for power as loud as it is we need a big enough God. I continue to be stretched day in and day out year in and year out to know how to experience God in something near the magnitude that God deserves.

The whole concept of a big enough God I really owe to an author by the name of Sarah Maitland. She wrote:

So as it turns out we do not have a little tame domestic God, thank God, but we do have a huge, wild, dangerous God -- dangerous of course only if we think that God ought to be manageable and safe; a God of almost manic creativity, ingenuity and enthusiasm; A big-enough-God, who is also a supremely generous and patient God; a God of beauty and chance and solidarity.

She articulates what our response to such a God ought to be. I love what she suggests -- for its simplicity and for its glorious seeming ordinariness. She says that the proper response to our "Big-enough-God" should be, "Wow!" She then tells of a story:

Once upon a time someone invented mayonnaise.

It may not have struck you what an extraordinary thing this is, but think about it. While you do, be sure to bear in mind that in rural societies every egg is precious, and every drop of olive oil has been pressed out by the feet of children who doubtless complained ceaselessly as they stamped.

Nonetheless, and for no apparent reason, it occurred to someone in Mahon on Minorca, without an electric blender, that if you wasted a great number of egg yolks by pouring olive oil on to them very slowly while half breaking your wrist with a whisk, the resulting mixture, far from being yellowish and perfectly revolting, would be white and fluffy and taste delicious with cold meat, hard-boiled eggs and particularly cold poached salmon. (p. 156)

"Wow," is an appropriate response to our Big-enough-God.

On Thursday I referred to the powerful words of Pastor S.M. Lockridge, "It's Friday ... But Sunday's comin'." An equally well known sermon of his focuses on the "Sunday" part of that message. It's called "That's my king." Part of it goes like this: ^3

My King

The Bible says my King is the King of the Jews. He’s the King of Israel. He’s the King of Righteousness. He’s the King of the Ages. He’s the King of Heaven. He’s the King of Glory. He’s the King of kings, and He’s the Lord of lords. That’s my King.

I wonder, do you know Him?

My King is a sovereign King. No means of measure can define His limitless love. He’s enduringly strong. He’s entirely sincere. He’s eternally steadfast. He’s immortally graceful. He’s imperially powerful. He’s impartially merciful.

Do you know Him?

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He’s the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world. He’s God’s Son. He’s the sinner’s Saviour. He’s the centrepiece of civilization. He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented. He is the loftiest idea in literature. He’s the highest personality in philosophy. He’s the fundamental doctrine of true theology. He’s the only one qualified to be an all sufficient Saviour.

I wonder if you know Him today?

He supplies strength for the weak. He’s available for the tempted and the tried. He sympathizes and He saves. He strengthens and sustains. He guards and He guides. He heals the sick. He cleansed the lepers. He forgives sinners. He discharges debtors. He delivers the captive. He defends the feeble. He blesses the young. He serves the unfortunate. He regards the aged. He rewards the diligent. And He beautifies the meek.

I wonder if you know Him?

He’s the key to knowledge. He’s the wellspring of wisdom. He’s the doorway of deliverance. He’s the pathway of peace. He’s the roadway of righteousness. He’s the highway of holiness. He’s the gateway of glory.

Do you know Him? Well…

His life is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His Word is enough. His grace is sufficient. His reign is righteous. And His yoke is easy. And His burden is light.

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I wish I could describe Him to you. Yes…

He’s indescribable! He’s incomprehensible. He’s invincible. He’s irresistible. You can’t get Him out of your mind. You can’t get Him off of your hand. You can’t outlive Him, and you can’t live without Him. Well, the Pharisees couldn’t stand Him, but they found out they couldn’t stop Him. Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him. Herod couldn’t kill Him. Death couldn’t handle Him, and the grave couldn’t hold Him.

Yeah! That’s my King, that’s my King.

Amen!

Today we give thanks. Today we bow down. Today we tell the big, big, story for a big, big, God. Jesus Christ is Risen today! Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

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Easter Vigil, 2022

Easter Vigil Homily 

date: April 16, 2022

author: St. Paul's, Monroe

Passover 2022

I was listening to a story the other day featuring a priest and a rabbi doing Ministry in Ukraine. The occasion is on the one hand the war in Ukraine and on the other the occasion of Passover and Easter. One of the things that was asked of the two was what their message would be to their congregation this Easter / Passover. The priest talked about how Jesus was concerned with Justice, particularly in the context of such an unjust War as we have in Ukraine. He referred to Jesus overturning the tables in the temple. Jesus clearly had parties that he argued with – I hesitate saying enemies, because as the priest said, Jesus never pursued a vendetta. He was always ready to forgive.

For him, Jesus's heart would be on those who are being unjustly murdered and savaged in Ukraine.

The rabbi remembered a line from the Passover liturgy that directs that everyone should consider that they were redeemed from Egypt.

“_B’chol dor vador, chayav adam lir’ot et atzmo, k’illuhu yatzah mimitzrayim_…
בְּכָל דוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָיב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִצְרָיִם "In every generation one must look upon himself as if he personally had gone out of Egypt." (Pesachim 116b)

The rabbi, then, would remind his congregation of their deep affinity and empathy with anyone who is a refugee, anyone who is a stranger in a strange land. Jewish congregations hand in hand with Orthodox Christians.

Passover throughout the world began on Good Friday evening. Interestingly we are also in the midst of Islam's month of fasting – Ramadan. This is a holy time for all three Abrahamic religions: Passover, Easter, Ramadan. The Ukrainian priest reminded the listeners that in the Orthodox Church – and through the Romance languages – Easter is called pasch, from the word "Passover."

This is the time of Passover. At the Eucharist we say, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”

What makes this night special?

One of the main focal points of the traditional Passover seder is the maggid, the telling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt. This story begins with the youngest person at the seder asking the Four Questions (Mah Nishtanah). These questions provide the impetus for telling why this night is different from all other nights.

From the Exsultet:

This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

This night we tell the story – the whole story

I’ve been a sucker for ambitious stories that try to paint the big picture. When I was growing up there was the Greatest Story Ever Told. There was Around the World in 80 Days. More recent repeat there is the great physicist Stephen Hawking telling the big picture in language all of us can understand. A Brief History of Time. The universe in a nutshell. That is taking the big picture.

We're taking that kind of perspective tonight. From in the beginning to the end of all things. Sometimes as a parent I felt like that's what I wanted to do with my children I wanted to tell them the whole story. What's it all about.

What's it all about Alfie

In 1966 Dionne Warwick sang a song for the movie “Alfie”

Is it just for the moment we live
What's it all about

When you sort it out, Alfie
Are we meant to take more than we give
Or are we meant to be kind? … Songwriters: David Hal / Bacharach Burt F

Why is this night special

We should ask that question with our Jewish brothers and sisters as they ask it at their Passover meals: Why is this night special?

The angels –if we can hear them – give us the answers: If we can hear them over the voices of the people we are paying attention to while the angels sing around us.

This night is special because on it we remember the time that the women entered the tomb and discovered the first inkling of our ultimate deliverance. The women looked at the empty tomb and they went, “Wait! What?” This is not at all what they expected.

This night is blessed because we remember and make present before our very eyes, the wonder and innocence of children, seeing not just a bright shining star but the promise of the approaching day.

This night is holy because it gives us permission to wonder if the impossible is not just possible but present before our very eyes.

This night is like no other because it allows us to look at our neighbor, no matter the color, no matter the financial standing, whether they are responsible or not, the fallen, the vulnerable, even the rich and the successful – it allows us to look at our neighbor and ask: How can I help?

The answer we give to the question about this night is the answer to the question: What truly matters? The answer we give might be pleasing to God. It might not be to our liking. We most certainly will have fallen short even of the expectations we place on ourselves.

But however our answers go, no matter how well we hear the angels sing, what we proclaim tonight provides all the evidence we need to end our days, saying – in response to the question, “Did you get what you wanted out of life?” – Yes! The Lord is Risen! Indeed!

This night

That's what we're doing tonight with an even bigger perspective. War and Peace. Love. Victory over death.

It's a big view that we take tonight. And what we need is a big enough view of God to make sense of it.

We light up the fire in the church – on purpose. There is a new fire and a new light that has come into the world. Tonight we proclaim that and symbolically enact that.

“This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.”

That's the big picture we take tonight.

Good Friday, 2022

St. Paul’s, Monroe

April 15, 2022

Opening

Image of God

Many years ago I came across a book that was eye-opening for me at the time. It remains so to this day. It challenged me by claiming that the way we live our lives is at least in part a function of what our image of God is like. The title of the book is Good Goats; healing our image of God.^1

It was a simple appearing book and not very long. It had big illustrations, almost as if it was a children's book. In part it was a treatise on the theological theme of atonement or some might say redemption. The other part was an attempt to reach ordinary Christians like you and me and to challenge us to self-examination about our working image of God. Is our image a great uncle in the sky? Is it a demanding teacher? Is it an unforgiving judge? What is our working image of God?

From the beginning Christians have experienced and believed that the greatest work of God is in the cross, the death and passion of Jesus. From the beginning Jesus's death was experienced as redemptive, as the very thing that brings us into reconciled relationship with God.

But what is the nature of that redemption? What do we mean by redemption? Or atonement? After 2000 years what is the accepted explanation for what that redemption is like?

The remarkable answer is that after 2000 years there is no accepted right answer. Over the centuries a variety of answers have been given, and at some periods one view has held sway over the others. What used to be understood as an obvious explanation in time fades and another has taken its place.

But that little book persuaded me that how we understand the redemption from the cross is connected with how we imagine God, what kind of image of God we carry around with us.

Five examples

Redemption has been understood in many different ways through the centuries, but I'd like to briefly point to 5 general examples.

1. Redemption as the ultimate victory of Christ – Resurrection, then, as victory over death
2. Redemption as a kind of ransom where our lives are enslaved – e.g. to sin
3. Redemption as a satisfaction for a debt that needs to be paid – God's profound justice requires compensation for the injustice brought into the world by sin
4. Redemption as a kind of guide for us to grow spiritually and morally
5. Redemption as a divine application of the scapegoat principal whereby the community's sin is removed by exiling the goat that carries away the sin

God in these examples

In the early years of the church the view of God as a supremely wise teacher was in fact widely held. It was simply taught that Jesus Christ came and died in order to bring about a positive change to humanity. This moral change comes through the teachings of Jesus alongside His example and actions.

At a certain point and among certain groups, God was understood to be at war with the Devil or Satan. In this image there is a battle between Good and Evil and the outcome might not always be obvious. The passion of Jesus, his death and Resurrection, then were the final victory of good over evil. Do we imagine God as a warrior or a soldier?

For some it might be that God is the ultimate Banker. Keeping track of who's done what and where. Sort of a cosmic Santa Claus. “He knows when you've been good or bad…”

I know that for a very long time my own image of God was of a stern judge. Clearly in charge of the world and the universe, but fairly unforgiving in demanding perfection and excellence. Such a God was safest if kept at a distance.

A modern understanding of what's going on in Jesus's passion may seem strange at first sight. A scapegoat. Now I have to say that I have a very favorable attitude towards goats in general, having raised a few of them in my 20s.

The notion of a scapegoat goes all the way back to Leviticus in the Old Testament.

Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness. — Leviticus 16:21–22, New Revised Standard Version

In the Bible, a scapegoat then is one of two kid goats. As a pair, one goat was sacrificed (not a scapegoat) and the living "scapegoat" was released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities.

Such an image of redemption creates a path for us to let go of our need to invoke violence against one another as we blame others for what has gone wrong. Instead the symbolic carrying away of the sin allows us to cast the blame there -- freeing us to embrace one another -- to love even our enemies.

So then our image of a violent God can be healed^source and we are left to be instruments of peace and reconciliation.

We can understand Christ's death as a self-giving act on God's part, like a parent who is prepared to make tremendous sacrifices for the sake of the children. Abba, Father God, knows how humanity prefers blame and violence to love and peace. So God's victim succumbs to our compulsion to blame and violence and thereby takes away our need for violence, that "opens up our being able to enjoy the fullness of creation as if death were not.”

This is a view of atonement which does not cast God as a power / potentate / weird father-figure looking more like an abusive parent than a loving Abba.

Which gets us back to "God is love." It's a phrase I hear often. But I often wonder whether it's the operative image of God for most people. As one person put it, "Surely God's love is greater than the person who has loved us the best."

It is in most cases, perhaps, beyond our imagining. But we can't help carrying with us some image. We don't work well in imageless surroundings. Our senses seem to require something from us by way of image.

Desmond Tutu said: "God has made us responsible for his reputation."

That makes it important what images we cultivate and embrace. Good Friday is a good day to do that. Consider the best you can muster as an image of God. Place it on the cross. Let God do the work.

Later in the liturgy I will invite you to approach the cross and to make a gesture of love, appreciation, and gratitude for the love that God has given you through the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Notes

Lectionary

[^all]: James Allison

Maundy Thursday 2022

date: "April 14, 2022"

"Maundy"¹

You may remember that on Ash Wednesday as Lent began, I called attention to the fact that the practice of the church was to do the opposite of what Jesus seemed to be saying. The gospel of that day relates Jesus saying that we are not disfigure our faces when we are praying so as not to brag about our spirituality. That's the day when many of us have found it empowering to be out of our comfort zone by showing to the world the ashes on our foreheads.

Today is one of those days when the liturgy urges us to get out of our comfort zone. We had a hint of that last week when we began the liturgy outside, and processed into the church. That's not the way we usually do things.

As this night is traditionally practiced with a footwashing there is a real sense of intimacy and vulnerability, even nakedness that happens when we let relative strangers touch our bare feet. Getting outside of our comfort zone.

The disciples were pushed outside their comfort zone as we hear the last supper from John's Gospel. Jesus got to Peter's feet and Peter was astonished that the roles were being reversed the master was washing the feet of the disciples. Jesus responded almost in riddles. It was important to Jesus to get his disciples outside of their comfort zone so that God might mold them into the persons they were meant to be.

Jesus said, "Do this." "A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another." it's the "maundy" of Maundy Thursday. Jesus was asking them, commanding them, to do what they were unaccustomed to doing. At this point they didn't really recognize that because the crucifixion had not happened.

I think of the old wag from G. K. Chesterton: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” I think also of a group that has been called the new monasticism. They are determined to put Jesus's commandments into practice. They are convinced that in order to do that one must be a radical Christian. As a way of signifying their determination they refer to themselves as "red letter Christians". They are referring to the practice in many traditional printings of the Gospels where Jesus words are printed in red type.

Their notion is that if Jesus said something we are to pay attention to it. If he actually said do this, it might be important.

Servant leadership

Today I will not ask you to take your shoes off and place your naked feet into someone else's hands. We'll save that for another year. Mostly out of a sense of caution with regard to the Covid pandemic / endemic circumstances of the day, it seemed to me that to ask us to remove shoes and handle one another's bare feet was moving too fast. In a few moments I will ask you to come forward and allow me to symbolically wash your hands. You've seen the acolytes do that for the priest at the Eucharist. Tonight, let me do it for you.

This is a means to take seriously what Jesus is saying to us. "Do this." Wash one another. Serve one another. Love one another. If we really listen, really pay attention, it's a tall order.

The seal for the Bishop of Rome -- "the Pope" -- has around the outside of it the words "Servant of the servants of God." For most of the history of the church, "servanthood" is not the first thing that would come to mind when thinking about the Pope. Nor would it for many leaders in the church, from top to bottom.

Be servant to one another. That is what Jesus tells his friends to do. Leadership through servanthood. A wise bishop I knew said that the reason the church needs ordained deacons is to be sacred symbols of servanthood for all the rest of us. One of the essential elements of being a baptized Christians is to "serve one another."

Characteristics of such servanthood might include:

1. To be more ready to listen than to give orders
2. To cultivate and use empathy in relating to others.
3. To refrain from projecting our own needs onto others.
4. To make healing a part of our everyday actions and decisions
5. To understand Stewardship as care and appreciation of the abundance that God provides, even when we seem pre-disposed to experience scarcity.
6. It is a concern for the well-being and building-up of the community, where the common good is experienced as foremost of the concerns of all.

This is something of what Jesus's mandate to love one another looks like. ### Eucharist

How do we hear the command of the Lord? One of the ways, clearly, is in the "Red letters" of the Gospels in the New Testament. In today's readings -- John's gospel -- we hear:

So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

I have called attention to the fact that this day combines two views of the last night before Jesus's crucifixion. One we symbolize with the washing of hands -- "wash one another's feet." The other is reflected in the words from Paul's letter to the Corinthians. "Do this in remembrance of me."

We hear those words every time the Eucharist is celebrated. "This is my body." The sacrament. What appears to be bread and wine is truly the body and blood of Jesus.

At the heart of it all is the Eucharistic action, a thing of absolute simplicity – the taking, blessing, breaking and giving of bread, and the taking, blessing, and giving of a cup of wine and water, as these were first done with their new meaning by a young Jew before and after supper with His friends on the night before he died. ... So the four-fold action Shape of the Liturgy was found by the end of the first century. He had told His friends to do this henceforward with the new meaning ‘for the anamnesis‘ of Him, and they have done it always since.

Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. … ²

We hear the "words" directing us through sacraments -- through the sacramental lens looking onto God's creation and perceiving God's presence.

One of my closest friends in Hawai'i told me in the last few weeks about the new green plant he was tending in his tiny garden outside his front door. He said every time he walks out the door and looks at the dark veins, within the pale green leaves, he experiences a glimpse of God's presence and handiwork.

When we live in such a world, everything around us becomes an amplifier to hear God's words to us, a lens to see the grace by which God crafts our world, each person or creature is a tangible sign of God's marvelous reign over all.

Our world itself become a "sacramental" world that speaks to us and directs us how to do what God commands of us.

Do this in remembrance of me. Serve one another. "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Notes

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1. Lectionary↩

2. Dix, Gregory, and Simon Jones. The Shape of the Liturgy. 2021.↩

Palm Sunday, 2022

St. Paul's, Monroe

April 10, 2022

You know how the shtick works. We've been doing it for a few years now. We do it on the phone. We do it in the pharmacy. At the doctor's office. Whatever it is we're about to start, it all begins with someone asking us two things. The first is, “What is your name?” The second is, “What is your birthday?”

I was asked that the other day by the lab technician who was about to take my blood. I was trying to be lighthearted and I tried to make light of something utterly distinctive of me – like my name and birth date. I said after I gave my name and birth date that I was born in Arizona and the town I was born in doesn't exist anymore. She couldn't imagine such a thing. She asked me to repeat it in case she misheard it. Finally, she said, “Well I learn something everyday.”

I thought of this example, about the notion of distinctive narratives associated with a person. If there is one thing that is distinctive about Christian faith, one thing that is most identified with who we are as Christians, one thing that makes us Christians, it is the passion of Jesus. Today has the title “Passion Sunday.” Jesus’s death is most identified with this day and with the next 5 days of Holy Week.

Christianity is all about the death of Jesus on the cross and the experience of Christians that it is not the final story. I have often said that it seems surprising, given the centrality of the cross in our faith, that we only read the account of the passion on one Sunday a year.

From the very beginning Christians have tried to find words to describe or explain their experience of healing, of salvation, and of redemption through the cross of Jesus. Over the course of two millennia no single answer has been found to be adequate.

For half a century now in the Episcopal Church we have observed two seemingly diametrically opposed events on this day. On the one hand we begin the day by remembering the joyous celebration of Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem. And on the other we tell in considerable detail of the sorrow and conflict at the end of that visit to Jerusalem, of the execution of the man who was ceremoniously brought into the city as a hero and a Messiah (anointed one).

We experience this day, then, as a juxtaposition or a reversal of fortunes. Jesus seemed to embrace that characteristic at a deep level. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Whoever would like to lead must be servant of all. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the humble.

This paradoxical “great reversal” seems utterly distinctive to Jesus’s ministry and even to God’s plan for humanity. ¹

This is a day in which our narrative seems somehow discombobulated. Who are you? We are a people who celebrate the fact that we somehow much of the time get it wrong. We expect a winning formula and we get a failed Ministry. We wave our palms and kneel at the death of our teacher. The old Episcopal tradition of kneeling for a while then standing for a while then sitting for a while seems almost a description of this day.

The paradox

We generally like our proclamations to be one-sided. What we hear today – triumph and death by execution – is not one-sided. We want our sins to be plainly stated and clear to identify. We like our politics expressed as one of two extremes – the right way and the wrong way. We want our good guys (or gals) to be good and our bad guys (or gals) to be bad.

As Christians we are committed to proclaim the Gospel and to live it, by grace, as each of us is called. This thing we are committed and called to is inherently paradoxical -- not one-sided and not complicated. It is life and death held together at the same time.

Life understood through the death

My father died 34 years ago. Very often when I tell people, when I have occasion to tell something about my father, I talk about his death. I say, for example, that he died doing the things that he loved. His life was defined by being a Doctor and he loved the game of golf. Golf was one of those things that I’m grateful he taught me. When he died he was already at retirement age but had no sense, I think, that he would ever retire. His father had died with his boots on – as it were – a physician in a small rural town in Illinois. My father died with his boots on of a sudden heart attack while he was volunteering as a medic for the PGA Senior Open being played that year at a golf course in Castlerock, Colorado.

From a very early age I was intent on finding my own genuine way in the world. I wanted to be about the work that I was intended to do, and fairly early I understood that as -– what God had made me to be. But there’s a strong sense in which we won’t really know what that is until the whole of our life story can be told.

We cannot really tell the whole story of Jesus in a day. We will spend the next 5 days – through Good Friday – telling the story of the Passion, his death. Then beginning with Saturday night we begin to tell the rest of the story, that he is not dead but risen. That through his death we are saved.

But that story is the biggest story of all. For a week we call it Easter week. But for a week of weeks we tell it through the Easter season, culminating in Pentecost.

I once heard Tony Campolo make reference to a sermon by S.M. Lockridge, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego from 1953 to 1993. It gave me chicken skin at the time. Lockridge’s version is available on Youtube. Youtube video. You should listen to it. It begins,

It’s Friday
Jesus is praying
Peter’s a sleeping
Judas is betraying
But Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
Pilate’s struggling
The council is conspiring
The crowd is vilifying
They don’t even know
That Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
The disciples are running
Like sheep without a shepherd
Mary’s crying
Peter is denying
But they don’t know
That Sunday’s a comin’

…

And it goes on. Our lives are broken, fragmented, and we’re running away. It may feel like failure. It may feel like a cross to bear.

Well, yes, it is a cross.

But Sunday’s comin’.

Notes

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1. https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/february-2018/gods-great-reversal-key-to-the-gospel-of-luke↩

Lent 5, 2022

 

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title: The Fifth Sunday in Lent 

date: April 3, 2022 

author: St. Pauls, Monroe

Sunday before Passion Sunday.

Some weeks ago I issued an invitation to a journey. It was a journey that each of us was going to make on our own. But it was also a journey that we would make together as a community of faith.

You remember the lines from the Mission Impossible: "Your mission, [name], should you choose to accept it, ... As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds."

Some of us heard the call and have said yes. The mission that we were offered was a call to a Holy Lent. It was to pursue a renewed holy life dedicated to Christ. The season of Lent has a long history tied to the preparation of those about to be baptized at Easter. To be incorporated into the community of the local Jesus Movement.

1500 years ago Benedict of Nursia compiled a similar path or journey in his Rule (Verse 45-50). He called it a "school".

Therefore we intend to establish a school for the Lord’s service. ¹

Like a student in the classroom each of us as individuals and this community of faith is called to a discipline intended to deepen and strengthen our commitment to Christ. The discipline has to do with nurturing a relationship with God. It has to do with caring for those who are least among us. It has to do with developing a life of gratitude.

For any of this to work we must strengthen our ability to be self critical. It is, perhaps, not an easy assignment.

In our opening collect today we prayed, "Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners:"

It is not easy to be honest about oneself.

We imagine that no one knows us better than we know ourselves, after all we've had to live with ourselves our whole life.

• Consider that all of us begin with an assumption that we are correct in any particular controversy or discussion. Often we presume we are right, although sometimes our default may be to presume that we are at fault and faulty. The reality is that sometimes we may be correct and sometimes not. But it's not easy to tell which.
• Whenever we speak – or begin to think – we necessarily begin to think and speak from our own experience. But ours may not be normative or the most representative.

Consider an example from my own life, many years ago when I was an early teenager. My parents had recently got divorced. None of us siblings were happy about it.

• I first went to court as a pawn of my parents' law suit. The courts had granted custody of us children to our mother. My father was suing for us to come under his custody.
• Initially I thought I knew the right answer. I thought with 2 of my siblings that we ought to with our father. Perhaps the judge would have been swayed. But I changed my mind at the last minute. That left the children split, 2 and 2. Still pretty much no one was happy. Did I make the right decision?

Or consider my own convictions today.

I have very firm convictions about the need for Christians to care for the least among us. I know that for several centuries in the early life of the church that was one of the chief marks of the Jesus movement.

But does that make my conviction correct? I don't know. Perhaps I am blind to the needs of the contemporary church. Perhaps I don't see the whole picture. Perhaps I don't appreciate the needs of a particular local community.

Being self critical is not always easy.

There is another factor in accounting for "the unruly wills and affections of sinners."

Many years ago I encountered an author who changed my life. His name was M Scott Peck. His most well-known book was The Road less traveled; A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. The most familiar quote of his is the opening line of that book: "Life is difficult."

But it was another book by Peck that most affected me. It was called People of the Lie; The Hope for Healing Human Evil. One reviewer said:

People who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Peck demonstrates the havoc these people of the lie work in the lives of those around them. He presents, from vivid incidents encountered in his psychiatric practice, examples of evil in everyday life. This book is by turns disturbing, fascinating, and altogether impossible to put down as it offers a strikingly original approach to the age-old problem of human evil. ²

Not only is it difficult to be honest about oneself but there is in the world around us a pervasive deception, a lie. It has traditionally gone by the title evil.

We see this at work in the gospel for today. Things may not always be what they seem. And the forces of evil will attempt to appear as something good.

Jesus is at the home of his dear friends Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus whom he had raised from death. Mary is anointing his feet in a gesture of reverence and love. Judas is critical of the whole affair. He says that the money could have been used to serve the poor.

This is just the sort of thing that the Peck the psychiatrist found in patient after patient in whom he encountered some sort of evil. A deception. People of the lie.

In such circumstances we must have a steady principle or standard to make judgments about ourselves and about others. It is here that we need our companions on the way to provide a mirror or reflection on our own fallible eyesight and judgments.

Soul Friend

Many years ago I first learned about the concept of intentionally cultivating a relationship with another person for precisely the purpose of developing honesty with oneself that I am advocating here. It was the kind of relationship that was nurtured by the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the early centuries of the Common Era.

A thousand or more years ago, the church in the Celtic lands developed the idea of "Soul Friend". It is known by the Celtic title anam cara.

Such a friend provides a compassionate presence with another person, providing a mirror to see honestly into the soul of a person. ³

Traditionally in western Christianity a "Spiritual Director" has been regarded as an essential "guide" and companion on the way. The Celtic approach makes that less "clerical" and affirms the notion that all of us who hope to be faithful Christians need companions on the way.

Together we shall thrive

With Isaiah we can find hope for a new way of being, a new life, a restoration of what has been lost.

Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

With Paul we can say:

forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

With our opening prayer today we pray

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Notes:

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Lent/CLent5_RCL.html

NB advertise the letters from the House of Bishops.

Ukraine

Jerusalem

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1. 46 In drawing up its regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome. 47 The good of all concerned, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love. 48 Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. 49 But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love. 50 Never swerving from his instructions, then, but faithfully observing his teaching in the monastery until death, we shall through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may deserve also to share in his kingdom. Amen.↩

2. source or a fuller appreciation↩

3. https://celticbydesign.com/blogs/news/mo-anam-cara-the-meaning-and-history-of-soul-friend↩