Songs and Sermons of The Rev John Smylie

Windows in Wyoming

2010-03-11T15:04:00.006-07:00

Enjoy the light and beauty!

Thanks to Jill for her photos!

Warmly, John

Thank you !

2010-03-05T11:36:00.003-07:00

It was an amazing gift to have had the opportunity to travel around the Diocese of Wyoming with the other nominees. This is a wonderful place in which we are blessed to live. Most of the roads I had been on before and so the greatest gift for me was to be able to come into your churches and meet many of you, to witness the life of the Holy Spirit among you, to receive the graciousness of your hospitality and share in your concerns and hopes for the future.

I continue to believe and know deep within me that God does have a plan and vision for each of our congregations and I am more confident than ever that each of us has the gifts and ability, the faith to discern what it is God would have us do locally and beyond. There were so many moving moments as we were privileged to observe our faithful Episcopal communities with hearts and hands given to service.

I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to publicly thank all of you who made our journey a time of Blessing. I believe special thanks are due to the members of the transition committee who not only planned the journey but accompanied us on it -- desiring to attend to our every need. Your spirit of service and humility will always be cherished. I hope to post some new pictures from our walk about within the next few days thanks to my wife Jill who among her many talents takes some wonderful photographs. Thanks again to each and every one of you who were able to greet us and share your hopes and dreams for your churches, communities and for the Diocese of Wyoming.

Warmly, John Smylie

Podcast Sermon: Epiphany 5, Year C, 2010

2010-02-11T16:30:00.010-07:00

Here is a sermon from February 7, the 5th Sunday after the Epiphany. Here it is in a podcast from Songs and Sermons MyPodcast site. A view of the central and southern end of the Sea of Galilee. Thank you for visiting.

Podcast Sermon: Epiphany 2, Year C, 2010

2010-02-11T16:24:00.008-07:00

Here is a sermon from January 17 that I podcasted to the Songs and Sermons MyPodcast site. Thank you for visiting.

He's Risen He Is Not Here (SONG)

2010-02-04T08:43:00.009-07:00

He's Risen He Is Not Here

My songs are hosted at songsandsermons.mypodcast.com

After listening please come visit again at songsandsermons.blogspot.com

Warmly, John

I'm Always With You (SONG)

2010-02-04T08:41:00.003-07:00

I'm Always With You

My songs are hosted at songsandsermons.mypodcast.com.

After listening please come visit again at songsandsermons.blogspot.com

Warmly, John

Cows (SONG)

2010-02-04T08:37:00.003-07:00

Cows

Did you just call me a cow?

My songs are hosted at songsandsermons.mypodcast.com.

After listening please come visit again at songsandsermons.blogspot.com

Warmly, John

Living in the Spirit (SONG)

2010-02-04T08:23:00.011-07:00

Living in the Spirit
The songs are hosted by songsandsermons.mypodcast.com

Please come again after listening by returning to songsandsermons.blogspot.com.

Warmly, John

A joy to welcome you!

2010-02-01T10:55:00.007-07:00

It is a joy to welcome you to this blog site. Thank you for visiting. I've posted a series of sermons that were published last year by CSS Publishing. Most of them I also used at St. Mark's though the St. Mark's versions were a bit shorter. In the days ahead I will be adding a few more songs that I've written over the years as well as a couple sermons which will be on a podcast so you will be able to listen to them -- one of which has a brand-new song embedded within it. Again, thank you for your interest. Please enjoy the song In God's Time if you have not already found it in my first posting.

Warmly, John

The Seventh Sunday of Easter 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:17:00.002-07:00

The Seventh Sunday of Easter
John 17:6 -- 19

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Actions and words are both important but sometimes actions do speak louder than words. Jesus is coming to the end of his ministry. He knows his time is short. He is aware that before much longer his days of teaching and preaching with his disciples will come to an end, a brutal and terrifying end as he will be handed over, tortured, harassed, mocked and finally crucified. As our Lord approaches the end of his life he draws near to the source of life and in a way he summarizes the work that he has done in his prayer for his disciples. Every aspect of the prayer that our Lord offers in today's Gospel text he has already lived out through his life and teaching among his disciples and those who've come to him and who have been blessed by his ministry.

Jesus’ own life is a kind of perpetual prayer. His life is a continual offering of self to God and to those whom God has given him to serve. In today's Gospel text we hear his high priestly prayer, praying that the work he has done, the efforts he has made, the word he has spoken, the witness he has shown will not come to an end but will continue in those whom his father has given to him to serve. The prayer will be further confirmed as Jesus moves to his passion, those last days where he will show his ultimate care and concern for the whole human community as he willingly takes upon himself the sins of the whole world.

As we read his prayer we can be sure that it is offered for more than those disciples who were present to him during his lifetime on earth. As we open ourselves to our Lord and his prayer we may discover that his prayer is for us, for you and for me just as strongly as it was for James and John and Peter and all the disciples who knew him in the flesh. Perhaps today more than any other time the Christian Church needs to experience the power of our Lord's Prayer for his disciples.

At a recent dinner with some church friends we found ourselves contemplating the violence in the world and some of us expressed a feeling of helplessness. Some of us wondered out loud if we really could make a difference in the world today. First of all, Jesus prayer is very clear that Christians, our Lord's disciples are in the world. We are not called to be a spiritual people who separate ourselves from the world, rather our Lord knew very well that we were to participate in the world and he prays that like him, through our witness we would be equipped to change the world. Our call is to accept his word and his truth and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. During our conversation at dinner I found myself reflecting upon Jesus’ call to us all to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. I firmly believe that Christianity, participating in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, may be the best if not the only way to change the world and the violence within it. Unfortunately I'm afraid that most of us are more attached to our cultural and societal values than we are to the teachings of our Lord. Perhaps we are more attached to the things of the world, to the things God has made, than we are to the creator of all things.

One of the great witnesses for Christianity was St. Francis. St. Francis found in the Gospel text a way to live out the Gospel message in his time. He associated with the story of the rich young ruler found in the Gospel text, he found himself in the story, and unlike the rich young ruler in the Gospel text who went away from Jesus with a deep sadness unable to release his dependence upon his wealth, Francis went and gave away everything he had so that he could posess an unencumbered spirit and follow the Lord. He was not denouncing the world rather he was announcing his complete and utter faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and he believed that through taking on the call of holy poverty that his witness could reform the Church. Has Christianity lost its power? Is our Lord's ministry to simple for the complexity of today's world?

Our Lord knew we would be in the world, he said, "now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world..." I don't believe our Lord was naïve about the challenges that his disciples and his church would face from the world. Look at the challenges he faced in his world. He faced a corrupt religious system. He faced not only a corrupt political system as well, but he lived in a country that was occupied by an oppressor force, Rome. Yes, our Lord did not have the same technologies that we deal with; he likely didn't need to deal with issues like identity theft, or methamphetamine or reports of global warming or even nuclear warfare. But our Lord did have to face the same corruptible human nature that causes human sin to flourish.

In some small way the questions that were asked around the dinner table and the feelings of inadequacy are not all that different than the feelings our Lord expresses in his high priestly prayer. He prays that his life will make a difference, and his prayer suggests to us that he's not sure that it will or that it has. And yet his prayer provides us with another layer of assurance of our Lord's continuing care and power is available to us. Not only did Jesus teach with his healings and his word, he was the word, and he expressed the word through his actions most particularly at the cross.

Jesus prays that his disciples will be one as he and his father in heaven are one. It may make us wonder why this was such an important part of his prayer. Even in his ministry there was conflict among his disciples. We see the conflict before and after his death and resurrection. Peter often moves before the Lord, Thomas denies the communities word and witness as well as the Lord's resurrection, Judas betrays Jesus believing in his own idea of what a Messiah Liberator should be. Jesus must have been aware of the difficulty of holding a community together even in the short years when he wondered the land of Israel with his band of disciples. Certainly the Church has struggled with unity ever since our Lord's death and resurrection. New factions and splits within the Church continue at an alarming rate. Though there has been some movement towards ecumenism in this last century we still argue over aspects of the Gospel pointing fingers at one another, getting caught in self righteous and judgmental thinking while denying our Lord's desire that we all may be one. We are often more in allegiance with our own denominations and theologies, becoming inflexible and unable to agree to honor and respect follow Christians or even to simply gather as a people who believe that Jesus is Lord.

Our Lord strengthens us with his word. In his prayer he says, "I have given them your word." In John's Gospel we learned that the Word was made flesh and that word, is the word of our Lord's body and blood, life and action, his teaching and sacrifice, his passion, death and resurrection, his ascension and his continuing prayer and presence for and with us today. The word that we have is also the word of the New Testament which teaches us about the ministry of Jesus, a word that can come alive and even bring us into our Lord's presence. Our Lord gives us his word in action and in speech to strengthen us to participate in the world with the surety of his ministry working through us.

This seventh Sunday of Easter is a bit odd in its placement within the church year. This past Thursday we celebrated Ascension Day and now we find ourselves a week away from Pentecost. It was during these days that Jesus called his disciples to wait, to listen together and discover together what there ministry should be. They were equipped with the life and witness and word of their Lord but they were waiting for the Spirit. Perhaps during these days between the Ascension and Pentecost we too would be wise to gather together in one another's presence, quietly awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit. The world brings us many challenges and most of us have likely gone through emotional and momentous occasions and we likely crave the presence of others who have walked that road. We may long to be with others who have faced this world and at times felt crushed by it, perhaps we need to gather in community because we have discovered a cancer, or are about to get married, or our first child is going off to college, or we have lost a friend, or we find we must stand against war and intolerance. Like those first disciples we can find comfort in being in the presence of someone who has been there with us, in the world, and the challenge of our experiences. Those first followers had 10 whole days to simply pray and wait and be together, to know in their hearts and in the eyes of each other that they had shared in some of the most momentous occasions in the history of the planet. This first important ministry of the church was a ministry of presence, of being together in waiting.

Think how out of control they must have felt yet because they accept and respond to his word, because they are present to one another, because they realize the powerlessness of their present situation and just settle in to wait, they are ready to hear and respond when the empowering Spirit does come on Pentecost.

Are there places in your lives that feel like you fall in between the cracks? Are you one of those who feel overwhelmed by the world and unable to make a difference? Do you sense the familiar has gone and the new has not yet come along to replace it? Where you feel like you're just left staring up into the sky wondering what's going on? It is comforting to know God's Word and discover that our Lord himself felt this way at times. Our Lord at times needed to withdrawal from his disciples and simply hear the voice of his father. We need to hear Jesus words, and to wait together with other believers. It is a difficult place in which to be. We would much rather go off on our own to work things out, we'd much rather grab onto some plan, any plan so we have something to say for ourselves, and we'd much rather give friends caught in such places a quick and easy answer. But Jesus calls us to wait and to wait together. He promises that in the vulnerable place of admitting our powerlessness we will receive the ministry which will enable us to hear and respond to the Holy Spirit when clear direction does come.

Every age has its critical moments. Every generation has its challenges. Today we may be challenged by an ever increasing question, does Christianity matter? This is not a new question. St. Paul wrestled with this question when he said that if resurrection is not true, that if the resurrection didn't happen we Christians are the most to be pitied. We are a people of the resurrection. We have a Lord who has triumphed over sin and death. We have a Lord who was willing to not only share the word with us but to show the word to us. We have a Lord whose actions spoke louder than words when he was willing to be lashed by Roman authorities, spit upon by the crowd, betrayed by his own disciples and the religious authorities of his day. We have a Lord who was falsely judged by governmental authorities, a Lord who was persecuted because of his faithfulness. We have a Lord who was crowned with thorns, pierced with a spear and nailed to a cross. We have a Lord who anticipated the needs of his followers and prayed for them. We have a Lord who has been true to his promise to send an advocate the Holy Spirit to lead us and to guide us into all truth. We have a Lord who continues to nurture his church through his Word and through his presence in bread and wine, and in the people of God who share in his life because they know him as their Lord and dedicate their lives to serving him.

Our Lord prays for more than us to simply get by. Our Lord prays for us to be like him, to know in his strength, the source of grace found in an intimate relationship with his Holy Father. Our Lord prays we will discover the power of the Holy Spirit through the mediation found in himself. Our Lord prays for us to be in the world as he was in the world. Do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do you believe in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit? Can you receive God's living Word to you today? If you answer yes then I invite you to take these last few days of this Easter season and wait upon the Lord to guide you into action. Let us be, “Into Christ and out to Serve."

Ascension Day 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:16:00.004-07:00

Ascension Day
Luke 24:44 -- 53

The Logical Conclusion

For several years I had the privilege of serving a congregation in upstate New York. There were many wonderful faithful people who are part of that congregation. Before I arrived the membership had decided to build a columbarium. Unlike many churches which create niches inside the church for burial this group of people decided to create a rather elaborate and visually attractive outdoor columbarium. The church was blessed with land. It was a fairly narrow plot that extended a great distance from Main Street down to a river that ran behind the church. One needed to go through a great long woods to get to the river as the total amount of property the church held was about 14 acres. The entrance to the columbarium was in the back of the parking lot. A walkway was created that extended about 50 yards and was wide enough for two people to walk together. At the end of the walkway a wall was constructed actually two walls one on either side of the walkway. The highest point of each wall was approximately 6 feet and the wall's gently sloped downward to the ground about 40 feet in both directions. Each marker on the wall corresponded with a plot in the ground. The columbarium was very lovely but difficult to use in the midst of the Western New York winters.

There were a few apple trees back behind the wall near where the plots in the ground were designated for people's ashes to be placed. The columbarium attracted much wildlife which was always lovely to look upon. There was one particular autumn burial service that I found myself quite annoyed at the messiness of the apples scattered on the ground. Some of them had rotted and were slippery if stepped upon and I felt they were in the way. Somehow I felt within me at that time that the placing of the ashes in the ground ought to be done in a cleaner setting. I mentioned this to one of the worship leaders who was assisting me at the service and she wisely said to me, "life can be messy sometimes." How right she was -- how right she is! Having an Apple free columbarium, having a sanitized place of burial would not have dulled the grief that those who were participating in the service felt. In fact the messiness of life that was bothering me may have ministered to others. Like the life that we were committing to the ground those apples had also been committed to their resting place. The whole setting actually proved to be a graphic straightforward and somewhat simple proclamation of the messiness of life and death.

The Christian gospel is much the same. The Gospel loses its power when it becomes too theoretical and spiritual; the Gospel loses its power when it becomes sanitized. The Gospel must always be tied to a body, to a story, and thus we are gathered on this Ascension Day to celebrate the embarrassingly graphic story of the Ascension -- Jesus body withdrawing, floating up and away.

There may be many among us who have a very difficult time when we think of the Ascension. There was a religion professor at Harvard who said that he might possibly be able to accept the idea of Jesus physical resurrection if it hadn't been for the ascension because he reasoned how could a physical body just goes straight up into space like that without going into orbit. One of his students decided at that point to become skeptical of academic religious classes. He is not the only one who shares that view there are others whom I would describe as liberal literalists who have shared his opinion, in fact one of the more published Bishops of the Episcopal Church shares this view.

What their comments showed was their narrow and limited minds’ ability to grasp the mystery of the incarnation. The fact is none of us will likely be able to grasp the fullness of the mystery of the incarnation yet we may grasp that the incarnation is always messy and unmanageable and a scandal to our refined sophisticated theological systems because it is always tied to a body, Jesus body and to our own bodies. Affirming and celebrating the Ascension is affirming that God gets fully involved in our flesh and blood existence, that he fully and mysteriously united himself to our flesh in the womb of Mary, that Jesus was not just God in a human being suit or a human being charged with the Spirit of God, but fully God and fully human; that this God -- man really suffered, bled, died, was cold and stiff and buried; that he was resurrected in the flesh: flesh changed and transformed, walking through doors, strangely appearing and disappearing, not always easily recognized, yet flesh nonetheless, eating fish, cooking breakfast, reaching out hand and side to be touched. St. Augustine once put it this way: "his bones were real bones; his sinews were real sinews; his wounds were real wounds. Whatever was touched was real; whatever was perceived was true. Man was touched; God was perceived. Flesh was touched; wisdom was perceived. Weakness was touched; power was perceived."

The Ascension is the logical conclusion to the incarnation. The incarnate Jesus didn't somehow split apart and the spirit return to the father, and the flesh to the earth. All of Jesus was welcomed into the grace and presence and nature of his father in Heaven and somehow, mind boggling to our limited understanding, our flesh, human flesh, eyes, ears, hands, side, are represented in the very Triune Godhead.

As we reflect upon our Lord's incarnation, we may become overwhelmed as we recognize that the very flesh that is ours has been made holy and has been raised to the glory of heaven by the ascension of our Lord. This flesh that constitutes our bodies was and still today is in a mysterious way, the very flesh that our Lord Jesus Christ himself wore. No other creature can claim this privilege. This is why the Angels bow down before us and serve us; the ascension of human flesh into heaven brought the greatest wound of all to Satan's pride. Of all the creatures and of all creation it is only this flesh that we bear that has been taken up into the Godhead.

The joyful hope of the Ascension is that we shall also be taken up, that our bodies, too, will be transformed and raised and united to the father in the body of his son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the glorious inheritance to which we have been called in hope and in the meantime we have the promise that Christ truly abides with us here and now. We belong to God -- not in some mystical, spiritual sense, but in our down to earth eating and drinking, our touching and loving, our smelling and hearing. Our hands and feet, heads and bodies are redeemed and they belong to God. May we delight in the tangibleness of God's love coming to us through the gifts of Jesus body and blood as we receive his presence in bread and wine around his alter. And may we also delight in the tangibleness of loving embraces when we share the peace of God with one another, for we are the body of Christ, and as surely as he comes to us in bread and wine, he also comes to us in the warm bodies gathered in this place to praise him and to worship him.

Let us pray:

Holy, ascended Lord, you who sit in glory at the right hand of the father, you who come to us in the humble elements of bread and wine, you who touch us in the lives and hearts of our sisters and brothers, come now and fill us again with your very self as you have promised, that when you come again as the Angels foretold, we would be a holy people prepared to dance and delight with you forever and ever. Amen

The Sixth Sunday of Easter 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:15:00.002-07:00

The Sixth Sunday of Easter
John 15:9 -- 17

The Little Golf Club

Our Lord's new commandment, to love one another as he has loved us, is easier said than done. Love is such an overused word in our society and even in sermons that it's sometimes difficult to get a grip on what it is that love really means. Perhaps our Lord's love is particularly difficult to get a handle on because of the preconceived notions we may have about him. Sunday school images of the mild and gentle Jesus may come to mind. Never a harsh word spoken, a smile on his face, a sweetness in his spirit ready to tend to every one of our needs. This image of Jesus, an image that may come from childhood songs like, Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so, leaves out not only the challenging nature found in the way Jesus loves individuals, but the sacrificial nature that is profoundly expressed upon a Roman cross on a hillside outside of Jerusalem where he stretched out his arms of love.

His love may seem beyond our capacity to love and yet his love is available to each of us to embrace and to be embraced by. Some of us are blessed with examples of human love. Some have friends and family who have loved us into greater growth and nurtured us with loving actions. My grandfather loved golf. And in his profession he had the opportunity to take clients out golfing. He was a member of an upscale golf course in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He would regularly play rounds of golf with scores in the 70s. I never experienced his competitive nature and yet to be that good a golfer I know he must have been pushing himself throughout his golfing days. When I was a little boy my mother and I moved in with my grandfather because of my mom's divorce and my grandmother's death. I know that my grandfather loved having us there with him. It was a secure environment, one in which I always felt loved and cherished by him. I have memories of sitting on his lap as he sat on his large dark brown leather chair with his feet stretched out upon the ottoman and watching the Philadelphia Phillies in his den as he drank an occasional Miller Beer and smoked his unfiltered Camel cigarettes. Every now and then he would give me a wet kiss on the cheek and I would experience his weekend stubble. Looking back on that time I suspect that there was a mutual ministry going on between my grandfather and me. Because of the grief that I know he must have felt over the untimely death of his wife, to have his grandson living with him at a time of such deep vulnerability for him must have been a blessing. Without knowing I was ministering to him I'm sure I was, simply by being there, by receiving his affection, by enjoying his presence by wanting to be with him. I loved my grandfather and I'm certain he knew it.

One day he came home from the golf course with a little golf club. It was a real golf club one that had been sawed off at the pro shop. A new grip had been made for it and my granddad took me out to the backyard and he taught me how to take a swing with it at a real golf ball. I loved to go out into his backyard which at the time looked wonderfully large to me and my five year old body. I dug a few holes around the backyard and made a little course where I would find myself playing for hours. When my grandfather wasn't out playing golf with his friends I remember him out in the backyard with me. Though he did not bring his clubs to the backyard rather he brought a little trough and patiently dug up every single prickly weed so that I could run around in my bare feet. I didn't think much of my grandfather's labor back then but now as I look back I see that his digging out the prickly weeds was a labor of love. He was in his 60s at the time and I'm certain that working out under the hot blazing sun of the Pennsylvania summer, when he could have been inside sitting in the screened in porch or in his den enjoying the comfort of a day off, I'm certain that weeding was not his first choice for a weekend activity. He went out and dug up those weeds because he didn't want his grandson to hurt his feet or to lose his joy in playing in the backyard. Granddad had a gardener who did most of the yard care and I'm sure had he wanted to, he could have paid the gardener to do this work for him but rather he got down on his hands and knees to dig out the weeds so that I would not experience the pain of their prickly touch. My hunch is that my grandfather experienced some pain in digging out the weeds. The pain of bending over, possibly straining his back, experiencing the discomfort of those hot and humid days, looking back I recognize in that gesture that he loved me.

The little golf club that he made for me is another example of his love and invitation to share in his life. I don't think he was trying to make me a little golf pro, and I know that he wasn't seeking to live his life through me, rather he was inviting me to share in his life, he was inviting me to participate in an activity that brought him great pleasure -- great joy. That little golf club was an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual truth, in a funny way that little golf club was a kind of sacrament between my grandfather and me it was a sign that we could be friends. The little golf club was a sign that we could share in an activity that would put us on equal footing. The little golf club was a sign of love. If anyone was a servant in this relationship it was my grandfather. It was my grandfather who served me by digging up the prickly weeds throughout his very large backyard. It was my grandfather who served me by spending some of his hard earned money on creating a custom-made golf club so we could share a playful time together. It was my grandfather who served me by opening up his house to my mother and me so we could live with him at a vulnerable time in her life, and our life, and in his life.

Our Lord invites us to love one another as he has loved us. His love is not found only in the big gestures, his love can be found in the little things of everyday life. There is a book that I have found helpful in counseling couples who are preparing for marriage and I think in a rather simple way it opens up some profound opportunities for understanding love. It's a book by Gary Chapman titled, "The Five Love Languages." For me the heart of the book is found in the understanding that there are particular ways that each of us know we are loved. One of the insights it shares is that it's more natural and obvious for us to give to another the language we need. The five love languages include, physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts and quality time. The challenge of the book to the reader is not so much to discover one's own love language but to discover your spouse's love language. And then once discovering your spouse's love language being willing to learn to communicate in a way your spouse will receive the love you share for him or her. I think the book is primarily about learning to give, at times it's about learning to surrender one's own way of doing things for the sake of building up the other. When our love languages are different it requires sacrifice to learn the other's language and to communicate it to him or her in a faithful and consistent way.

When couples begin to exercise the challenges that are found in the book there is a new sense of joy that often arrives in their relationship. Our Lord tells us that as we live into his commandments, and learn to receive and abide in his language of love just as he has learned and received and lives into his heavenly father's love, that we will find our joy increased. Our Lord wants the same joy that is in the relationship that he has with his Father in heaven to be in us not only in our relationship with the Lord but with one another.

Perhaps today we may be challenged to open ourselves to discover what it is we can lay down for those we love. Are their behaviors or attitudes that we hold more sacred than the people we've been given to care for, behaviors or attitudes that damage relationships rather than build them up? Some of us may have addictive personalities and may find ourselves struggling with abusive language, alcohol, rage or any of a thousand sins that keep us out of balance and unable to love as we have been loved by God. The love of our Lord given to each of us has the power to set us free. True love, loves the other into greater growth. Throughout Jesus life he is constantly challenging false perceptions, restrictive religious practices, injustice, hypocrisy and even the cultural norms of his day. Jesus does not love to gain power for himself, rather he loves to empower others. As we search the Gospel we will not find one soul who is outside his desire to lead into a healthy relationship with his heavenly father. Yes, it is true that his mission was primarily to the Jewish people, yet on occasion his ministry and mission would be interrupted by Gentiles whom he would affirm whenever he saw a depth of faith and commitment within them. Are there people in our lives whom we consider to be outsiders? Are there members of the human community who we count as unworthy of our love, our time, and our commitment?

The other day I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a black Ford pickup truck that said, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" In this age of terrorism and of religious intolerance I find myself wondering if we Christians are not given a unique call. As we study the teachings of our Lord and open ourselves to the teachings of other religions we may well find that the one profound difference between them is our Lord's challenge to love more deeply than may appear humanly possible. When Jesus said love one another as I have loved you it's impossible to not consider our enemies and those who are different from us. Jesus did not say love only those whom you are comfortable with. Jesus did not say that we should only love those who go to church every Sunday. Jesus did not say that we should only love Christians. Jesus did not say that we should only love one another. Jesus said we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. And he showed us through his own life that he meant what he said, when he was stretched out his own body upon the hard wood of the cross he embraced all those who had crucified him. He embraced the religious authorities whose only solution was to get rid of him. He embraced the Roman government officials whose system of justice had failed and whose soldiers had driven the nails through his hands and his feet. He embraced his disciples who had abandoned him. Our Lord's call to love one another as he has loved us, is not only for those that we are comfortable with. I believe the us that he is talking about is the whole human community and we who know the love of our Lord may be in a position as we receive the love of our Lord to show forth his saving grace which is the only grace that can bring lasting peace to a world which once again is close to the brink of destruction.

We are not helpless, we have a helper in the Holy Spirit. We are not hopeless, our hope is in the Lord. We are not useless for we can offer ourselves to our Lord's purpose. We are not victims, rather we are called to be healers. Christians throughout time have been given a unique gift and that gift is a relationship with the living God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our call is to love one another as our Lord has loved us. Our call is not so much to make converts for our Lord as it is to teach the world to become friends with our Lord. Perhaps we can look around us today asking God to open our eyes and our hearts to the possibilities around us to reflect and show his amazing grace and love. Is there someone in your neighborhood, someone in your family, someone who is an outsider, perhaps they are from another religious tradition, perhaps they have no religious tradition, perhaps they are grumpy or abusive or just downright nasty. It doesn't matter, our Lord was indiscriminate in his gift of love. When he stretched out his arms of love on the hardwood of the cross he stretch them out for everyone and we are invited to love one another as he has loved us, we are invited to stretch out our lives for every one as well. The Gospel challenges us. Our gestures of love may be as simple as making a little golf club and pulling up prickly weeds so the children in the neighborhood can have a place to play. Some of us will be given larger opportunities to make a difference in the world, what is important is not the opportunity we are given but that we take the opportunity we are given and use it as an arena where we can show how great and vast is the love of God by reflecting the love of Christ. To love as Jesus loved is not to ram the love of Christ down another's throat, it is not to force the love of Christ on another, but rather it is to love one another into greater growth with the love of Christ, having ourselves been loved into greater growth by the love of Christ.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:13:00.004-07:00

The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Year B.
John 10:11 -- 18

Fred and Barney

I grew up in the suburbs, in a community outside of lower Manhattan. There were no sheep in our neighborhood in fact there were no farms. In Southern New Jersey there were farms the grew wonderful corn and tomatoes, in fact some might be amused to know that the slogan on New Jersey's license plate has been, "the Garden State." Amused because so many of us who live in this fine country have only had the experience of New Jersey which can be found along the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. Our Lord grew up in a completely different kind of culture than is found in northern or southern New Jersey. His was more of an agrarian society, shepherds were a part of his experience as he grew up. Perhaps there were times in his youth when he was sent out to watch the flock, having to protect it from the beasts of the night. We really don't know if Jesus ever did the work of an actual shepherd yet there's no doubt he heard the stories of King David in his youth and learned how he protected his flock driving off Lions with his sling.

In the late 1980s I purchased a home in Orchard Park, New York. It used to be a rather large farm but at the time when we purchased it is only retained a little over two acres. The house was built in 1813 and next to it was a gentle stream. Most of the land was in the backyard, the property was in the shape of a triangle with only a small portion touching the road in front. The previous owners had dug a hole in the back yard and filled it with water so they could keep some ducks. The pond was stagnant as there was no source of fresh water except what little water could be pumped from the stream that ran by the House. We decided that we would test our hand at raising livestock, though I must admit a good deal of my motivation for having sheep in the backyard was to avoid having to mow the lawn. It just made sense to me to have animals to munch on the grass to their nourishment rather than having me spend most of my weekend tending the rather large lawn. We put a fence up around the pond and eventually purchased two sheep who we named Fred and Barney. We must've been influenced by the Flintstones.

The children would go out and enjoy the sheep from time to time, but mostly Fred and Barney were on their own. We soon discovered that they possessed a rather unpleasant scent and were quite dirty. We were obviously not prepared to be shepherds certainly not very good shepherds. The dramatic event happened a few months after we had the sheep. One afternoon when I was inside the house I began to hear unusual bleatings from the two of them. I could hear that they were screaming in the backyard. I went outside to discover that two large dogs had been attacking the sheep. They had managed to get over the fence and they had Barney and Fred in their jaws. It was a gruesome sight and very upsetting. One of the dogs was an Alaskan Husky and the other a Malamud. These dogs were clearly hungry and violent. I went into the house and retrieved my shotgun, held the dogs at bay while Betsy got a hold of the local sheriff to come take the dogs away. Had I wanted to I could have exacted vengeance upon those animals and shot them. I did not feel like a very good Shepherd. My sheep were injured, the metaphorical wolf was successful in his attack. The sheriff eventually did arrive and at the same time the owners of the dogs arrived as well. I think they were somewhat horrified to see me holding a gun on them as they now cowered in one corner of the pen. Even though I had the right to shoot them had I wanted to, they had left the sheep after I scared them away and I saw no use in putting them to death even though their attack brought death to both Fred and Barney. The owners told me the dogs had escaped a few days before and I think they must have been listening to the police scanner when they heard the reports of the dogs having attacked the sheep and the address where this all took place. The owners did make restitution to me for the cost of the sheep but the trauma of losing them could never be covered.

Jesus is the good Shepherd not only does he know us each by name but he knows everything about us and he still tends to us. Jesus is the good Shepherd who knows our strengths and our weaknesses. He knows our good habits and our bad ones. He knows you and he knows me. He knows when we are on a diet and sneak food in the middle of the night. He knows when we want to escape responsibility and blame others for our mistakes. He knows when we want to hide from him and from one another. He knows our need to be loved and understood and at times protected. Jesus knows that for each of us there will be times of ups and downs; he understands and knows of the peculiar nature of each of our personalities; Jesus knows our struggles and our fears. Jesus knows when the wolf is at our door. Jesus is the good Shepherd who is willing to die for the sheep, but not only was he willing to die for the sheep, for you and for me he really did die at the cross where he overcame the greatest foe -- death itself.

The image of the good Shepherd may be the most popular image in Christian art. It has certainly been an image that we have seen and has been portrayed over centuries of Christian tradition. In the time of Jesus the Shepherd did not hold a prominent position, in fact it was a lowly position in the hierarchical working world of our Lord's Day. Christian tradition has understood the role of the Shepherd as something and someone to be valued. Over time the role of the Shepherd became equated with qualities and values which were held in high esteem. The Shepherd would need to exercise leadership, leading the flock to safety and leading to flock to nourishment. The Shepherd would need to exercise courage, protecting the flock at times from the overwhelming violence of nature found in predatory animals, unexpected storms and even in the hardships of twisted ankles and accidents. The Shepherd would need to exercise strength, strength to endure the rugged wilderness into which he would take the sheep, strength to endure the loneliness that leadership would often bring him, strength to endure the hardships of a nomadic life and strength to assist the vulnerable sheep whenever there was a need. The Shepherd would also need to exercise tenacity. He must be focused, alert and ready at any moment to protect the sheep from any challenge at any time.

Perhaps at times Christian tradition has forgotten these qualities of the Shepherd focusing instead on values such as gentleness. Often Jesus is portrayed with a lamb upon his shoulders, a gentle Jesus carrying a vulnerable creature. We also may associate the Shepherd's work with dependability, seeing the Shepherd as one who is always there, rain or shine, night or day always available always dependable even more so than US postal workers.. And of course the Shepherd can be associated with one who is given trust. Though the Shepherd likely does not own the flock which he tends he is trusted with care of the flock, trusted to do whatever it takes to keep the flock safe from the dangers which surround it. The shepherd is trusted to bring the flock home when the season of grazing is over.

It may be good for us to merge the sweeter images of gentleness, dependability and trust with the more realistic images of strength and courage and leadership. To only focus on the gentleness of our Lord is to make our Lord a Sunday school Jesus, one who is sweet without strength, one who is tender without tenacity.

The Gospel texts points to the difference between the hired man and a good Shepherd. The hired man is there on a temporary basis and to receive some monetary gain. The hired man is not invested in the sheep and likely doesn't have a relationship with the sheep except for his own self-interest. The hired man cares about himself not the sheep while the owner personally cares about each member of the flock. The owner is willing to risk his own life for the sheep he serves and in our Lord's case the owner gives his own life for the sheep he loves.

The hired hand runs from the wolf while the good Shepherd stays to defend the flock. Who is the wolf? Ultimately the wolf is the devil and all of the tools of the devil that come to steal life. The wolf is the one whose intention is to kill and to destroy. Our Lord's death upon the cross was not only so we would have a way to heaven, his sacrifice is for more than that. Our Lord's willingness to lay down his life for us provides us with protection and freedom today. Our Lord came to give us life, abundant life all the days of our life. The wolf is the one who attacks us and who seeks to steal our joy. The wolf is the one who would seek to make our lives so focused on ourselves and our own problems that all we notice are our problems while missing the abundance that is present in our Lord at all times and in all places and in every moment. The wolf desires to fill us with fears and worries causing us to complain and to gossip and to experience a sickness of soul that comes with these behaviors.

We may think that it's our job to fight the wolf. We may think that it's up to us to overcome our fears and worries all by ourselves. But I suspect most of us have discovered that the more we have tried to stop feelings like anger or fear or worry the more we think about them and the worse they get. The sheep were never supposed to fight the wolf, their job was to run away from the wolf, to run to the Shepherd and ask for help. Jesus is here as our good Shepherd. He is here in his sacramental presence. He is here in the Gospel, the good news. He is here in the fellowship we share with one another and our job whenever we face a wolf in our lives is to run to Jesus. Let us run to our Lord today from whatever circumstances may be binding us and causing us to live in fear or worry or with a complaining and critical spirit. Let us run to Jesus today and give thanks for he knows us each deeply and fully and by name.

Our Lord wants us to do more than run to him he wants us to share in his ministry of shepherding. As we find strength in running to Jesus, as we receive the grace that he is always more ready to give them we to receive, we will discover that we are strengthened to shepherd others with his love working through us. Some of us may be called to shepherd our youth. I was never an outstanding basketball player but I really enjoy basketball and when the opportunity presented itself for me to assist a coach who was having problems with his schedule I jumped at the opportunity. In a small way by being present as an assistant coach and by caring for those seventh and eighth grade girls who were part of the team, I was able to be a shepherd and share in Christ's shepherding ministry. There was one moment when one of the girls seemed to be overcome by inner fears and anxieties. I took her aside during practice along with her mother who was also present and prayed with her, I know that prayer made a difference, not that the prayer was so powerful, what I know was that the love of Christ was in me for that child. Both mother and child felt cared for. There are opportunities all around us to share in the shepherding ministry of our Lord, we simply need to open our eyes wide enough to see them.

Some of us are called to shepherd adults. Sometimes particularly difficult experiences that we may have faced like a death, a divorce, alcoholism in the family or other challenging circumstances may give us a special sensitivity to those whom we see around us struggling with similar concerns. Others of us may be gifted in teaching and will have the opportunity to nurture others in the understanding of the Scriptures. Shepherding comes in all sizes, shapes and forms. And as long as we find ourselves running to Jesus to be shepherded by him we will also find ourselves equipped by him and ready to reach out to others.

On this day let us pause for a moment to express our gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ who is the good Shepherd. And let us pray that the example he gives us in laying down his life for us will strengthen us to give to others who are in need of his grace and shepherding love.

The Fifth Sunday of Easter 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:13:00.003-07:00

The Fifth Sunday of Easter
John 15:1 -- 8

Weed and Feed

I think some people are natural born gardeners. Our Lord grew up in a society that was familiar with agriculture. The images that he used to explain the ways of his Father in Heaven are familiar to his audience. Growing up, my closest experience to agriculture was living in, "the Garden State." Most people when they pass through New Jersey are surprised to see that expression on the license plate of vehicles registered in New Jersey. Most folks traveling through New Jersey experience the megalopolis, the corridor between New York City and Washington, DC. My closest experience to an agricultural society growing up in New Jersey was mowing the lawn. But I have to admit I still believe New Jersey has the best tomatoes in the United States.

More recently I have found myself blessed with an opportunity to get a bit closer to the land and to understand its ways. Four years after the death of my first wife I married a farm girl. She grew up in central Washington State and worked on her family's wheat farm. She loves her gardens and creates little areas around our house and yard that are designed to bring pleasure to all. She has a gift and yet it's obvious that the gift is supported by long hours of work, weeding and pruning and taking care of the plants and flowers, protecting them from the elements and from the deer that delight especially in the tulips.

Not long ago Jill, my wife, asked me to see if I could get the string trimmer working again. After checking a few things and reloading the string in the string trimmer, giving it some fresh fuel I was able to get it started. Jill has higher standards than I do when it comes to the beauty of the yard but it gives me pleasure to bring her pleasure and so I found myself taking the string trimmer and whacking away at the edges of the property, at the edges of her gardens, and around trees where the grass tends to grow a bit higher because the mower can't get quite as close as the trimmer. Sometime after giving all those areas a good buzz cut my dear wife asked me if I had been aware that one of the plants around the tree which has the bird feeder attached to it was not a weed. No, I had no idea that one of the plants I had just trimmed was a gift from a friend. It was green and it was growing tall and it looked like a weed to me. She then proceeded to tell me that the plant was growing better than it ever had. She hadn't noticed my original unintentional pruning job. But because of cutting back the plant it now had grown fuller, and thicker than it ever had been before. She then took me over to the plant and showed me how well it was growing while also educating me in a way that I wouldn't get overzealous with the string trimmer in the future.

It seems to me that Jesus is suggesting that the Word of God is like a giant string trimmer for the people of God. Our Lord scatters the word with grace, in his teaching and in his example. The Word of God comes into us and as it takes hold it is designed to remove areas in our life which keep us from God while making room for God to dwell within us. The Word of God not only provides us with an opportunity for growth it provides us with the possibility of greater health. Just like that plant, the good plant underneath the tree with the bird feeder, was blessed by an unintentional pruning, so too and even more the good intention of our Lord in casting his word upon us can prune us, cutting away growth that is unnecessary growth that may even stunt the fullness of our being, pruning that serves to provide space and room for God's better growth and life to shine forth and become apparent in and through us.

As we reflect upon our congregation there may be aspects in our life as a community that needs pruning as well. No doubt at times the church needs weeding and pruning. At times we develop bad theologies, like thinking we must be all things to all people. When we do this, when we think this way we often become almost nothing to anyone. When congregations seek to be all things to all people they are usually operating out of their own ideas rather than making room for the Word of God to dwell within them. When congregations seek to be all things to all people, they can become so scattered and unfocused that almost nothing of worth can grow within them. When congregations are pruned by the Word of God, when congregations listen and discover the guidance of the Holy Spirit unique to its identity, congregations become fruitful and noticed and make a difference not only among the membership but in the larger community in which they are situated.

There was a time in my life when I found that I needed to be pruned of some bad thinking. Early on in the Ministry I somehow developed a theology of availability. It seemed to me that it was part of the role of the Minister to be available to all people at all times. I figured God was available at all times and as his minister it was my job to reflect God as best I could and I took on the theology of availability. At the time I was serving in a rather demanding congregation, their demands were not unreasonable and their needs were real, the problem was that they were more than I could handle. People were dying and the grief surrounding the deaths was great. There were members of the congregation who had severe health challenges; one of the members who was a bridge leader in the congregation had serious heart problems. After corrective surgery gone awry he went into a coma in which he stayed for five months before his untimely death. His challenge alone was difficult for the whole congregation and I was seeking to take care of everyone in a way that I found myself working 14 hour days with no days off and this pattern lasted for over three months. Having developed a theology of availability, which seemed to be appreciated by the congregation, I found myself close to having a nervous breakdown. I could feel myself coming unglued. At that time I had not yet named the core problem. Not having had a day off for months I informed vestry of the congregation that I would be leaving town for six days, that I needed to go away and try to recharge my batteries and get a handle on my life.

I got on an airplane and flew down to Florida. My parents at that time owned a home on an island which was walking distance from a beach. Each day I spent several hours on the beach in quiet contemplation, walking and praying until I discovered that my theology of availability was a prideful attempt to play God. What I also discovered was that I was available to everyone except God, those closest to me namely my family, and myself. The theology of availability had caused me to break the great Commandment, I did not love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and I did not love myself. The pruning that I needed at that time was to first confess my wrong thinking and then to adjust my life in a way that I could allow God to be God and to simply serve as his minister, one day at a time seeking his guidance for each day. At that time I created a discipline for myself; I got out my appointment book and scheduled for the next year a daily appointment with the Lord. Each day I blocked off the hour between four and five in the afternoon as a time to work on the relationship between God and myself. When members of the congregation would ask me if I could see them during that hour I would look at my appointment book and tell them that I was sorry that I already had an appointment scheduled for that time. The congregation survived my new discipline, my family enjoyed seeing me again, I became a healthier person, the Lord and I strengthened our relationship and I discovered that by putting God first the needs that I needed to attend to as a minister of the Lord became more grace filled. I'd be thinking of folks that I needed to see and while making a visit to the hospital, the elevator doors would open and there standing in front of me would be the very folks that I knew I needed to call upon. I discovered as I gave my life and will to God, as I gave him each day, each day became richer, fuller and more abundant. I think that's what God's pruning does, as we open ourselves to being pruned by God we discover that as painful as the pruning may be at the moment of pruning, our lives do become richer, fuller and more abundant.

We are invited to abide in God and we are reminded that our Lord abides in us. We may want to ask ourselves the question in what or in whom do we abide? Our congregations may abide in a spirit of trying to be all things to all people. I found myself abiding in false thinking that I needed to be present to all people as God was present to all people. Some congregations think that if they can be like another congregation all their problems will be solved. These congregations may be full of good intentions but perhaps they're missing the point of the Lord's call to them. Our Lord calls individuals and congregations to abide in him and to discover his abiding presence in us. The temptation to individuals is to abide in the culture rather than the Lord. The culture misleads us into believing that we will be satisfied if we get a bigger house, a more fuel-efficient car, a better job, more money, or countless other things that promise satisfaction but rarely if ever produce fruit.

We are promised much fruit in our lives as we abide in Jesus and receive his abiding presence already in us, given to us in baptism, refreshed in us by the presence of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul describes what our Lord's fruit looks like in his letter to the Galatians. He points out that the fruit of a life lived in the Lord is a life that's characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, generosity and by other characteristics that reflect the presence of our Lord. St. Paul also points out in the same letter what happens when a life does not abide in the Lord. He points out the behaviors that occur when a life abides in the wrong things. Those lives reflect the sins of jealousy and anger, quarrels and factions, drunkenness and envy and things like that. Our Lord makes it very clear that a life that is not centered and grounded in the abiding presence of God Almighty is an empty life, a fruitless life an unsatisfying life.

If we are to look at ourselves as a field or a garden in which our Lord comes to dwell, and if we are to look at the fields and gardens that are a part of our experience it's very easy to discover that there are good plants and there are weeds in our fields, in our gardens and in our lives. Both the good plants and the weeds need to be dealt with. Our Lord desires to kill the weeds, just as he desires to remove the sins from our life. And our Lord desires to prune the good plants within our gardens, not because he wants to hurt us or cut us back or slow us down, but simply because he wants to make more room, more space for his good fruit to be produced within us, in our communities and in our lives. We are told that as we abide in our Lord we can ask for whatever we wish and it will be done for us. It seems to me the key statement in that phrase is abiding in the Lord. It seems to me as we abide in the Lord we will only ask for the right things. Abiding in the Lord doesn't give us license to ask for things that are selfish or hurtful or outside of God's will. As we abide in our Lord and our Lord's word abides in us, as we spend time each day in our congregation and in our lives seeking our Lord's direction and purpose we will discover God's glory and we will discover God's blessing in the fruitfulness of our lives as we are given the privilege of serving those around us with his love, his joy, his patience, his faithfulness. As we abide in the Lord and our Lord abides in us we will discover the deep pleasure of discipleship, for our Lord's disciples are not only his servants but we are his friends and companions. Let us find pleasure in presenting our lives to our Lord and to those whom the Lord has given us to serve, and let us pray that our Lord will come and do the work of gardening that he needs to do within us and within our communities that he may be glorified, that the world may be served and that we may be blessed as he abides in us and we in him. To the glory of God. Amen

The Third Sunday of Easter 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:12:00.002-07:00

The Third Sunday of Easter
Year B.
Luke 24: 36b -- 48

The Five Senses

In the Gospel text there is an opportunity to meet Jesus using every one of our senses. The disciples have an opportunity here to see him, to hear him, to touch him, to smell and taste with him. Every one of the senses is used for recognition of the Lord. Perhaps in this text we might also look to heighten and enliven our senses as we also seek to receive the wonder of his resurrection.

Telling our stories to one another is a natural and very human thing to do. The disciples are telling their stories in awe and wonder. They are amazed at what there experience is opening to them. Telling stories with one another allows them to put into words and to try to make sense of the overwhelming news and circumstances of Jesus resurrection. Something so unexpected has happened in their lives that they seek to find a way to make sense of the events and thus they talk with one another, share with one another, and tell their stories.

It's often the unexpected event, the unplanned experience that attracts our attention and makes a story come most alive. Clearly the fact that Jesus had been seen after such a horrendous and excruciating death was an unexpected event for the disciples, for everyone. A story, telling stories is a way to process the unexpected and that's exactly what the disciples were doing when Jesus appeared again. They were processing, making sense of the events after the crucifixion, reorienting themselves to the wonder that was around them by the sharing of their stories with one another.

Stories remain a wonderful way for us to process the extraordinary. One of the miracles that continues today to happen around us is the miracle of two becoming one. The miracle of a wedding, when a man and a woman make promises and vows to one another an invisible miracle takes place. There are outward and visible signs which the congregation sees during the wedding ceremony but there's also an inward and spiritual truth which is invisible to us all -- the two become one. I think because of the high level of mystery which occurs during a wedding ceremony we often attach ourselves to the humorous and human mistakes which seem to happen at almost every wedding ceremony. We take hold of the concrete events and use them to shape the story in which we seek to communicate the wonder of a deeper truth. Recently at the end of a perfect wedding ceremony the minister introduced the couple mistakenly using the bride's last name, the congregation roared in laughter, the father of the groom and the father of the bride walked across the aisle and shook each other's hands, the minister embarrassingly tried again, this time getting it right using the groom's last name. A week later the bride came into the church office to share this story with the parish secretary; somehow this little mistake became a way for her, for them to describe the joy of what had happened in their lives. Stories give us a way to understand the unexpected and the wonderful.

The disciple’s eyes betrayed them. Even in the midst of telling their stories to one another, in the midst of seeking to recognize the wonder and glory of Jesus resurrection, when he shows up again and they see him in front of them with their own eyes, they think it's a ghost. Perhaps as human beings we need more than one sense to confirm the wonder of a miracle. They still seem to have little or no context in which to make sense of what has happened to their lord and friend. Even though Jesus is right among them and they see him before them they are still unable to process the wonder of it all with their eyes alone. When Betsy, the mother of my two children died, it was in the middle of the night, 2:30 in the morning. I lit a number of candles to soften the light not wanting to turn on the glare of the fluorescent lights which were present in our kitchen/family room where her hospice bed was placed. I got the children out of their beds and brought them into the room so we could have prayers at the time of death for their mother. After the prayers both of them went back to bed and I stayed and waited for the gentleman from the funeral home to come and take her body to prepare it for burial. The next morning my son Nathan did not believe that his mother had died the night before. He wondered why she was no longer in the house. Even though he saw her with his own eyes he could not take in the awful truth of that event. Perhaps it was the flickering candlelight that made his mother look as if she might still be breathing, perhaps it was the fact that death felt so unreal as he looked upon his very young mother, whatever it was his eyes betrayed him and he could not believe that his mother had died. A few days later he and I opened the closed casket so he could see again for himself what he did not believe when he saw her the first time on that very shadowy night. The disciples did not trust their eyes -- the only way they could make sense of what they were seeing, was to say that they were seeing a ghost. How could it be real that Jesus was among them? How could it be real Nathan wondered, that his vibrant and young mother had died.

The disciples needed to hear the words of Jesus. They needed to hear his voice and experience his challenging words that were so familiar to them. "Peace be with you." They needed peace as their minds were racing to make sense of what they were experiencing. They had no context to receive the wonder of what was before them. This was all new. Jesus visits them with the familiar, by challenging them as he had challenged them throughout the entirety of his ministry, their ministry together. "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself." Their eyes have betrayed them, thinking they were seeing a ghost, but upon hearing him speak they appear willing to go a little farther in their understanding. One can imagine that like Mary who heard her Lord's voice at the tomb, who heard Jesus say her name and then recognized that it was Jesus speaking with her, one can imagine the disciples fearful hearts and racing minds, beating more easily and slowing down.

But still, seeing and hearing is not enough for them and Jesus knows it. He uses another one of the human senses to help the disciples make sense of this magnificent and transforming miracle. Death is conquered life has triumphed, Jesus is risen and our Lord uses every human method possible to communicate the glory of what has happened to his disciples. He says to them, "Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

They see him, they hear him speaking and now they have the opportunity to touch him but they still find themselves disbelieving. What will it take for the disciples to believe the wonder of their Lord's resurrection? Perhaps we could ask the same question of ourselves. What does it take for us to know and believe and allow the truth of Jesus Christ rising from the dead to impact our lives? In a sense our Lord is moving from the abstract to the concrete as he directs the disciple’s attention and focus towards touch, then smell and taste. Vision and hearing are senses that are outside of us. Both of them are somewhat abstract. We see and process the world around us, bringing what we see inside our minds to hold against other images that we have seen throughout our lives, and we make sense of the images through our past experiences of sight. Hearing is also an abstract concept. We hear the sounds of the world around us and bring them into our minds and make sense of them, interpreting them by the rest of the experiences of sound that we have had throughout our lives. Touch on the other hand gets us more involved. In a way touch is a more intimate sense. Our Lord invites his disciples into a continuing intimate relationship with him. No doubt he had touched them and they had touched him as they gathered in prayer, walked together throughout the land of Israel, and embraced when they had been apart and greeted one another again on those occasions when they were away from each other, and we may imagine countless other opportunities as touch allowed for greater intimacy between Jesus and his followers. And now in resurrected form our Lord invites his disciples to reconnect with an intimacy that they had known with him in the past. Through touch the disciples now were beginning to experience a new feeling, the feeling of joy.

Yet they needed more. They could see him, they could hear him and they could touch him, yet they needed more. And so our Lord says to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" Broiled fish, they gave him a piece of broiled fish. How many times we wonder had Jesus and his disciples enjoyed a plate full of broiled fish caught from the Sea of Galilee. No doubt they had sat around the campfire at the end of a long day, broiling fish breathing in the aroma of its sweet smell cooking upon the charcoal fire. No doubt the smell of broiled fish was a point of connection -- another way of recognition between the disciples and our Lord. There are some smells in our life that transport us back to different times. The smell of rain in the summer upon hot asphalt is one of those stirring smells for me that always captures my imagination. I know a woman who after her husband's death kept his unwashed bathrobe so she could put its arms around her and take a deep breath of his smell which was still upon it. To breathe his scent filled her with wonderful memories of their life and marriage together. There is a church in New Jersey that used to fill the front of the sanctuary with tall fresh-cut Christmas trees. The smell of the pine within the sanctuary became the smell of Christmas for most of those who attended. The smell of the pine became a vital part and reminder of the story of our Lord's Nativity for the congregation in that place. For Jesus and his disciples no doubt the smell of broiled fish elicited many good memories that allowed for a further connection between them now in this most remarkable moment of resurrection.

And then he ate the fish. Sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, Jesus meets his disciples with all five senses. I think perhaps that eating together is what made his resurrection most real to them. The experience of eating together, when we get outside of our fast food world is another place of deep intimacy. Why is it that when we gather as family and friends in one another's homes we most often gather in the kitchen or around the grill? Why is it when we want to get to know another person we most often do so in the context of a meal or a coffee and a muffin? I once dated a girl when I was in my late teens who found it very difficult to share a meal with me, I don't think it was because I was such a messy eater but rather because she felt so vulnerable in sharing food. Eating together invites the participants to experience quality time. Time when we can explore one another's thoughts, feelings, dreams, hopes and insights. Time in the kitchen is usually the warmest time where the real stuff of life is talked about. In a sense what Jesus does in this gospel is gives his disciple’s time with him in the kitchen as they eat broiled fish, time to recognize and know and internalize and share the miracle of resurrection.

Perhaps we will see in this gospel text how much our Lord desires his disciples which includes every one of us to receive him. We can see in this text our Lord's desire to break through our five senses, using each of them to allow us to attain the absolute magnificence of sharing in his resurrection. So today we pray Lord that you will opened our eyes to see you and opened our ears to hear you. Lord we pray that we will reach out and touch you as we touch the body of Christ in brothers and sisters, and bread and wine. Lord Jesus we pray that we will breathe in the aroma of your faithfulness and smell the sweetness of your presence and we pray that we will taste your goodness, at the altar and in potluck supper's and in church picnics and in every place where there are two or three gathered in your name and you are in the midst of us. Amen

The Second Sunday of Easter 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:10:00.001-07:00

The Second Sunday of Easter
Year B.
John 20:19 -- 31

Speaking Peace

On the evening of that day, that first Easter Day, the disciples were gathered together, but as yet none of them had seen their risen Lord. There they were behind locked doors. We can begin to imagine the thoughts they held within their minds, we can almost sense and feel the depth of their fears, we can listen for their quiet conversation among themselves as they questioned everything, and of course there in the middle of the room are the deepest feelings of guilt because they had scattered and abandoned their Lord at the point of his greatest need, and yet the fact that they had gathered together suggests to us that there was still a glimmer of hope within them, in this small community. Yes they had scattered at his arrest in the garden. The one who did stay nearby so he could find out what was going on, Peter, ended up denying that he knew Jesus at all. He who had promised he would never deny his Lord denied him three times. Most of them hadn't even been witnesses to the crucifixion, they were all ready far away from that place of horror, not wanting to be snapped into it themselves. Now they were hiding behind closed and locked doors. Yet even behind those doors they sensed the darkness over the land and then the rumors began trickling in, that it was over, that Jesus was dead. Perhaps they began to hear bits and pieces of what he had said from the cross. Feeling guilty, feeling overwhelmed, feeling disappointed in themselves, and barely able to look at one another, one can imagine that there was no joy in that Sabbath for the disciples. There was no delighting in the goodness of God's gifts. Perhaps they even wondered if God was still present or even if there was a God. Particularly because one of their own had been the betrayer they may have wondered if they could ever trust anyone or anything again. They had entrusted their life to Jesus and he was gone now. Yet as the new week began, they started to find one another, gathered behind locked and closed doors perhaps they began to open up with one another; they needed to talk, too grieve, to share their silence together. Then more rumors. The women said they'd seen him. John believed them; he saw the empty grave clothes. Others said they heard his body had been stolen and the officials would be very eager to find someone upon which to place the blame. Perhaps it was best for them to remain huddled away behind closed and locked doors, best to keep a very low profile.

"When it was evening of the day of the resurrection, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."

Jesus then showed them his hands and his side, he showed them the vivid evidence that this was he who had been with them before his death, by showing them what had happened to him, the cause of death, and they were overjoyed to see him.

About a week later a meeting like this happened again. This time it was Thomas one of the 12 who is doubtful about all these resurrection rumors. He had not been there for the first gathering. Poor Thomas, so often getting the short end of the stick for being the skeptic. But his disbelief was no more or less than that of the others at first. The only difference was that the testimony the other disciples refuse to believe was that of women no doubt much easier for them to dismiss. Thomas dismissed the testimony of the other disciples, perhaps thinking of them sharing in a collective delusion. Perhaps he believed that rather than facing the truth of the grief and the death of their Lord they had determined to invent a story upon which they could carry on without facing the excruciating pain of the loss of Jesus. How could they have come to this conclusion without him he may have wondered? But then Jesus came and stood among them again, this time with Thomas present, and again he said, "Peace be with you." Jesus then said to Thomas, "put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."

Jesus came to the disciples as a bearer of peace. His greeting was so much more than a mere gesture of recognition, so much more then, "hello, how are you?" Its structure suggests that it was a formula of revelation similar to those used in extraordinary visitations, such as Gideon's meeting with the Angels or Daniel's visions and its connotations are, "peace be restored to you." That little gathering of disciples on that first Easter Day was far from being peaceful. Even upon the arrival of their crucified friend who was able to appear in the room with them through locked doors, even then, one can imagine that there was no peace within them. These disciples, locked within themselves, locked in fear, in disappointment and self-loathing, in anger and helplessness were nowhere near to experiencing peace. They needed the strong words of the Lord to comfort them and they needed to see his hands and his side to affirm that, yes he was the same rabbi they had loved and known and deserted at his cross, that this marvelous and extraordinary experience had a definite continuity with their past. He came to them even when they had run from him. He found them when they were hiding behind locked doors. He spoke peace to them with the strength that they had known before his death and when their eyes were finally opened, "then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord." And Thomas who struggled so, being left out in the first visitation and who was in disbelief of his brothers experience, proclaims in his experience of the risen Lord, "my Lord and my God!"

In this brief and powerful story from the Gospel of John, we see the trajectory of faith. We see fear turned to joy; we see the doubt of Thomas turned to the most powerful confession of faith in all of the New Testament, we see a retreat and inwardness and fear and hiding turned to an apostolic sending out in the power of God's own the Holy Spirit. Thomas proclamation of faith can still be found upon the lips of believers. An old friend used to say those words, "my Lord and my God!" Each time she received communion. As her priest I found myself moved by her faithfulness. Even though it was I who placed the body of Christ in her outstretched hands it was she who was strengthening my faith through a proclamation which I believe was made through her in the power of the Spirit.

And now we, as recipients of that apostolic mission, some 2000 years later, gather on this second Sunday of the Easter season. I suspect that among us there are still locked doors. We still spend a certain amount of time locked up within ourselves. Isn't it true that we lock other people out of our lives at times? Whenever there is someone we've refuse to forgive we lock them out and in refusing to forgive we lock up a part of ourselves as well. What if Jesus had locked the disciples from him because of his bitterness at their betrayal -- if that was the case he would not be the Jesus we know and love. Jesus forgives the disciples, he comes to them in their betrayal, and he finds them and unlocks the doors of their hearts and their lives. Sometimes we may lock out a spouse or a child or a coworker. Sometimes we lock out whole groups of people and nations. Over these last few years we have been tempted to lock out those who have chosen the Muslim faith from any possibility of grace, often stereotyping their faith as radical and violent, while refusing to learn the more peaceful nature of its beginnings and intentions. Perhaps our ears are just as attuned to rumors as the disciple’s ears were in that first Sunday of the resurrection. Perhaps today our hearts and our world is just as needful of hearing those strong words of peace that Jesus spoke, as the disciples were 2000 years ago. How can we know true peace? A peace that is more than an individualistic emotional high. A peace that does not close its eyes to the blighting of our environment. Or to the oppression of the poor. Or the suicidal violence of nation against nation with the threat of nuclear weapons always looming around us? We need not rehearse the litany of woes we have all become so accustomed to living with. Some may tempted to wonder if to seek true peace in the midst of this kind of broken world in which we live, isn't a rather naïve optimism?

The doors were locked, but Jesus came anyway. And as he spoke peace he showed them his hands and his side. Peace without wounds is no peace at all. Only the one who bears the marks of our deepest common disgrace can dare to say: peace be with you, for he alone knows the devastating price that our alienation from God has cost. Jesus was no unfortunate martyr; neither was he a revolutionary hero, or a mystical genius who came before his time. He was the Lord of heaven and earth who took on human flesh in the womb of Mary to demonstrate for all time and eternity that God and humankind are meant to be in an intimate fellowship. And the gates of hell did not and will not prevail against that precious and intimate bond of love. And all the sin and fear, all the callousness, and hand-washing cowardice, all the denial and betrayal and ignorance and mockery did not and will not prevail. As the world turned black that Friday, it seemed that they would, it seemed that there was no place in heaven or earth for this Jesus to dwell and he was torn asunder between the two by gaping wounds.

He showed them his hands and his side and they were glad. And they knew that his peace was real. There was room in the wounded side of Jesus for all of Peter's denials, for the disciples scattering, for their fears and questions and for Thomas’ headstrong empiricism. There was room even for Judas betrayal had he turned to receive it. And there is room in the wounded side of Jesus for you and for me, for all of our inwardness, our defensiveness, our anger, our fear, our betrayals and our cowardice. Yes, there is room in Jesus side for you and for me.

We cannot be peacemakers; we cannot hold together the chaos and violence of our world, of our economic brutality or military defense system. And when we really open our eyes to the horrors of the possibilities our leaders continually toy with, we are left with a feeling of dread and the inability to cope. I cannot tell you how often I hear the frustration among believers who feel that there's nothing they can do to make a difference in the world. We cannot bear or heal the brokenness of our poor planet with good intentions or powerful slogans or hard work or political clout. In and of ourselves, we cannot speak peace. But empowered by the breath of the Son of Man who can bring life when all doors are locked and hopes are gone, and empowered by the Spirit who hovered over the watery chaos at creation, and empowered by the Spirit of Jesus who bore and healed the brokenness of our planet, we can speak peace.

Jesus said, "Peace be with you. As the father has sent me, so I send you." And as we are sent out to speak peace to our world, our word will only be believable so long as we bear the wounds of its brokenness.

Easter Day 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:04:00.002-07:00

Easter Day
Year B.
John 20:1 -- 18

Looking for Jesus?!

The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! As we review the Gospel text we discover that it's a lot easier for us to say that than it was for those first disciples who encountered the empty tomb. We have been given the rest of the story while they are still discovering the joy and wonder of the events that are unfolding right before them. The first Easter didn't start off clear and wonderful. Mary Magdalene didn't rush off to the tomb dressed in her finest outfit with a corsage attached to her blouse, wearing shoes that matched her handbag and her Easter bonnet. No, the first Easter is likely nothing like this Easter for us and yet perhaps there are more similarities than we may be aware of at first glance.

Mary Magdalene's first response to the empty tomb was not jubilation but rather confusion. The story of Mary Magdalene in Scripture is a story about a woman who was in bondage. It appears that she was in bondage to evil and sin and to the devil. There is a reference that says that Jesus cast seven demons out of her, but now her life is transformed. She has left behind the old sinful ways. In a sense she gave up everything she knew in order to follow the Lord and her liberation which she so cherished which was found in following her Lord Jesus must have felt crushed at the cross. In many ways Mary Magdalene even on this first Easter morning is still at the cross. She is not anticipating an empty tomb and a Risen Lord, but rather a miserable tomb where her beloved friend and liberator, the one who set her free from demons and showed her how to live would be laying bruised and bloodied, his body disfigured. She had come on this first morning to minister to his broken body, to the dead body of her Lord and friend.

Christian tradition suggests that Jesus died around 3 a.m. on Friday. At sundown on Friday the Jewish Sabbath begins and work is not allowed. In 1976 during our country's bicentennial I was able to make my first visit to Israel and on a Friday I was in Jerusalem. Late in the afternoon a little before sundown I saw about 30 men running down the street carrying a coffin seeking to get the body buried before Sunset. It was a stunning and even shocking scene. There was great anxiety among those who were hurrying down the street. Their behavior was a testimony to their strict interpretation in the following of the religious law. Yes even today for Orthodox Jews the Sabbath remains a time when work is not allowed. After Jesus death there was a hurry to remove his body from the cross. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus worked with the authorities to get the body down, we can imagine that each of them had servants who helped them wrap the body in cloth and carry it to a nearby tomb where it could be laid to rest. Perhaps they also had to run with the body so that they could reach the tomb before sunset. 2000 years ago Israel didn't have funeral homes to prepare a body for burial. The mortuary did not come to the cross with a cart or a hearse to pick up the body to take it to a solemn location where it would be prepared for a viewing. In Jesus time friends would gather to wash the body and to wrap it up in sweet smelling spices but on this Friday, the day of our Lord's crucifixion there was not enough time to prepare his body properly and so they had to wait until the Jewish Sabbath was over. After sunset on Saturday the new day would begin and it appears that Mary waited until sunrise on Sunday to go to the tomb so she could wash the body and wrap it properly with sweet smelling spices used for burial.

We may wonder what Mary did during those hours between Jesus crucifixion and her visit to the tomb. Perhaps she simply sat in her grief for she being a Jew could not even do the work of preparing the necessary materials for her Lord's burial while she waited in her home. Perhaps when the sun finally set on Saturday evening, she then got busy with the task at hand, preparing all of the spices necessary to honor the body of Jesus. One thing we do know from the Gospel text is that Mary got up very early on that Sunday morning for she was the first one to the tomb. Perhaps she wondered how she would remove the stone and enter the place where Jesus lay but upon her arrival she was surprised to see that the stone was rolled away. When I first encountered the Gospel texts and envisioned the stone in front of the tomb I used to think of it as a boulder. A large round stone that somehow covered the entrance but upon visiting the holy land I discovered that the stones used to cover the entrance of the burial plot was shaped more like a wheel. It may be as much as eight to 10 inches thick and 5 feet in diameter. The stone would normally be set on a slight incline and rolled into place when the tomb was ready to be sealed. It would take great strength to move the stone back up the incline because the stone, even though it was shaped like a wheel, would still be very heavy, rough hewned and difficult to move. No doubt when Mary arrived at the tomb and saw the stone had been removed from the tomb she must have felt scared and then confused. She thought someone had come in the night and stolen the body of Jesus. We can only imagine the depth of horror and grief she must have felt when she discovered the body was gone and the Gospel text tells us that she was weeping. One can easily imagine the bitter tears that must have been streaming down her face. It was bad enough that Jesus died a slow, painful and terrible death but now this, it was too much, too overwhelming and Mary didn't know what to do. She had come looking for the dead Jesus to show her love and respect by putting spices on the body, giving her something practical to do to minister him and feel useful and now there was no Jesus, no way for her to express the depth of her love for her Lord. She needed to tell someone and so she went and told two of the disciples who were likely her friends, she told Peter and John who then ran into the tomb looked in and went back home. Mary was left alone at the tomb once again. Mary stayed there and began to weep.

She was so full of her own confusion and sadness and trouble that she didn't even recognize Jesus when he stood before her. She was so caught up inside her own experience that she was unable to recognize his gaze or his voice when he first asked why she was weeping. She thought he was the man who took care of the garden in which Jesus was buried. Then a wonderful thing happens. He speaks, he calls her name, he says Mary in the way no one had ever spoken her name before. She recognizes in the gardener's voice the voice of the Lord and as she gazes to meet him she sees that he is looking deep into her heart, that he is ministering to her pain and confusion and that he wants to comfort her to set her free once again, this time free from her fear. All Mary needed was just one word, "Mary" and she knew instantly she was wrong to be searching for a dead Jesus because at that moment she found that the living Jesus was searching for her.

That same living Jesus is searching for us this morning. Isn't it true that sometimes when we come to church, we are like Mary? We are so full of our own worries and sadness that we don't see that Jesus is alive. Yes at times we say we believe Jesus rose again but as we become honest with ourselves we must admit that we act like Jesus is still dead. Perhaps we expect our Lord simply to stay in church, where it is safe and easy and we come to church to do him a favor, to help just like Mary did, but we don't expect him to really walk into the rest of our days, the rest of our week, the rest of our life. Sometimes we are trying so hard to control our lives, our family, money, work, future that we don't see Jesus is right here with us wanting us to let go and to let him into our lives.

Perhaps the message of Easter is as simple as this -- the living Lord wants to be with us -- though we think it is we who are seeking the living Lord the fact is that it is he who seeks and finds us. As we gather with brothers and sisters to celebrate the mystery of the resurrection may we open our eyes to find Jesus among us in bread and wine, in the body of Christ, in brothers and sisters who gather in his name. We are invited to open in our hands and our hearts, we are invited to open our whole selves to his presence. When we make a fist we can hold very little in our hands but as we open our hands we discover we are capable of holding much more. The same is true with our hearts. If our hearts are filled with worry and sadness or plans for later, if our hearts are filled with anxieties, grief and darkness then there won't be room for Jesus to come in, perhaps because our hearts are tight and closed we won't even see Jesus just as Mary Magdalene didn't see the Lord who was standing in front of her and speaking to her.

Yet let us not worry that our hearts are not perfect or ready or worthy. The fact is none of us are ready or worthy to receive our Lord. None of us is ever really ready for Jesus. Mary Magdalene wasn't ready. But Jesus called her by name and came to her anyway. On this Easter Day these many years later the same risen Jesus calls each of us and says our names and invites us to please open our hands, to open our hearts. He says, "I want to come live with you." And we reply, "I have seen the Lord."

Good Friday 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:03:00.002-07:00

Good Friday
John 18:1 -- 19:42

Silence and Darkness

"Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Oh, some times it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my lord?"

Over the last 25 years I have experienced many different Good Friday's. A few of them stand out and point out my own humanness and inability to embrace the fullness of what the Lord was offering. In answer to the hymn, my answer is no, I wasn't there when you were crucified Jesus. And I have made vain attempts of entering the experience of that awful day, yet there have been glimpses of grace along the way.

Today I hope to share a few of those glimpses and in the sharing perhaps you will find a glimpse of God's grace from your past or in this moment as well.

The first profound experience of the depth and meaning of Good Friday came to me in 1979. At the time I was living with the monks of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By the time Good Friday came around I had been living with the brothers for most of the year. My job while living with the brothers was to take care of Father Williams. He had been the superior of the order for almost 25 years but seven years before my arrival he had been the victim of a severe stroke and was now primarily bed ridden. Having the opportunity to live in a monastery was one of the richest experiences of my life. My work with Father Williams was more a ministry of presence than active work. Throughout each eight hour day with him there would be some moments of contact, but most of the time he appreciated his solitude and so I resided in the room next to his spending the time working on contemplative prayer, breathing the name of Jesus for about seven hours each day. One of the gifts of living in the monastery was the opportunity to participate in the daily worship. When I first arrived the brothers gathered eight times in the monastery chapel each day for prayers and Holy Communion. Later that year after the approval of the 1979 prayer book by the General convention of the Episcopal Church they revised their worship schedule and only gathered five times each day.

Holy week and Good Friday were particularly important days for them. They planned elaborate worship services and invited the community in Cambridge to come and join them. There were two moments in the Good Friday worship that particularly struck me. They were connected. One of the treasures at the monastery was a Cross that housed inside of it a piece of the true Cross. The brothers believed the cross housed within it a glass ball with a wooden splinter that was a splinter from the wood upon which our Lord was crucified. The cross was reverently brought into the sanctuary and placed upon the high altar. The brothers dressed in robes and simple vestments approached the true Cross and three times as they processed they spread themselves upon the floor, face down, arms extended, prostrating themselves before this holy relic and before their holy lord.

I found myself overwhelmed and moved by their reverence. I also knew that I would not be able to participate in good conscience in those liturgical gestures. I suppose there's something of a skeptic in me. How in the world I wondered could that little splinter had come from the piece of wood upon which our Lord was crucified. Then again it didn't really matter if it was genuine or not, what really mattered was their ability to fall flat on their faces in genuine reverence before their lord who sacrificed everything to take away the sins of the world. Lord, help me today find the grace to worship you with genuine and honest reverence.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s I had the privilege of serving as rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Hamburg, New York. One of the joys of serving in Hamburg at that time was being a part of the ecumenical community. We gathered as brothers in Christ, leaders of our respective churches. We had Lutherans and Roman Catholics and Wesleyan's and Presbyterians and Episcopalians and occasional others who would join us. Each year we would plan an ecumenical Good Friday service. During the first years the service was held for the three hours that are traditionally kept -- the hours of Christ's crucifixion -- the hours between noon and 3 p.m... Each of us was assigned responsibility for leading a portion of the service and members of the community would come and go throughout the three hours, though a few would stay for the full service. It saddened me when we decided to shorten the service to one hour because it appeared, most folks could not make the commitment to the full three hours at this busy time of year. Workers who used to get time off now continued to work on Good Friday and so the congregation kept dwindling year by year.

One of the irreverent and yet memorable moments on one of those Good Friday’s was the procession that we had through town carrying a large cross, witnessing to our Lord. The service this particular year was held at the Presbyterian Church which was at the west end of Main Street in Hamburg. We began the procession at the East End of town stopping at the several churches along the way, gathering followers, parishioners from each congregation. We sang songs and witnessed to our faith, reenacting the journey that our Lord took as he proceeded to the place where he would be crucified. Each of the ministers took a turn in carrying the large and heavy cross made out of wooden 4x4s. I will never forget when the Lutheran minister was ready to receive the cross from the Catholic priest. The Lutheran minister had come up behind the Catholic priest; the Lutheran minister was tall and standing straight up when he spoke to the Catholic priest who at that point was carrying the cross. The priest quickly turned with the cross on his shoulder and without meaning to do so nearly knocked the Lutheran unconscious as the heavy wooden cross collided with the Lutheran minister’s noggin. We try so hard to engage in holiness, and there we were overwhelmed by the comedy of our humanness. Our best efforts nearly created in ecumenical crisis in the community of Hamburg. Though we were trying to be reverent it was difficult for many of us were working to suppress the giggles that were erupting from those who had witnessed this unfortunate incident.

In 1998 I experienced a much more profound procession on a Good Friday. Betsy, my first wife had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She had three tumors in her brain, all of them to deep to be surgically removed. On this particular Good Friday we were experiencing a transition time. Transitioning between Hamburg, New York and Spokane, Washington. Transitioning between life and death. Transitioning between the sweet innocence of not worrying about health concerns to the daily reminder that life was short and could end at any moment. In this particular holy week we had the gift of simply receiving the liturgical leadership of others. We had taken some time as a family to visit my mother and father in Boca Grande, Florida. In Boca Grande there was also a strong ecumenical community, and the Way of the Cross was part of the worship their. These steps that we took as a family where perhaps the heaviest and closest steps to that first journey which our Lord made through the narrow streets of Jerusalem that we have ever experienced. The heaviness of death was upon us. The bravery of my first wife Betsy was overwhelming as she walked these steps with Jesus knowing that her death was imminent. That time underneath the glorious cloudless rich blue sky of the Florida Springtime, a time where the sounds of the surf breaking on the shore and seagulls screeching overhead, was a time when our hearts were heavy and our souls were tired. In the midst of the wonder of creation and the beauty of the environment we were caught up in the darkness of death. Perhaps there more than at any time before or after we walked the Way of the Cross and participated in the holiness of Good Friday. Betsy's one prayer as she prepared for her death was that she would die a holy death, I believe those steps in Boca Grande when she engaged and shared in the journey of her Lord were perhaps the most important steps she took during her journey from diagnosis with cancer to death. I suspect most of us upon reflection can discover others who have engaged this journey with deepest sincerity, great need, and a profound faithfulness. There may be someone in your life right now that is on that journey between diagnosis and death and perhaps you are called to walk with them, and like Simon who was a simple bystander in Jerusalem, you may be consigned to be with them to help them carry this burden, to help them carry their Cross.

The final Good Friday reflection that I wish to share concerns a service that is held on the night of Good Friday, preferably in the dark. 13 candles are placed upon the altar or a table. The candle in the center represents our Lord, the other 12 candles preferably in non-matching candlesticks, with different heights and different colors represent the 12 disciples. The service begins with a few prayers acknowledging and welcoming the presence of our Lord. The service includes four readings. The first describes the betrayal of Judas. After the reading is concluded a few moments of silence are kept and one who has been assigned before the service comes out and extinguishes one candle that represents Judas. A song can be sung and then there is a second reading this time describing the scattering of the 10 disciples. Again, after the reading an acolyte comes out and randomly extinguishes 10 candles representing the 10 disciples. More silence is kept as we move into deeper darkness, perhaps another hymn is sung and then a third reading. This time we read of Peter's denial of his Lord. The acolyte returns, extinguishes the candle designated for Peter and now only one candle remains lit. The Christ candle, the light of the world, stands alone upon the altar having been abandoned by his closest friends and companions. The fourth reading is of Jesus death and after the reading; the acolyte comes into the service and removes the candle from the church without putting it out. In absolute darkness a bell is slowly rung 33 times, symbolizing and counting the years of our Lord's life. The Christ candle is brought back into the church and the congregation is dismissed in silence.

This service always moves me because it engages the senses and the imagination. The participant is confronted with light and dark, sound and sight. The simplicity of this worship service for me captures the utter simplicity and profound nature of Jesus sacrificed upon the cross for my sins. There is a mystical experience that I invite you to share in this Good Friday. Consider opening your self to Jesus as he looks down from the cross, allow yourself to see him looking at you, into your whole life, knowing your weaknesses and your strengths knowing the fullness of who you are. Let us also risk looking at him and be willing to gaze into the loving, wounded, sad, forgiving and gracious eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ opening ourselves to the wonder of him.

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"

Lord, we pray that you will give us grace on this Good Friday to be with you, where you are, receiving this most precious gift of your sacrifice for us.

Sunday of the Passion 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T09:02:00.002-07:00

The Sunday of the Passion
Year B.
Mark 14:1 -- 15:47

Disintegration and Reintegration

Today's reading is the longest assigned reading that we have the entire year. Many churches break the reading up into several parts, assigning individuals and groups to particular lines and sections. Perhaps we do this so we can keep the interest of the listener. Perhaps we do this so we can engage the drama of the reading. It seems to me the reason we have such a long reading today is because we have come to come the heart and center of our faith. We need to hear the whole story. We need to be reminded not in part but completely of the grace and mercy and sacrifice, the passion and suffering which is our Lord's.

When we read this entire passage found in Mark's Gospel we meet a number of people. Right before our eyes we watch almost every one of them coming apart at the seams, disintegrating before us. The painful passage, the many verses that we are encountering today point to a picture of human frailty, a picture of human weakness, an essay portraying a lack of loyalty as well as the human ability for betrayal.

We begin in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper. We hear of a woman who broke open a jar of very costly ointment who then poured the contents upon our Lord's head. This action is one of generosity and compassion but the response of some of those gathered gives us the first picture in today's reading of selfishness and of a lack of grace within those who are gathered with our Lord at the feast. Putting ourselves in this scene we discover an intensity of feelings and it's hard to understand why this compassionate action has elicited such deep anger. "Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii , and the money given to the poor." The text says, "And they scolded her." Can you imagine having been given a loving and generous gift by someone who cared deeply for you only to have that gift and the giver insulted because of their generosity? The gall of those who gathered there with Jesus is astounding. Who do they think they are seeking to control what is given and received by our Lord. If our Lord thought the gift was too much then it would have been his right and business to steer the giver in a different direction. But Jesus, aware of the moment and the unfolding events that lay in front of him receives the gift with deepest gratitude. He is the one who then scolds the critics, because they have missed the point of that moment. Even though they have been told of the imminent death that Jesus will be facing, they continue to remain blind to their lord, to the environment which is crashing in upon them and most of all they are blind to grace. "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me.... She has done what she could; she has anointed my body before hand for its burial..." they think they are righteous in their defense of the poor and in doing so they miss the deeper moment losing sight of Jesus. In their pride, in their self-righteousness, they are seeking to control the Lord and this causes them to unravel and to receive a rebuke from their savior.

The next encounter is at another meal. Mark takes us to the upper room. First we have the marvelous story of two disciples living in obedience to their Lord. They are given simple instructions that they will meet a man who was carrying a jar of water, they are to follow him, and when they discover where he lives they are to ask him a question from the teacher. One wonders how this was all set up ahead of time. Did Jesus at some time in his ministry meet a man whom he would call upon later for this favor? Was there something in the encounter between the disciples and the man that was so unusual that he simply knew intuitively that this was the right thing to do? Perhaps the man had had a dream that he would be encountered by disciples and told that the Lord, the Messiah, the teacher would come to his guest room where he would have the Passover meal with his disciples. It's one of those mystical unexplained moments that we encounter every now and then in the Gospel text. Most of us, as we reflect upon our own lives can remember moments like these, points of knowing, intuitions, a sense of where we are and where God is, what to do and what is important.

Behind the scenes there is a darker current that is flowing as the meal is being prepared. As the two disciples discover the place for the Passover meal, Judas Iscariot was preparing to betray Jesus. As we read this story we cannot help but feel the deep sadness which is flowing below the surface. This is not a normal Passover meal that Jesus will share with his disciples, these are last moments. These are the moments when one shares from the heart. These are the moments not unlike those moments when a family comes together with one who is dying, and the one who is dying has a last opportunity to share his or her wisdom with those gathered. The wisdom that our Lord shares is a gift that is designed to sustain the disciples, he seeks to give them a way to come into his continuing presence. It is a gift that the Church has steadfastly held on to and received ever since the gift was given in the upper room. The gift is his body and blood. The Passover feast takes a whole new meaning, rather than being a feast that reminds the participant of the journey from Egypt, the journey of slavery to freedom, here a new meaning is given. Perhaps the journey remains a journey from slavery to freedom but the freedom now is a freedom to participate in an intimate and present relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We are invited to eat the bread and to drink the cup as a way of participating in the fullness of our Lord. The four actions that are present in the upper room remain present in the continuing celebrations of Holy Communion.

The first action is to take. Our Lord takes the bread as a symbol of life. We are invited to take the bread of our Lord's presence as a sign of receiving the fullness of God. After our Lord takes the bread the second action is to bless. Jesus blesses the bread. The bread that we receive at Communion is blessed with his presence. The third action is to break. Our Lord breaks the bread and each time the bread is broken during our communions it reminds us that there is a wideness in God's mercy. It is the brokenness of our Lord that makes room for us to be saved. It is through his brokenness, his body stretched out and nailed, bloody upon a cross that creates room for our broken and sinful nature to be received by him. And the fourth action is to eat. We are to eat the bread that is blessed and broken. In eating we are invited to take the depth of our Lord's gift, the fullness of his sacrifice, the completeness of his presence and take it into the depth of our being. Our Lord gives us a way of staying intimately connected to him through this holy meal. It seems to me it doesn't matter if we are Catholic or Protestant if we believe the meal is a remembrance or a participation in the real presence of our Lord at that moment. Either way it seems to me that those of us who receive the bread and drink the cup are accepting a gift and wisdom from Jesus.

From here we go to another place of human vulnerability and failure. From the upper room we move to Gethsemane. Jesus speaks to the disciples of their coming failure. He warns them of what they are about to face. Peter, so full of courage and pride refuses to believe that it is possible for him in the strength of his humanness to turn away from his Lord. He flatly denies that possibility and Jesus knows only too well that Peter will be haunted by his behavior and his denial that is only a few hours away. The rest of the disciples also refuse to believe that they will turn away from their Lord. A few of them go into the garden and our Lord asks them to simply stay awake, to watch and pray with him for a few hours. But once again the frailty of their humanness shines forth and they fail to comfort their Lord with their wakeful presence. As we take this walk through the garden of human failure we are likely confronted with our own broken promises. Jesus finds his disciples asleep and rather than admitting their failure they seem to want to deny it. Perhaps they still can't believe that their Lord is about to be betrayed. Perhaps they still can't get their life around the intensity of these moments. Whatever the reason for their failure, upon reflection they will look back at these moments and feel deep grief that they could not stay awake and support their Lord and their friend. Jesus is clearly disappointed with them and their sleepiness.

Out of the darkness Judas arrives. With him are others, a crowd carrying swords and clubs. Judas one of the inner circle, one of the 12, betrays his Lord with a kiss. A sign of affection becomes distorted by this action. Judas’ denial unlike Peter’s and the rest of the 12 is calculated. One can only begin to imagine the depth of horror that our Lord must have felt when he saw this disciple turned against him with such violence. For Judas to gather with a band, a crowd of people carrying clubs and swords must have been beyond imagining to Jesus. Had anything our Lord said or done made a difference in this disciple's life? How easy it was for him to return to his old zealot ways. And yet all the disciples would betray him. Not only would they deny him but they would scatter from him.

The horrifying drama continues as Jesus is brought before the high priest, and Judaism which has been described as the best religious system in the world at that time was found more than flawed, it was found unjust, unkind, merciless and self-serving. Shortly after being judged by a failed religious system our Lord comes before Roman justice. Roman justice at Jesus time was the admired governmental system of the world and once again this human system fails our Lord. Jesus’ Authority is above the religions of the world and above the governments of the world, neither he can give him justice. Pontius Pilate does make an attempt at mercy but his own weakness and need for the approval of the crowd causes him to go against what he knows is right. Both systems, religious and governmental make the choice to kill an innocent man. Jesus is brutalized by his accusers and finally he is crucified, put to death on the hardwood of a Roman cross on a Jewish hillside.

Looking deeply in this passage we will find a few glimmers of hope for our humanness. "Peter does, after all, risk himself to be in Caiaphas House. Pilot does have the grace to show sympathy, even if he lacks integrity. Judas at least faces the friend he has betrayed. The Roman Centurion discerns a glory underneath the filth and grime of the prisoner. But we have to dig deep for these redeeming glimpses of our nature." (A time for good news reflections on the Gospel for people on the go. By Herbert O'Driscoll)

We are invited to bring all of our humanness to God as we live and walk as Christians this holy week. The disciples kept falling asleep repeatedly, Jesus didn't disown them. Let us bring to Jesus our halfhearted attempts and failures at our Lenten disciplines. Peter rushed to defend Jesus, cutting off a man's ear in the process. Jesus did not disown him. Bring to Jesus all your impetuous desires to be holy and right and to defend the truth. It is all there in the story -- the highest, the noblest in humankind, the basist, the willingness to compromise and betray, and the mediocre -- those doing their job, those getting a laugh out of the pitiful situation, those wondering and gossiping. Bring to Jesus all that you are in your humanness -- your nobility, your baseness, your mediocrity, and then realize that all of that has nothing at all to do with God's mighty act at the cross and at the empty tomb. What is the cross but God's judgment upon all human efforts? The best and the worst of humankind abandoned Jesus on the cross, but thank God, Jesus did not abandon us. He did not come down from the cross and save himself. He hung there in the flesh taking upon himself all the judgment that all our human efforts have deserved and he gave back life in his broken body and poured out blood. That is God's mighty act and nothing we do this week or this lifetime can add or detract from it. We in our pride think that either we are so devout and pious that we deserve Jesus love or else, more commonly, we think that we are so bad that Jesus could never really accept us. Both extremes are easy to fall into, and especially during holy week. So bring that pride, too, along with all that is noble, base, and just plain mediocre and come to Jesus this week. Come participate in the greatest and oldest liturgy of the church, knowing that it is not our actions, but God's mighty act on the cross that we celebrate.

"If we wish to see the glory of our humanity in ultimate love, courage, integrity, and self-sacrifice, then we look upward to the cross and the prisoner. That is what we are called to be in spite of what we are." (Herbert O'Driscoll)

The Fifth Sunday in Lent 2009

2010-02-01T09:01:00.002-07:00

The Fifth Sunday of Lent
Year B.

John 12:20 -- 33

We Wish to See Jesus

"Sir, we wish to see Jesus." This was the request of the Greeks who had come to worship at a festival in Jerusalem. These were Gentiles, non-Jews, who likely showed up at the Jewish Passover and other festivals because they intuitively felt that the God of Israel was the true God. Their own philosophies and religious systems must not have been satisfying to them for it seems they knew that there was more to be found, it appears they felt that Israel had the answers that they desired to discover to their deepest questions. "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." They spoke to Philip, one of only two disciples with a Greek name. Perhaps they knew him from their past, maybe they just sensed that he wouldn't dismiss their request just because of their cultural background. Perhaps he was the one disciple who could understand their language, whatever the reason, it was to Philip that they said, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." They had missed the glorious occasion, the pomp and the chaos of the few days before; they had missed Jesus "Palm Sunday" entrance on a donkey with the crowds and the children shouting "Hosannas." They had come into Jerusalem just in time to make preparations for their Passover meal; for the Seder and they found the whole city buzzing about this Jesus character and they wanted to see him for themselves.

It appears that Philip wasn't sure what to do with their request. There didn't seem to be a set of rules or a precedent of how to deal with Gentiles in the disciples training manual, so Philip consulted with Andrew, the other disciple with a Greek name and together they went and told Jesus of the Gentiles request. Jesus’ response, on the surface may appear a bit odd to us: "the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified... and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."

Throughout the Gospel of John at various critical points of Jesus ministry when the crowds are either very upset with his teachings and ready to kill him or very impressed with his miraculous powers and ready to crown him king, he says repeatedly, "my hour has not yet come." But here, in today's reading, after this apparently innocent request by Greek visitors, he announces that the hour has come, that the glory they've been longing for was to be revealed, not in wreaking vengeance on his enemies or in doing even greater miracles, but by his falling into the earth and dying as a grain of wheat, in his losing his life, in his being lifted up on the cross. Perhaps we may wonder how Philip and Andrew responded to the words of Jesus. We know that no amount of explanation by Jesus to his disciples that he must be lifted up on the cross, be crucified and die ever seemed to get through to them, they simply could not embrace or receive that revelation. Yet, Jesus presses on with his messianic actions and message. But why now? Because the world was knocking at his door, the nations were clamoring for his salvation, and these Gentiles had come, and he knew that the only way they would truly see him was to gaze upon him in his bloody glory, lifted up from the earth on the cross where he would draw all people to himself.

"Sir, we wish to see Jesus." What is it that is so transforming, so powerfully healing about gazing upon our crucified Lord? What is it that draws us back here again and again as we walk through these somber days of Lent and into the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ? "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself." Perhaps Jesus was saying to Philip and Andrew, to the Greek visitors and to us that it is time to gaze upon him in awe and wonder, as we allow our hearts to be drawn by his transforming love which calls forth a loving response from us.

For it is this heartfelt response to our crucified Lord which Jeremiah spoke of hundreds of years before: "the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant... I will put my law within them, I will write it upon their hearts... no longer shall each teach his neighbor saying "know the Lord," for they shall all know me...."

This dichotomy of which Jeremiah spoke between the old and new covenant was not a setting of the law over against Grace, the God of the New Testament over against the God in Jesus Christ, nor was it a setting of Judaism over against Christianity. God's activity among his people has always been Grace filled and the content of the covenant remains the same: people are called into a loving relationship with their creator in which they respond by keeping his laws. It is the means of keeping that covenant which Jeremiah prophetically saw would be transformed. No longer would the law be written on stone tablets, but on the heart. No longer would there be a need of intermediaries; each one would know the Lord for himself or herself.

But that is a very scary transformation to imagine -- to have surgery done upon one's heart, to have to face God on a one to one intimate level is an awesome proposition. It is much easier to view God's law as something on stone, something "out there," some ideal that we all strive for but never quite make, or even a demand which seems a bit unreasonable. It is much safer to live within a "religious system" than to enter into a relationship with the living God. For that is the sword which Jesus brought. He did not come to divide Jew and Christian, but to divide those who wanted the security of a nice safe religious system and those who long for a life transforming relationship with the living God.

It is just as easy for Christianity to become a religion of law as it is for Judaism, for it to become a means by which we keep God at a safe distance, appease him and our own consciences by giving some time, and money, and even some of our talents, all the while keeping our hearts untouched by the finger of God who longs to write his name upon it. And all of this done innocently, unconsciously, with the best of intentions. I imagine and it's been my experience that most of us don't purposefully hardened our hearts and walk away from God, just as most married couples in trouble don't purposefully close down their hearts to one another. They just wake up one day and realize that they're sleeping next to a stranger, that all meaningful communication has ceased, that bit by bit their conversation has closed down, slowly but surely they have grown apart choosing to avoid all conflict, by retreating to the illusion of a safer place, all the while having their hearts grow colder and harder day by day. So it is often with our relationship with God.

We may flow easily with the routine of our religious lives and obligations, but out of the blue, sometimes suddenly, and sometimes gradually, it dawns upon us that God is a total stranger, someone out there who writes in stone and in a language we can no longer comprehend. Someone we have avoided God intentionally, perhaps because of our own behaviors that we don't want to face and hope to hide from the Almighty. Perhaps we have grown cold towards God because of pastoral issues in our life. Perhaps we have a difficult or handicapped child, a friend's cancer may cause us to reject the presence of grace, it may be the death of a parent or spouse, and some may have taken on a way of thinking about God that that keeps God as one who is remote and ourselves as victims.

And today we hear the request of Greek visitors in Jerusalem and perhaps it stirs something in us as well. Perhaps there very simple request can become our request. Perhaps we see life and glory and wonder and faithfulness all around us but our experience of the living God has grown old and tired and dusty and cold. The words of the Greek visitors can energize us and instruct us; perhaps these are words that we need to say as well.

"Sir, we wish to see Jesus." There is no other answer. We cannot talk ourselves into faithfulness. We cannot, by an act of will simply restructure our lifestyles which have left so little space for listening to the voice of God. One time at a stewardship meeting I asked the small committee gathered there if we could spend five quiet minutes in quiet contemplation, in silence, five minutes to listen while we opened our hearts to hear, "what the Spirit would have us do." One of our leaders replied that the request for five minutes of silence, listening and prayer, was too much time. Will we not give our Lord five minutes after he has given us everything? What kind of boundaries, walls, and barriers have we built between ourselves and our Lord? These Greek visitors show us a way to tear down the boundaries and walls and barriers that we may have constructed. They simply ask and remind us to say, "We wish to see Jesus."

"We wish to see Jesus." In his bloody glory, lifted high upon the cross where he draws us, he draws us with the cords of love stronger than all our willfulness, with cords of love stronger than our sinful habits, stronger than our deaf ears, our blind eyes, lame limbs, our stony hearts. He draws us in with gentle surgery, he gives us grace, "grace to love what God commands and grace to desire what God promises, that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found."[BCP]

On this fifth Sunday of Lent, before we enter the week of our Lord's passion, let us take time and pray with one another to see Jesus. Good lord, we wish to see Jesus!

The Fourth Sunday in Lent 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T08:59:00.002-07:00

The Fourth Sunday in Lent -- Year B.
John 3: 14 -- 21

The Serpent

Growing up in the northeast I didn't have a lot of exposure to snakes. There may have been a small garter snake or the threat of a dangerous serpent down at Defielees a local pond near our neighborhood. But honestly there wasn't much of a threat of snakes at least that I was aware of to be found in Northern New Jersey. Now Wyoming where I presently reside is a different story. While serving as a consultant for the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming I had the opportunity to visit the North East part of the state. There was a new golf course being built around Sundance, Wyoming and the local cleric who was also an avid golfer wanted to show me the new course. As we drove across the new asphalt road, near the top of the course we saw a large diamondback rattlesnake sunning itself. My friend stopped the car to give us a closer look. I was more than satisfied to stay in the front passenger seat not needing to get out or get closer to the reptile.

St. Mark's in Casper, Wyoming where I have had the privilege of serving since January of 2007 has a stretch of highway for which it is responsible. Every now and then you may notice a sign along the interstate telling who has been responsible for keeping a particular portion of the Highway clean. In Wyoming there are extra cautions in the process of cleaning. The volunteers are invited to wear boots as well as gloves as we go out to the interstate to pick up our section of litter left along the road. We are warned that particularly in the fence line there may be the presence of snakes, rattlesnakes. It certainly is an uncomfortable reality contemplating the possibility of coming across a poisonous serpent.

To have our Lord compared to a snake is not an image that most of us I suspect have spent much time meditating upon. And yet in the Gospel lesson we hear Jesus himself say, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." He compares Himself to a serpent. The reference our Lord makes is to a time when the people of Israel having escaped Pharaoh were becoming impatient with both God and Moses. They complain to Moses and to God that they had been brought out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. An amazing and shortsighted complaint when one considers the liberating acts that led to the Israelites freedom. Yet, their memories appeared to be short or at least selective. They didn't seem to remember the misery of their enslavement yet they remembered the food that they had back in the flesh pots of Egypt. They complained to Moses and to God that there was no food and no water and the miraculous food given to them from heaven they detested. The Scriptures tell us the Lord sent poisonous snakes, poisonous serpents among the people and the serpent's bit the people. There were so many poisonous bites that many of the escapees from Egypt were dying. Eventually the people came to Moses and confessed their sin of speaking against the Lord and his servant. Moses prayed for the people and the Lord instructed Moses to, "make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten shall look at it and live." The Scriptures continue telling us that, "Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it on a pole; and when ever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live."

There are many images of our Lord that likely provide us with comfort. Jesus is known as the good Shepherd and we see that image portrayed with our Lord carrying gently upon his shoulders a lost sheep. He is known as the way and the truth and the life. He is known as light, each of these images provides us with a sense of safety and security, each of these images offers us a kind of comfort. Yet to compare Jesus with a snake and for that matter a poisonous serpent is a far more challenging visual metaphor to get our faith behind. Referring to our Lord in the image of a serpent Herbert O'Driscoll says in The Word among Us, (year B. volume 2, page 31) "it depicts utter opposites -- the serpent in the garden at the beginning of creation, and the serpent on the cross in an act of new creation. One seeks to manipulate and corrupt our human nature; the other, to free us and save our human nature. One appeals to our selfish desires; the other, to the very highest in us. One seduces, the other loves. One brings about our banishment from the presence of God; the other draws us into the presence of God. There is a host of rich meanings in this image of the two serpents -- Satan, the serpent of temptation; Jesus, the serpent of salvation."

Using the insights gained in O'Driscoll's meditation we can begin to marvel at the power of transformation that our Lord brings to the usually negative image of a snake. The serpent in the Garden so crafty, so deceptive, so about himself is manifestly different than the one upon the cross who stretches out his arms that he might embrace the whole of creation. Jesus is lifted up and takes the sin of the world upon himself. Jesus takes the poison of our sinful existence upon himself so it is drawn from us, drawn out of us, that the sin which has poisoned our relationship with our Heavenly Father be removed from our existence each time we turn to the saving grace and salvation given to us through the sacrificial lifting up of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The first serpent desired to twist our nature to conform to the twisted nature of those who rebel against God. The first serpent wished to distort our race and fashion it in a way that it would be outside the realm of its creator. The second serpent, our Lord Jesus Christ seeks to offer us a place of healing and the wholeness, a place of salvation and redemption accessed by focusing on him and his action of being lifted up. In his being lifted up and through our acceptance of him, humanity has an opportunity to be healed and restored to the fullness of the relationship that God always intended for us. The first serpent seeks his own will and invites humanity to join him in this selfish endeavors, while the second serpent seeks only his Father's will and offers a way for all humanity to be restored to the good graces of the Almighty God. Following the path of the first servant only separates us from God and God's blessings. Following the path of the first servant also separates us from the true nature that was placed within us at the beginning of creation. Following the second serpent, following our Lord Jesus Christ draws us into the presence of God as well as drawing us back to the intention of God in creation before we sinned against him. As O'Driscoll has said, Satan is the serpent of temptation while Jesus is the serpent of salvation.

The bronze serpent that Moses held above the people inviting them to look upon it was an instrument of healing for those who humbled themselves in this way. To look upon the serpent for them was an action that suggested and pointed to their need for God for wholeness. We have the cross and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we are caught in sin, when our life is full of complaints and dissatisfaction and grumbling against God and his servants we too have one whom we can look upon for forgiveness and healing. One who is far greater than a statue of a serpent made of bronze. Our Lord is lifted up so that the whole world might be drawn unto him. John 3:16 tells us God loves the world. Jesus being lifted up is a sign that God loves the world not only in the days of our Lord but God loves the world today. Not only were the sins of those in Jesus day forgiven them, but every one of us who gazes upon the crucified and risen Lord with faith and gratitude is offered healing, restoration and salvation today.

The fact that God loves the world deserves our attention. God does not simply love the part of the world that is obedient to him. God does not simply love the part of the world that is down on its knees and devoted to him. God does not only love the part of the world that has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. No, God loves the whole world including the broken world in which we live. God loves the world which is divided and torn apart by misguided understandings that lead to violence and war. God loves the world that is still full of immorality, greed and selfishness. God loves the world before it is saved and redeemed. God loves it so much that he was and still is willing to give his only son to a world that will reject him, to a world that will wreak havoc upon him, to a world that will cause his own son to experience the deepest almost unimaginable suffering, God loves the world so much that he's willing to give his son to a world that will crucify him putting him to death.

Do you suppose that we who know the saving embrace of our Lord Jesus Christ are also to love the world which rejects us and rejects God's mercy and kindness? Absolutely yes! We who have the privilege of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ, we who are lifted up with him, we who know the joy of having our sins forgiven, washed away, we are asked to be part of the saving embrace of God to a still broken world. It would be easy for the saved, to act as if we have no responsibility for the world today. Yet to do so would be to dishonor our Lord's intention. If we are to follow our Lord, if we are to share in his ministry, then it is only logical for us to share in the father's love for the world even when it is broken. Too often the church falls under the temptation to love only itself. The first serpent is still at work whispering into our ears to judge others in their bad decisions, and there immoral choices, in their reprehensible lives. Yet Jesus was one who hung around with the most vulnerable in society. The example of our Lord invites us not only to sacrificial behavior but to the Ministry of healing. We have been lifted up with him and hopefully we will not forget that each day we are being forgiven our sins and therefore have a mandate to remember that we are not different from those who have not yet discovered the wonderful forgiveness that our Lord has given us. In fact it may be that we who have been forgiven and lifted up with Christ have more responsibility in the world. Knowing Jesus we know the cost the invitation to share in the Ministry of God.

The Gospel passage concludes with a stirring remark that those who do what is true come to the light. The first serpent, the one who does evil will face the consequences of its deeds of destruction. Its actions will be exposed, its manipulations will be revealed, its evil will be named and though the evil serpent may seek to hide in the darkness there will be no escaping the light of God.

There is not one of us who deserves the grace and mercy of our Lord. There is not one of us who can earn the favor of God through our own efforts. If we find ourselves believing today that we are above those who have not yet discovered the light then I suggest we are still in darkness. At the heart of God we see a sacrificial power that is willing to take upon himself the sin of the world that everyone might come within the reach of our Lord’s saving embrace. Let us pray that the heart of God and the sacrificial nature of our Lord Jesus Christ will be found in each of us and that we will demonstrate God’s love for this sinful and broken world, offering the good news of the lifted up resurrected Lord while also pointing to the healing and forgiving power of the cross.

The Third Sunday in Lent 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T08:57:00.001-07:00

The Third Sunday of Lent -- Year B.
John 2:13 -- 22

The Perfect Blemish

When we think of the Lord Jesus, we tend to think what he has done for us. How he has liberated human beings from the bondage of sin and death through his own death and resurrection. Sometimes we may forget that our Lord is the Lord of all creation. His sacrifice once for all had an impact on a religious system where sacrifice no longer became necessary. The following story is told from the perspective of one of the animals whose life Jesus saved.

Snap!

Crack!

Snap!

“Ouch,” I cried. You should have seen the fire in his eyes. Again I felt the sting of the whip on my backside. “Ow!” I cried again, as the whip of chords fell upon me. My master was screaming then. "What are you doing? Stop that! Are you mad?" He then let go of me and I charged for the gate. I had had enough of being stung by that whip. Men dove out of the way as I raced through the temple searching for a way out, a way to escape from the whip, a way to escape from that place of death. Other Bulls joined the charge and soon the sheep would follow for they too felt the sting of the whip of that fiery man.

It was a glorious day. You can't imagine how I felt. I had escaped from the jaws of death. The temple was not a good place for us to be. Here on the fields with you is a much more glorious place. For here we feast on God's abundant provision, but there they feasted on us.

When I was born my mother was proud for I was without blemish. I was pure and stately, "a fine specimen", they said. My master saw in me a way to make a gain for himself, and so after less than two years he sold me to a merchant who took me to the temple.

I was proud to be chosen. I was proud to be singled out among my brothers and sisters, for I was a fine and beautiful young bull, suitable for the temple. This I had heard my master say about me.

You can imagine how honored I felt to be chosen out of the whole herd, as the one who would go to the temple of the Lord.

I willingly let my new master put a tether on me, and lead me to this glorious place, where only the best and most pure could go.

Oh it was a marvelous journey. I recorded in my mind every green pasture, every valley and hillside, hoping someday that I might visit them again, and taste their grass and wildflowers. We soon arrived in Jerusalem, and the sun shone golden on the great walls of the city. We ascended the hills, and entered the city and found our way to the outer courts of the temple. I must say I was quite disappointed, for I had expected, being such a fine bull, that I would be brought to the most glorious pasture in all of Israel. But instead I found stone under my feet with very little grass growing between the cracks. My fodder was stale hay and I had no room to roam, nor did I have the freedom to do so.

Around me were other beautiful bulls, and sheep, and doves. The finest in all of Israel, but like me, they too were trapped in small spaces and fed stale food.

Other Bulls were chosen before me to go into the inner courts of the temple. I saw them go in but not one of them ever came out. We all told stories of the beautiful pasture inside those walls, of the limitless grain, of the honor and glory we would have bestowed upon us. But you know, secretly we all knew that our stories were not true, for on occasion we would see blood on the knife of a priest as he strolled through the courtyard. And we could smell the smoke of fat and flesh being consumed by flames of fire, and we could hear the deadly bloodcurdling screams of some of our brothers in the morning, and evening, soon after they had been led within. As I said before, not one of those who went inside the inner walls of the temple ever came out.

I was next in line. I was the one chosen on that day. I had been offered to the priest and I was about to enter the inner sanctuary. I was about to see what I inwardly knew I didn't want to see. All my brothers in the marketplace watched me go forth. I tried to put on a good and brave face, so I held my horns high as the servant of the temple led me in. And that's when it all happened.

The man with the whip came bursting through the crowd as if out of nowhere. He yelled, "Stop making my father's house a market place."

Snap!

Crack!

Snap!

I already told you I didn't wait around to feel his whip sting my flesh again. Blood was already dripping from my side, from the wounds now upon me made by his whip. Coins were flying everywhere. He drove us all out; all the cattle and the sheep, and he freed the birds as he turned over the tables. I rejoiced, all the animals present their rejoiced. All I wanted was to go home and to taste again the pasture of my youth. As I ran through the streets of the city and out into the plains beyond, all the people fled from my horns.

I kept fleeing past every green pasture, through every valley, and over every hillside that I had crossed on the way to Jerusalem. This time I had no desire to stop and taste the grass and wildflowers, I fled until I found my way home, and when I arrived I was welcomed back into the flock. My old master was surprised but he kept quiet about it. He even thanked God for my return and for his good fortune. But I was no longer perfect without blemish, for I was scarred on my hind quarters, being stung by the whip of the man whose name was Jesus of Nazareth. I was glad for the scars, knowing I would never be chosen to go to the temple again.

But did you know a greater thing and this happened. For the man with the whip would take my place, and the place of all bulls, and rams, and sheep, and doves. He himself would enter the inner Temple. His blood would be poured out. He would be sacrificed, and with his death the need for continual sacrifice would end. For he died once for all, so sin and death would lose their sting for ever. The chasm between God and this world was filled with his offering, and the veil between God and his creation was torn in two.

This is why we animals love him, for he saved us too. By offering his own body he saved us from ever again having to offer ours in the old way, in the old temple.

Oh, it was a great day: a day of rejoicing, a day of praise for all creation. And do you see these scars from his whip? They are more beautiful than any unblemished creature, for they show how much God loves us, how he longed to save us. They are like the scars on Jesus hands and feet which remind men and women of faith of all he was willing to give, so they with us could come to the greenest of all pastures, which is to live in the presence of his Father for ever. To the glory of God. Amen.

The Second Sunday of Lent 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T08:55:00.001-07:00

Second Sunday in Lent -- Year B.
Mark 8:31 -- 38

The Elephant in the Living Room

There are times when we do everything we can to avoid the obvious. Some realities that we face are so difficult that we will make every effort to deny their presence. Once again Peter, a bold and wonderful character full of humanness, so much like us, is the fall guy for this gospel text. He is the one who gives voice to the disciples concerns about Jesus teaching that, "the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." Even though Jesus spoke quite openly about this to his disciples, they were quite dense in receiving his word. My hunch is that they didn't want to hear it. Even though theologians have described this dance of teaching and not hearing as the messianic secret I suspect there is something very basic going on here. It seems to me there's something in humanity that refuses to hear difficult truths. Somehow it's easier to dance around the elephant in the living room than it is to face harsh reality.

Jesus word to his disciples, “that the Son of Man will be killed" is a reality so harsh, so foreign to the expectations of those who are following him, that nothing could be heard after those words are spoken. Peter’s visceral response and rejection of Jesus word points to the depth of human emotion. When we think about elephants in the living room of our lives it's easy to look around and see how at times human behavior is more comfortable with denial than with acceptance. A classic example of not facing the elephant in the living room can be seen in family systems when one of the parents is caught in addictive behavior and the rest of the family covers for him or her.

My natural father is an alcoholic. I don't know if he's dead or alive. Years ago I made the decision to wait for him to come to me as part of his recovery program, if he ever entered one, knowing that a relationship would be impossible with him while he remained wed to the bottle. My mother divorced him when I was three years old and in the last 50 years I've seen him a total of four times. When I was in my 20s after graduating from college I had a need to connect with my biological father. I was able to discover that he lived in Baltimore, Maryland. I contacted his home and let him know that I would be coming for a visit. Everything seemed wonderfully normal upon my arrival but as the day progressed the cover-up began to unravel. I discovered that I had two half brothers, he had married again. The younger brother was compliant and the older brother was angry. He, the older boy did not like me being there. I was obviously a threat and I suspect he thought that I would be caught in the web of entanglement which his family had created. As I observed him the elder brother, I noticed much of myself in him. His anger resonated with my own. I had a biological father who was never there for me, one who was more comfortable in his relationship with a bottle then with his family. My feelings of abandonment, of rejection which had turned to anger, were clearly not as intense as the elder boy’s feelings for he was daily challenged by living in the same house with his drunken father while covering the insanity which had ravaged the family -- my family.

After the initial dance, pretending that all was well and what a joy it was that I was finally reunited with this group, things began to break down. I was too angry and upset to play the game of pretending that there was no elephant in the living room. My father began to suggest to me that we could make up for lost time. He suggested that we could enjoy the days ahead as father and son. As he spoke so eloquently yet I found myself seeing through the thin disguise. Around me there was his second wife who seemed almost afraid to speak, my young half-brother who seemed willing to do anything in order to keep the peace and my other half brother who appeared to be a boiling, raging kettle ready to blow. After listening for a while to my father's sonorous speech I broke in and asked a question. "Tell me about Andy," I said, "what does he enjoy?" "What do you do with him?" “Tell me about the way you enjoy life with him."

Andy was my half-brother -- the angry one. I saw so much of myself in him. Perhaps because he was younger and was so caught up in the family system he was unable to detach himself from it and stand up for himself. I had a sense that had I grown up in that system I too would have been so deeply wounded and so very angry that I would have been barely able to function. I saw myself in Andy and felt the need to speak this challenge.

The challenge that I was making was not welcome. My father was deeply offended and retreated to his bedroom. He never came out and he has refused to speak with me ever sense. He even refused to meet his grandchildren, blaming me. The abuse of alcohol can pervert a human being, ruining his or her ability to feel and reason with any kind of a semblance of reality. He had no answer. He had no gracious or real relationship with any member of his family, accept an abusive one. His primary love was the alcohol. After my challenge to him, after he had left the room and retreated to his bed his wife rolled up her sleeves and showed me the bruises on her arms, bruises that she had covered up to protect an image of normalcy in the home. The bruises to her heart and soul may have been far deeper and more painful. Andy was angry with me as well and it was obvious that it would be better for me to leave than to stay. I had stirred up the pot in a way that would wreak havoc on all of them. I am sure he felt resentment towards me because I could leave and he was stuck in the profound sickness of this family system. The younger brother was also at a loss because I had named the elephant in the living room and for him it was better to simply work at compliance and keep the peace, contorting himself and his soul, his heart, his whole being in any direction to avoid the violence that would ensue when reality was named.

Jesus is the one who names the elephant in the living room. Peter and the disciples are the ones who want to avoid the truth at all costs. Some truth we want to hear and some truth we don't want to hear. Lent is a season when we are challenged to face all truth, particularly the truth that we don't want to hear. I think the harshest words that our Lord ever spoke are the words that he spoke to Peter when he said, "Get behind me, Satan!" Our Lord desires to tell his disciples the hard truth, the fact that he will be put to death after being rejected and experiencing deep and painful suffering.

We live in a culture that seems to be spiraling downward. We live in a culture where the holiness and value of life is being continually degraded. The signs of degradation appear more and more frequently upon the bodies of our young people. Some have even called the multiple piercing and tattoos that have become a norm among our young people and some of our older people as well a cult to self-mutilation. The media portrays violence as a norm and our governments engage in wars where the only casualties we seem to care about are our own as if the only lives that matter are American lives.

Presiding at a funeral is difficult no matter what the circumstances of the death may be, because at some level death is not the intended consequence for any of us. Resurrection is the intended consequence and if the disciples were able to listen, to move beyond the part of the truth that they didn't want to hear, had they been able to receive the words of Jesus suffering and death they would have heard him say, "and after three days rise again." The Son of Man's rising to life again was beyond their capacity to understand. And in order to get there, in order to receive the rest of the truth, the truth of deepest consequence and good news they first had to face the challenge of Jesus death.

Luke was 17 years old at the time of his death. He had a reputation at his school as one who was capable of some wildness. He appeared to be a normal kid. He was involved in athletics, he even received a varsity letter his freshman year as a runner. He had the normal struggles of figuring out how to have a relationship with a girl. Yet at times he acted very foolishly and his foolish behavior was more glorified than seen as a cry for help among his peers and his family. He'd once been busted for driving naked. Fortunately for him, the policeman who caught him simply told him to go home, to get off the road. Had he been a few years older he likely would have wound up in jail as a sex offender. The year before Luke's death his best friend took his own life. One year later on his friend’s birthday Luke decided that he would take his own life. He shot himself in the head and soon after he died.

The burial service was hugely attended. Nearly half the students from Luke’s high school were present and the grief was palpable. The cause of death was well known among the students and yet they seemed to desire to celebrate the foolishness of driving naked rather than face the elephant that was in the living room. The violence of Luke's behavior against himself and against the community seemed buried under a shallow slogan and a foolish action which was likely an early warning signal, a cry for help. At the service we named the elephant in the living room. And everyone in attendance was invited to stand up and say out loud, "I stand for life." Then a second step was taken, each person present was invited to find another in the church building and tell them, "I am here for you." After another affirmation of life where we held hands and said out loud, "I am not alone” we sang together, "we shall overcome." One more song was sung after this exercise which affirmed the ever present Spirit of God who is always with us.

If we are going to become followers of our Lord we are going to have to face the truth. And that truth may bring us to harsh and difficult realities in our families, in our communities, in our schools, in our nation, and in the world. Our Lord Jesus stands for truth. And our Lord knows that unless we face the whole truth we will be stuck in our own thinking and our own narrow view of life. Jesus invites us to set our minds on divine things, things that are likely beyond our human capacity, things that don't appear natural to us, things that stretch us beyond our limits, things that our Lord himself will assist us with through the presence, power and indwelling of his Holy Spirit.

Jesus even shows us the way to get beyond ourselves. He says, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."

Over 30 years ago I made that memorable trip to Baltimore, Maryland to meet my natural father as an adult. As painful as that experience was it was necessary for me, so I could move beyond the fantasy of what life would have been like had I grown up with my natural father. Facing the reality of his alcoholism and the dysfunctionality of those who shared in his misery, freed me to love him. A few years after that encounter I wrote a song about his alcoholism and my relationship or lack of relationship with him because of his choice to choose the bottle.

He took a bottle for a bride,
she promised him an easy ride,
does he know the lady lied?
I pray someday he will.

He's held or more than 30 years,
her hollow laughs her empty tears,
and still he swallows all her fears,
I pray he'll let her go….

Facing the elephant in the living room in my family situation allowed me to move into a place of forgiveness, and forgiveness clears a passage where love becomes possible.

Facing the elephant in the living room in naming the violence of suicide, and making the choice to stand for life clears a passage for forgiveness. Each of us gathered for Luke's burial service had intense feelings whether we had named them or not. Feelings that ranged from despair and depression to desperation, to excruciating guilt to anger and rage. In order for healing to occur, forgiveness was necessary and for forgiveness to become possible, the truth must be named.

Jesus’ confrontation of his friend Peter in the harshest terms was an invitation to know the truth. Jesus’ challenge to Peter was that Peter could name the elephant in the living room of his own life. Peter still had not surrendered his will to the Lord. Peter continued to believe his vision for the Messiah was better than the Messiah’s vision. And until Peter could surrender completely his vision and his will to his Lord and Savior he could not be free. Jesus’ challenge is to Peter and to us all. Our Lord's challenge to surrender our life and our will, all that we have and all that we are, our emotions, our ideas and our wills is for our own salvation.

As we move deeper into the Lenten season, let us move deeper into the place of surrender to our Lord. Pray that the Holy Spirit will give us grace to face the elephants in our living rooms. Pray that like Jesus we will be able to reach out and at times even confront one another with the kind of care that moves us to a greater depth of being and to a kind of forgiveness that reflects Jesus own love. Pray that in the midst of our adulterous and sinful generation, of which we are a part, that by grace the Son of Man will find us conformed to his will and to his way. Amen.

The First Sunday in Lent 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T08:42:00.001-07:00

First Sunday in Lent
Mark 1:9 --15

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!

Mark doesn't waste any time getting us involved in the beginning of our Lord's Ministry. In these few verses we experience Jesus baptized by John in the River Jordan, followed by the Holy Spirit descending upon him. Immediately after a voice from heaven proclaimed pleasure in Jesus. Moments later Jesus is driven by the Spirit into the wilderness where we learn he is to be tempted by Satan. And by verse 14 we discover that Jesus is back in the Galilee region preaching, "The Kingdom of God Is at Hand."

Let's start with the baptism. The River Jordan is a small river that begins above the Sea of Galilee; it feeds that Lake and then continues on to the Dead Sea. In most places the Jordan is not a particularly spectacular river. Above the Sea of Galilee the waters run faster and clearer. The river is fed by the streams and mountains of Lebanon. Today there is a pilgrimage rest stop a little below the southern end of the Sea of Galilee where the Jordan River continues to make its way south towards the Dead Sea. This pilgrimage stop is designed for visitors to have a few moments on the bank of the River Jordan. The water moves slowly the river bed is fairly shallow and by and large its color is brown. It is a somewhat muddy river. The crystal-clear images portrayed by Hollywood of Jesus baptism by John are quickly erased in the presence of the muddy and earthy banks of the River Jordan. But perhaps the muddy waters are a better image for us to reflect upon as we consider the wonder of Jesus being baptized. Perhaps it's a better image because so much of human life is not crystal-clear and sparkling but rather muddy, and earthy and often confused. Our Lord enters the real and challenging human condition which we all face. He does not deny it, he does not brush over it rather he goes in the midst of it, is washed within it and comes up from it to meet a Dove and hear voice from heaven.

In a way Jesus bursting forth from under the muddy waters of the Jordan River is a foretaste of his bursting out of the tomb after his horrendous crucifixion and death. There is a power that is around him at the beginning, and at the end of his ministry, a power that never leaves him, a power which might best be described as the real presence of God. When Jesus came up from the waters of baptism in the River Jordan there the Spirit like a dove descended upon him and a voice from heaven proclaimed, “Thou art my beloved son; with thee I am well pleased." We hear the voice of the Father who is absolutely delighted with his son who becomes vulnerable by sharing in our humanness. We experience the Father in heaven who looks upon this action and sees in it something wonderful and if we open our eyes wide enough perhaps we can also begin to see and feel just how crazy our God's love is for Jesus and humanity.

I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that our Father in heaven experiences us as beautiful and wonderful too. I don't believe he would have ever sent his son Jesus into the world if he was not excited about you and me, if he was not crazy about us, just as he is crazy about his own son. I don't believe our Father in heaven would risk such a wild journey if he didn't have the deepest commitment for us all.

How foolish we are at times in the church when we argue about the methodology of baptism. Some believe that a sprinkling of water is acceptable while others are baptized in dunk tanks and still others feel the need to be baptized in lakes and rivers. Some suggest a few cupfuls are enough while others only believe that full immersion is sufficient for the baptism to be effective. I don't think it matters how much water we use, just that we use water. It is our Lord who gives us new life, with water being a symbol of destruction of the old life and God as creator of the new. What makes the moment of Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan and the moment of our baptisms effective is the life giving Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Holy Spirit in this passage might best be described as the knowledge that we are loved and that we are beautiful to God. And this gift is not something that we are to simply hold on to and feel good about; rather this gift is to empower us in to ministry. It is a gift that is to move us out of our comfort zones and on to the next stages of ministry which for our Lord at the time of his baptism was to go to the wilderness. But before we go there one last thought on the water of baptism.

It is interesting that the same River Jordan feeds two bodies of water. The River Jordan feeds the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The first, the Sea of Galilee is alive, it is a filled with fish, small communities were built around it because it was a place of life. We hear of its movement tossed about by winds, fierce storms and waves. On the other hand we have the Dead Sea also fed by the Jordan River but it is lifeless, filled with a superabundance of salt and minerals, no fish live in it, its water can not be consumed. The biggest difference between the two bodies of water is at the Sea of Galilee shares its water, water flows into it and out from it. The Dead Sea keeps its water to itself. In these two bodies of water we have an image of ministry. The blessing and empowerment, the life giving Spirit which Jesus received was not meant to simply bless or to remain stagnant in him but rather it was given to bless us all. The spirit was to not simply be upon him rather it was to flow through him. Had he kept the Spirit to himself and the gift of God to himself his ministry would never have flourished. The same is true for the church. We are given the Spirit of God not to keep trapped within the confines of our buildings and our Bible studies but rather we are given the Spirit of God to spread to every corner, every inch of the world.

Jesus is driven into the wilderness by the Spirit. In 2004 I had the great pleasure of joining deans of cathedrals from North America on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The trip was educational and there were two tracks that we could choose to go on. The first was a biblical track, where we would have the opportunity to travel throughout the country and visit and pray in places where our Lord lived out his ministry. The second track was political where participants could engage local politicians. Both were interesting but I found myself moved to participate in the historic/Biblical track. There were two primary side trips from Jerusalem. The first was in to the Galilee region where we visited Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River as well as several other biblical sites. The second adventure was to have some time into Judean wilderness. We would spend the night in a tent in the desert. This sounded romantic to me and along with about 20 to 25 of my colleagues we boarded our bus and headed for the wilderness. There's not much vegetation that grows in the Judean wilderness at least at the time of year we were there. The terrain is brown and beige and very rocky. The hills are more like small mountains and the land is treacherous. After several hours in the bus our leader invited us to join with another and to have a quiet time of meditation. We were told to always stay in view of each other so that none of us would be lost. Underneath the hot sun we carried our water bottles and enjoyed some quiet time, none of us were stung by scorpions and we all made it back to the bus safely. We drove a bit farther and then found the Bedouin hospitality center where we would spend the night.

My romantic image was quickly overcome by the reality of this experience. The tent was similar to being inside a very large lining of a giant garbage pale. There were no Oriental rugs on the floor, no great palm branches swinging from the ceiling and fanning us, keeping us cool. After dropping off our belongings and we boarded the bus so we could have a couple more hours in the wilderness for prayer. This was a wonderful time and the earth tone colors of the mountainsides were stunning in the evening light. The hours went by pretty quickly and one can only begin to imagine what 40 days in the wilderness would have been like. That evening we had a small but very real taste of the danger of wild beasts.

Each of us was given a well used and apparently unwashed sleeping bag, a straw matt and a 1 inch thick foam pad to lie down upon the hard ground. It was very hot inside the tent and the sound of my colleagues snoring was not conducive to sleep at least for me. In the middle of the night one of the women clergy screamed that someone had been licking her feet. It looked like we might have a scandal in our midst, just what the church needed -- a foot licking clergyman -- a new scandal in the Judean wilderness. Who would the foot licker be? After the tent settled down it happened again only this time we discovered that wolves had come into the tent. The wolves were the foot lickers. I saw the beige colored wolves dashing out and decided that I would post myself as a sentry outside the tent under the stars. The wolves kept coming; they appeared to be fairly focused on finding something to eat. The next morning we discovered that one of our companions was missing a bag that was filled with a few snacks and a valuable camera. A few of us went looking in the direction that we had seen the wolves come and go. Some of the contents of his bag were found scattered along the path, we never did find his camera which was in a leather case. In just one very long night we were raided by wolves in the Judean wilderness, the danger was real, one can only imagine what our Lord faced during his 40 days as he fasted and prayed and faced far greater dangers than we touched upon during our short visit.

The wilderness was not a safe place, certainly not for our Lord who didn't have a large group with him as he faced the temptations of the devil. Not only did our Lord face the barrenness of the wilderness, no doubt he faced the creatures of the wilderness and of course whenever we're in solitude we have the opportunity to face our own inner voices.

Jesus was led by the Spirit in to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Jesus did not choose to go to the wilderness, nor did he choose to be tempted. Both were imposed upon him from the outside, the leading by the Spirit, the tempting by the devil. There had to be room for free will, for personal response once he found himself there, but he did not design or create this wilderness. What might this speak to us as we begin our journey into this Lenten season?

First of all, we don't create our own wilderness; we don't start a mad scramble to impose all kinds of hardships upon ourselves to prove our spiritual muscles or lack of them. Rather, we look around to see where the Spirit has led us and is leading us and most likely we will find that it is a wild enough place with enough voices of temptation without creating more. Perhaps just as Jesus wilderness experience was a testing of his baptismal call and identity, so it could be that most of our Christian life is a testing and a living out of our baptismal call. Just as when the ashes are imposed we are called to remember our mortality (remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return), so the whole season of Lent is a call to remembering that it is in God alone that we must find our identity. This is so opposed to what our culture is crying out to us. We are shouted at from all directions to maintain our individuality, to seek self actualization, to discover personal and social liberation, to prove ourselves and to protect ourselves. And the voice is legion.

In Mark’s gospel text the humility and simplicity of God's Word comes to us. Lent is a time for stripping down the myriad distractions a time to remember the clarity and simplicity of that life laid down for us, that name we were baptized into. Binding the voices of legion in our culture takes work and discipline. We can quiet the outer senses by fasting and prayer. We can quicken our spiritual memories by reading God's Word; these are things which can be very useful when they do not become either a stick for beating ourselves or a measuring rod to mark our great piety.

Perhaps our own wilderness will leave us very little room for the familiar methods by which we have met our Lord in the past. Perhaps we shall have to struggle to realize one day at a time it is not ultimately our ability to meet the needs and demands of those with whom we come into daily contact that will save us making us holy. Perhaps we will realize in this lent that it is not our own challenging situations in life that define us or give us our value but rather the simple fact that Jesus loves you, that he lived and died to make you his own. And if this message has not come in to you yet, perhaps you need to hear God’s timeless word to you -- the flow of grace from his lips to your heart -- the gospel of God, "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believed in the gospel." Let me repeat, Jesus loves you, and he lived and died to make you his own!

Ash Wednesday 2009 Sermon

2010-02-01T08:32:00.001-07:00

Ash Wednesday
Matthew 6:1 -- 6, 16 -- 21

Clearing Out the Pipes

Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent, is a time when we have an opportunity to squarely face our humanness. It begins a season where we have an invitation to be honest with God, with ourselves and with one another. The season of Lent which begins this Ash Wednesday offers us a 40 day time period modeled after our Lord's 40 days in the wilderness. Some of us may not feel the need to take on extra disciplines during these 40 days. Perhaps our lives already feel full of enough challenges that a day of prayer or fasting may seem trivial. Others of us who are just as challenged may welcome the external disciplines of regular prayer, fasting, acts of service as opportunities to get out of ourselves and away from the messes that for many comprise significant portions of a life.

Ash Wednesday in this first day of Lent provides us with an opening to the possibility of transformation. St. Francis used to refer to his own body as Brother Ass, he was constantly aware of the stubbornness and limitations, which comprised his life. There is something very good in the disciplines and work that reminds us to recognize our humanness, our frailty and our vulnerability. Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent requests the honor of our presence in such activities. Our Lord Jesus Christ has personally stamped each invitation with the seal and sign of his own blood.

Many years ago when my two oldest children were around six and four years old I purchased my first house. It used to be a barn before it was converted to a house by someone far handier and I will ever be. It was in a wonderful location in northern New Jersey. A dirt road ran in front of the House and across the street there was a pond full of largemouth bass. Behind our home was another pond and to the south was a small stream that connected the two ponds. Beyond the pond behind our home was over a hundred acres of wooded land. I never knew who owned that beautiful treed property. Our home was very near the Appalachian Trail in Sussex, New Jersey. The home was quite roomy though it did have a few problems that reminded us we were living in the country. We saw rats in the kitchen, on the south end of the home there was an old fruit cellar that was crumbling and we soon discovered there were significant drainage problems. The old house had three floors; the top floor consisted of three rooms two of which were joined together. At the far end we created a chapel, in the middle our four-year-old had his bedroom and at the other end our six-year-old daughter had a pink colored bedroom. On the main floor there was another bedroom, a full bathroom, which we all shared, a living room with a dining area and the kitchen. The first or was comprised of another large room that could have been used for a bedroom but we used it as an office/music room the only problem was the ceiling was so low I couldn't stand up straight, there was a second bathroom, a place for a television, a bar and even a sink. We were very blessed to have such a fine place to live as a young couple.

I'm not sure what the occasion was that led to the problem but we soon discovered that the downstairs sink did not drain very well. Not having too many financial resources this plumbing problem would have to be resolved through my own labors. It soon became clear to me that the previous owners had done the plumbing themselves and had violated every kind of building code that there may have been, but after all we were out in the New Jersey countryside. The line went from the downstairs sink under the concrete carpeted slab floor and out the backside of the House. From there I had a difficult time tracing the line but eventually found a drainage pit full of stones, which it was supposed to drain into. Unfortunately there was a clog somewhere in the line. This became an image to me of the kind of work that we will want to do during the season of Lent. Perhaps years of accumulated potato peels and other roughage had made its way down that sink and finally now the liquid had nowhere to go and so it sat still no longer responding to the best plunge one could muster. What past hurts, unresolved griefs and resentments lurk in our lives and clog the flow of the Spirit in us? The only thing I knew to do was to begin digging up the pipe. And so I began to remove the dirt and follow the pipe until I noticed a particular place in the garden where the soil was wet and muddy. I found the break in the pipe. I was able to flush out the blockage using a garden house and I learned that this particular pipe was not designed for any thing but water or other noncongealing liquids.

The season of Lent provides us with an opportunity to experience a kind of personal roto--rooter. It's foolish to take on spiritual disciplines if we have no expectation or hope for growth, for change or transformation in our lives. And it's equally foolish to take on spiritual disciplines that become badges of honor that we display to others. The kind of spiritual disciplines that our Lord invites his disciples to take on themselves aren't a whole lot different than cleaning out clogged lines between houses and septic tanks. Our Lord desires us to have a fully functioning system of connection with him. Of course the difference is we do the work of cleaning our pipes, our lives, so we can connect more easily to the source of grace, glory and goodness, so we can connect to God our Father in Heaven.

My first wife Betsy (Betsy died January 2, 1999) was also an Episcopal clergyperson who I will refer to at times during this season of Lent and in these writings. She once focused upon the very jarring words in the Ash Wednesday liturgy found in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. In that service we are reminded that, "you are dust and to dust you shall return." Ash Wednesday in the season of Lent reminds us not only of our need to be transformed they remind us of our mortality. It is extremely challenging to see ashes placed on the forehead of a newborn sleeping in their mother's arms -- the newborn so fresh, so innocent, so seemingly far from ashes and death. Yet perhaps the mother who cradles the child as the child receives the ashes is deeply aware of the pain of childbirth and how close birth and death really are. Both birth and death involve a very powerful process of letting go, and isn't letting go a rather large part to what we are called to do on Ash Wednesday and in the season of Lent.

The ashes that get marked in on the forehead's of those who come to the Ash Wednesday services may appear startling, strange and even incongruent with the Gospel text that invites us not to make a show of our piety…. Yet perhaps the crosses that are sealed upon the forehead of those who come to traditional liturgical Ash Wednesday services are strangely appropriate. Our children are not our own, in fact we do not even belong to ourselves, all of us belong to God and in the end unless we let our best gifts and intentions be marked by the cross, we will not experience the joy of growth. Betsy once wrote,” nowhere do we find this truth more dramatically portrayed than in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Nowhere do we participate more fully in this truth than in the liturgical drama of the Eucharist. Here we celebrate, we touch, and we eat and drink the death and life of our precious Lord. Here we learned the price and the liberation of letting go.”

That truth and was brought to Betsy years ago one time when she received communion at an unfamiliar church. As she saw the priest offering "the gifts of God for the people of God," the bread and wine of communion, she noticed above the altar a small stained-glass window of the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of her son. She realized then how hard it must have been for Mary to let go of Jesus body for burial. And later when Betsy became a mother she imagined her own child dead and how she would want to hold on to her child forever, to not let the child be taken away and to the grave. What courage Mary had in letting go of the body of her crucified son. Had she not let go of that dead body, we would not be here feasting on his living body. Had she not let her Son bare that cross, the mark of mortality, the ashes upon us would fill us with fear rather than hope.

So here we are at the beginning of a journey. Where will it take us? Not so long ago I heard some sports radio guys talking about not eating dessert and other sweets during the season of Lent. At some level they were joking but at another level I think the one was quite serious, he whom had taken on the discipline of avoiding sweets for lent. He had been invited as a guest to cover a sports banquet and without thinking he had eaten the piece of cheesecake that was placed in front of him at the end of the meal. His not so churchy commentator friend reflected with him about God's displeasure and that when it was time for his life to be over and to get on to the elevator that would take him to his eternal home he ought to push the down button. The humor of their exchange was enjoyable but the shallowness of the idea that God seems to care more about our consumption of cheesecake and M&Ms than he does about our hearts is really very sad.

For nearly 2000 years Christians have observed with deepest devotion the passion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. These verses in Scripture remind us not to make a show of our religion, to offer charity with humility, to pray in secret and to fast without making a show of it. These verses show us a method by which we can make ourselves more pleasing to God as well as more honest in our devotion. We may be strengthened by one another on his journey but ultimately God himself and our own self-examination will measure the integrity of our experience.

The work of prayer, fasting and self-denial, the work of reading and meditating upon God's Word, the work of repentance and self-examination is a work designed to clean out our pipes. It's a good work of creating a clear channel through which the grace and favor and Spirit of God can flow to our hearts, minds, souls and our whole being through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season provide us with an opportunity to let go and to allow ourselves, our children, our parents, our friends, one another -- everyone to belong to God. Perhaps this year we can go beyond triviality's as we recognize that God's desire for each of us is to come into a deeper relationship with him thereby becoming more capable of engaging ourselves with one another and with the world in which we live. And at the end of the day and at the end of the season let us pray that our hearts and lives will be fuller. Filled with the treasure of a renewed and empowered relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit.

A series of my 2009 Lent & Easter Sermons: Introduction

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It was a privilege to be invited by CSS Publishing to participate as a writer in a book of sermons based on the gospel texts. It was a particular honor to be asked to be the one who would write for Lent and Easter. These sermons were designed to go out to an ecumenical audience, more than my normal Episcopal audience. I wrote them with the hope that those churches that were in need of sermon assistance would find them helpful; perhaps they would generate ideas for those who were preparing to preach. Preaching, it seems to me, is essentially a local encounter, though the gospel is universal the context in which the gospel is presented is always best delivered if it's attached to local experience. It was a bit odd to be writing sermons for Lent and Easter about nine months before they would be used. Thanks for taking the time to be with them.

Warmly, John

Thank you for visiting

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The site will be dedicated primarily to songs and sermons though every now and then I may add a story or a reflection of some kind. I hope this site will give you a gift -- a song to sing, a word to ponder, something to pray about, inspiration to reach out and serve and an opportunity to experience something of God's grace. I am honored that you are visiting.

Warmly, John

Here is a song for you to contemplate and enjoy , In God's Time.