A Lonely Road?

Homily for Sunday, April 30, 2017   Good Shepherd and Graves Chapel

We awake each morning, some days with more enthusiasm than others, and we usually carry on with our established routines. As we progress through life, an endeavor that has often been compared to a journey, we feel the passage of time as a kind of forward movement, like the revolving hands on old-fashioned clocks. As much as we may wish we could return to a day or an event from our past, we can do so only in memory. Our life journeys are marked by beginnings and endings and are enlivened by the people and things we encounter as we move through our days.  As we grow older, when we say a final goodbye to someone we have deeply loved, we confront the unavoidable sadness of temporal endings. We experience death as a finality.

But God has no beginning and no end. The Resurrection of Jesus surely illustrates that our human sense of having a finite span of time has no meaning. In divine terms, time is immeasurable—and life is eternal.

In today’s lesson from Luke, we discover two disciples who are walking toward the town of Emmaus on the very day of the Resurrection.  As disciples of a leader who has just been cruelly executed, no doubt they are fleeing Jerusalem when they encounter the risen Lord on the highway—and fail to recognize Him.  It makes me wonder how often on our various journeys, especially the ones taken in fear, that Jesus appears to us, and like the distraught disciples, we fail to recognize Him.  After what must have been several hours of walking and talking with Jesus, they take shelter for the night together.  But it is not until he breaks bread with them that they finally recognize Jesus—in the familiar and the profound.

I am blessed (and have been for the last nine years) to work with physicists—those scientists whose job it is to ponder the meaning of time, to consider the vast reaches of the universe. I happen to work in a building that houses several electron microscopes, including a Titan microscope, one of only 18 of its kind located at American universities. Physicists, including the materials scientists in my department, concern themselves not only with the entire universe, but also with the smallest particles that exist. In studying phenomena at both ends of the natural spectrum, physicists often discover the completely quirky and seemingly unreasonable ways things work—and work in unanticipated concordance with one another.  Perhaps this explains why, as a particular group of scientists, physicists tend more readily to express faith in God than other scientists. Perhaps physicists have learned to trust that faith really is about “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” as we are told in Hebrews 11.

The disciples walking on the road to Emmaus trust in the evidence of their own eyes that their beloved leader has died on a cross and has been sealed into a tomb. Even though Jesus had told the disciples before his crucifixion that he would be raised on the third day and that he would be with them always, these two are blind to the risen Lord when he appears to them. Such a thing would be simply unreasonable, wouldn’t it?  All of us have difficulty at times seeing things we do not expect to see.  And sometimes we find such unexpected things to be too frightening to consider!

Now I wonder how often I have failed to recognize the Lord’s presence with me. How many times have I been too anxious, too impatient, too preoccupied with other things to turn my attention to the Lord?  I am afraid this is the common predicament of people of faith. Like the disciples on the road, we are generally too much in our own heads to see Jesus when he stands right in front of us. Even so, I have had unmistakable moments of closeness with God, including a couple of times when I surely heard my Lord’s voice.

When Jesus spoke her name, “Mary,” Mary Magdeline recognized Jesus as her “teacher” outside the empty tomb. The disciples’ eyes are opened when Jesus takes the bread, blesses, and breaks it. They are reminded of the last evening (and last supper) Jesus had with the apostles in the Upper Room. He is known to them, as He wishes to be known to us, in the breaking of bread. But does this mean that we fail to see Him, as the disciples did, when he does not look the way we expect him to look—or when he isn’t exactly what we want him to be?

We Christians may not like to accept it, but we worship a God who suffers. The central and most important symbol of our faith is a cross on which an innocent man bled and died a cruel death. We believe he died this horrid death on our behalf. But we haven’t really understood what that means if we believe Jesus suffered and died so that we will not have to suffer.  Believing that, no wonder some Christians who become ill or deal with any kind of calamity lose faith and shake their fists at God.  But what the cross shows us, tells us, gives us is the great truth that we all will suffer—and Christ will be right there in that suffering with us, beside us, and within us through all of our most difficult times.

That, my friends, is the most fundamental lesson of the cross—that God, through Christ, endures our pain with us, abides with us, holds us up when standing in the face of our worst nightmare seems impossible. And what does the story of the encounter on the road to Emmaus also teach us? Jesus appears to the disciples on the very day of his Resurrection, greets them, speaks with them, and stays with them. Even though they fail to recognize him at first since they are absorbed in their grief over losing the one they called “Master,” the stranger is a comfort to them.  Hear what they say about the encounter after they finally realize (after he leaves them) that it was Jesus their Master all along: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

If the lesson of the cross is that we worship a God who has suffered and understands suffering, a God who is with us when we suffer, then the lesson of the Resurrection, as experienced by the disciples on their way to Emmaus, is that our God is, as he promised, with us always. Maybe we become more aware of God’s presence when we break bread together, as the disciples did, but the truth of Christ’s being with us in our bad times as well as in our better, more ordinary times, is that our faith is a faith lived out in community—even when the only other one in our community is the Lord.   AMEN.

On Blindness

Homily for Sunday, March 26, 2017        Good Shepherd and Graves Chapel

4^th Sunday in Lent

Lessons:

1 Samuel 16: 1-13

Psalm 23

Ephesians 5: 8-14

John 9: 1-41

            “Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely WE are not blind, are we?”  Ah, those good old Pharisees!  I may certainly be wrong, but somehow I imagine those words were spoken to Jesus with a bit of haughty indignation.  “Me, blind?”  Then, I am brought up short, because I know there are many times when I am equally “blind,” when I think or say something unfair or simply wrong out of my own ignorance or my lack of understanding. As in the case of the conflict between the Pharisees and Jesus, conflicts can arise from a misunderstanding of each other’s religious beliefs.

            In the early years of human history, on the various continents, people awoke to the gifts of human life. They began to use their comparatively enormous brains as instruments of reflection and not merely tools for survival. In doing so, they pondered the beauty and grandeur of nature. They recognized the blessing and fragility of life. From their different and far-removed corners of the world, each group of advanced primates realized that some sublime power must have been at work in the act and art of creation.  Having reached this state of awe, they desired to give thanks to this Higher Power, their creator.  As sacrifice, they returned some of their gifts to the God of their understanding, giving thanks for grain, fruit, flowers, trees; for animals that provided food, hides, feathers and fur; animals that assisted them with their work; animals that became their companions. They gave thanks for sunlight, air, earth, and water. Out of a desire to express gratitude to the creator, religion was born.

            If you have ever studied Greek and Roman mythology, you may have noticed a few peculiar things about the early Greeks and Romans. The most obvious is that the Romans simply copied the Greeks, worshiping the same Gods and Goddesses, only changing their names and minor details about them. In their literature about their gods and goddesses, the Greeks invested them with human qualities and human frailties—wisdom, courage, and mercy, yes, but also anger, lust, jealousy, cowardice, and treachery. In other words, the proud Greeks (and then their Roman conquerors) created Gods in the image of humans. No wonder the worship of gods with human flaws did not endure!  As Christians, we are told in Genesis I that God created humans in God’s image, and our belief in a God who is all-wise and all-powerful has made the difference in the staying power of our faith.

In the text that is the foundation of our faith, the Holy Bible, Christians acknowledge that our understanding of God came to us through the faith and teachings of the Hebrew people, contained in the Old Testament. Jesus himself was a Jew. All the major world religions that have survived the test of time, that have endured for centuries now (unlike the mythology of the Romans and Greeks) share a belief in one Supreme Being. Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism, in fact, share a set of core principles that are basic teachings of each faith. Here is a short list of other shared beliefs that may surprise you:

To “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” also known as the Law of Reciprocity, is a key teaching of all.  So is to honor and respect one’s parents…To speak the truth and to value sincerity and honesty…To recognize giving as being more blessed than receiving…To understand that heaven is within us…To love your neighbor…To acknowledge the wisdom and blessing of peacemakers…To recognize that we reap what we sow…To understand that we do not live by bread alone. 

Lists of our Christian beliefs shared with the other major religions usually have 25 or more statements, but I will stop at these ten. I think you get the idea!  Episcopal priest and theological writer Matthew Fox expressed how the belief in one supreme being (GOD) and shared tenets among all the major religions could be seen as One River, Many Wells. In fact, that is the name of one of his books. Another shared belief, one that I’m sure Jesus wished the Pharisees adhered to, is “To refrain from judging others, since we all spring from a common source and we are all one family.” 

            You probably know that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, mentions Jesus more often than any prophet other than Muhammad. In fact, to Muslims, Jesus is considered to be a great prophet and messenger of Allah. Muslims also revere Mary and believe, as Christians do, the birth of Jesus to have been a Virgin birth. Muslims also believe, as Christians do, that Jesus was sent to be a guide to the children of Israel.  With Christians and Jews, Muslims trace their religious history back to Abraham.

            You may wonder why I speak today of these significant common beliefs and principles shared by all the world’s great religions. What does this striking truth have to do with today’s lessons from the Christian bible? Blindness. Or, I guess I should more gently say, since I am as guilty as anyone, a failure to see.

            Just as a thread of the theme of blindness runs through all of today’s lessons, adherents of the great world religions often overlook (sadly) their shared principles. For that matter, consider how many denominations there are within Christianity itself. How often do Christians condemn other Christians because of their differing interpretations of scripture?  What is it in human beings that makes us look for what is different (and hence unacceptable) about others rather than cherish what we share with them? Surely today’s story of the man born blind illustrates the position of Jesus on this issue.

            In this story, the key revelation may be how Jesus responds to the question, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”  Jesus states clearly that the disabilities and weaknesses humans suffer are NOT punishment for sins. He adds (and this can be as hard for us to understand as it was for the Pharisees) that such frailties and difficulties provide an opportunity for God to demonstrate God’s power and love. God’s work is revealed through the ways God heals and blesses all those who suffer, just as Jesus healed the man born blind, to the astonishment and disbelief of those around him.

            Jesus adds, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, tells us that our mission as followers of Jesus Christ is to continue to bring his light to the world. As Paul puts it, “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.”  How do you define “all that is good and right and true”?  That may very well be the basic challenge for us during this season of Lent, as we ponder how we are called to serve the Lord as his light in the world.

            In the Old Testament lesson today, the Lord takes the prophet Samuel to task for grieving over the failure of King Saul. Since Samuel is not ready to let go of the dream of having Saul as king of Israel, he cannot comprehend what the future may hold. When he is told to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as the new king of Israel, Samuel, though he is a prophet, cannot discern which of the sons is the right one. For him, any of Jesse’s sons is as good as another because Samuel judges them through his own eyes and not God’s.  For Samuel, not one of them could possibly be as great as Saul. Then David appears.

            Psalm 23 is a lovely parable, in the form of a prayer of gratitude, for the way God showers us with the blessings of light even when we find ourselves in a world of darkness: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me…you spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me…surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” 

            Psalm 23 assures us that in the moments of our greatest fear, even when we feel ourselves to be surrounded by enemies, the Lord continues to bless us and keep us, spreading an abundant table before us and anointing our heads with oil. We are guests at the Lord’s table, and just as Samuel anointed the young David to become the next king of Israel, the Lord anoints us with his loving presence. Simple gratitude would be our most appropriate response. Out of that gratitude, we demonstrate “all that is good, and right, and true.”

The Lord is ever with us, and we have no reason to fear what we do not understand. God’s kingdom of heaven is within us. Instead of giving into fear, we are called to love our neighbors, to be peacemakers, to give more than we receive. We are empowered by the Lord to shed his light of love on those around us, and that light is the light of love and understanding.  AMEN.

            

Our Transfiguration

Homily for Sunday, February 26^th, 2017    Good Shepherd and Graves Chapel

The lessons:

Exodus 24:12-18

2 Peter 1:16-21

Matthew 17:1-9

Psalm 2

The Collect: O God, who before the passion of your only­ begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The lessons for today focus on two mountaintop experiences set forth in scripture: Moses called to meet God on Mt. Sinai, where he receives the Ten Commandments, and Jesus transfigured on the mountain, as witnessed by three of his disciples.  So that his authority will be clear to the disciples with him, and those of us who are called to be disciples of Jesus today, two preeminent Old Testament prophets (Moses and Elijah) join Jesus for his mountaintop experience, where Peter, James, and John hear the voice of God, from out of the clouds, saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

The prophet Elijah had his own mountaintop experience, you may recall, when he was hidden in a cave, afraid of the enemies that pursued him, and he heard the reassuring still small voice of God speak to him.  The final mountaintop experience of Moses occurred when he made his farewell to the people upon Mt. Nebo. Before he died, God took Moses there to see the Promised Land the people would enter without him.

Whenever I hear mention of a mountaintop experience, I cannot help but think of the speech Martin Luther King, Jr., made in Memphis, Tennessee, the very night before he was assassinated there on April 4^th, 1968.  A Baptist preacher and son of a Baptist preacher, King, although only 39 at the time of his death, had been steeped in scripture throughout his life.  King’s voice was a prophetic voice, and that is uniquely obvious in his last speech when he says, “Like anybody, I would like to have a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you…”  Of course, we know how this story ended, the very next day.  Like Moses, King would not live to see his people enter the Promised Land.

Abraham also had a profound mountaintop experience: Just as he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mt. Moriah, a dreadful deed Abraham undertook at God’s command, the voice of God spoke to him, ordering him to stop. Abraham’s obedience to God passed God’s ultimate and most difficult test.  When it comes to his own beloved Son, the Lord God will make that most difficult sacrifice and allow Jesus to be crucified on the hilltop of Calvary. Before that terrible end, both Jesus and his principal disciples experienced the overwhelming assurance of the Transfiguration, and Peter tells us in his letter, “For we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty” when “…he received honor and glory from God the Father.”  No wonder the expression “mountaintop experience” has come to mean something dramatically life-changing!

After taking time to examine these mountaintop experiences, I wonder if they are really meant for ordinary people like us.  A mountaintop experience, though incredibly impressive, sounds scary, if not downright dangerous. When Peter witnessed the transfiguration of the Lord, he was so terrified he babbled something about building dwellings and then fell to the ground along with James and John. Jesus touched them and said, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

“Get up and do not be afraid.” God speaks those words to us as well.  As we affirm in our Baptismal covenant, we are called to “Seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves.” Our Christian faith is lived in community, and the work God calls us to do usually involves service we offer to our community and to the larger world—all persons, all God’s creation. Sometimes the tasks before us may appear to challenge us beyond the extent of our abilities. The cross we are given may seem to be more than we can bear.  How are we enabled to answer the call to service? We are transfigured.

Our faith in Jesus Christ transfigures us.  Our collect for today includes a petition in which we pray to be granted that very transfiguration: “Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.” How do we dare pray to be changed into the likeness of Jesus? It is in John 14 where Jesus tells the disciples, on the night of the Last Supper, that he will be with them always, empowering them and supporting them to carry on his mission. He says, “The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do…I will not leave you orphaned…In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you…Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”

Like the cowering disciples, we may wish to hide our eyes. Or, we may try to do the wrong thing—like Peter’s offer to build three booths. But walking in love as Christ loved us changes us over time. Gently and subtly, we become the ones others seek when they need help and friendship. Gently, and without our knowing exactly how it happens, we begin to wear Christ’s face for everyone we encounter.

When Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to meet with God and receive the Ten Commandments, “a devouring fire” surrounded the mountaintop, and the people waiting below were terrified by thunder and lightning.  When Jesus undergoes his transfiguration, “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” As 21^st century disciples of the Lord, bolts of lightning most likely will not be our calling cards. Nor will our faces shine like the sun in a way that strikes terror into the hearts of those around us. No, our transfiguration does not have to be so impressive, even though we are called to be lights of love in a troubled world. As Peter suggests in today’s epistle, we would do well to be attentive to the Lord’s transfiguration and our own “as a lamp shining in a dark place.” Perhaps we will illuminate things more in the manner of a small candle. But even a small candle, thrust into deep darkness, becomes a bright and very welcome light.

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AMEN.

The People of the Beatitudes

Homily for Sunday, January 29, 2017         Graves Chapel

  

Lessons:

Micah 6: 1-8

Psalm 15

1 Corinthians 1: 18-31

Matthew 5: 1-12

Who are the people of the Beatitudes? Today’s gospel lesson from Matthew includes statements made by the Lord about those who are blessed in God’s eyes. As we read the verses, the people described do not sound at all like the individuals in our society who appear to be blessed by good fortune, good health, comfortable lives. I am sure, however, that we have encountered some who fit Jesus’s description, even though sometimes they may choose to be invisible.  Here are a few…

When she enters the side door of the building at 6:00 AM, everything is quiet. She assembles the tools she needs from a closet: a push broom, a cart with cleaning rags, chemicals, a wet mop and a pail.  As she sweeps the long hallways and cleans the bathrooms, others begin to arrive. Soon, over a thousand people will inhabit the school, teenagers, their teachers, administrators. Sometimes, a teacher or a student will speak to her, but most pass her by and go about their business as if they can’t see her. She will leave at 2:00, go home for a bite to eat, then head out for her evening job, cleaning a large office building after hours. Her daughter and young grandchildren live with her, and on weekends, when her daughter is at work, she will care for the children. She decided a long time ago not to allow herself to think about how tired she gets. Thinking about it does no good.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

He is 91 years old, surprisingly tough, surprisingly healthy. He still drives his pick-up, though his son worries he may cause an accident. When his beloved wife died in recent months, he thought he might die, too. Some days, he wishes he had. It may very well be bitterness that keeps him alive, a grief he has never overcome. More than forty years ago, his youngest child, a beautiful daughter, was killed in a car wreck. She was just a teenager. Her face rises in his mind at unexpected times, and he cannot let her go.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

The young man sits in his cell, reading a book. Smarter, somewhat better educated than his nearest neighbors, he helps them with their paperwork, encourages them to study. When he has access to a computer in the prison library, he takes classes and pursues a bachelor’s degree. He studies spiritual texts, endeavors to understand the teachings of Jesus.  The young man entered the prison system shortly after his 18^th birthday. When he isn’t filled with despair and anger at himself, he searches his heart and tries to understand how he can be a better person.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

When Jesus began his ministry, he walked among the people he hoped to serve, seeking sustenance and a place to lay his head where he was welcomed. He had no idea he was launching a religion that would one day spread across the world and be called Christianity. When he preached, he never asked to be worshiped. His life embodied humility, and he simply asked the people to follow his way, to do the things that he did, to walk in love. We are told in Mark 7, “And wherever he went, into the villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.”

Jesus never asked if these strangers were worthy of healing. He never refused to help them. Their need alone spoke to him, and so profligate was his love that he allowed anyone who merely touched the hem of his garment to be healed. He never counted a sinner among those who sought him; their behavior may not have been perfect in the eyes of their neighbors, but their hearts were in the right place. That was all that mattered to the Lord, supremely merciful and loving Lord that he is.

What if we fully believed what Jesus taught us and truly followed in his way? Surely that would mean we would reach out with kindness, love and mercy to every person whose path crosses ours.  If Jesus allowed total strangers, no matter who they were, to touch his cloak and be healed, how can we justify ignoring the needs of those around us? What if we saw such encounters as being intended by God? Surely, we can think back to times when an unexpected event brought someone into our lives and changed us forever.  I wonder how often we miss such God-given opportunities?  Are we the ones who are intended to fulfill the blessings of the beatitudes for those who surround us?

Jesus began life as a carpenter’s son, and during his ministry, he was poor, homeless, and pursued by enemies, but he persisted (unto death) in speaking the truth with love. He gave us the ultimate example of both humility and courage. He told us he was “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and he asked us to follow his Way. St. Bernard of Clarivaux interpreted these words from John’s gospel as “Humility is the way that leads to truth, and truth is the light of life.” Catholic theologian Gabriel Marcel took St. Bernard’s words a step further: “Humility is availability. Availability is that which makes ready and makes room for others.”

Living in Christ-like humility requires of us that we make ourselves available to the ones around us who need our help. When we encounter them, we forego any need to judge whether they deserve our kindness.  We simply reach out a hand in love. As former Episcopal presiding bishop Edmond Browning said, “We show Christ most truly when we care for the ones with whom he chose to surround himself.”

Maybe those words are easier to understand when we think in terms of the ones who surrounded Jesus, often so closely he must have felt mobbed. Even so, he did not turn away from them. He did not fail to give them what they needed. He did not overpower them or chide them. He loved them indiscriminately. True humility and love made him available to them.

No, the man Jesus did not intend to launch a new religion. He certainly had no idea that this new religion named for him would become so well-defined and well-structured that it would eventually splinter into many competing sub-groups. He certainly would not have imagined that some of these groups, in his very name, would establish barriers for membership. All he ever asked of his followers was that they follow his Way.

The prophet Micah predicted the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem some 700 years before the Incarnation. In his words from today’s lesson, Micah states simply what the Lord asks of us: “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Who are the people of the Beatitudes? Sometimes they are the ones whose needs call out to us. Sometimes they are as near to us as our own hearts.  May we live in love as Christ loved us, seeking justice as we try to do the right thing, loving kindness as we show mercy, and walking as humbly as we can with our Lord.

AMEN.

Christ the King of Love

Homily for Sunday, November 20^th         Harvest Service at Graves Chapel

Christ the King of Love

Lessons for today:

Psalm 46

Colossians 1: 11-20

Luke 23: 33-43

Collect for today:

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In the rhythm of American cultural life, we prepare for the annual frenzy of the holiday season. This Thursday, Thanksgiving will launch us forward, whether we are ready or not, to the day that is for the youngest among us the most delightful day of the year—Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of the one we call the Prince of Peace.

In the cycle of the church year, however, today is Christ the King Sunday, the very last Sunday of the church calendar.  In today’s gospel lesson, Luke tells the story of the crucifixion of Jesus, and for the faithful stragglers gathered beneath the cross, it must have seemed to be the end of a hope and a dream.  How do we move from Golgotha to the holy and joyous birth in Bethlehem in just over a month?

The public reign of Christ the King occurred only during the few hours Jesus hung and died upon the cross. It was here that the Roman authorities ironically proclaimed him as King for the first and only time in his life.  Pilate ordered a sign which read, “This is the King of the Jews” to be tacked above his head on the cross.  What kind of king does Jesus reveal himself to be?

Jesus reveals himself to be the kind of king who forgives even the men who execute him in a most horrible way. After the soldiers nailed him to the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Then, as he watched them, they argued and cast lots as they gambled for his clothing. They mocked him, saying, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”  Jesus was silent.

Jesus reveals himself to be a king whose forgiving and merciful love is unconditional. Two thieves hung from the crosses on either side of Jesus. One of them joined in the derision of the soldiers, saying to the Lord, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.”  Jesus was silent.

Then, the other thief defended Jesus, saying, “Do you not fear God, since we are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then, he looked at the Lord, and said simply, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  This time, the Lord replied, assuring the man, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

In his exchange with the second thief, Jesus does not ask about the man’s crime or guilt. He doesn’t ask if he has repented. Jesus does not judge nor condemn him. When the thief speaks to him, asking for his mercy, mercy is granted. The simple need of the thief calls out to the Lord, and the Lord, as he has always done, responds with love and mercy to that need.  During his ministry, Jesus had said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Even in the hour of his excruciating death, Jesus is the one who blesses and forgives.

In the years of his life and brief ministry, Jesus was a Lord of humility, generosity, and love. He favored mercy over judgment and erected no barriers in his response to the needs of the most vulnerable members of his society, those considered social outcasts: the poor, the disabled, lepers, those possessed by demons. Tax collectors and publicans. Samaritans. A thief. In becoming Christ the King, Jesus embodied the love of God. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians, “For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Please ponder now with me the brutal means by which this reconciliation of peace took place.  In his crucifixion, Jesus suffered, bled, and died on behalf of all of us, to reconcile us to God and to one another. In his suffering, he showed us that to be true servants of God, we must love and serve one another, no matter the cost.

Look at the cross. Consider the head of the Lord at the center point, bowed and bleeding from the crown of thorns placed there by the mocking soldiers.  His chest is extended. He has difficulty breathing. His downcast eyes are full of pity for the ones he loves, the ones huddled beneath the cross. His eyes are full of pity for the thieves, the soldiers and for us. He suffers for us.

See how his arms are extended, stretched taut by the way his hands are nailed to the cross.  Think of how those arms are spread wide in an embrace of all who come near to him, all whose need speaks to him, the Lord of Mercy. Think of how those wide-stretched arms offer shelter to the ones who seek him.  He suffers with us, and that suffering illustrates his compassion. In the old hymn, we sing that the “old rugged cross” is “the emblem of suffering and shame.”  But it is also the emblem of true love and true mercy.

I am reminded of an oddly sweet passage earlier in Luke, when Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”  Jesus defines his compassion for us in feminine terms, as mothering protection.  On the cross, his arms are outstretched in the way the hen’s wings would have been spread to shield her brood of chicks.

Jesus says that the people of Jerusalem were not willing to accept what he had to offer them. Are we willing to welcome the Lord’s compassion? Will we share that compassion in His way by serving and suffering with others?  Jesus says, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  If we hope to be disciples of Christ, then the task for each of us is to discern the cross we are meant to carry.  

On any given day, the cross before us may be one we have never encountered before. Chances are, in the nature of crosses, it will involve doing something we would rather avoid, serving someone we would rather not serve.  Maybe if we recall the beautiful words of St. Teresa of Avila, we will find it easier to take up our crosses: “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless his people.”

At this season of Thanksgiving, may we be mindful of all of the ways we have been and continue to be blessed by a loving, merciful, and compassionate God.  May we be willing to follow the call of the cross of Christ the King as we seek to serve others and reconcile the whole earth to the unity and peace of God.  May we be thankful for the ultimate gift, a reconciliation purchased by the blood of our Saviour and offered to all those in need of loving kindness.

AMEN.

Repentance and Grace

Homily for Sunday, October 30, 2016             Graves Chapel

Lesson: Luke 19: 1-10  (the story of Zacchaeus)

Collect for today: Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

On two occasions in my life, I have laughed so hard over something I was reading at the time that I fell out of bed.  The first time I was a teenager, reading James Thurber’s comic masterpiece of a memoir, My Life and Hard Times.  “The Get Ready Man” is one of the many eccentric characters Thurber describes; to quote the inimitable Thurber, “The Get Ready Man was a lank, unkempt elderly gentleman with wild eyes and a deep voice who used to go about shouting at people through a megaphone to prepare for the end of the world. ‘Get ready! Get ready!’ he would bellow.  ‘The world is coming to an end.’”  Now, you need to know that the setting of Thurber’s memoir was the Ohio of his youth, in the early part of the 20^th century.  Street corner evangelists who like to warn us that we may be doomed to eternal punishment have been around for a long time in America.

Shortly after my falling-out-of-bed laughing experience with Thurber’s humor, I headed off to Providence, Rhode Island, to attend college. I’d never lived in a city in my entire life up to that point—in fact, I’d barely ever been north of the Mason-Dixon line. Needless to say, I was pretty wide-eyed.  However, when I encountered my college campus’s own version of the Get-Ready man, my Christian upbringing, my upbringing by generous and loving parents, caused me to recoil from his message. The wild-eyed evangelist who always stood on George St. near the gates that opened to our campus green had this to say, very loudly, as he brandished a small book: “Here is a free New Testament for any Jew willing to read it.” When I saw the self-righteous anger in the man’s eyes and thought of my college best friend, a young man of Jewish heritage, I knew that what this angry man preached had nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

Just as it stands in bold contrast to the intolerant extremism of the world we inhabit today, the message of Jesus defied the prejudicial intolerance of his own time.  Jesus extended an open hand of love and friendship to everyone he encountered, quite often the very people considered sinful and unworthy by those who believed themselves to be righteous.  Indeed, after Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus in today’s story and invites himself to his home for dinner, we are told, “All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’” Why is it that many of us who consider ourselves good people resent the idea that grace can be bestowed on those outside our circle?

When Jesus calls to Zacchaeus, he says, “Hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” “I must stay at your house today.”  Clearly, with those words, the Lord reveals that Zacchaeus is part of his plan. Before Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus, we are told these things: that Zacchaeus “was trying to see who Jesus was,” that “he was a chief tax collector and rich,” that “he was short of stature” and couldn’t see over the crowd.  So, he climbs the sycamore tree, just to get a glimpse of Jesus. How, in that press of crowd, does Jesus know to look up—how is it that he always senses need and longing? Remember the story of the woman with the hemorrhage who also encounters Jesus in a large crowd—and who hopes that, simply by touching the hem of his cloak, she may be healed? Indeed, she is healed by that touch and turns away, but Jesus, perceiving what has happened, calls, “Who touched me?” He wants to meet the one who needed him and sought him out, whose faith extended her hand to the fringe of his cloak—and no further. When she fearfully comes forward to confess, Jesus blesses her again—for her faith.  Even though the woman tried to remain hidden, her longing for healing, goodness, and mercy called out to Jesus.  As Jesus says to those who grumble over his response to Zacchaeus, “Today, salvation has come to this house, for he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” 

His neighbors revile Zacchaeus and consider him a lost cause because he is a tax collector, in their eyes a stooge for the Roman rulers.  Jesus knows his heart, knows that Zacchaeus can be saved by love. What is the response of Zacchaeus to the generosity expressed by the outstretched hand of the Lord? He says, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”  In this case, as in the other cases where we see sinners repent when Jesus reaches out to them, we are not told whether or not Zacchaeus follows through on his promises.  Either we are to assume that he does what he says he will do—or that his promise is enough to show Jesus that he is turning in the right direction, whatever happens next.  The generous grace of the Lord always allows room for human imperfection.

So, what does it really mean to repent? Contemporary evangelists, whether we encounter them on street corners or on television, ask their audience to repent.  “Repent, for the kingdom is at hand” is just another way to say, “Get ready! The world is coming to an end!” I recently came across this definition of repentance by 19^th century Scottish writer and Congregationalist pastor George MacDonald: “What does repent mean? To weep that you have done something wrong? No, that is all very well, but that is not repentance. Is repentance to be vexed with yourself that you have fallen away from your own idea [of a good life]? No, that is not repentance. Turning your back upon the evil thing; pressing on to lay hold of that which Christ laid hold upon you. To repent is to think better of it, to turn away from the evil. No man is ever condemned for the wicked things he has done; he is condemned because he won’t leave them.”

“No man (or woman) is ever condemned for the wicked things he has done; he is condemned because he won’t leave them.”  All of us make mistakes; sometimes those mistakes are calamitous. Often, we make the same mistakes repeatedly. Yet, in his invitation to Zacchaeus, Jesus offers the grace the man needs to turn away from the sins he has committed. In essence, the Lord says to him, “Turn away from the life you have been living. Leave the selfishness of that life behind. Now that you have climbed a tree to see what I have to give you, now that you know there is a better way, your only choice is to leave that old life behind.”  The Lord says to Zacchaeus as he says to all of us, “When you know there is another way, when you reach a point in your life where you realize the way you are living no longer has meaning or value or goodness, then your only choice is to let it go and trust in me. Follow my way instead.” 

To follow the gracious way of the Lord is to let the rule of love guide our behavior. When he truly repented, Zacchaeus found himself so full of gratitude for the Lord’s kindness and mercy that he offered to share half of what he had with the poor.  Will he ever sin again? Probably! He is human and imperfect, as are all of us. I think it’s fair to say that we often genuinely repent, and then we turn around and sin in some new way. Yet we can take heart from the experience of Zacchaeus and trust that our genuine repentance will always reconnect us with God’s mercy. After all, Jesus had a plan for Zacchaeus, a despised tax collector, so surely we can believe He has a plan for us.

I recently came across a passage I had marked some time ago in an old Forward Day by Day, and the words from an unknown writer beautifully express the nature of our relationship with the Lord: “If we are saved it is because of what God believes about us, not what we believe about God. Salvation is not relative. God does not pick ‘the best of us’ out of the barrel and destine us for salvation. God wondrously loves. That is our single asset and hope.”

Forget the internal street corner preacher voices that tell you you are not good enough, that say you are unworthy. I pray that in the days and weeks ahead, if you feel alone or discouraged or just plain tired, you will remember that our gracious and merciful God believes in you and loves you unconditionally.  AMEN.

Lazarus at Our Gate?

Homily for Sunday, September 25,  2016   Graves Chapel

Lessons:

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Luke 16: 19-31

The collect appointed for today:

O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today we revisit Paul’s first letter to Timothy, and we find here some of scripture’s most famous words about the desire for wealth and its perils: “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it…For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” In his parable, our Savior Jesus, who died as poor as he was born, tells the story of a poor beggar who has come to be known as “Lazarus at the Gate.”  The parables and lessons Jesus teaches sometimes have enough ambiguity, enough nuance, so that they can be interpreted in various ways.  Jesus doesn’t often speak in black and white terms on moral issues, primarily because the focus of his lessons is more likely to be mercy than condemnation. Think of the incident of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus by the Pharisees who expect Jesus to agree with them in their harsh judgment of her. Instead, Jesus challenges them, “You who are without sin, cast the first stone at her.”  The Pharisees slink away, and Jesus says to the woman, “Neither will I condemn you.”  In the story of Lazarus at the gate, however, Jesus is very clear about who will be condemned—and why.  In this story, the rich man doesn’t have a chance.

In my last sermon, I shared Richard Rohr’s explanation of the ways in which scripture suggests over and over again that we human followers of Christ share moral equivalency with God.  By using the term “moral,” Rohr makes clear that we are, of course, in no way equal to God on our own terms; instead, it is God’s expectation of our behavior towards others that places us on a plain of moral equivalency with God. When I treat others as I would have them treat me, I show them God’s love. In becoming God’s face, feet, and hands in the world, we are called to that moral equivalency and asked no less than to seek and serve Christ in all persons—as Christ himself would serve them. 

So how would a world governed by humans living out God’s call to moral equivalency appear?  Wouldn’t such a world truly be God’s Kingdom? Here is the way the prophet Isaiah described it:

“The wolf shall live with the lamb.

  The leopard shall lie down with the kid,

  the calf and the lion cub together,

  and a little child shall lead them.”

Who are the wolves, leopards, and bears in our society, in our world? Are they those who are rich and powerful? Then, who are the lambs, kids, and calves? If Jesus himself, according to this prophecy, is the little child who leads them, how is Jesus childlike?

            Certainly, in the power of his wisdom, in the unyielding courage we see him display over and over again in his defiance of the authorities, Jesus is not a child.  Or, at least, he doesn’t appear to be very child-like. Still, children seem to come into the world with a powerful sense of what is fair or unfair, what is true or false. Think of the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes and the little boy who speaks the truth about what the emperor is really wearing (or not wearing, in this case.) Any adult who has ever interacted with a child has surely heard the impassioned words, “That is not fair!” Children possess a certain fearlessness on behalf of justice.

            I am reminded of a scene in the beloved novel (and movie), To Kill a Mockingbird. Brave and righteous attorney Atticus Finch takes his pipe, a book, and a lamp to the courthouse in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. He intends to spend the night outside the jail cell of his client, Tom Robinson, a black man who has been wrongly accused and found guilty of raping a white woman. The scene is set in the 1930s, and Atticus believes some of the white men of that community may come to the jail that night and try to lynch Tom.

As it turns out, Atticus anticipated correctly. A mob of men arrives in the middle of the night, doing that thing that mobs do best: turning ordinary decent people into ravening beasts. All it takes is one or two forceful leaders to spew hatred and to challenge the manhood of their followers, and a mob is born.

            But what Atticus did not anticipate, and certainly did not want, was to have his young children appear on the scene. Jem, his son, and Scout, his daughter, along with their friend Dill, decide it is their job to help their father. They have no idea what is about to happen; they simply know, in that instinctive way of children, that Atticus may need them.

            When Scout and Jem and Dill arrive on the square, they find Atticus holding firm outside the jailhouse door, trying to reason with the menacing leaders of the mob. Scout, without considering the risks, weaves herself through the crowd and stands next to her father. Having lived all of her young life in this little town, she is puzzled to see men she knows behaving in such a mean way. And Scout does that thing that Jesus does best when he wants to get our attention: she calls the men by name. With the innocent honesty of a little girl, she asks them what they are doing. She speaks directly to the father of one of her classmates, asking him to say “hey” to his little boy for her. In this way, the men of that mob become individuals again. Each one becomes himself again, aware of his responsibilities, and the mob silently disperses.

            Scout has become the little lamb who leads them, with innocent courage and a childlike desire for fairness—for what is right.  Like all children, Scout possesses no power. She certainly is no king or potentate or warrior—or, for that matter, wolf, leopard, bear, or lion.  Like Jesus, and like her father, Scout is on the side of the poor, the defenseless, the downtrodden.

            The poor man in today’s parable spends most of his time begging next to the gate of a rich man’s property. Like the courthouse doorway being guarded by Atticus Finch, the gate in this parable represents the barrier between two arenas: unjust power on one side and deserving poverty on the other. We are told several things about the rich man: that he dresses in purple and fine linen, that he feasts sumptuously every day, that he has five equally wealthy and corrupt brothers. But we are never told his name.  In this story, only the poor beggar covered in sores is given a name: Lazarus.  Consider! In the telling of this parable, Jesus refuses to dignify the rich man with a name, but he gives the name Lazarus, a name we know in another context as being the name of one of his best friends, to a beggar whose sores are licked by dogs. In the world we live in today (and, to be fair, in past generations), rich and powerful people are known and revered by name.  Even in Jesus’s time, people like the beggar Lazarus were considered members of a nameless throng, the countless, wretched, and powerless poor. I guess when we see them in that way, they are easier for us to ignore. But in this parable, Jesus clearly illustrates who is more important in God’s kingdom. When he dies, Lazarus is carried to heaven by angels and is comforted. The rich man, who never helped Lazarus while he had the opportunity, dies and goes straight to hell. 

          With the kind of audacity possessed by people who have always had things their way, the nameless rich man asks Father Abraham to send Lazarus to him with some water.  Abraham refuses, explaining that in the Kingdom things just don’t work that way. Then the rich man wants Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house to warn his family members about what is in store for them if they keep hording their wealth, arguing when Abraham objects that his brothers will surely believe a risen dead man—the beggar Lazarus, in this case. In telling this parable, Jesus clearly reminds us, as he reminds the deceased rich man, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead.”

            Could there be a double meaning for us in those last words of the parable?  Have we really been convinced by our risen Lord that serving Him is more important than serving our own self-interest? Or have we forsaken our Christian moral responsibility to seek and serve the Lord in ALL persons?  If we need a reminder of how our responsibility plays itself out in the real world, we need look no further than Paul’s letter to Timothy:  “As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”

The collect for today states, “O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity.”  Poor Lazarus found the mercy and pity he had always deserved when he arrived in heaven.  May we discover such abundant mercy on this side of the heavenly gate as we love all others just as Christ has loved us and take hold of the life that really is LIFE. 

AMEN.