Maundy Thursday & Good Friday Sermons

 

Maundy Thursday

As you go home after tonight’s service, if you happen to pass by a fast-food restaurant (especially Chick-fil-a), check out the line of cars in the drive-thru.  It will be long and littered with SUV’s – a sure sign many American families are not gathering around a dinner table this evening for a meal.  I read recently fast-food establishments are transforming their in-person dining facilities.  Many are cutting down dramatically the size of their seating areas in favor of expanding curbside and drive-thru capacity.  What does this tell you about the current status of the American dinner experience?  I noted – with some amusement – KFC is a part of this trend.  My two reactions to this news were these: 1) I don’t eat ‘food’ from KFC, and 2) if I did, I certainly wouldn’t sit in their lobby to do it!

At the center of tonight’s service is a meal; a meal which has been given a memorable moniker – “the Last Supper” – and has been depicted by artists thousands of times over, perhaps most famously by da Vinci.  The customs and practices around meals will tell you a lot about the culture of time.  Just as the drive-thru reveals much about our day, meals in Jesus’ day expressed the social, symbolic, and spiritual values of its time. 

Think about the meals mentioned in the gospels and the stories Jesus tells centered around the sharing of food.  They are (or should be) expressions of hospitality, affirmations of kinship, friendship, and status, and settings for peaceful interactions.  Meals fell into one of three categories: ordinary, festive, and sacred and all three were understood to be spiritual occasions.  Ordinary meals might include bread, grains, olives and olive oil, and bean stews, as well various fruits, cheeses, and fish.  Festive and sacred meals added different kinds of meat to the menu.     

Meals were served indoors or in places shaded from the sun.  Typically, food was served on a low table or on mat or simply in bowls passed around among the diners.  Those eating either knelt on the floor or sat cross-legged.  Reclining by resting your head close to the chest of the person next to you was a common practice at festive and sacred meals, leading to the expression ‘bosom buddies.’  Tables with chairs, as we think of them, were reserved for royalty and the well-to-do.

Because bread was an indispensable staple at most meals it became synonymous with the meal itself.  We still hold on to the expression “breaking bread” because bread was torn off from the loaf by hand, not cut. 

Most food was passed among guests and eaten by hand directly from the dish, bowl or plate on which was served.  This led to some elaborate pre-meal practices around personal hygiene, which included washing of hands and feet as well as the use of perfume or oil.  Over time, what once served as a practical consideration (cleaning up before eating) evolved into religious obligation concerned with ritual purity.  It was customary to recite short prayers at the beginning of a meal and longer prayers of thanksgiving after the conclusion.

Various specific directions set forth etiquette for Hebrew meals; all practical, some humorous:

·    You should not talk with food in your mouth, for it can prove dangerous should it go down the windpipe.  Even saying “bless you” to person who has sneezed should be avoided.  However, if you push the food to the side of his mouth, there is no concern about talking.

·    When you distribute pieces of bread to those eating with you, you should not throw the bread to the recipient nor hand it to him directly.  Rather, it should be placed before the person on a plate or in a bowl.

·    It is improper to eat or drink while standing.

·    It is not proper to wipe your plate clean while eating so that nothing is left on it.  Some food, even a small amount, should remain.  

·    It is also improper to lick your fingers.

·    If you are a guest in a home, do not demand food to eat, rather, wait until food is offered.

·    If two people are eating together from the same plate (say, sharing olives from a common bowl) and one person stops eating in order to drink or to do another minor act, the other person needs to stop eating from the bowl and wait until his friend is ready to resume.  If, however, three people are eating from the same plate or bowl and one person interrupts his eating, it is not necessary for the other two to pause.

All of these cultural expectations serve to highlight a distinctive aspect of the first Passover meal described in tonight’s reading from the Book of Exodus:

This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. 

It is the modern day equivalent of having your child in her soccer uniform and cleats as you hit the drive thru on the way to practice.  The Passover is anything but a leisurely meal typical of the culture at the time.  It is eating on the run.  It stands out because it is the exception, not the rule.  In our time, dining is the exception.  Rushing is the norm.

The early Church soon discovered when they gathered for a communal meal – observing all the norms and customs of the day, but also remembering the last meal they shared with Jesus – the Risen Lord became known to them.  Early on, there was a physical presence.  After the Ascension, the presence was spiritual.  We experience this in our day when we gather in this place around its table and do what we do in remembrance of Christ. 

We also experience it in our homes and with our friends as we sit down for a meal where we have time truly to be present to one another.  At occasions like these, which are becoming rare in our society, God’s Spirit moves in and through the gathering in ways that refresh and restore us while bonding and binding us to one another in love. 

I miss our Agape Meal tonight because of the way it brings together the sacred and the social.  It starts with the preparation – food and decoration – continues through the meal, and lingers even into the clean-up.  It has a powerful way of connecting us to one another and of connecting us to the One who is our Host.  God willing, next year we will gather at table in the Parish Hall once again and dine with one another.  Tonight we give thanks for the opportunity to gather in this sacred meal and moment at the Lord’s Table.

Good Friday

Jesus said, “Woman, behold thy son.”

The Greek philosopher Herodotus is remembered for noting the major difference between times of peace and times of war is during peace children bury their parents and during war parents bury their children.  Whatever the political climate is, every parent carries a secret fear someday he or she will lose a child.  Without question, the most grief-filled memorial services are those where a parent has to bury a child, no matter if the child is two or thirty-two. 

What must be going through the mind of Mary, the holy mother, as she watches her son die on the Cross?

As a young girl, perhaps no older than fourteen, she is visited by an angel whose puzzling message proclaims she will conceive through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and give birth to a son.  We find the angel’s words in Luke 1:32:

“He will be great,

and will be called the Son of the Most High;

   and the Lord God will give to him

   the throne of his father David,

and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever;

   and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

The fear-filled little girl responds, “Let it be to me according to your word.” 

Surely this is one of the memories flooding Mary’s mind as she watches her flesh and blood hang on the tree.

In the months following the angel’s visit, Mary must have endured great shame being pregnant and unwed.  Yet she is still able to make this proclamation to her cousin Elizabeth:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

   for He has regarded

   the low estate of his handmaiden.

For behold,

henceforth all generations will call me blessed;

   for He has done great things for me

   and holy is his Name…”

Does Mary remember these words as she grieves at Calvary?  Surely she does not perceive herself as blessed among all people on that terrible Friday afternoon.

Think of all the unusual events associated with the birth of Jesus.  Luke records on the night of Jesus’ birth shepherds come to the manger telling a story of angelic visions and choruses.  Matthew records the visit of Magi who follow a star to the place where the child can be found.  Luke also records the declarations of Simeon and Anna at Jesus’ dedication in the Temple eight days after his birth.  While these events leave others confused, the Scriptures tells us Mary ponders them while keeping them in her heart. 

Imagine how great her hopes and expectations for her son must have been.  How many days must she have held her child to her breast dreaming of what he might become?   How many nights must she have put him to sleep with a prayer entrusting him into God’s care?  How many times does she catch a glimmer of the Divine growing in her boy and how often does she wonder what glorious things God will do through him, as she has been promised? 

Can anyone at the foot of the Cross be more dissolutioned?  Can anyone be more confused?  Can anyone be more grieved than Mary?

In the midst of great physical and emotional agony Jesus is aware of his mother and her anguish.  Scholars are somewhat puzzled by his words to her, “Woman, behold thy son” and to the disciple, “Behold, thy mother.”  Mary has several other children by Joseph who are capable of caring for her.  In fact, one son – James – becomes the leader of the church in Jerusalem, so it is not clear to experts why Jesus has to entrust her to one outside the family.  But this much we do know, the disciple takes the mother of our Lord into his care from this moment on. 

From this I deduce even in the throes of his suffering Jesus has compassion for us and for our needs.  He is ever-concerned for us as evidenced by his concern for his mother.  Given this, how much more is he able to care for us now in his glory?

I also believe family lines are redrawn not as a way to deal with loss and grief, but as a foreshadowing of what life in the resurrection will be like.  In a few short days Jesus will rise from the dead and appear to his followers in triumph.  When this happens realities such as biological relations will seem trivial in light of the bonds created among believers who experience the resurrection.

Just as those who wait at the foot of the Cross are bound together by their common experience, we are united in this place at this time because we come to observe Good Friday together.  Come Sunday we will be related by more than the fact we gather together in the same place.  We will be brothers and sisters in Christ based on the power of the resurrection in our lives.  For followers of Christ there is no stronger tie than the faith uniting us in Christ.  We rejoice together.  We weep together.  Let no one make a charge against one of the elect for we are family in Christ.  As it was at the foot of the Cross between Mary and the disciple, let it be for us.

The Passion as a Mirror

 

The Passion of our Lord according to Luke

Year C

It is perhaps the most troubling, most upsetting thing we are asked to do in liturgical worship.  Once each year we are required to become part of a mob witnessing the rigged trial of a person who brought peace into the world, modeled forgiveness, loved the unlovable, and criticized the hypocrisy of the elite, be they political, religious, or the indifferent well-to-do.  And with the mob we are forced to render a verdict. 

“Crucify him!  Crucify him!” 

The words which rang out in the courtyard in front of Pilate’s residence centuries ago become our words echoing throughout this space – this space where we come to be married, to baptize our children, to receive the sacrament, to ask God’s care and keep before we bury a loved one.  “Crucify him!” seems so out of step with everything else this place is for us, and yet it is here on this day we are directed to say these words; words which in some way link us to the original throng and make us culpable with them.

It has been well chronicled crucifixion is one of the cruelest, most painful forms of execution ever devised.  Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie The Passion of Christ was criticized for its extreme, graphic depiction, but (at least to my way of thinking), it was probably far tamer than the real thing.  I have heard numerous sermons and talks describing in detail the exact nature of the suffering crucifixion inflicts.  I will spare you the details. 

Typically, the point of such preaching is to impress upon the listener the pain and punishment Jesus took upon himself to pay the penalty for our sins.  The whole point of Passion Sunday, then, is to impose a quilt trip which will drive us to our knees in remorse.  This then motivates us to amend our lives moving forward in grateful acknowledgement of all Christ has won for us through his suffering on our behalf.  When accompanied by an extreme emotional response, it becomes what is known as a “conversion experience.”

This process is known as the atonement theory of the Crucifixion:

9    We are all sinners.

9    Sin demands punishment.

9    The punishment is death.

9    It is a cost too great for us to pay.

9    Christ, being sinless, pays the price (or atones) on our behalf. 

It is a nice, tidy theology, certainly with biblical roots and support from the ancient Hebrew sacrificial system.  But I wonder if we are missing something when the complex events of this day become as describable as a recipe for baking chocolate chip cookies.

In 1972, a French writer by the name of Rene Girard authored an influential and somewhat dense book titled Violence and the Sacred in which he explored the ritual role of sacrifice in diverse religious and cultural systems.  His work has been hailed by many for analyzing how socially sanctioned violence (like crucifixion) has been played out in many different cultures and ages. 

Girard sees in the Cross a kind of mirror which forces us to look at ourselves and at our society.  And what we see when we look at ourselves is our most violent tendencies, from political institutions to personal encounters.  In the Cross we see our tendency to scapegoat the weak and marginalized in order to absolve and unify the whole.  When we shout “Crucify him!”, it is not because we want redemption for telling petty lies or sneaking a second helping of dessert.  We are proclaiming Jesus must die because he threatens the status quo by calling into question fundamental aspects of our society and ways we benefit from them at the expense of others.

It takes a brave person to engage the news in our day and time: shootings in downtown Suffolk and a killing in northern part of our city; gunshots at McArthur Mall and Virginia Beach; gang shootings in Sacramento’s entertainment district, unspeakable, inhumane acts in the Ukraine; multiple states enacting legislation designed to marginalize the most vulnerable and misunderstood members of our society.  Ours is a violent world and the human race is a violent people.  In some way, shape, or form, every act of violence is a statement proclaiming I will get what I want at your expense, or I will make secure what I value by rendering you harmless.  This is the message mirrored back to us from the Cross.  This is what we seek when we say, “Crucify him!”  We want our lives to be better by making someone else’s worse.

The word ‘atonement’ was created by William Tyndale, the first person to translate the bible into English from original Hebrew and Greek texts.  It literally means “at-one-ment”, the bringing together of that which has been separated.  Tyndale used this word as a translation for several different biblical words which mean ‘reconciliation.’  Like so many before him, he saw in the Cross a work meant to unite God to a world estranged from God – at-one-ment – and to bridge the chasm between peoples so deeply divided against one another.  Does Jesus accomplish this by transferring the unpayable balance of our sins into his own account or did he make it possible by holding before us the worst of our behavior and calling us to repent? 

A rocket strike at a railroad station kills dozens of innocents, injuring scores more, all attempting to flee the destruction of their homeland.  Before the soldiers fired the weapon they took the time to paint on it a message: “For the Children.”  I ask you this: did Jesus die on the Cross so the sins of these perpetrators would be forgiven (the atonement theory) or to hold up to us a mirror which forces us to look at our darkest tendencies and calls us to repentance and change?

Well, either way, this much is certain: as individuals, as a people, as a society, as the human family, we desperately need God’s Spirit to fall upon us to transform us in ways we desire but cannot achieve through our own initiatives and merits.  Through the observance of Holy Week, we are invited to do more than shout “Crucify him.”  We are invited to walk with Jesus, to ponder the meaning of a symbolic foot washing, to share in the institution of his sacred meal, to stand in silence at Golgotha, to die with him, and (ultimately) to rise with him in newness of life.  It is a journey from “Crucify him” to “Create in me a new, clean heart.”  I invite you to join me on this pilgrimage of dying and new birth.

Jesus & The Sibs

 

John 12:1-8

Lent 5 / Year C

We Episcopalians hold the Scriptures “contain all things necessary for our salvation.”  In other words, they present us with all the information and revelation we need to carry on in the orthodox faith and life.  However, this statement of belief does not mean the Scriptures contain everything we would like to know.  We would love to know more about Jesus’ formative years.  Why is Joseph not present during Jesus’ public ministry?  What becomes of all the people Jesus touched during his ministry – Zacchaeus (the short tax-collector in a tree), Bartimaeus (a blind beggar), Legion (the demonic chained up in a cemetery), and the Samaritan woman at the well (an outcast in her own community) to name a few?  While we may wonder about these and other things, the gospel writers deemed them to be ancillary to their main work of presenting Jesus as the Messiah.

Among the people we meet in the gospels and would like to know better are three siblings, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany (a town about two miles southeast from Jerusalem on the opposite side of the Mount of Olives).  Here is what we know about them:

· They are very close and supportive friends of Jesus.

· They host him and his followers in their home at least twice, providing meals and hospitality for a large party at each occasion.

· At the first recorded gathering Mary sits at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching while Martha (the older sister) busies herself with the details of preparing a meal and serving.  Martha finds this irksome and complains. 

· At a later time, Lazarus becomes ill and the sisters send word to Jesus.  Jesus delays and Lazarus dies.  He arrives four days later.  Each sister believes he could have saved their brother, but each also professes a belief in the eventual Resurrection of the dead.  Jesus goes to the tomb of his friend, weeps, and calls him back to life.

· This event becomes known throughout the region and it is so threatening to Temple officials they begin to seek a course of action to have Jesus arrested and executed.

· Lazarus himself, telling his story often and everywhere, becomes a threat and the same officials seek to have him put to death as well.

· A week before the Passover Jesus is at his friends’ home and Mary anoints his feet with a costly perfume while Martha serves a meal (this time seeming at peace with her role).  Judas becomes upset at the lavish nature of Mary’s gesture and Jesus’ response becomes the impetus driving him to betrayal.

From what we know, it is obvious Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are a significant part of Jesus’ life and ministry.  Here is what we don’t know:

· The three siblings appear not to be married, live together, and have some means.  What is their story?

· How initially do they meet Jesus and become so devoted to him?

· Do they travel with Jesus on any of his missionary journeys?

· Does Jesus stay with them during his many visits to Jerusalem for religious festivals, including the final days of his life?

· Is either sister among the women present at Golgotha for the crucifixion and does either go to the tomb early on Easter morning to anoint the body with burial perfumes?

· What becomes of the three after the Resurrection?  We hear nothing more about them in Scripture, which seems odd.

Here is a possible scenario answering at least some of these questions:

We learn from other passages in the gospels (Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9) the home in Bethany Jesus visits is owned by Simon (a common name in the New Testament), who is given the surname “the Leper”.

There are a couple of things confusing about this.  First, there is another incident in Bethany where Jesus is having a meal in the house of Simon who is a Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50) when a “woman who is a sinner” anoints Jesus’ feet with costly perfume and her tears.  Some are tempted to combine these events, making them different ways of telling the same story.  But there are significant differences between the two and it is best to understand them has separate events. 

If Simon the Leper is the father of the three siblings, and if Jesus heals him, this goes a long way in explaining their devotion to him.  However, there is no mention in the gospels of Jesus healing a leper by the name of Simon.  In addition, the designation “the Leper” is in the present tense, as if Simon still has the disease.  If this is the case, we are left to wonder why he is still allowed to live in the same home as his children, rather than being consigned to a leper colony.

It is possible the designation “Leper” is a mistranslation from way back because very closely related to this Greek word is one which means “the Potter.”  If Simon is in the pottery business this explains both the family’s affluence as well as Mary’s access to an expensive alabaster jar of ointment. 

Most likely we will never know how Jesus initially meets the three siblings or how we can account for their devotion to him.  Perhaps it is as simple as they hear him teaching in the Temple one day, are drawn to his message, and invite him to their home.  And most likely they are much more involved in the events of Jesus’ life and ministry than the gospels record. 

After the Resurrection, the most notable Christian tradition holds the siblings flee to Cyprus where Lazarus eventually serves a bishop before dying of natural causes.  Another lesser tradition holds they flee to Gaul and again, Lazarus becomes a bishop.  However, this tradition holds he is beheaded during a period of persecution against Christians.

Here are some things Jesus’ friendship with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus tells us about him: 

· First, Jesus values compassion over potential conflict and personal harm.  He does for his friends even knowing his actions will comprise his own safety. 

· We learn he is a person of deep emotion who is grieved to the core by the death of a friend.

· We hear his friends express their disappointment in him, but he does not lash out in response.

· We witness how he willingly receives gestures of comfort and respite – a meal, a tender caress.

· He seems very protective of his friends – especially Mary.  Both when Martha criticizes her and when Judas criticizes her, Jesus comes to her defense.

In 1855, when Joseph Scriven wrote “What a friend we have in Jesus”, he honed in on “all my sins and griefs to bear.”  From his relationship with this one family we discover Jesus is capable of a kind of friendship which goes well beyond utilitarian – if you do this for me, I will do something for you.  Jesus offers friendship marked by intimacy, caring, openness, and selflessness.  Can you use a friend like this?

The New Days

 

Joshua 5:9-12

Lent 2 / Year C

We had an early-afternoon appointment with our OBGYN a week before the due-date of our second daughter.  My wife was experiencing “back labor”, which apparently is uncomfortable.  Because Abbey was scheduled to be a C-section delivery, the doctor said, “You have gone long enough.  Let me call the hospital and see when they have an OR available.”  The word came back… 5:00 PM.  We went home, packed a bag, made arrangements for friends to care for our older daughter, fed the dog, and headed to the hospital.  One the way we stopped at a camera shop to pick up a couple of rolls of film and video tape to record the momentous occasion.  I still recall looking at my watch.  It was 3:30.  How odd, I thought, in 90 minutes our lives will never be the same; odd not that it was happening, but to be in possession of such knowledge down to the exact minute.

Life’s major transitions don’t always come so neatly scheduled, but some do.  Graduation.  Moving into a new house.  Starting a new job.  Your wedding day.  Relocating to a state.  Your last scheduled day of treatment before being given a clean bill of health.  Turning 16, 18, or 21, with all the new opportunities each age confers.  Retirement.  As I noted in Friday’s e-news, transitions come in many shapes and sizes; expected or unexpected; rapid or drawn out; anticipated or dreaded; embraced or resisted. 

In today’s first lesson, we read about a transition which has been a long-time coming.  God’s people, once enslaved in Egypt, cross the Jordon River and return to the Promised Land.  It has been forty years since the Exodus.  No adult whose feet touched the dry bottom of the Red Sea is still alive.  This is a new day for God’s new people, who bear the stories, traditions, heritage, and identity of their ancestors.  Some of it will translate into their new environment.  Much of it will not.

I remember graduating from seminary in Mid-May of 1987.  While it was a goal I worked hard to achieve, I had an overwhelming sense a significant part of my life was dying.  The community I had joined would never again be together in the same form or fashion.  Many of the daily routines and rituals I had come to enjoy would be left behind or drastically altered.  I was no longer a student receiving the wisdom of the church’s best and brightest.  It was now time for me to produce… something… somehow.

The next few weeks were a feverous whirl of events.  Moving back to Ohio.  Sleeping on a friend’s couch until I could rent a place of my own.  Being ordained a deacon.  And then, about fifty days after leaving the hallowed grounds of Virginia Seminary (affectionately known as ‘the Holy Hill’), came Day One of working in a church.  I sat in my office, which overlooked an alleyway, stared at the typewriter lounging on my desk, and wondered to myself, “What am I supposed to do now?”  Clueless, I took out a calculator, pencil, and paper and counted the number of Sunday’s until the day I retire – 2,444, give or take, and maybe something like 14,600 days.

Our very brief reading from the Book of Joshua belies the significance of the event it describes.  As if the transition from wilderness wandering to settled occupation was not enough, this day also represents the fulfillment of the promise Abram received from God centuries earlier when he lived in the region of Ur – “Take up family and possessions and go to a land I will show you.  I will be with you there and your descendants will prosper.”  This part of the story weaves through three generations in the Book of Genesis, makes its way to Egypt and several more generations in the Book of Exodus, and lumbers on through four decades of aimlessness in the Sinai before concluding with today’s reading.

The concise description of this time rings true to life.  Joshua and God’s people must decide what from their past is useful in their present and will translate into their future.  They decide to undergo the rite of circumcision (the sign of the covenant) and to celebrate the Passover Meal (reliving the events delivering their parents and grandparents from bondage to freedom).  They also decide to bring with them sacred objects accumulated on the way; chief of which is the ark with the Tablets of Law.  And finally, we learn some things from the transitional time are no longer appropriate, needed, or available to God’s people; specifically, the manna (or food from heaven) ceases and each person must now live off the fruit of his or her own labor. 

I suspect if you contemplate some of the transitions in your own life you will see a emerge a pattern similar to this – the holdovers, the new acquisitions, what is going to be left behind, and what has to be taken on.

After two years, it feels like we are at a transitional point with the pandemic.  While there is not a specific date or event marking the moment, the past few weeks have seen a dramatic change, haven’t they.  Although most of us reside in the same physical space and many of us hold the same job as before, so much about life has changed.  We have lost some folks to the virus.  Some relationships have drifted apart.  We have aged and become more isolated.  Some are bitter at what has been lost.  Some bristle at the sacrifices required to see us through.  Some are more anxious and uncertain.  I don’t know about you, but I start to wretch when I hear a modern-day ‘prophet’ tell me everything about the world has completely changed or there is no going back to the way things used to be. 

This transition will be like all that have come before.  We will figure out the most important memories and rituals to carry into the future.  We will figure out which of our pandemic adaptions will be useful as we move forward.  And we will discern what it looks like to pick up and carry on as a new day dawns.  God’s unfailing and unflagging promise to us remains the same… to be with us to lead us to a new day and a new place.  What was, was… wonderful, missed, mourned at times.  But our God is the God of what will be. 

Edgar Guest was a Detroit newspaperman and popular people’s poet of the first half and the last century.  One of his works titled The New Days pairs well with the crossing of the Jordon:

The old days, the old days,

how oft the poets sing,

The days of hope at dewy morn,

the days of early spring,

The days when every mead was fair,

and every heart was true,

And every maiden wore a smile,

and every sky was blue.

The days when dreams were golden

and every night brought rest,

The old, old days of youth and love,

the days they say were best

But I--I sing the new days,

the days that lie before.

The days of hope and fancy,

the days that I adore.

The new days, the new days,

the selfsame days they are;

The selfsame sunshine heralds them,

the selfsame evening star

Shines out to light them on their way

unto the Bygone Land,

And with the selfsame arch of blue

the world to-day is spanned.

The new days, the new days,

when friends are just as true,

And maidens smile upon us all,

the way they used to do.

Dreams we know are golden dreams,

hope springs in every breast;

It cheers us in the dewy morn

and soothes us when we rest.

The new days, the new days,

of them I want to sing,

The new days with the fancies

and the golden dreams they bring;

The old days had their pleasures,

but likewise have the new

The gardens with their roses

and the meadows bright with dew;

We love to-day the selfsame way

they loved in days of old;

The world is bathed in beauty

and it isn’t growing cold;

There’s joy for us a-plenty,

there are tasks for us to do,

And life is worth the living,

for the friends we know are true.

This morning we gather on a new side of the Jordon and give thanks for the promise and hope of the new days.

Life is Short, but There is Still Time!

 

Luke 13:1-9

Lent 3/ Year C

Did you hear about the nun who procrastinated doing her laundry?  She had a filthy habit. 

What do you call a fire-breathing lizard that procrastinates?  Dragon his feet.

Who does a procrastinator see when he isn’t feeling well?  Dr. Dolittle.

Had enough?

This morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke is aimed directly at those who assume there always will be a time down the road to tend to what we put off for now.  Some people ask Jesus about an unspecified number of Galileans Pilate had executed as they worshipped in the temple.  Given Jesus is also a Galilean, almost certainly he personally knows some who were lost.  Jesus responds by referencing eighteen people who died when a tower collapsed on them.  Within the language of “none of them were worse sinners than any of you” is the heart of Jesus’ message in the face of these horrific losses: Life is short!

It is a basic truth easy to overlook as one day follows in the footsteps of another and another and another.  For most of us, we only break out of this illusion when we experience a loss confronting us with the shortness and uncertainty of life.

How would you complete the following statement: Life is short…   A little Google research provides some possibilities. 

Life is short.

    Break the rules! 

    Live it!

    Experiment! 

    Lick the spoon!

    Buy the shoes! 

    Smile while you still have teeth! 

Perhaps the best advice: Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly, and forgive quickly! 

And how would you complete this variation of the same statement:  Life is too short to… Some suggestions… 

Life is too short to…

    …wake up with regrets. 

    …hide your feelings. 

    …worry about anything. 

    …wait. 

    …live with ‘what ifs.’ 

    …waste a single second on someone who doesn’t value or appreciate you. 

    …make excuses. 

    …read a bad book. 

I like what Christine Caine, a Christian author from Australia, says: “Life is too short, the world is too big, and God’s love is too great to live ordinary.”

I have always loved the thinking of the poet who wrote the 90^th Psalm:

You sweep us away like a dream; *

   we fade away suddenly like the grass.

In the morning it is green and flourishes; *

   in the evening it is dried up and withered.

The span of our life is seventy years,

perhaps in strength even eighty; *

   yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow,

   for they pass away quickly and we are gone.

So teach us to number our days *

   that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.

Some may find its message to be depressing, even dour.  Given what Jesus says in today’s reading, I would say he finds it to be sobering and motivating.  It tells us it is time to ditch Dr. Dolittle, to stop Dragon our feet, and to make the most of the time we do have.

And this is the second part of Jesus’ message: You still have time!  For the unproductive fig tree, there is another year.  For you and me, who can say?  But there is still time.  If you have been watching the college basketball tournament, chances are you have heard an announcer say something like, “Team X is down by 12, but there is still time for them to get back in this game.”  Maybe you have seen Peter Seidel’s book on climate change titled, “There is Still Time.”  The other day I received an email informing me there is still time to register for next week’s seminar.  Each example combines a sense of hope with a sense of urgency.  Life is a little bit like those infomercials warning us to act now before time runs out on this offer!

I suspect the two times most of us attempt to make a significant course correction in our lives come at the beginning of the year and in Lent.  New Year’s resolutions are fraught with failure, perhaps because most are grounded in will power entirely apart from a spiritual undertaking.  Lent, on the other hand, infamously involves frivolous sacrifices… “I am giving up okra and beets this year”, when it can invoke God’s help to forsake habits and/or embrace changes which truly matter.

And God will help.  In today’s reading we learn Jesus says we have more than time.  We have the Master Gardener working in us and for us to encourage us to be as fruitful as possible.  In other words, God is working with us as we seek to make the best use of our treasure, our talents, and our time.  Stephen Covey, the author of Habits of Highly Effective People notes, “The bad news is time flies, but the good news is you are the pilot.”  We people of faith might add, “And we have a co-pilot we can trust to see us through.”

Here is a question:  What would you do if I promised to deposit $86,400 is your bank account each and every day of the rest of your life, with one condition… one day’s balance does not carry over to the next day.  Whatever you don’t use gets deleted when the bank closes at 5:00 PM.  But not to worry, when it opens the next morning your new account balance for the day will be $86,400.  Does it sound like an offer too good to be true?  Well, the surprising truth is each of us has just such an account.  Rather than money, each day you are credited with time – 86,400 seconds to be exact.  You can’t save it for tomorrow.  You can’t borrow from the future.  You must use your daily allotment of time in the best and wisest way possible.  What are you doing with this gift?  What changes might you make in order to make better use of each day’s deposit?  How is God prodding you and partnering with you to make good use of one of God’s greatest gifts to you… the gift of time?

Remember.  Life is short, but there is still time.