The 5th Sunday of Easter: Discerning God's Will

A parishioner comes to see the minister. He is thinking about quitting his job and starting a new business. It is an important decision with significant ramifications. It is something he has been praying about for a long time and now believes that God is telling him to make the change. A woman has a premonition that something is wrong with her sister so dials the phone. “How are you doing?” she asks, “God told me to give you a call.” An angry young man straps a homemade bomb around his waist, walks into a hospital, and sets it off. He kills himself and dozens of other people. Why? Because God told him to do it.

Our Christian faith holds that God speaks to us through the Holy Spirit. At one time or another, most of us have responded to what we have perceived to be God’s will. We as a parish listen intently for God’s guidance. For instance, two and a half years ago the Search Committee reported to the Vestry that God had led them to a particular candidate to call as Rector. The Episcopal Church constantly engages in discernment as we seek to bring the Good News to a changing and challenging world. The Spirit can speak clearly to us as individuals, to us as a faith community, and to us as a denominational body. But, we know that not everyone who hears a god-voice is actually being led by God’s Spirit. And there are times we wonder if what we hear is in fact God speaking to us and if what we think we hear God saying to do is actually what God wants us to do.

These concerns have been with the Church from its very inception. Our first reading from the Book of Acts is Peter’s eyewitness account of what is known as “the Gentile Pentecost.” You will recall that Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples and they began to speak in various languages as they proclaimed the Good News of God in Christ to all people. That outpouring of the Holy Spirit was experienced exclusively by Jewish followers of Jesus (the text refers to them as “circumcised believers” because they were raised up in and conform to Jewish customs and practices). Their subsequent work and ministry was directed exclusively to people of the Jewish faith tradition.

In today’s reading Peter provides an account of how all of this changed. He shares the details of how Holy Spirit fell upon a Gentile named Cornelius and upon his family. The Spirit manifested among them with the same signs manifested by the disciples at the initial Pentecost.

Peter makes this report at what is now known as the First Council (or assembly) at Jerusalem. Word of what Peter had done spread among the circumcised believers in Judea. They were shocked to learn that Peter entered the home of a Gentile and that he ate a meal there. Both acts rendered him unclean according to the laws of Jewish purity. Peter defends his actions before the council by pointing to his vision, to the timing of Cornelius’ men approaching him, to Cornelius’ own dream, to Cornelius’ devout lifestyle, and – most importantly – to the way the Holy Spirit fell on the gathered Gentiles. Peter, perceiving that the Holy Spirit was a gift common both to those circumcised and to those uncircumcised, recognizes that the Church as God dreams of it will be more widely cast and inclusive than the disciples initially had thought.

A second council will be called in Jerusalem to debate the need for Gentiles to be circumcised and to adhere to other demands of the Law. Both gatherings determine that God’s Spirit is speaking clearly; inviting Gentiles into the faith, but not requiring them to conform to a Jewish heritage foreign to their own upbringing.

Several guiding principles have emerged over the centuries as devout men and woman have sought ways to authenticate God’s leading:

• Is this leading calling you to do something clearly immoral? If so, than it is not God speaking to you. God does not sanction suicide bombers.

• Is it foolishly reckless? God does not want to test your faith by asking you to swim in the Niagara River just above the falls.

• Is it contrary to the will of God we see revealed in Christ? Notice that is says “as revealed in Christ.” We believe that the fullest expression of God’s will is found in the life and words of Jesus. His example of loving your neighbor supersedes an Old Testament figure’s call to kill the enemy. His way elevating the place of woman in His company supersedes Paul’s counsel to a specific faith community that women should be silent in church or that they may never teach men.

• To what degree does the call fulfill an ego desire? The more it is about what you need the more likely the voice is your own and not the Spirit’s.

• Does the prompting have a compulsive power? A compelling call and psychological compulsion are not the same thing. Does this sound like God’s call to you: “I like that new sports car, I want that new sports car, I need that new sports car, I can’t think of anything else but that sports car, I can’t live without that sports car, Hey, I just got a tax refund so God must want me to have that new sports car.” Compulsions leave no room for freedom of choice, but divine promptings can always be refused because God never overrides our free will.

• Does what God calls you to do produce fear, or bring peace and joy? Most callings are accompanied by a certain amount of apprehension, but this gives way as you become more settled and certain in God’s leading.

• What are the consequences of my saying yes? Being able to anticipate the downside and to embrace the challenging aspects of what will or might happen is an important part of the process of responding to God’s call.

• What would be the fruit of my saying no? Again, this aspect of discernment forces us to take off our blinders and really look at the issue from all angles.

Several years ago the educator and writer Parker Palmer faced a major decision. He had interviewed for a college president’s position and had been offered the job. He was part of a Quaker community that practiced group discernment so its leaders gathered in a room with him where all sat in prayerful silence. Slowly and over time, individuals felt led by the Spirit to ask engaging questions to which Palmer would respond. One person asked what he anticipated not liking about the position. He reflected and said he would not like the fund-raising, nor would he care for the faculty politics, nor was he excited about navigating difficult issues with the student body, nor did he care for the job’s public demands that would come at the expense of teaching and research. A long period of silence followed before someone asked what excited him most about being a college president. The response was sure and confident: having his picture appear in the newspaper announcing the new hire. Some time passed before a person asked, “Can you think of any other way to get your picture in the paper?” And with that, Palmer determined that God was not calling him to take the job.

We rejoice that God speaks to us in many and varied ways, that we are led along right pathways, that we are prompted towards acts of courage and compassion. But we also recognize that many times it is not easy to distinguish between what may be God’s call and what may be something else. We in the Church hold that wisdom and discernment resides in the common whole; that God’s will is authenticated more easily by two or three than by one alone. There are times when the one moves the whole into a fuller realization of God’s dream for all people. We see this is today’s reading about Peter. And there are times when the whole corrects and redirects the thinking of the one. It may not always be easy or clean or clear or conflict free, but we see in today’s reading that from the beginning of the Church it is the way God speaks to us and leads us.

The 4th Sunday of Easter: Tabitha's Story

The assigned lessons during the season of Easter always gives us a chance to read from the Book of Acts; a book which contains the stories and testimony of the early Church. These stories begin with events just a few weeks after the Resurrection and move forward twenty-some years.

There is a lot going on between the lines in today’s narrative, which otherwise appears to be straight-forward. Let me list out a few of these things:

* The Book of Acts focuses on Peter and Paul. Today’s narrative is part of an arc that refocuses on the Peter’s ministry after a description of Paul’s conversion.

* Acts 9:32-11:18 describes Peter’s role in the conversion of Cornelius, a Roman centurion who is the first Gentile convert to the faith.

* This story arc begins with Peter’s healing of a paralytic, then tells today’s story where Peter is the lead figure in bringing back to life a woman named Tabitha. Both events establish Peter’s credentials to convert a Gentile by demonstrating his works as being like those of the prophets and Jesus Himself.

* The twin cities of Lydda and Joppa lie on the Mediterranean coast and have some historical significance that bears on this arc. Jonah (of Jonah and the whale fame) was in the city of Joppa when God called him to prophesy to the Gentile city of Nineveh. That Peter is in the same city when he receives direction from God to proclaim the Gospel to a Gentile adds additional validation to this sweeping theological and ecclesiastical change in the life of the early Church.

With all of this going on, it might be easy to miss the value of the story itself. Given that, and the addition of the miraculous act of bringing a dead person back to life, it is possible to overlook the very human elements of this story.

There was a disciple in Joppa named Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas and means “gazelle.” Is there significance to referencing her two names? Well, think about Simon, who is also known as Peter, and Saul, whose name is changed to Paul. The mention of a dual name seems to imply status in the life of the early Church. Tabitha’s status is further affirmed by the way the narrative refers to her as being a ‘disciple.’ This is the only instance in the New Testament where the feminine form of the word ‘disciple’ is used. The text goes on to describe her ministry in Joppa. She was (as one translation puts it) “always doing good and helping the poor” or (as the version we heard reads) “she was devoted to good works and acts of charity.” Amongst these good works, it seems Tabitha made clothing for women too poor to afford something to wear.

Every healthy, dynamic faith community has people in it like Tabitha. Often, but not exclusively, they are women who muster the resources and marshal the energy required to offer a significant ministry that meets one or more of the specific needs of the community. These people are the ‘pillars’ of the church. Two things consistently point out who they are. First, everyone marvels at their ministry and, second, everyone wonders how the church would get along without them.

Well, both come into play with Tabitha. Suddenly and without warning she falls ill and dies. Even as her church is overcome with grief, they find the strength to tend to the normal burial requirements of the body and preparing for the final rites. Word comes that the Apostle Peter is staying in nearby Lydda. A small delegation of men is sent to invite Peter to come immediately.

It is not clear to me from the text if they expect Peter to be able to restore Tabitha’s life, or if they want him to attend as a sign of the wider church’s respect and admiration for all that she had done in her ministry. Most commentators understand the request to be an expectation of healing. I tend to see it as more akin to what happens when a prominent member of the parish dies and someone says, “We should let the Bishop know because he may want to attend the funeral.”

When this Bishop arrives the full fruit of Tabitha’s ministry is on display. When Luke retells this story in his grand narrative of the life of the early Church, it is all about establishing Peter’s credentials to proclaim the Gospel to a Gentile, but here, in the moment, it is all about Tabitha and the incredible ministry she offered during her life. A group of widows, who appear to have been the people most blessed by her work, show Peter the clothes and wears that Tabitha made for them. It is a gathering both of grief and celebration: grief over the sudden loss of one so dear and celebration of the incredible blessing she brought to others.

According to a note in the Book of Common Prayer, both responses are appropriate for a person of faith:

The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy [this is why we say the word “alleluia” at a burial even if it takes place in the season of Lent]. It finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised.

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

This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn. (p. 507)

This pastoral theology is firmly grounded in Tabitha’s story because the early Church experienced both joy and sorrow when she died.

Restoring Tabitha to life is surely the climax of the story, particularly if you focus on how it validates Peter’s Apostolic authority. But keep in mind that the miracle is not the climax of the story as Luke tells it, because for him it is a résumé builder for Peter’s work with the Gentile Cornelius. I think the story of Tabitha reaches a crescendo as everyone gathers to celebrate her life. Its final and fullest climax will come for her only as it does for each of us, at the Resurrection of the Dead. That Peter is able to restore her life augments our faith in the final Resurrection, but this one-time event is no substitute for the real thing, only a dim, brief allusion of it.

This Fourth Sunday of Easter is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” because the Gospel readings always point to this aspect of Jesus’ role in our lives. This morning we heard His promise:

My sheep hear My voice. I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of My hand.

We give thanks for people like Tabitha who heard the voice of the Good Shepherd and reached out in love and concern for others; becoming themselves shepherds to those in need. And we give thanks that for Tabitha, for all those we love but see no longer, and (one day) for ourselves, the Good Shepherd’s voice will call out and we, like them, will hear it and not be lost.

The 3rd Sunday of Easter: Giving Birth to a Dancing Star

One of the true ‘joys’ of the college I attended was its belief in the value of Saturday morning classes. They kept students on campus for the weekend and (theoretically) kept Friday night partying to a minimum. Then as now, for a college student, 8:00 in the morning comes awfully early. But there is nothing as early as 8:00 on a Saturday morning, especially if it involves going to class and especially if that class is philosophy. Oh, the monologues the professors had to deliver on Saturday morning when we students were too tired to engage in lively give and take. There were a few exceptions, like the Saturday we discussed the famous quote by the infamous Friedrich Nietzche who said you must have some chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

Around the time Nietzche penned those words psychologists like Freud and Jung were beginning to understand just how crowed and chaotic the typical soul can be. Freud described how the ego is constantly trying to balance the demands of soul’s moral component, which he termed the super-ego, with the drive of its pleasure-seeking component, which he termed the id. Jung named the chaos of the soul ‘the Shadow.’ It consists of all those parts of our makeup which make us uncomfortable. All of this, according to Nietzche, can be used in very creative and inspiring ways. Or not.

In the today’s first reading we heard about the conversion of the Apostle Paul. Born into a family of privilege and position, educated as a scholar, and raised in a multi-cultural environment, he was the kind of person who was always ready to engage the professor, even at 8:00 on a Saturday morning. Paul had every opportunity to do something fantastic with his life and, from where he stood at the beginning of the reading, he might, in fact, have said he was doing it. He used his background and experience to gain a lofty position in the religious hierarchy of the time. He was a chief persecutor of adherents to the emerging Christian faith. Paul led campaigns to arrest, try, punish, and even execute followers of Jesus. Whatever chaos was in his soul, it was not giving birth to a dancing star. Far from it.

And we know from Paul’s later writings that his soul was, in fact, a place of chaos. He wrote to the Christians in Rome about how he knows the good, but he simply cannot do it. When Paul searches for a word in Greek to describe his battle with sin, he chooses akrasia, which is like when an archer aims at a target, but misses because he did not pull back on the bow string with enough effort. Sin, for Paul, involved weakness; a failure of will power, a lack of determination.

That is one way to look at it from a theological perspective, but looking through the lens of psychology gives us another kind of insight. Jung held that, in the end, our task is not goodness, but wholeness. The more aware we are of what is taking place in our inner world the less likely this material will need to be played out unconsciously in the outer world. What we deny about our inward life often is what comes back to bite us again and again in ways that we might understand, but don’t.

So let’s think about Paul for a moment in light of Nietzche. Prior to today’s reading, Paul’s inner world is a place of chaos and conflict. Looking at the persecution he oversees, we would not say that his outer world is giving birth to a dancing star; just the opposite in fact. The opposite of dancing is not what I did at the Junior High mixers – sit against the wall and watch others as they dance – it is (I think) marching.

Dancing is free, expressive, open to flux and flow and the movement of others. It is creative and generative and unconfined. Dancing is related to Freud’s concept of the id – pleasure seeking. Marching, when it if freely engaged by a band or a disciplined military unit, emanates from the same place. It is a voluntary effort by a willing group to marshal movement into a collective effort for a personal and collective goal.

But when marching is forced, it is restrictive, ordered, uniform, anti-individualistic, and confining. It is exacting; demanding everyone do the same thing, think the same thoughts, and have the same beliefs. Have you ever worked under a boss or had a teacher who demanded that everyone march to the same tune? That kind of marching is related to the super-ego’s bent toward morality. And in Paul, this bent was out of control. His Paul’s inner world was an unacknowledged chaotic battleground between the id and the super-ego (and the key word here is unacknowledged). His ego, which is the outward, visible balance of the two polarities, surrenders to his super-ego and as a result he becomes a religious bounty hunter who demands uniformity; uniformity to the extend that those who do not conform are excuted for their ‘offense’. Those who dance with the Risen Lord bear the brunt of his unresolved inner turmoil.

Paul is not unique in this, he is human. His challenge is one that we all face. Sometimes we master it, other times it masters us. Martha Grant describes this struggle in a poem she calls The Committee:

The rude one is only one of many
who populate my inner committee,
an unruly group of stubborn complexes
who try to run my life.
My vigilant effort to tame these insubordinates
is ongoing, endless.
I’ve wheeled and flattered
and when that didn’t work
actually reasoned
with the most recalcitrant members
but it only makes them more determined.
Besides, they have my number.
They’ve sat often with my therapist,
wringing their collective hands in commiseration,
clucking sympathetically,
when all along they were gathering ammunition.
Now they are doling out assignments –
I can hear the papers shuffling –
and what’s more,
calling in new recruits from the street.

Those who bear the brunt of our inner battle may be those closest to us – our spouse, family, and friends – or they may be our coworkers or they may be our neighbors or they may be our fellow church members or they may even be our selves. Or, if extreme cases, it may be all of the above.

Here are three things that I find in Paul’s story that made all of the difference for him; that converted him from march at all costs to giving birth to a dancing star.

The first thing was absolutely beyond his control: the Risen Lord appeared in his life. Jesus has a way of doing that. Jesus has a way of searching out the lost sheep and brining them back into the flock. The silent sheep are surely a little harder to reach than those who bleat out for help, but sooner or later the Good Shepherd comes to each one of us just as He came to Paul.

The second thing involves being open to Jesus the Shepherd; what we call grace. The theologian Paul Tillich said that grace is accepting the fact that in the end you are accepted, despite being unacceptable. That means that you, your ego outer self, your super-ego moral self, and your id pleasure seeking self – all of you – is loved and accepted by God… you… just as you are.

The third thing that Paul did was to stop pretending. He talked and preached and wrote openly about himself. “The good that I want to do I never seem to do. The ill that I don’t want to do is always what I seem to do in the end.” Jung would call that an awareness of the Shadow. Freud would call it a reassertion of the ego’s healthy balance between the super-ego and id. Whatever you want to call it this much is sure: Paul’s life changed dramatically. He no longer sought to enforce marching because his life began to give birth to a dancing star.

And what about you? What about me? Do you force others to march or does you life give birth to a dancing star? Chaos is an ingredient in both. The only difference is that to dance, you need to give your self to the Shepherd without holding back; you need to hold tight to the hope of grace (that you are accepted even though you are unacceptable); and you need to make peace with all that you are by bringing it into the light. I am not saying that you should go out and “sin it up” – far from it. But if you cannot understand and be aware of the dark forces in your life, you will never be able to comprehend that damage they do to you and to others.

Now, I know you want a “kitchen story” – and if ever there was an example of chaos being manifested in the outer world, my kitchen project is it! Going into Holy Week and Easter Sunday I acknowledged to myself (and to others) that I was consumed with thoughts about the details of my renovation. I was not able to think much about the spiritual component I needed to bring to our services, especially the sermons. Faced with this dilemma, I decided to raid a few of my older “masterpieces” and resolved never again to schedule something this big for the week after Easter. My fixation on my kitchen became my Shadow, but I resolved it by giving myself permission to be out of it and by promising myself to be in a better spiritual place next year. As a result I came to each and every one of our Holy Week services not doing inner battle and (hopefully) not taking out my inner conflict on those in my outer world. I truly enjoyed each service for what it was, but knowing I need to offer something fresh in the years to come. This perspective helped me danced with all of you.

Each of us here this morning is a complex person. We are sought by Jesus, loved more than we could ever ask or imagine, and – bathed in this love, capable of doing wonderful things in this world. If it could happen for Paul, it can certainly happen for each one of us.

The 2nd Sunday of Easter: The Practice of Worship

Brothers and Sisters in Christ: Greetings and thank you for your faithful participation in St. Paul’s worship life. I look forward to being back in the office this week and being with you here next Sunday. I have had a “memorable” week off renovating my kitchen. I had hoped to have it back in a functional condition by today, but you know what they say about the best laid plans… Unfortunately for me, a finished kitchen appears to be no where in my future. Unfortunately for all of you, copious amounts of sermon illustrations are bound to arise from this experience. The real question is who will tire of this project first: me, working on it, or all of you having to hear about it.

The assigned reading from the gospel on the Sunday after Easter is always the story of Jesus’ first resurrection appearance to the disciples. It takes place in the early evening of Easter Sunday. The small band of faithful followers have heard the report of the empty tomb from the women and had it verified by Peter and John. No one is quite certain what it means and Mary’s story of meeting Jesus in the burial garden is puzzling to be sure. Perhaps the best words to describe this group are fearful, bewildered, and grieving.

And then the Crucified One appears in their midst as Resurrected. It begins a transformative process that converts the disciples into people forgiven for their lack of faithfulness and empowered to preach a message that will change the course of human history. One feature of this story stands out: Thomas, who became known as “The Doubter”, was not there that night. He did not experience what happened and, quite understandably, had a difficult time accepting what everyone told him about it. It was a classic “You should have been here!” moment.

If memory serves, 221 people attended services at St. Paul’s last Sunday. It was a magnificent day; accompanied by beautiful music and a thundering herd of flower-bearing children. I always appreciate the opportunity to renew our Baptismal Vows on Easter Sunday. Wanting to be on my best behavior for such a large crowd I stuck to the prayer book text:

Will you continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers?

“I will with God’s help” came the massive response. Believe me, I was sorely tempted at that point to stop, look over the congregation, and say, “Really folks, just how many of you plan to be here next Sunday?”

In today’s gospel reading there is just one simple difference between Thomas and the rest of the disciples. They showed up and he didn’t! The disciples were impacted not be a moving sermon or by a special anthem, nor did they hear insightful teaching that changed their lives. Simply put, they were at the right place at the right time. And Thomas was not.

There are many elements that are important to the practice of the Christian faith. Some are moral, like treating others a manner in which you would like to be treated. Some are spiritual, like praying the Lord’s Prayer. Today’s reading highlights the practice of regular participation in worship and in the fellowship life of a faith community. Being here every Sunday has a way of shaping us and strengthening our faith. We could not be the people we are if we attended worship just a handful of times over the course of the year.

Not every Sunday’s service is life-changing. There are weeks when we walk away no difference than when we walked in. Maybe the sermon was esoteric. Maybe the hymns were dreary. Maybe you were too distracted by other concerns to engage fully. Maybe the God’s Spirit just did not move. There are Sundays like that. But then there are the other Sundays when the Resurrected One appears in our midst and world is made new. The problem is we just don’t know which service we are going to get on any given Sunday. The only way to ensure that you will be here for the ones that are powerful is to be here for them all – to embrace the practice of regular worship.

What a strange message for me to deliver to the faithful remnant of the 223 on a Sunday when I myself am not even here. Please know that as you gather few in number and mighty in spirit that you are doing something important. It is important that praise to God is said and sung in this place each Sunday. It is important that God’s word is read here each week. It is important that prayers are offered regularly for all who celebrate and for those in any need or trouble. And who knows, perhaps something will happen this morning that will lead you to say to me next Sunday, “Keith, you missed it. You should have been here because...”

May God bless you today and throughout this week. I look forward to worshiping with you again in seven days.

Easter Sunday: The Spirituality of the Defiant Conjunction

Have you ever noticed how a person’s spirituality tends to align itself with one of the major holy days in the church year? In other words, some of us are like Christmas, celebrating God’s presence in one another and in the world around us. Folks with this spiritual orientation find God in such diverse places as the beauty of a spring flower, a delicately crafted sonnet, and the compassion of a loving caregiver at the hospital beside. Maybe you are a Christmas person.

Some of us are like Pentecost, finding new life and vigor and vitality through the indwelling of God’s Spirit. Pentecost Christians see God at work in the world about us… in the miracle of healing (even if it happens under the care of the physician), in being guided to a parking space at a crowded shopping center, and in the church getting enough money in the offering plate to pay the monthly bills. In all these things and more, Pentecost people know that God is good. Can I get an “Amen” from the Pentecost people here today?

Some of us are like the Ascension, believing that God did impressive things back in the Bible, but now Jesus is in heaven and we are left here to carry on His work. And there is plenty of work to be done: eradicate poverty and world hunger, confront ecological challenges, overcome human ignorance and prejudice through quality education… you get the idea. Ascension people get involved, so if you are active in more than two parish ministries, then you might just be a Christian whose spiritual life is oriented toward the Ascension.

Some of people are Good Friday Christians. These are the folks who are keenly aware of all that is wrong with the world. In some Christian traditions, Good Friday preachers focus of the evils of card playing, dancing, and rock music. A more mainline perspective would highlight the pervasive affects of our secular culture. Either way, Good Friday Christians are in tune with how sin lurks in every nook and cranny of life.

Weather forecasters, it seems to me, are Good Friday type people. Either there is too much rain or too little. Either it is too hot for this time of year or it is too cold. If the day is perfect, then forecast always highlights a ‘dramatic’ change that is coming. And, of course, the approaching hurricane season is always going to be one of the worst on record.

People in the news business also strike me as being Good Friday people. You know the old saying, “If it bleeds, it leads.” If the daily news was the only tool you had to gauge the health and well-being of the world, you would conclude that everything is broken or falling apart.

There is a reason why we warm up to foul weather reports and rubberneck for negative news stories. At our very core we are strongly attracted to Good Friday spirituality. The brokenness of the world is plain to see everywhere we turn. We sense that the great enemy – death – is always nearby. We see and hear our story in the brokenness of life and in the finality of death. The Good Friday story makes sense of our experience and we are drawn to it in a deeply spiritual way.

I think St. Luke had Good Friday spirituality in mind when he wrote his Gospel. Unlike the other Gospel writers, his account is peppered with the defiant conjunction ‘but’. “But on the first day of the week at early dawn,” Luke says, “the women came to the tomb with the spices they had prepared.” In Matthew’s telling of the resurrection, this word shows up once; in Mark, twice; and in Luke the defiant conjunction shows up six times. It is as if Luke is taking direct aim at Good Friday-‘the end is the end”-spirituality. Sure, he says, Jesus dies, His body is laid in a tomb, and the tomb is sealed with a stone.

But! But! But! Wait a minute. Don’t close the book. You may think that the story of Jesus ends here like every other story we know. What is broken stays broken. What is dead never regains life. Right? Well, says Luke, until Jesus, yes, but… not now! There is more to this story. The tomb is empty. Angles proclaim resurrection. Jesus is risen.

Luke tells us that upon finding the empty tomb the women become confused. They have not yet had time to orient their spirituality to the Easter story of new life, of healing, of reconciliation, of Jesus’ triumph over death and hatred. So they rush to tell the disciples what has happened. Luke tells us that the men did not believe the women’s report because their words seemed like nonsense.

Easter spirituality can be a tough thing to grasp. But the power of Easter is the power to grab hold of us in a way that transforms Good Friday spirituality into a firm belief in the power of God to make all things new.

Such an experience came to a Lutheran pastor by the name of John Vannorsdall. Perhaps you will identify with this story he wrote about in a magazine article:

"In the forty years of my ministry I have never found the road to Damascus. I have never been blinded by the heavenly light or heard my name spoken by God. I have never seen a burning bush which was not consumed. And where I have served, the walls of the church building have trembled with age but never at the voice of God…

[And then] on an evening walk last summer – a lazy walk through back alleys near the railroad track – my wife and I came across a surprising garden and talked as best we could with the elderly man who spoke mostly Italian.

The railroad embankment was a disaster of broken bottles and empty cans, weed trees and brambles. Good Friday’s land. But twenty-five feet wide from alley to tracks it was terraced and neatly rowed with beans, leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and other growing things. Good Friday’s land, wounded and sacred, became Easter’s garden where the trains still rattled as evening strollers paused before evidence of reversal and healing."

That garden is a wonderful image for us who are a people of the defiant conjunction. We are Easter people. Where we find the littered, scrubby embankments of life we plant a garden. Where we find brokenness we bring reconciliation; where there is hostility we bring peace; where there is hatred, we bring love. Yes, we live in a Good Friday world. But! But! But! Alleluia, the Lord is risen and we are Easter people.

Palm Sunday: The Lone Ranger Comes to the Cross

The Passion of Our Lord according to Luke begins with the Disciples arguing as to who of them is the greatest and ends with Jesus crucified, dead, and buried; His own death a parable of what greatness truly is. We humans are fixated on greatness. We talk about it all the time. Michael Jordon is the greatest basketball player of all time. Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer. Barry Bonds, the greatest home run hitter. Harrison Ford, the greatest box office draw.

I was read sermon this week by the Rev. George Ross, the priest who welcomed me into the Episcopal Church. He was the greatest preacher I ever heard. In this sermon he described his boyhood love of the Lone Ranger – the greatest hero of that age. You remember how, with only the aid of his sidekick Tonto, the Ranger could ride into any situation and, against overwhelming odds, save the day, relying only on sheer grit and guts. Then, once the bad guys were subdued, the town was saved, and the damsel rescued, he would shout his famous cry, “Heigh ho, Silver, away!” and ride off into the sunset alone on his trusty horse.

Mr. Ross said that, as a depression era boy, he and his friends ate it up. And he decided that since the Lone Ranger did not need to go to Sunday School neither would he. “Hosanna” lacked the flair of “Heigh ho, Silver.” Jesus did not have a mask. His “Kemo Sabes” were traitors and gossips and cowards, not the strong, silent type. And when Jesus rode into town, it was on a mangy old mule, and a borrowed one at that! Some savior! “Heigh ho, donkey, away!” did not make much of an impression on an impressionable boy.

Then, one day in college, Mr. Ross found himself in church on a Palm Sunday, not because he had suddenly become religious, but because a certain co-ed who had captured his imagination was know to attend on a weekly basis. As it turned out, the young lady had the flu, but I’ll let Mr. Ross’ own words describe his experience:

“At just the right moment in my life, I heard the story of the Way of the Cross. I had heard it before, but I really heard it that day. I heard the story of how Jesus came to town and went into the temple and threw the rascals out. (I thought to myself: ‘So far, so good’ – Lone Ranger stuff.) Then the story took a strange twist. He went to a dinner party and washed the dirty feet of the other guests. He went to a garden and began to sweat blood. He was arrested. He was stripped naked. He was humiliated. He was too weak to carry His own cross. And then He died a terrible death and was buried in someone else’s grave. Through it all he was the best, the bravest, the kindest, the most loving man there.

I can’t explain – even to myself – what happened on that Palm Sunday. I went to church, a devout disciple of the Lone Ranger, with a girl on my mind; I came out… knowing in my heart that I could not go forward with the rest of my life until I had somehow come to terms with Jesus Christ… I knew that the Lone Ranger in me had to yield to something infinitely better."

The Passion of our Lord has the power to change lives. Years ago, William Temple, who was then the Archbishop of Canterbury, preached a series of sermons over the course of Holy Week attended by the student body at Cambridge University. At a time when Hitler was rising to power and most young people in England were agnostic at best, Temple dedicated the entire week to preaching on the Cross of Jesus and what it means to put away childish things in order to embrace adulthood. The service on Good Friday concluded with the hymn “When I survey the wondrous Cross.” When they came to the last stanza, Temple stopped the singing and paused for some time before saying,

“I want you to read over this verse before you sing it. The words are tremendous. If you don’t mean them, then don’t sing them, just stand in silence. If you mean them with all your heart, sing them as loud as you can. If you mean them a little, and want to mean them more, then sing them very softly. But before you decide, look at the Cross and look at the words.”

Then there was absolute stillness while every person contemplated these words on the printed sheet:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

And when the Archbishop began to sing, 2,000 voices softly sang along with him. Years later, one person wrote:

“It was an experience never to be erased from my memory until the whole tablet is erased… There are large numbers of Cambridge alumni all around the world who owe all that is best in them to that Holy Week.”

This morning we hear again what is either a very bad joke or the greatest story ever told. Either it is an unfortunate incident that occurred long, long ago in a far off place, or it is the greatest expression we will ever have of God’s true self. If it is the former, than your being here today is enough. Thank you for helping to keep the memory of that event alive on this day. But if it is the latter, then love so amazing, so divine, demands you soul, your life, your all.

The 5th Sunday in Lent: Anointing at a Meal

The Lectionary assigns the story of the Transfiguration always to be read on the Last Sunday of Epiphany just prior to the beginning of Lent. The Transfiguration is that event where Jesus takes three disciples to a mountaintop and there His appearance becomes dazzlingly bright as He speaks with the Old Testament figures of Moses and Elijah. In that brief moment the humanity of Jesus is eclipsed by His divinity. The experience launches Jesus on His journey to Jerusalem; a path we travel with Him every year through our observance of the season of Lent.

This morning we hear another story, the one that launches Jesus into the final days of His life and Passion, which we follow from Palm Sunday, through Holy Week, and to the Cross. Jesus is at the home of two sisters, Mary and Martha. He has visited before, perhaps often. You may recall how, at a previous visit, Martha became frustrated that her sister listened to Jesus as He taught rather than helping her tend to meal preparations in the kitchen.

It was their brother, Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead. That miraculous action had the affect of sealing Jesus’ fate. It made Him so wildly popular with the masses that those in authority could no longer ignore the threat He posed to their power. Jesus, aware of the tension, had sought to stay under the radar, but His deep affection for the three siblings and His own crushing grief at the death of a friend, moved Him to action; action which had grave consequences for His own safety and well-being. John the Gospeller comments that after Lazarus is raised the authorities seek all the more to kill Jesus.

About a week later, Jesus returns to the home of His friends for a meal. At least some of Jesus’ followers are with Him, but only Judas is mentioned by name. The narrative text does not speak directly as to how Jesus was feeling as He came to rest in the house, but I think we can assume the following:

Jesus is hungry and tired.

He has a great deal on His mind as the Passover draws near. He plans to go to Jerusalem for the sacred festival. What will He do there and what will He not do? Teach? Heal? Challenge? Confront? Call for a revolt?

He is sickened by the commercialization of Temple worship; that a house of prayer has become a den of thieves. What, if anything, will He say about this?

And what might be the consequences of acting, of stepping into the limelight? How dark might the response of the darkness be?

How might you expect a person to be with such weighty matters on His mind? Distracted? Worried? Anxious? Tense? Mentally and physically exhausted? These words only begin to scratch the surface.

If the Transfiguration is the eclipsing of Jesus’ humanity by His divinity, then today’s reading is its mirror opposite. We see nothing of His divinity, but all of His frailty, His vulnerability, His need, His humanity.

We in the Church do a pretty good job of portraying the divinity of Jesus. We think of Him as being tall, strong, in command of Himself and the situation around Him. He can change water into wine, create a feast from a few scrapes of bread, drive out demons, walk across the waves, and calm the most vicious of storms. Yes, we do a pretty good job of telling the stories of our Lord’s divinity.

But when it comes to His humanity… well, when it comes to these stories we are mostly silent. How often do we tell the tales of when Jesus was weak or frustrated or tired or discouraged or indecisive or uncertain or fearful? This is not the Jesus we think of often. It is not the Jesus we sing of in our hymns. And it is not the Jesus to whom we pray. But this is the Jesus who comes to the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus for a meal.

Years ago, when my marriage was ending, I spoke with a divorced priest and asked him if he had any wisdom, guidance, or insight for me as I walked that awful path. One thing he told me was this: at least once a month, make an appointment to get a massage. He said that after his marriage ended he became aware that there was no one to touch him, no one to hold him, no one to soothe his aching muscles or to provide physical comfort. He said he never realized how important this was to him until he no longer had it. Now, massages are not my thing, but as I meditated this week on this passage, my friend’s insight came back to mind. Who, I wondered, ministered to Jesus? Who helped Him physically and emotionally when He was in need; when the fullness of His humanity was fully on display?

The answer is no one; no one recognized His humanity or acknowledged His need except for two women: Martha and Mary. Martha serves Jesus a meal. The Greek word used here for “serve” is the very word from which we get our English word “deacon” – the order of those ordained to the ministry of servanthood.

Mary’s ministry to Jesus is as lavish as lavish can be. She has purchased a container of costly perfumed oil. How costly? Well, it was worth about a year’s salary – in our dollars, its value was somewhere between $24,000-$40,000. She doesn’t just use a dab or two when she applies it to Jesus’ feet, but rather gobs and gobs of it. The room is overpowered by its fragrance and everyone present instantly becomes aware of what she is doing. As all watch on, Mary lets down her hair, a taboo for Hebrew women in mixed company, and she uses it to wipe Jesus’ feet. As an act, the anointng was soothing, comforting, relaxing, and sensual. And it was priestly for, in the Hebrew tradition, it is the priest who anoints a person as king, as prophet, or for burial. Mary’s priestly anointing of Jesus is for all three.

And there is one more thing that this anointing was: it was infuriating. Judas speaks for everyone in the room when he complains that the gesture is far too costly and wasteful, especially given the overwhelming poverty and need in the area. Of course, Judas’ spoken concern is just a rouse because he himself was stealing from the common till. Throughout the history of the church, his criticism has drawn attention away from Martha’s ministry as deacon and Mary’s ministry as priest and redirected it to the conflict between the two men. This is not the focus Jesus would like us to have. His response, “The poor will be here tomorrow, but I will not”, suggests that His followers will always have the opportunity to meet the needs of others, but that His own need is immediate and just as real. It is here and now, tangible, legitimate.

We who follow Jesus can succumb to the temptation to boil down Jesus’ teaching to something simplistic such as “do for others, but not for yourself”, to mix this with what we hold in America (that we should be self-made and self-sufficient), and then come up with a spirituality which holds we should deny our own need, ignore our need, and tough it out until our need passes. We augment this thinking by under-appreciating the humanity of Jesus; by being blind to His need while magnifying His ability to endure all things.

At this house, at this meal, on this night, the neediness of Jesus is front and center. And because He accepts His own condition for what it is He is willing to receive the ministry of Martha and Mary. Mary anoints Jesus as King and as a result the man, who was tired, enters Jerusalem the next very day, greeted by shouts of “Hosanna” and the waving of palm branches. The day after that, Jesus, who was also anointed as Prophet, over-turns the tables of the moneychangers and symbolically rids the Temple of corruption. Three nights after that, Jesus, who had received the diaconal ministry of Martha’s serving, serves a meal to His followers and, as Mary had done for Him, ministers to their feet. By noon the next day, Jesus, who had a fragrant perfume poured onto His feet, would hang on the Cross, His life poured out as a fragrant offering for the whole world.

When J.S. Bach set out to put the Passion of Jesus to music, he chose to begin the story with the events that transpired at the home of Mary and Martha (and for good reason). The sisters, by ministering to Jesus’ deep, human need, provide the guidance and inspiration He needs for the days to follow.

All of this suggests many things to us, but one thing it suggests is this: each of us is to be aware of our own need, to accept it rather than repress it, and to be open to the ministry of those who know and love us because what they offer and do is a means and a sign of God’s own comfort. Sally Perry, who endured so much a year ago when three men invaded her home, is a witness to so many things I will never forget. She testified courageously on Thursday at the trial of the one attacker who did take a plea agreement and she presented herself over the course of the two-day trial as a woman of tremendous resilience and strength. When I think about Sally in relation to the neediness of our Lord, I think of all those times she embraced and received the comfort offered by others. I remember the many different ways the people of this parish and this community poured ointment on her feet; acts which pointed the way to the healing of a new dawn. Yes, Sally is strong, but not so strong that she refused the compassion of others in her time of need.

My own sense of Jesus’ spirituality is that the psalms were very important to Him. The words and the images of their poets seemed always to be on His lips. The fancy, scholarly way of saying this is that the psalms formed His cultural-linguistic heritage; the language He would use to frame His own experience of life. The Gospel narrative does not tell us what, if any, particular psalm was on Jesus’ mind after the meal and the anointing, but I would like to think that it was the one we read today:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
then were we like those who dream.

Then was our mouth filled with laughter,
and our tongues with shouts joy.

Those who sowed with tears
will reap with songs of joy.

Those who go our weeping, carrying the seed,
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.

For Sally, today is a day of rejoicing. And so it was for Jesus after the evening at the home of His friends, even though the comfort He received and the guidance that it provided directed Him toward the torturous events we will recall beginning next Sunday. The meal and the anointing were comforting because they met His most basic human needs and they served to call and clarify the things that He wanted to do.