Life is a Journey, not a Guided Tour

A sermon for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Gen 21:8-21; Psalm 86: 1-10; Rom 6:1b-11; Matt 10:24-39)

This morning we have a wealth of great texts.  This is not to say that the scripture we hear other mornings is somehow less important or inferior, but there is just so much that “will preach” here.  The calling of Abraham, Paul’s midrash on the calling of Abraham, the Exultate of Psalm 33, and then this gospel lesson of calling and healing – all very rich stuff.

I want to mention the text from Genesis primarily because of the weeks ahead of us in the lectionary cycle.  In Year A, the year when Matthew is our primary companion for the Gospel lesson, we are also privileged to hear some of the greatest stories ever told in the lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures, what we commonly call the Old Testament.

Last week we heard the account of Noah, the great flood and the ark.  Now this week we have witnessed the birth of Israel – God’s first call and promise to Abraham that his descendants would be a great nation.  Not only would they be great and be blessed, but they, the people of God, the children of Abraham, would be a blessing to the nations.

Paul’s commentary on this call highlights the faith of Abraham in the face of God’s call to him, and that it was his faith that produced righteousness, not adherence to the Law.  Over the coming weeks we will be hearing more of these amazing stories of the founders of the faith, Abraham and his descendants, even a few women!  We don’t often hear these stories outside of Sunday School or the Easter Vigil, so I hope you will enjoy hearing them, and not just enjoy them, but look forward to them from week to week.

And in the Psalm we hear one of the great hymns of praise, a text these same children of Abraham had been singing long before the birth of Jesus.  We are still singing these words today in our own tongue.

Despite all these amazing and rich texts, my focus this morning will be the gospel lesson, which should come as no surprise to most of you who have heard me for any length of time from this pulpit.  In seminary, my more low-church and Evangelical friends would marvel – “why do you Anglo-catholic types love the Gospels so much?”  Well, I don’t consider myself worthy to be called truly Anglo-catholic, even though I may look like one from time to time, but I do particularly treasure the narratives connected to the life and ministry of Jesus, and given the chance to preach, I’m more likely to focus on the stories and the sayings of the Lord.

Turning then to Matthew’s account, we have before us three episodes in the life and ministry of Jesus that come in quick succession in the narrative this morning.  All three of these episodes take place in the synoptic Gospels – that is, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but not quite in the same order.  John doesn’t record any of these stories.  In all three of the other gospel accounts, the call of Matthew, aka Levi, to become a disciple happens immediately after Jesus heals the paralytic man.  You know the story – his friends have to tear open the roof of the crowded house where Jesus is so that Jesus can heal him. It is right after that episode that Jesus calls Matthew.

The healing of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of this woman who touches Jesus’ robes occur later in Mark and Luke, but the important thing is that these two healings are always put together in the gospels, juxtaposed, as it were.

In our account this morning we first hear of Jesus calling this man Matthew or Levi, to be his disciple.  Now, Matthew, we are told, is a tax collector – a profession that is held with great contempt in that culture.  Tax collectors were considered to be collaborators with the occupying Roman force.  So what does Jesus do – he has dinner with Matthew and Matthew’s friends – other tax collectors and sinners!  Be careful, Jesus, this might hurt your reputation.  Jesus says, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

It is here in Matthew’s account that a leader of the synagogue approaches Jesus, he is identified as Jairus in Mark and Luke.  In Mark and Luke, Jairus’ daughter is ill, and he begs Jesus to come quickly.  In Matthew’s account, his daughter has already died and he is asking for Jesus to come and raise her from the dead!  Regardless of these differences in detail, the point remains the same – this is a bold step for Jairus to take.  He was a very public religious leader, and to seek Jesus’ help is tantamount to endorsing his ministry, which might cause him some trouble with his fellow Jewish leaders.  In some ways, Jairus’ desperation is forcing him to put his prestige on the line.  His love for his daughter and his faith in God’s power have made him choose between his reputation in society and the possibility of a miracle.  Stories of Jesus’ miraculous healings have been spreading throughout the region, and his desperation is driving him to seek Jesus’ help.

So Jesus agrees to go with Jairus.  Now, just when the story is getting good – will Jesus be able to raise this girl from the dead, into the narrative this woman intrudes, literally.  The contrast would have been much clearer to the original audience.  Jesus is accompanying an important religious leader who needs his help.  Suddenly, an unclean woman, a woman of no status in Jewish culture, gets in the way. 

Because of Jewish sexual purity codes, any woman who is menstruating is considered unclean, and is treated so.  She must separate herself from her husband and be cleansed at the end of her cycle.  But this woman has a condition where he has suffered from hemorrhaging for twelve years.  She has been “unclean” this whole time and has been condemned to a life of rejection by society.  In a sense her life has been a living death – always sick, never healed, always outcast, never clean.  As in the case of lepers, no one could touch this woman without themselves becoming defiled.

Now, it seems that she does not intend to interrupt the proceedings – Jesus has already agreed to go to the home of this important Jewish leader, and I’m sure there was a great procession.  But, this woman is all alone.  Unlike Jairus’ daughter, she has no one to go and get Jesus for her.  She has no father, no husband, no advocate.  She is unclean, an outcast.  If she is going to seek healing from Jesus, she is going to have to make it happen all on her own.  From the distance that had defined the last twelve years of her life, she thinks, if I can just touch his clothes, I will be made well.

Can you see her faith?  She doesn’t need Jesus to acknowledge her presence.  She doesn’t even need Jesus to say anything – she only needs to touch his clothes.  And it is her faith that truly makes her well. 

In the other Gospel accounts there is this almost amusing moment when Jesus, surrounded by a mob of people, asks, “Who touched me?”  What did Jesus sense, her healing or her faith?  Regardless, life has returned where there once had been only death.  And what’s more, Jesus gives her something she hasn’t had for twelve years – not just life but status.  Jesus calls her “daughter.” 

Before she touched Jesus, she was alone.  But now, Jesus speaks to her as one who has worth, no longer outcast, because of her faith.  Jesus calls her “daughter.”  Jesus shows her to be part of his family, if no one else’s.  Is it any wonder the good news of Jesus spread even when he asked people not to say anything?  This woman’s life is transformed in an instant, from sick and outcast to whole and part of Jesus’ family all in one instant of faith.  And Jesus doesn’t leave it as a private matter – he makes her faith public.  This outcast woman is suddenly an example of faith to this throng of important religious leaders, the very leaders that had kept her at a distance.

The kind of faith this woman has demonstrated is very soon going to be in short supply and Jesus knows it.  The faith of this outcast and desperate woman has just brought about a miraculous healing.  Will Jairus have this same faith as well?

When they arrive at Jairus’ house, the professional mourners are there, in full display.  It’s interesting to me that this time Jesus gets rid of the crowds – here, he opts for privacy, but not before he turns their mourning to laughter, quite unintentionally.  He tells them that the girl is not dead, but asleep.  They laugh at him.  Faith, faith like the woman whom Jesus just healed, seems to be in very short supply.

It is now in this more intimate setting, Jesus brings this young girl back to life.  In the other gospel accounts, we hear that she is twelve, the same number of years as the woman suffering with the flow of blood – another connection between the two healings.  In both cases, life has been restored, daughters have been healed.  One family has been restored, and another family has welcomed a new member.

So we have before us these two stories of healing and faith.  Life has been restored.  Thanks be to God.  We need to visit stories like these again and again.  Faith requires action.  We, like the woman with the flow of blood, like Jairus, must seek Jesus.  We must reach out in hopes of touching him, for all too many here, in hopes of being healed. 

This is why we gather here, not just to receive grace from God in worship and the Eucharist, but to minister God’s presence to each other.  It is hard thing sometimes to receive love and compassion from others.  It requires great patience. 

Let us always remember that we need each other, whether we feel more like a religious insider or a societal outcast.  Jesus saw no difference, and neither should we.  Like the woman, we need the faith to reach out.  Like Jairus, we need the faith to allow our need to be on display, to be vulnerable.  Like Abraham, sometimes we need the great faith to leave our comfortable lives behind and follow God’s call into new places and new lands.

May we learn to live by faith, with these examples to lead us, to reach out, to touch and to be touched, to step out in faith.  And then may we move from death to life as Christ calls us to stand before an amazed world, healed, whole, and fully aware that we are all daughters and sons of God.  Amen.

A sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter -- John 14:15-21

 

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Commandments/Love

This juxtaposition of love and commandments repeated in Jesus’ teachings seems less like a paradox than a non sequitur.  It doesn’t follow.

Love? / Commandments?

Some would say, if Jesus was truly loving he wouldn’t have made so many demands of us – and he certainly would not bring up “commandments” in the same breath as love.  Still others would see these words as an example of Jesus establishing a holiness-code for his followers.  The true disciples of Jesus meet a strict test of purity, right living and adherence to the law, and those who fail the test are second-class Christians, at best.  And they certainly shouldn’t be a bishop!

So the fray ensues.  One group shouts, “Jesus came to free us from the Law!  It’s all about love!”  Others shout back, “Love doesn’t equal license – what we need is some old-fashioned rule-keeping!”

My, how very Anglican – a family fight!  Clearly what Jesus meant by loving one another.  It would behoove us to heed the words of that great theologian of our time, Burt Bacharach, as he observed, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”  In the late 1980s, toward the end of the Cold War, another great theologian, Sting, released a song called, “The Russians Love their Children Too,” leading to one of my college professors annoyed retort, “Hmmm.  Yes, I do suppose the Russians do love their children.  So did the Nazis!  What’s your point?” 

So then others get out their dictionaries in an effort to define love.  What do we mean by love?  Truly love is one of the most often cited but least clarified words in the English language.  As I am wont say in wedding sermons, love is a word we throw around pretty easily these days.  You love your dog, you love your country, you love pizza.  Love, love, love.  We try to dress “love” up in degrees:  ranging from “I like you” to “I really, really, really, really, like you a lot.”  But is anybody really sure what they mean by love.  We love God, we love NY, we love a rainy night. 

Ultimately it seems these days love means what it does in tennis – absolutely nothing.

Did the early church, those who first heard these gospel accounts, suffer from this same confusion?  It would seem not nearly to the same extent.  You see the original language of these documents, Koine Greek, has no fewer than four verbs for love.  It’s still true today in modern Greek.  I asked a good friend of mine from Cyprus if this were still true, and though it took us a minute or two to get the pronunciation straight, the vocabulary is intact.  Greeks speak of AGAPE, describing the ultimate love, divine and transcendent, best exemplified in Jesus’ self-sacrificial death.  Then there’s PHILEO – closely related to agape, describing the affection between friends and family members, also known as “brotherly love”.  Of all these terms the one that needs the least explanation to today’s world is EROS, describing both emotional and sexual intimacy. And finally STORGE – which describes the nurturing, protective love of a parent for a child.

So while we English speakers today still understand these varied kinds and conditions of love, we lack the language to succinctly express them.  Instead use the same word for both divine love and romantic affection, parental nurturing with gastronomical preference.  I love my mother, and I love the Hokies.  It’s all “love” to us.

In the gospel reading today, Jesus actually begins to define love on his terms.  When he tells the disciples, love one another, he goes on to tell them what that means.

Jesus doesn’t define his terms with a list of rules.  Nor does he say, “Just love each other and it will all work out ok.”  Instead Jesus lived his life as an example of this love.  This particular passage is part of the Upper Room Discourse, which stretches for chapters in John’s Gospel. 

It begins with Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, giving them an object lesson in love.  He says to them, “See what I am doing?  Do this to each other.  Just as the father has loved me, so I have loved you, now go and love each other in the same way.  There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  Jesus would give himself as the ultimate example of love in his death, an example that continues to speak to today’s world, whatever words we use to describe it. 

Perhaps we can begin to understand a bit what Jesus means by love in this passage.  But we have to go back to the original dilemma – Jesus links love with commandments.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

What exactly does he mean, when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments?”  He really means “behave yourselves,” right? 

Well, just earlier in this lengthy discourse on love and commandments, Jesus said these words, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In the other three Gospels, we hear Jesus being challenged to name the greatest commandment.  Surely it would be one of the Ten Commandments, right?  We hear Jesus’ answer every time we use Holy Eucharist Rite I, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus is actually quoting Deuteronomy here – the original commentary on the Law.  The essence of the Law is this – Love God and love one another.  In the Law and the commandments of the Old Testament, God provided a commentary on love. How do we best love God?  – by worshipping God first and foremost, not taking God’s name in vain, following God’s example by setting aside the Sabbath day.  How do we love our neighbors? – by not coveting, by honoring our parents, by truth telling, by being faithful in our relationships.

At the core of these laws is love.  They weren’t meant to become the controls based on God’s love, as if God’s love ends where our sin begins.  Tony Campolo put it this way, "I want my children to obey me, not because I have the power to beat them up, but because they love me."  This is the love that Christ modeled for us, a love marked by obedience, not fear.  This isn’t a master/slave relationship.

In the new covenant, this commentary on love would be fulfilled by Jesus, who would become for us the very lesson of love.  Jesus’ life was characterized by love, but like the peace God gives, the love Jesus lived is not like the world lives.  Jesus’ love was perfect and it was revolutionary.

Jesus’ call to obey his commandment of love is not obedience tied to a threat, but obedience laced with a promise.  The beatitudes were Christ’s list of the promises that would accompany those who love God and who keep God’s commandments.    Lack of love has its consequences.  Love born in obedience has its blessings.

But the love Christ modeled was not the transient love of a child for a new toy, soon forgotten.  It wasn’t the warm and fuzzy “love” of an adolescent crush.  Christ’s love was marked by obedience and self-sacrifice.

God’s love for the world is this agape, this ultimate transcendent love.  The love Jesus is describing to his disciples.  There is not greater love than to lay down your life for your friends.

This is the love that casts out fear.  This is the love that transcends emotion and circumstance.  This is love marked by obedience and sustained by commitment.

And so we are called to love.  If we are fully to obey Jesus’ commandments, we must love God, we must love our neighbors, and we must love our selves with this ultimate transcending love.

When it comes to love, most of us are still struggling to get it right.  In a world that opts for hate and discrimination so readily, it’s hard to always answer with love.  Love is not the first reaction for most of us when we are faced with violence or betrayal.  It takes time to love.  It takes a commitment born in obedience.  We must choose to love.

Working out love in our lives – the love for God, the love for others and especially the true love for ourselves is the messiest, most time-consuming, most heart-wrenching and yet the most rewarding part of life’s journey.

We get bruised and battered along the way trying to love each other.  But this is God’s call to us.  Jesus has set the example and called us to follow him in it.

If you keep love me, you will keep my commandments.  And what commandments are those, Jesus?  To love.  How do we love?  What does it mean to love God with your whole being?  What would it look like if we truly loved our neighbors, the neighbors Jesus meant like the poor, the marginalized, Samaritans?  You fill in the blank.  What would it look like if we truly loved those neighbors and not just the people we are comfortable with? 

Figuring out every day what it means to love—that is what living the Christian life is all about.  May God forgive us the times we fail to love, and may God give us the grace to keep pursuing love.  It is, after all, the best way we can obey.  Amen.

A sermon for remembrance on April 16th, 2008
Psalm 23; John 11:17-45

Did you hear the news?

When did you hear?

Our rector, Scott West, opened his sermon on Easter morning with these words.

News travels fast these days, faster than Mary Magdalene or the disciples ever could have imagined on that first resurrection morning.

When did you first hear the news on April 16^th?  For many of us those will always be moments frozen in time.

This was not good news, not the kind of news that was escaping fevered lips on that morning so long ago when they found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.

This was bad news, unthinkable news.

I will always remember where I was, standing in front of a TV in the customs area of JFK Airport in New York City, having just returned from a week’s vacation in Germany.  I remember all the busyness around me – people retrieving their bags, jockeying for position in the passport control lines.  There I stood in front of this TV, jetlagged, shocked, feeling quite alone, wondering what to do next.

This was not good news.

Bad news came to Jesus about his friend Lazarus.  Mary and Martha had sent word to Jesus some days before saying, “Please hurry! Please come heal our brother.”  Jesus did not hurry.  Rather, Jesus came four days after Lazarus had died.

Can you hear the frustration and grief in their voices when both Martha and Mary say to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died”?  How many times had they asked such questions aloud in the days before – “Where is Jesus?  Why isn’t he here?”

What is Jesus’ response?  He does not scold them.  He doesn’t get defensive.  Instead, to Martha he draws forth hope from her grief, saying, “Your brother will rise again.”  But later when Mary asks him this same question, the writer of John’s Gospel says some of the most amazing words written about Jesus – “when he saw her weeping…he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”  And then follow words even more unforgettable – “Jesus began to weep.”

What do you hear when you hear these words, in the older translation, “Jesus wept.”  Do you think it is a clear testimony to how much Jesus loved Lazarus, as some of the by-standers thought?  Do you think Jesus’ tears are remorse for not coming sooner, as some of the others wondered?

What I hear in these words brings me hope.  Jesus grieved.  Jesus was not a stoic, unmoved superman, but rather a vulnerable human being who allowed others to witness his emotions, quite “unmanly” some would say.

Mary and Martha were those sisters whom Jesus had visited some time before and while he was with them, he taught them things about themselves and what it truly means to serve.  Jesus was teaching them again, whether he intended to or not.

Jesus’ heart was broken.  Jesus wept along with those gathered outside Lazarus’ tomb.

If you go into almost any theological library, you will find stacks and stacks of books dedicated to the question – why does God allow suffering?  Why does a good God allow evil to exist?  I’ve read a few of these books, paged through a few others.  Every generation seems to need to write its own set.  But all the finely nuanced theological arguments are basically worthless on a morning like April 16^th one year ago.

If someone asks me, “why?” my answer is not much more than these words, Jesus began to weep.

God grieves.  We see it time and again in our sacred stories, this God who is moved by human suffering, this God who hates evil.

It is in this divine grief that I find hope, I find connection.

During the past few weeks I have been leading the members of the Canterbury Fellowship through some of the classic theories of the atonement, asking the question, “Why did Jesus die?”

Whether they liked it or not, I haven’t spooned out easy answers, and I hope I have challenged them to think beyond the normal answers when it comes to such a question.

“Why did Jesus die?”

One of the ideas I encouraged them to explore was that by suffering torture and death, Jesus, God’s son, identified with us in a way that should give us pause.  What does it mean for us to say that Jesus suffered and died?  What does it mean that the very real flesh and blood of Jesus’ body, a body which once was wrapped in swaddling clothes, was as vulnerable as yours or mine?

The tears of Jesus in this passage from John and the blood of Jesus we hear of so powerfully on Good Friday are marks of God’s identification with us.

God grieves with us on mornings like April 16^th, September 11^th, December 7^th, and yes, the morning you got very personal bad news, news that didn’t make the headlines.

Where, then, is the good news?  After all, that is what the word Gospel literally means – good news.

Where is the good news on mornings like April 16^th?

Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb.  Unbind him and let him go.

This moment in the life of Jesus and his friends is a foretaste of Easter morning.

Death could not hold him.  Death is swallowed up in victory.  Life is changed, not ended.  Jesus ransomed us from sin and death.  By his death, he destroyed death and made the whole creation new.

These are comfortable words indeed.  Words we should hear with fresh ears every time death touches us or we are confronted with grief.

What is God’s answer to death?  Life.

We are about to have a foretaste of that heavenly banquet, where, in God’s commonwealth, there will be no more crying or pain.

We want that now – we want to get beyond this dark place, this veil of tears.  But this day let us come to the Lord’s Table not just for solace but for strength, strength to endure the days and weeks and months and years ahead of us.  The path of life often takes us into the valley of the shadow of death, but our shepherd has walked this path before us, and knows the way out again.

Pray God we never have experience another morning like April 16^th, but even if we do, we must return to this place, to receive from the hands of the one who suffered like us, and in receiving, gain a foretaste of life everlasting.  Amen.

As many of you no doubt know, last week this parish was very privileged to host a delegation from our Sister Parish in Guatemala, San Andres Itzapa.  Basilia, Lucia and their translator Ellen even honored the Wednesday evening Canterbury service with their presence and made us a wonderful and hearty Guatemalan dish for dinner.  During the sermon time of that worship service I invited Basilia and Lucia to share their thoughts and reflections on some of the texts we have heard this morning – texts about “The Good Shepherd.”

I will be the first to admit that I was motivated by a mixture of curiosity and, yes, cultural chauvinism when I asked them to share their understanding of a passage such as the one we heard from John this morning.  I guess I was expecting them to share a thoroughly “Guatemalan” tale of shepherds in the mountains caring for Guatemalan sheep or goats.  I expected to come away with a rich sermon illustration that shows how other cultures contextualize this theological metaphor.

Basilia, the senior and more extroverted of the two women, shared that when she hears this passage from John, she thinks of the clergy who serve in Guatemala.  Clergy!  I was caught with my cultural presuppositions showing – nothing about sheep or quaint shepherds, but rather clergy.  Of course, in my naïveté and faltering Spanish, I had forgotten that in Spanish, the words are one and the same – pastor means both shepherd and religious leader. 

Basilia shared how the people of Guatemala have been both protected by and lead astray or betrayed by their clergy, their shepherds.  Quickly our discussion turned to the courage and dedication of their clergy – those who would stand up against oppression and unjust governments and those who would comply out of fear or corruption.  Some shepherds, she said, were willing to lay down their lives for the sheep, especially Roman Catholic priests during their civil war in the 80s.  She spoke of some shepherds as martyrs.  Soon other names like Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King, Jr. were being shared.

Pastors as shepherds – truly the concept is universal, just as the experience of good leadership and bad leadership among these people whom God has called to lead the flock.

Today, the fourth Sunday of Easter is traditionally known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” as anyone, even those unfamiliar with our tradition, could tell from the readings and hymns.  As I typically do as I prepare my sermons, I will look back through the archives to see if I have preached on these particular texts before, and if so, was it a good sermon?  To my surprise I discovered that this is the fourth time I have preached on Good Shepherd Sunday at Christ Church.

Three years ago, I preached in the wake of a visit to campus by Eli Wiesel, and I preached against political indifference, the very kind of indifference that Wiesel had experienced from his neighbors in Romania as he and thousands of other Jews were taken away by the Nazis.  This deportation was met with only silence.

Two years ago, my title was “Wanted: A Good Shepherd,” preached in the wake of Clare’s announcement that she was leaving.  I offered a potential job description of sorts, what we would be looking for in our next shepherd – the interim period, the summit and the search still months away.

And, of course, there was my sermon one year ago on this Sunday.  Easter was later last year, and so Good Shepherd Sunday fell on April 29^th, a time when we were all still reeling from the unthinkable tragedy that had shaken us so profoundly, that cruel morning in April that changed so many lives forever.

So here we are this morning.  We have a new shepherd on the job, guiding us and learning the quirks and joys of herding this particular flock.  We stand on the brink of electing a new shepherd to lead us as a nation.  And we in this community are about to pause to remember, as much as some would like to forget.  We cannot forget what happened.  We dare not.  On this Sunday last year, emotions were running high and our personal reactions were all over the map, ranging from shock and denial, to rage and remorse.

I have been reflecting on my job, my role as your “junior shepherd.”  Surely I have not been perfect, but I must say I could never have imagined when I first stood in this pulpit over five years ago now, what challenges and trials lay ahead of this congregation, how much we all would change and be changed simply because we have chosen to come together in community and walk our life’s journeys together.

My heart tarried on the 23^rd Psalm as I prepared this sermon.  This Psalm is among the most familiar in all of western Christianity, second only perhaps to the Lord’s Prayer.  It is this psalm that so many people want said at their funerals or read to them as they lie in pain and fear.

“The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not be in want.”  The words are so familiar to us, but I wonder if we have lost the ability to hear how distinct this image is from so many others in the psalms.  God is so often called “my king,” “my judge,” “my defender.”  But here God is portrayed as a shepherd, in this text so readily identified with David, who himself had been a shepherd in his boyhood.

And that’s just it – the great and powerful men of their culture weren’t shepherds – they were warriors, kings.  Shepherding sheep was left to boys and often adult men of lower competency or status in society.  The job didn’t require great intellect, but it did require dedication and just the right amount of courage.  It was hardly a vocation, and yet, it is clear that there were “good shepherds” and “bad shepherds.”  It all seems to have come down to the level of dedication the shepherd had, whether he be a boy or a man.

The good shepherd, protected and guided the sheep, laying down his life if need be.  The bad shepherd was more likely to run away in the face of danger, abandoning the sheep to predators such as wolves, allowing some sheep to wander off and die of injury or starvation.  The good shepherd carried a rod and a staff – the rod being a club of sorts to drive off predators and the staff, which we still see today in the bishop’s crosier, allowed the shepherd to take a stray or disobedient sheep by its neck and bring it back into the fold.

While preparing this sermon I came across a lecture by Kenneth Bailey, a Presbyterian theologian who lived for forty years in Palestine and Israel.  He shares cultural insights which can often turn passages on their heads as he helps us understand how a person in a cultural context much closer to the original audience’s context would hear this passage.

When the good shepherd leads the sheep to green pastures and beside still waters, Bailey points out that this would be like heaven for both the sheep and the shepherd – pastures are only green in that arid landscape about two months out of the year and the waters, when there is water, is often turbulent and dangerous.  We have grown up with images of these green pastures and idyllic brooks because we see them in paintings and illustrations.  We cannot understand what a rare and otherworldly image it would have been for those who grew up like David.

But the image that has stuck with me from Kenneth Bailey’s lecture is that of God, the good shepherd, feeding sheep in the presence of predators.  We have talked before about the importance of hospitality in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern culture.  Here it is again.  As God prepares a meal for us, taking on the traditional role of a woman, Bailey points out, God shows this hospitality as a host in the presence of those who would do us harm.  God serves this dual role – host and protector and it is a powerful image.

The sheep need not fear because of the character and the dedication of the shepherd.  This shepherd is not simply punching a time-clock or biding time while he comes into full manhood.  This shepherd is dedicated and courageous, and the sheep are the better for it.

This morning we are facing a difficult week ahead for many of us.  Memories and emotions have already flooded back.  Some of us live with both the burden and the responsibility of shepherding the students of Virginia Tech.  Some members of this vast flock are feeling indifferent this morning.  Big deal…  Others are experiencing renewed feelings of fear and anxiety.  Still others are hiding, choosing to stay far away from the well-traveled paths.  Faculty and staff and administration are facing a challenging week as well, full of mixed emotions and personal struggles with role – how to be a mourner and a leader at the same time.

Yes, like it or not, we as a community are beginning our descent into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  We wear the vestments of Easter and proclaim Alleluia, and yet we are chastened by memories of loss and unthinkable sorrow.

Scott and I are here, your shepherds for hire.  I pray that you have found us to be good shepherds.  We may not always be as courageous as we could or as skilled with the instruments of our profession, but here we are – your shepherds.  Some of you may find you are stronger than others this coming week – that is an opportunity for you to as scripture admonishes us – bear one another’s burdens.

Be patient.  Have hope.  Seek those peaceful places, those green pastures.

May God give us grace to walk alongside those who are in greater pain with compassion and a gentle step.   But may God also prove once again how the community of God’s people can provide a place of refuge, a home in which we can feast on God’s grace with no fear of predators.

The good shepherd knows the path ahead of us.  May God fill our hearts with peace and make our footing sure.  Amen.

Just north of Pittsburgh PA in a little crossroads just off the interstate near Ellwood City lies the Monastery of the Transfiguration.  A small community of nuns from the Romanian Orthodox Church live there and are very hospitable to those who come by, even unannounced.

It was less than an hour from where I went to seminary, so regular groups of seminarians would drive up, often unannounced, and raid the gift shop, buying icons and incense, and visit the amazing chapel and gaze upon the icon that wept holy oil.

One of our unannounced visits took place in the week after Easter one year.  I drove some friends to the secluded location. As we drove into the small parking lot, we saw an older woman on her hands and knees working in the garden. 

When she saw us coming, she struggled to her feet, and wiping her hands on her apron she greeted us as we approached her.

“Christ is Risen!” she said.

Being seminarians, we knew the correct response, at least after a moment of looking at each other, “The Lord is risen indeed!”

I’ve never forgotten how powerful that moment was, not to be greeted with colloquial pleasantries but by an acclamation of faith.  Our faith united us despite our different traditions and nationalities.

We began our service this morning with the same acclamation – Alleluia, Christ is risen! 

Do you believe this?

Thomas didn’t. Thomas couldn’t believe the rumors. First there was the testimony of the women who said that Jesus appeared to them in the garden. Then Peter and John reported that the tomb indeed was empty. And now all the other disciples said that Jesus had actually appeared to them. Jesus had entered a locked room where they were hiding. He wasn’t ghost. He was flesh and blood. He had risen. Good news indeed! But had Thomas missed it. The Gospel writer simply states, But Thomas wasn’t with them.

Thomas has become a figure frozen in time. For many Thomas is stuck in this moment, he even has a nickname -- Doubting Thomas. Over the years, Thomas has become a caricature of sorts. He has become the iconic skeptic, the rationalist of the twelve apostles. In many of the bad Hollywood versions of the life of Jesus, where Judas Iscariot is typically portrayed as the snarling, aloof figure that any child could pick out as the bad guy, Thomas is often portrayed as scratching his head or raising objections to things. He is portrayed as the fretting doubter.

How many children in Sunday schools learn the lesson – don’t be a Doubting Thomas.  But to me, Thomas’ name and his reputation are being ill-used.  The truth is we know very little else about Thomas outside this passage in John. From another account in John’s gospel, we do know that Thomas was very courageous in the face of growing opposition to Jesus. He speaks up when the other disciples are afraid to follow Jesus to Bethany where he might be arrested. It is Thomas who says, “Let us go with him also, that we might die with him.”  That doesn’t sound like a fretting doubter to me.

We have no reason to believe that Thomas’ life was plagued by doubt.  Doubting is not Thomas’ profession, nor is it his pastime. And yet, this one moment has been used as an example of someone who lacks faith or someone who is an overly analytical skeptic who should be reprimanded or at least pitied.

But personally I find Thomas here to be a much more sympathetic figure.  I resonate with Thomas, and you know what, I think many of you do too.

Let’s consider his doubt.  We do not hear the story of a stubborn man comfortable with his doubt.  Rather, Thomas is wrestling with the story he has heard.  His doubt is not an excuse for unbelief.  He doesn’t announce, “Well, you say you saw Jesus, but since I didn’t see him, I choose not to believe you.”

Thomas is simply being honest. He wasn’t there when Jesus appeared to the other apostles. When they tell him the good news, Thomas is left to wonder. Is this rumor of a risen Lord just wishful thinking on the part of his friends? Sure Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but could Jesus himself defeat death?  Thomas wants what the rest of the disciples had.  Thomas wants to experience the risen Jesus.

Thomas’ doubt is full of expectation. Thomas wants to see Jesus. He doesn’t simply roll over in bed and sigh, “Oh well, I guess I’m just a skeptic at heart.”  Thomas has missed out on being with Jesus and he is the worse for it. Their word is not enough. He wants to share in their experience. After all, Jesus showed them his wounds.  I hear in this account the story of a man who wants the same chance.  His doubt is not a way of life, and he says so.  The Greek could also be translated this way, “Until I see the mark of the nails in his hands. Until I put my finger in the mark (the Greek is more colorful here, unless I jab my finger in the wound). Until I do these things, Thomas says, I will not believe. Thomas’ doubt is not one of “never,” it is one of “not yet.”

Thomas dares to demand more of the Lord than just the rumor of his resurrection. Thomas is a man of unrealized faith.  Faith is based on relationship.  I hear in Thomas’ doubt the cry of one who has found himself isolated, left out.  Thomas was one of the twelve.  He knew Jesus, he had seen the miracles.  I believe that it is based on that relationship and experience that Thomas is wanting more.

You may have heard the expression, “Blind faith,” but one of my favorite images I’ve heard used to describe faith is that the nature of faith is having courage to open one’s eyes in the dark.  

Thomas’ doubt is not hopeless, it is full of expectation.  Thomas is in the dark with his eyes wide open.

Some seem to believe quite readily and happily.  You tell me Jesus is risen, “Wow!  I believe it! Hallelujah!”  They believe the story sight-unseen.  Jesus calls these ones blessed, what could also be translated as “happy.”  For others, like Thomas, the journey is harder.  They want more than rumor or a second-hand experience.  They want to meet the risen Christ for themselves.

One of the blessings of our tradition is that we are not afraid to touch, in fact we encourage it.  In a few minutes we will encourage you to touch your neighbor – exchange the sign of peace, with a handshake, sometimes even with a hug or a kiss.  When we received the Eucharist, it isn’t hermetically sealed in sterile containers; it’s placed in your hand by someone else’s hand.  We drink wine from the same cup as other people – it’s a messy business, if you think about it.

But I find something holy in all this touching, all this contact.  Our faith is not one of pure rationality or reason, we get our hands dirty.

“Touch me, Thomas!” Jesus says.  At last, Thomas has a chance to be reunited with his risen Lord, his doubt is gone. 

With Thomas we are counted among those who have not seen.  All we have are the rumors, “The Lord is Risen!”  The question is left open -- will we yet believe?  Let us live our lives, with Thomas, in expectation of meeting the risen Lord.  Amen.

 

We have become so accustomed to them, we hardly notice them.  There are plain ones and jeweled ones, simple ones and elaborate ones.  Some have been passed down for generations.  Others are given as gifts.  They are ubiquitous, and yet, there are many who don’t know the whole story behind these little crosses we wear.

I remember hearing one preacher remark how odd it would seem for people from the time of Jesus to see us wearing them as jewelry, carrying them in procession, making them out of gold.  It would be, he said, as if there were people in our culture today walking around with miniature electric chairs hanging around their necks, or carrying a hangman’s noose up the aisle in a wedding ceremony.

What a peculiar thing – the cross.  What once was a symbol of torture and execution has become a beloved, revered symbol, one that identifies us as a people – Christians.  Why do we, seemingly in an effort to memorialize Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, why do we revere the very instrument of his death?

I recall many years ago when my itchy spiritual feet were taking to me to unfamiliar churches and rituals looking for that thing I knew was missing I accompanied some friends to a service at Gethsemani Monastery near our college in Kentucky.  The service was on Good Friday.  It was called the Veneration of the Cross.  I had never seen anything like it – people got in line to go to the front of the church, not to take communion, but to bend over and kiss a large crucifix that one of the monks was holding.  Not wanting to miss out, I got in line and did as the Romans were doing.  I’m not sure this young Methodist preacher’s son felt anything in particular at that moment, but I believe it was one of those moments, those thin places, when something inside me moved.

In my younger days, in my zeal as a “hot prot,” I had loudly condemned the Catholic Church for their idolatry and their superstitions.  And yet, here I was touching my lips to this giant cross bearing the form of the suffering and dying Jesus.  It was REAL.  Somehow it spoke to me, and spoke to me on a very deep level.

It is an enigmatic symbol – we read into the cross things like victory and triumph, and yet for those gathered before it that first Good Friday standing in the sudden darkness on that hill outside Jerusalem, it meant nothing but defeat.  There were holes in it and the dried blood of other criminals who had been crucified on it before.  The Romans didn’t issue fresh ones.

There was no other death so cruel and humiliating.  It took hours to die, bleeding to death in the scorching sun or the driving rain.  The condemned had to fight for every breath, straining in what must have been excruciating agony against the nails that held him in place.

Indifferent soldiers and jeering crowds were usually the only company the condemned criminals had.  But not this Jesus, this dying man who had the sign “King of the Jews” nailed above his head on the cross.  There was a small crowd, mostly women, gathered at the foot of his cross.

He spoke words to them and to the soldiers attending his execution.  “Abba, forgive them.”  “Mother, behold your son.” “I thirst,” and finally, “It is finished,” what could also be translated, “It is accomplished.”

What has been accomplished, Jesus?  You have been unjustly tried by corrupt and cowardly men.  What does that accomplish?  You have been whipped and beaten, mocked and berated.  What did that accomplish?  The questions must have weighed heavy on those gathered at the foot of the cross.

Jesus breathed his last and handed over his spirit.  The spirit that came upon him at his baptism has now departed, not in glorious light, but in darkness.  There was no voice from heaven, only silence.  Creation groaned.  The ground shook, the rocks split.  There were rumors that the Veil in the Temple had been torn in two, top to bottom.  Darkness, questions, fear, grief.

What was accomplished, Jesus?

If we freeze that moment and contemplate on that dark, dreadful, mysterious hour, we cannot help but wonder why?  This is Mary’s son, the infant whom angels and kings came to worship.  This is the man who healed the sick and raised the dead.  This is the itinerant rabbi who embraced the unembraceable and dared to challenge the authorities.

What has he done to deserve this – to die a criminal, hung in shame for the world to see?

God, why have you forsaken him?

Ever since that dark day, people have looked upon this scene and tried to explain it.  Vast libraries of books prove that the world has been talking about it ever since.  And yet, how can we stand before this scene and not ask from our deepest soul, why?

The injustice of that moment mocks the life of the man who with his life taught his followers how to be just.  The wounds and the blood scar the memory of the one who healed others.  It was as if love itself was dying up there, gasping for breath, breathing his last.

Do not look for easy answers.  And do your best not to look away.  Do not look away from this terrible moment, this tragic scene.  This great grief has caused the sky to darken and the earth itself to quake.

Gaze just for a moment longer on this poor, dying one, and with the centurion let our words be, “Truly this man was the son of God.”  Amen.

A sermon for Passion Sunday, Year A
Matthew 26:36-27:66

Could you not stay awake with me?

What tone do you think Jesus used when he spoke these words to the disciples?  How might an actor bring life and emotion to these words?

Was he angry?

Was he discouraged and disappointed?

Was he fearful and lonely?

Despite their best efforts, the disciples, even this early in the story of the last hours of Jesus’ life, are already deserting him.  They cannot even manage to keep awake, to pray, to protect him.

I imagine all of these emotions must have surged through Jesus’ heart that night, the night he was betrayed.

We have just heard a dramatic reading of the passion of our Lord according to Matthew.

You may be wondering, why is this Sunday unlike any other?  Why did we have two readings from the Gospel?  We have entered into worship singing “hosanna,” celebrating the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  But soon the tone has turned dire and ominous – Jesus has been arrested.  Jesus has been killed!

Why have we rushed through the story?

It seems that our culture won’t allow us to stay awake with Jesus either.  Our lives are very busy.  We are overworked and over-played.  We rush from work to take the kids to soccer practice or to get to dance class.  We manage to squeeze in dinner and homework and a little time for ourselves before we get to bed to start it all over again in the morning.

This week is unlike any other.  Jesus asks, “Could you not stay awake with me?”

It would be easy with all the busyness of the week not to show up to church again until next Sunday morning.  Unlike the disciples, it wouldn’t be sleep that would distract us from watching with Jesus.  It would be our schedules.

The Church in her wisdom recognized this problem.  Once upon a time, Holy Week, which begins today, was a time when most Christians would faithfully go to church, at least on Good Friday and maybe even Maundy Thursday.  But now, more and more a thing like Holy Week seems to be counter-cultural.  As it is on Ash Wednesday, many could not begin to tell you when Maundy Thursday is, let alone Good Friday. 

In response the church has transformed this Sunday from just Palm Sunday full of triumph, to Passion Sunday full of paradox.  The readings today not only show us Jesus’ triumphal entry, but they also show us the dark side of Holy Week.  We see Jesus suffering.  We witness him beaten and despised, whipped and hung on a tree. 

We witness the paradoxes that filled the last week of Jesus’ life.  The crowds first shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  And then shortly thereafter the same voices cry, “Let him be crucified!”

The Jesus of the Triumphal Entry is attractive, a winner.  The Jesus of Gethsemane is more enigmatic, more disturbing.  The Risen Lord is a joy to behold, but the dying Jesus, with his flesh torn, gasping for air, breathing his last, from this Jesus, we wish to divert our eyes.  But there would be no empty tomb if there were no bloody cross.

We need to tell the full story.

We have been telling the full story of Jesus’ life and ministry, week-in, week-out, for the rest of the year.  We have contemplated the miracles Jesus performed and the teachings he gave to those who would hear him.  And now we have come to this week of weeks – the last week of his life, and the first week of the rest of the story. 

I invite you this week – despite the disinterested and busy culture around you, stay awake with Jesus.  Spend time in prayer and meditation, preparing yourself for the road that is ahead of all of us.  As we walk these last days of Lent, we have entered the last hours of Jesus’ life.  We need to see it all.  The Triumphal Entry, The Last Supper, the washing of feet, the Garden of Gethsemane, the betrayal, the trial, the torture, the via dolorosa, Calvary, the tomb and the miracle of Easter morning.

We are not forced to abandon Jesus during his last hours.  We reenacted the Triumphal Procession this morning, but we need not reenact the betrayal and flight of the disciples.

This church will be open every night this week, offering a quiet space for prayer and meditation.   This week is the week of weeks for our faith.  Whenever we hear the words in the Eucharistic prayer, “On the night he was handed over to suffering and death” or “For in the night in which he was betrayed” that very night is this week, this Thursday to be precise.  We will celebrate the last supper as if for the first time.  By three o’clock on Friday afternoon we will come to a place of great grief.  This same Jesus, the infant king whom the magi worshipped, the miraculous healer and teacher whom the crowds flocked to see, the Son of David who entered Jerusalem in triumph would be left to die just outside its walls, abandoned, alone and despised.  And then early on Sunday morning we will gather in the hush of civil twilight and contemplate the mystery and miracle of Easter morning.

During this coming Holy Week, let’s try our best to go against the prevailing culture.  Let us keep awake with Jesus.  Let us not rush from triumph to triumph without first walking with our Lord through the valley of the shadow of his death.   We are here this morning with the paradox of a triumphant entrance and a lonely exit.  There’s much more to the story, and we will visit each of these places this week. 

During this Holy Week, let us take time to hear those words that Jesus heard.  Let us listen anew to what God may be saying to us.

During this Holy Week, let us take time to walk, if only for a short while, the road that our Lord walked.  As our feet wend their way this week toward Calvary, let us recall anew how costly our redemption was.

During this Holy Week, let us take time to see, if only remotely, some of those things that Jesus saw. 

But most of all, during this Holy Week, let us look upon him.  When we look up on the Crucified One we look upon the one who has reconciled heaven and earth.  The curse is undone.  When we had become subject to evil and death, God sent the son to redeem us.  In a world full of darkness, a light has dawned, and the darkness has not overcome it.  Evil has been answered with love, hatred with forgiveness.  Death has lost its grip over us, all because of the cross.

Let us prepare for the joy of Easter, with the courage it takes to look upon the cross.  Let us stay awake and keep watch with Jesus.  Amen

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A
John 9:1-41

I want to begin this morning doing something I almost never do – begin with a commercial.  On Tuesday evening during Holy Week, which is believe it or not, two weeks from this coming Tuesday, it is our tradition here at Christ Church to gather together and hear the Gospel of the Year read in its entirety.

This year, of course, we will hear Matthew read in its entirety in one sitting – well we might have an intermission.  Why on earth would you do that, you might ask.  The reason is that the Gospels as we have them in our Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were not experienced by their original audiences in weekly installments.  Biblical scholars tell us that they are collections of oral stories and traditions that had been handed down by followers of Jesus in their various communities.

Now why don’t you read John aloud, you might ask – well the simple reason is that the first three Gospels are read in three year cycles – John’s gospel doesn’t have a year assigned to it.  Rather readings from John are featured in and amongst the other gospel lessons.  Indeed we’ve been hearing John during this season of Lent.

We heard from John, a LOT of John, again this morning.  John is different from the other gospels in that it is more literary.  It seems to have been crafted more deliberately and carefully – it’s theology and indeed the Greek used in writing it are beautiful and more refined.  Whole chunks of John are LONG speeches by Jesus – not just stories about Jesus but many of Jesus’ inner thoughts.

This morning we have heard a story which may be familiar to many of you – the healing of the man born blind and the interrogation of his parents.  We have a long narrative piece here, with several scenes, almost like the script to a play.

What we don’t have this morning is the context.  We hear this lesson in isolation, which limits some of the meaning and affect it might have if it were heard in the larger, literary scope of John’s gospel.  This is why we have the corporate readings of the other gospels – to hear them in their entirety and in their full contexts.

So bear with me if I take a moment to set this reading in the larger context of John’s story.

Last week we heard the story of the Samaritan woman at the well.  This week, the lectionary crafters have skipped ahead to a similar encounter – this man born blind.  But MUCH has happened between these two lessons.

The story of the Samaritan woman at the well comes soon after Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus which we heard two weeks ago.  Jesus is breaking boundaries and conventions, challenging Pharisees and Samaritans alike.  Jesus is doing a new thing in the midst of these people who populate the narrative of John.

In the section between last week’s lesson and this week’s we hear of healings: the Centurion’s servant, and the lame man sitting beside the Pool of Bethesda – Jesus’ fame is spreading.  These healings don’t go unnoticed by the people but also by the religious authorities.

Jesus feeds 5,000 people, and then tells them, “I am the bread of life.”  Jesus is journeying toward Jerusalem, and we can’t help but sense that the tension is growing – a showdown is looming.

“A prophet has no honor in his own country,” Jesus reflects ominously.

Jesus walks on water.  Peter confesses that Jesus is the “holy one of God.”

Meanwhile, the reactions to Jesus’ ministry are also become more polarizing.  Many of the people want to make Jesus king, but religious authorities want to kill him and don’t keep their plans very secret.

Jesus defends a woman taken in adultery who is about to be stoned, pointing past the Law to a renewed understanding of God’s love and God’s grace.  Jesus tells those who would listen – I am the light of the world.  The Pharisees and religious authorities are asking out loud – is this man a demon?

Right before today’s lesson Jesus has a confrontation with the Jewish leaders, he calls them children of the devil rather than children of Abraham.  A line is being drawn in the sand.

Jesus’ last words to them are, “Before Abraham was, I am.”  They, of course, accuse him of heresy and the verse right before our lesson begins reads this way:

So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

Just a short time before this, Jesus had stopped them from stoning a woman, but now, the stones are being picked up with his name on them.

It is in this context that we read today’s lesson.  Do you see how knowing this bit of background makes this story much more powerful and ominous?  This story is part of the larger story.

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.

The other bit of context we get here is the world-view of those among whom Jesus moved every day.  Not just the common people, but the Jewish authorities even Jesus’ disciples seemed to believe that this man’s blindness was the result of someone’s sin.

Today we might call it karma.

Jesus doesn’t get caught up in a debate with them – rather he heals the man proclaiming that the man’s blindness was to show God’s might in him.

The man is healed.  But this is where the trouble starts.

His neighbors debate whether it could really be the same man.  The bring the man to the Pharisees who are more concerned that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath, claiming this fact as proof that Jesus is not of God.

They go and get this man’s parents – again, the assumption is made that the man’s blindness was the result of sin.  A rather amusing debate rages between the authorities and the healed man and his parents.

The one thing they cannot do is tolerate his testimony about Jesus – go be his disciple then, they say and kick him out of the synagogue.

It is here that the true nature of what Jesus has done is revealed.  This man has been born blind.  Those around him are looking for someone to blame.  Jesus heals him saying it is to glorify God.

The people aren’t even happy for him – instead they want to investigate how he was h