Signs of Misery & the Merciful Heart

A Sunday School teacher posed a question to her third-grade class: “What do you have to be to get into heaven?” The hand of a little boy shot up into the air: “You have to be really, really good. You have to make sure you keep all of God’s commandments and not break a single one.” “Well,” the teacher said, “That is important, but it is not enough.” A little girl raised her hand: “You have to be good, but you also have to go to church every week.” “That too is important,” said the teacher, “but it is not enough.” Another girl thought she had the answer: “You have to be good, go to church, and do things to help the poor and needy.” “All of these things are good,” the teacher said, “but they are not enough. What do you have to be to get into heaven?” A boy raised his hand, wildly gesturing as if a light had gone off inside him and he had the answer: “You have to be all those other things. They are really important. But there is one more thing you have to be to get into heaven.” “Yes,” the teacher said in breathless anticipation, “and what is that.” Brimming with confidence the boy said, “You have to be dead!”


Dead is what Frederick Samuel was, at the age of 56. At the burial service his cousin, Les Murray, the renowned Australian poet, read an original composition written for the somber occasion. Patterned after the rhymes of a pub ballad, Murray gave it the title “The Misery Cord.” It was a pun spun off the Latin word ‘misericordia’, which literally means “merciful heart.” For the few here whose Latin may be a little rusty, the word for “wretched” (miserabilis) and the word for ‘pity’ (miseratio) are also closely related. Murray’s poem, largely devoid of mercy, focuses in much more on the wretched misery of death.

In one stanza he writes:

Grief is nothing you can do, but do,
worst work for least reward,
pulling your heart out through your eyes
with tugs of the misery cord.

Any of us who have gone through a painful loss can identify with Murray’s words: grief is the worst work for the least reward. Listen to the final stanza:

Just one man has broken the misery cord
and lived. He said once was enough.
A poem is an afterlife on earth.
Christ grant us the other half.

Murray’s word play and poem present a striking image of a human being praying and searching for mercy in the midst of personal misery. It seems to me that today’s Gospel reading presents Jesus as the antithesis of this image. His body bears the marks of misery while his being has become the epitome of misericordia – the Merciful Heart.

The Church places a great deal of emphasis on Holy Week, and with good reason. The Gospels chronicle well the events from Palm Sunday through the crucifixion and burial of our Lord. I wish we had more detail as to what took place the first week after Easter. We know that women go to the tomb and find it empty. We know they tell the others and that a few investigate. We know that Jesus appears first to Mary in the garden and then to those gathered behind locked doors. We also know that Thomas was not present at this time. We know that Jesus walks with two disciples on the road to Emmaus and is made known to them in the breaking of the bread. All of this took place on Easter Sunday.

We don’t know much about what happened next. Did the disciples celebrate? Did they preach? Did they go to the temple to pray? Did they continue to hide? Did they begin to doubt what had happened? The Gospels are silent about the events of this first week after the resurrection. All we know is that Thomas was not present and could not believe in the Merciful Heart until he himself touched the signs of misery. In his book Resurrection, Rowan Williams observes that in the Gospels there is a “consistent echo of disorientation… concerning the resurrection… [and a] piercing note of shock.” I suspect much of that first week was consumed with wild swings of emotion: joy, disbelief, fear, excitement… any many, many questions. Question #1 for Thomas was it just cannot be possible, can it?

Thomas was a twin. In her poem St. Thomas Didymus (didymus being the Greek word for ‘twin’), Denise Levertov imagines that Thomas finds his spiritual twin in a person Jesus encountered in the 9th chapter of Mark’s gospel. The man, a father, brings his son to Jesus. From birth the son has suffered from seizures and convulsions. In the poem, Thomas imagines how the son’s suffering must have damaged the father’s faith. The father must have asked himself over and again “Why?” Why this? Why my son? Why not somebody else? Why not me? When he approaches Jesus he says, “If you are able, will you please help my son?” “If I am able,” Jesus replies, “You must believe.” “I do believe,” the father responds, “Help my unbelief.” And with that the boy is healed. While the father celebrates and the crowd marvels, Levertov’s Thomas is left with the haunting question of why. Such is the curse of doubters.

The poem continues in Thomas’ voice:

So it was
that after Golgotha
my spirit in secret
lurched in the same convulsed writhings
that tore that child
before he was healed.

And after the empty tomb
when they told me that He lived,
had spoken to Magdalen,
told me
that though He had passed through the door
like a ghost
He had breathed on them
the breath of a living man –
even then
when hope tried with a flutter of wings
to lift me –
still, alone with myself,
my heavy cry was the same: Lord
I believe,
help thou mine unbelief.

I needed
blood to tell me the truth,
the touch
of blood. Even
my sight of the dark crust of it
round the nailholes
didn’t thrust its meaning all the way through
to that manifold knot in me
that willed to possess all knowledge,
refusing to loosen
unless that insistence won
the battle I fought with life

But when my hand
led by His hand’s firm clasp
entered the unhealed wound,
my fingers encountering
rib-bone and pulsing heat,
what I felt was not
scalding pain, shame for my
obstinate need,
but light, light streaming
into me, over me, filling the room
as I had lived till then
in a cold cave, and now
coming forth for the first time,
the knot that bound me unravelling,
I witnessed
all things quicken to color, to form,
my question
not answered but given
its part
in a vast unfolding design lit
by a risen sun.

It is a brilliant, vivid description of transformation. Self-manifested hope fails to lift his heart out of the cry of loneliness. Encountering the Risen Christ does not make Thomas ashamed of who he is – a person knotted up with doubt – but rather fills him with light and with color.

Literary critics will tell you that the climax of John’s Gospel – everything it has been building on and working toward – comes when Thomas says to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” Keep in mind that the Gospel was written perhaps fifty years or more after the resurrection. Few remained who had known Jesus first hand. So Jesus’ response to Thomas’ confession would have been especially powerful and poignant to those early readers: “Do you believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Blessed are we who neither have seen nor have touched the misery marks on the Merciful Heart, and yet still have found our lives filled with light and color through faith in the Risen Lord.

The Marxist Leon Trotsky spent the last years of his life living in exile as punishment for his opposition of Joseph Stalin, who eventually had Trotsky assassinated in 1940. Prior to that, Trotsky made the following entry in his dairy:

Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

When Thomas touches the signs of Jesus’ misery he finds for himself the great idea that gives form to the remainder of his life: Alleluia. Christ is risen!  It is the great idea that has changed the world.  It is the great idea that has been proclaimed to the farthest reaches of the earth.  It is the great idea that has been passed down through the generations.  It is the great idea that brings us together this morning.  It is the great idea that fills our lives with light and color, transforming misery through the presence of the Merciful Heart.

The Star Thrower

George struggled mightily every year to come up with a birthday present for his eccentric mother. She was a very worldly woman, affluent, sophisticated, and not easily impressed. No matter how unique, exotic, or lavish his gift might be, it failed to do more than elicit a faint scoff of appreciation from her. The day before her 75th birthday George was on the lookout for something special. He happened into a pet store and found exactly what he needed: a beautiful talking parrot with a colorful plume of long, lush feathers. Amazingly, it had growing a vocabulary of over 4,000 words and was conversant in three different languages. The owner of the store told George this bird was one a kind and the price reflected it… $25,000! George thought the bird would be a perfect gift. It was friendly and good company. He figured his mother would take to it instantly and spend hours teaching it to say more and more words. He imagined she would revel in showing it off to her friends who would be spellbound by its ability to talk. George bought the bird and had owner deliver it personally to his mother’s house that afternoon. The next morning George called her to wish her happy birthday. “Did you get my gift yesterday,” he asked her? “I most certainly did,” she said. “So tell what do you think?” “Well, son,” she said, “It was a little tough and tasted like chicken!”


George’s poor mother. She was in the presence of something remarkable, but didn’t comprehend it. The same could be said about Jesus’ followers on the first Easter Sunday. The women come to the tomb and find it empty. Two angels tell them Jesus has risen from the dead as he had said he would. They go to tell the others about their experience. The text hints that the women don’t know what to make of the angels’ words and it states quite clearly that those who hear their story don’t believe a word of it. Only Peter goes to the tomb to investigate. He finds it empty, except for the burial linens, and is amazed. Amazed though is a far cry from proclaiming that the Lord is risen indeed.

We can’t blame those first followers for being slow to discern what had happened. Like a computer that does not have the software to recognize and run a file, they had no frame of reference to understand resurrection. They struggled with it. So do we even to this day. Faith in the resurrection comes to each of us in its own unique way.

Loren Eiseley was an educator, naturalist, and author who has been called a modern day Thoreau. In his book The Unexpected Universe he writes about an experience he had at a seaside town that changed his life. Walking on the beach he found it littered with starfish washed up by the tide. The grains of sand filled their tiny breathing pours, the sun baked their bodies, and gulls by the dozens pecked at their remains. Greedy tourists and merchants picked up starfish by the bagful. It was an awful sight. It was then that Eiseley met a person he came to refer to as ‘the star thrower’:

"I discerned a human figure standing. He was gazing fixedly at something in the sand. He stooped and flung an object beyond the breaking surf. I labored another half a mile toward him and by the time I reached him, he was kneeling again. In a pool of sand and silt a starfish had thrust its arms up stiffly and was holding its body away from the stifling mud. “It’s still alive,” I ventured. “Yes,” he said, and with a quick, yet gentle movement, he picked up the star and spun it over my head and far out into the sea. “It may live if the offshore pull is strong enough,” he said. In a sudden embarrassment for words I said, “Do you collect starfish?” “Only ones like this,” he said softly, gesturing amidst the wreckage of the shore, “and only for the living.” He stooped again, and skipped another star neatly across the water. “The stars,” he said, “throw well. One can help them.” He looked full at me with a faint question kindling in his eyes. “No, I do not collect,” I said uncomfortably, the wind beating at my garments, “neither the living nor the dead. I gave it up a long time ago. Death is the only successful collector.”

Eiseley returned to his room and could not stop thinking about the star thrower. As a naturalist, Eiseley was keenly aware of the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, which was on proud display there at the beach: the sun, the gulls, the tourists, the merchants all having their way with the helpless starfish, but not the star thrower. When he reached down it was not to crush and not to collect; it was to save. Eiseley began to wonder if there was a star thrower at work in the universe; a God who reaches down and saves us. As a naturalist, the more he had studied life in all its rich variety and forms the more he had come to love and admire it. Could it be, he wondered, that the God who created life loved it too much to let it end? If God is the one who gives life to all things can this God somehow reverse the curse of death and make it to be no more?

For Christians the answer is a resounding yes. It is yes not because we wish it to be so, and not because we can not bear the thought of dying, but because we believe that Jesus Christ overcame death and the grave. We now live our life in full assurance that death no longer reigns as the last collector. God has reached from the heavens and demonstrated that the power of resurrection is greater than the power of death.

On that first Easter morning, it is not that the disciples lacked faith. What they lacked was understanding. An empty tomb did not mean resurrection. It meant that the body was gone. Who removed it and where did they put it? Two disciples decide to leave town. They set out on foot toward Emmaus. They are confused, broken, and defeated. The rest remain near Jerusalem gathered behind locked doors. They are fearful that the authorities will be coming to arrest them. They have no idea what to do. They have no one to lead them.

Within fifty days this sad and sorry lot of folks will be transformed into a bold force proclaiming Jesus as the Risen Lord, the Son of the Living God. They will travel all over the known world, and endure hardship, suffering, and persecution. All but one will be martyred. None, not a single one, will recant the story of the Resurrection. None, not a single one, will say, “You know, we made it up as a way to keep the Jesus movement going.” With every breath until their last breath each will proclaim that God raised Jesus from the dead and each will die in the sure and certain hope of their own resurrection. And the world will never be the same.

And now, 2000 years later we understand what the angels told those women who came to the tomb. Their news is good news to us, but it is not new news. We have the software to run the file. We acknowledge that the tomb is empty because Jesus is risen. But it seems like something is missing in our response. For those first followers faith in the resurrection was life-changing. It turned their world upside down. None of us is going to leave today’s service with a missionary zeal to convert the world. I get that. But how should belief in the resurrection shape and change your life and mine? What does it look like to live as Easter people?

Over the course of his life Loren Eiseley told and retold the story the star thrower. At one point in their conversation, Eiseley said to him, “There are thousands upon thousands of starfish on this beach. You can’t possible hope to save them all. Why do you even bother? Don’t you realize that all your efforts don’t make a difference?” The star thrower bent down picked up a star, threw it out into the surf, and said, “Well, my efforts made a difference for that one.”

Seeing an empty tomb may leave you confused and speechless, but when you meet the risen Lord your life is forever changed. You become an Easter person with an Easter faith. How will you make a difference?

Having a Purpose

Joe had two loves in his life: golf and Shelia… in that order. It was a rather odd combination given that Joe was a hack golfer at best and that Shelia had never even seen the game played. When the two married, Joe convinced Shelia to go on a golfing honeymoon. “Don’t worry,” he told his new bride, “I’ll teach you how to play.” They arrive at their destination and Joe eagerly escorts his new bride out to the first tee. He sets up the ball, takes a step back, and unleashes a mighty swing with his driver. The club hits the ground a full foot behind the ball, scattering turf and dirt everywhere. The ball does not move. Somewhat embarrassed, Joe takes another swing and misses again. Flustered, he tries a third time sends more dirt sailing. After his fifth miss, Shelia looks at him and says, “I can see where you get a lot of exercise playing this game, but I fail to see the purpose of the ball.”


If I asked you to explain the purpose of golf, you would tell me to hit the ball down the fairway toward the green and into the cup using the fewest swings possible. Some are better at it than others. Let me ask you this: what is the purpose of life? The answer to this question is a bit less clear and varies from person to person. In fact, how we answer – if we have an answer at all – may even vary from day to day. If we don’t know the purpose of life how do we know if we are living it well? In golf you have a scorecard. It tells you how you are doing over the course of eighteen holes. But what about life? How do you measure the way you are living?

Do you remember the conversation Alice had when she first encountered the Cheshire Cat? Confused as to where she was she asks the cat, “Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” the cat replies. “I don’t much care where,” she responds. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” says the cat. Doesn’t it follow that if you don’t know the purpose of life than you won’t care much how you do at living?

The English poet John Dryden didn’t think much of the Duke of Buckingham so he wrote this little ditty about him:

A man so various, that he seem’d to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.

It is the perfect description of a person who lacks a purpose and a passion in life. It may bring to mind someone you know. Perhaps you even see a little of yourself in it.

I read recently of a gentleman who upon meeting someone for the first time never asked conventional questions such as “what do you do for a living?” or “where are you from?” He asked people “what have you done that you believe in and are proud of? For some it is an unsettling question, but not for all. One woman told him that she was doing a good job raising her two children. A cabinetmaker told him, “I believe in good workmanship and practice it.” Another person she had started a flower shop and that it was the best for miles around.” Perhaps the first step to finding the purpose of life is to have a good answer to the question “what have you done that you believe in and are proud of?”

Every year as I listen to the Passion reading I am always struck by how Jesus was in charge of nothing yet in control of everything. He lived his life with purpose and with passion: healing the sick, calling the lost, forgiving the sinner, lifting up the downtrodden, welcoming the outcast, challenging the proud, confronting the powerful, and proclaiming the presence of the Kingdom of God in the midst of a society that looked like anything but. He knew who he was, he embraced his calling, and he accepted the consequences that came with it.

In the preface to his book Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw wrote this:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one: the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, and being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

That quote it helps me to understand why I so deeply admire Jesus. He lived with a mighty purpose, he persisted to the end, and strived in all ways to make the world a better place. I admire his singular clarity about living. I suspect that if we could ask Jesus what he had done that he believed in and what he was proud of he would say he believed in the Kingdom and God and was proud of the way he lived and died for it.

As you listen again to the Passion of our Lord I wonder if you come away with the same sense I do, that your life is small in comparison. It is not that I have to be the Messiah, the one who saves all humanity. That is not my goal, my calling, or my purpose or yours. But don’t you sit back and wonder if you are doing something great that is well within your ability? The old evangelist Billy Sunday once noted that more people fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent. I suspect he is right.

Jesus died because he had a purpose to his life; a purpose which called humanity to live as God intends and as a result threatened those in power. I am suggesting that many of us fail to live because we have not discerned a great purpose in life; a purpose worthy of the name ‘Christian’ – a follower of Christ.

For many of us Holy Week will be the most spiritual week of the year. We will attend services, gather in fellowship, read the bible, and relive the last moments of our Lord’s life. There are many ways one can approach this time reverently and prayerfully. I encourage you to use this week to think about your purpose in life; to consider how and when you are living small, going in no particular direction, and not thinking twice about any of it. Perhaps your prayer can be, “O God, I want to be like Jesus. Please guide me to something I can believe that will make me proud of what I do.”

Emotion and Devotion

She is overcome with deep emotion. Her brother, who died, lives. And he lives because the person she blamed for his death, the healer who had the power to help him but initially stayed away and did not come to his aid, called him back to life: “Lazarus, come out of the tomb.” And now, a few days later, the healer and his companions are in her home having dinner. She is there with her sister and her brother. It is not the first time they have entertained the healer, but it is the first time since he raised her brother from the dead. She is overcome with deep emotion.


But it is even more than that. Mary is filled with a sense of awe and wonder. She now understands that Jesus is more than a teacher and more than a healer. She senses that he is the Lord of life, the Son of the Living God, the Messiah. She is overcome with deep devotion in the presence of one who is Holy Other.

Emotion and devotion are a potent and powerful combination in a person. Working together they can guide us to do amazing things; things which may not make sense to those who do not share our sentiments. We will give generously of our time, willingly of our talents, sacrificially of our treasure, and freely of life itself in response to God.

This past week the Episcopal Church celebrated the life and witness of James Theodore Augustus Holly who was born a free African American in 1829 and ordained to the priesthood in 1855. He served a congregation in New Haven for five years prior to accepting mission work in Haiti. During the first year there his mother, his wife, and two of his children died. Somehow Holly endured and, along with two young sons, he continued the work he felt called by God to do. In 1874 Holly was ordained bishop of Haiti, becoming the first black man to hold this office in our church. Over the course of his episcopacy Holly doubled the membership of the diocese, which is now the largest in the Episcopal Church. He also founded numerous schools, hospitals, and clinics prior to his death in 1911. As I read Bishop Holly’s biography this week, I was amazed at what he accomplished given all that he lost so early in his ministry. Emotion and devotion are a powerful and potent combination in a person.

Mary is overcome with both. She must do something for her Lord, but what? What act, what gesture, what words, what offering would capture even a fragment of what she feels for Jesus and what she believes about him?

She lands on what she will do. The text does not tell us if she planned this for days or if the idea comes to her out of the blue. She decides to anoint Jesus from head to toe with a pound of costly perfume. How costly? 300 denarii – a denarii being equivalent to a day’s wage. We are talking about a perfume that in our time would run anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000. Her act is lavish. It is extravagant. It is the product of deep emotion and deep devotion.

And it causes an outrage. The house quickly fills with the perfume’s aroma and all who are in it are drawn to Mary’s action. John’s gospel tells us that only Judas protests, but as the other gospellers tell the story they indicate that all of Jesus’ followers are offended by an act they see as wasteful beyond words. In a sense, Judas is correct. The perfume could have been sold and the money could have been given to the poor. Of course, he had no intention of letting any proceeds slip through his hands. Jesus accepts Mary’s action and defends her by saying the poor will always be with us, but rare are the opportunities we have to express devotion to him.

Today’s gospel reading interests the life of our congregation in a fascinating way. This is our first opportunity to worship in this space since the restored Ascension window is back in place. In a word, it is stunning. It will inspire worshippers for generations to come. On those rare occasions when my sermon is not up to snuff, you can turn your gaze to the north side of the building and be spiritually nurtured by this incredible piece of sacred art.

In terms of cost and the way in which it fills this space, the Ascension window shares much in common with Mary’s perfume. Perhaps some of our local historians know something of the life of Nannie Stuart Elley in whose memory the window is dedicated. A few of you may know of Alfred and Alice Verner in whose memory a previous restoration is dedicated. We certainly know the Holland family whose generosity has provided funds for this particular window during our current restoration project. I am confident that at some level each of the donors was motivated by deep emotion and devotion; gratitude for those they love, but see no longer and praise for the God who gives life at birth and after death.

This day we also collect change to fund a project that will provide a well for a village in an underdeveloped part of the world, transforming everything about daily life for those who receive it. The cost to do this is modest, $750. Many of us have given up something for Lent and set aside the money we have saved to contribute to the collection. Before this day begins we already have over $500 turned in. I give thanks for the way we have come together in Lent around this effort.

When all is said and done, our stained glass window restoration project will cost around $135,000. I don’t know how much we’ll raise for the well, but it would not surprise me if it exceeds $1,000. In the end, what we give to the poor in relation to what we invest in our windows will be in line with guidelines for the Millennium Development Project, which suggests every congregation contribute 0.7% of its budget to funding one of the goals.

The poor are always with us, as Jesus reminds us. I intend to keep this reality ever before our congregation. I am pleased that you respond to the gospel by meeting the needs of others and by being open and accepting of new opportunities we have to demonstrate Christ’s compassion to a hurting world. This drive within us as individuals and as a faith community is something much deeper than a desire ‘to do good.’ It is fueled by our love and devotion for our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer. What we invest in this building to enhance and maintain it is a sacred place set apart for prayer and praise is right and good and acceptable to God.

Serving God and extending compassion to others are powerful ways to express deep emotion and deep devotion. At some level each of us understands Mary’s actions – what she did and why she did it. At some point in our lives each of us has felt what she felt that day Jesus came to her home for dinner. Each of us has been touched by God’s grace and love and each of us has tried to find some appropriate way to express our gratitude and devotion. Mary’s act and Jesus’ acceptance of it gives us permission not to hold back; to abandon all common sense and restraint; to do that thing which is welling up inside us to give glory, honor, worship, and praise to our Lord. What might that be in you?

Get Up! Get Going! Get After It!

In the reading we just heard, some folks engage Jesus in a conversation about an act of violence. Pilate’s henchmen slaughtered a group of Galileans while they were making a sacrifice in the Temple. Keep in mind that Jesus is a Galilean and he is carrying out his ministry in Galilee. This must have been a hot topic for many in the area. If they had had talk radio back in the day, it would have lit up the phone lines. Then as now, senseless acts of violence spark outrage. Unlike, say, the Newtown shootings, this brutality was perpetrated not by one disturbed individual, but rather by the ruling political authority. Having grown up in Northeast Ohio, I would compare it to the 1970 Kent State shootings. I was nine at the time and was largely shielded from those events that took place fifteen miles from my home, but I can tell you that even today feelings run very, very deep with regard to what happened on May 4th.


It is not at all clear why the temple incident is brought to Jesus’ attention. Did he know any of the people who were killed? It is possible, but the text doesn’t say. And while we are not told why the question is asked, but you can be sure that people wanted to know what Jesus though should be done about it. Was he willing to rise up and lead a revolt?

It is Jesus himself who changes the conversation from what to why. His focus is not on what to do in response, but rather on why it happened. It might be more accurate to say that Jesus refutes a popular notion of why it happened. “Do you think those people were worse sinners than the rest of us? They were not.” And then Jesus refers to eighteen people who died when a tower collapsed. “Do you think they were worse sinners than the rest of us? No.”

To each statement Jesus adds the tag line, “Unless you repent you will perish as they did.” It is a jarring proclamation. Is Jesus really saying that violence and catastrophe await those who do not get their act together?

The parable he tells seems to reinforce this rather harsh teaching. A man plants a fig tree in his vineyard, but after three years it still does not bear fruit. In frustration he tells the gardener to cut it down, but the gardener pleads for more time. “Let me dig around it, fertilize it, care for it. If in another year it does not bear fruit then we will get rid of it.”

It is certainly not true that bad things only happen to bad people. Do you remember when Katrina devastated New Orleans and the gulf coast? Do you remember how some people said God created the hurricane to judge the city? When faced with something we cannot explain there is a human tendency to assign it to God’s will. “God has his reasons,” we say. A portion of our biblical tradition encourages this thinking. The Noah flood story is couched in terms of God’s judgment on human evil. But even there, at its end, the narrative tells us that God promises God’s self never again to act in such a way. Or we read of Abraham interceding on behalf of the city of Sodom, “God, would you not spare the city if it has just five righteous people in it?” “Yes,” God responds, “I would spare it.”

The truth is that we live in a world of randomness. There is not always a reason misfortune strikes one person and not another: why a car careens out of control and smashes into someone else rather than into me or why someone else gets cancer and I don’t or why a tornado cuts through one part of town, but not where I live. It happens that way because that’s the way it happens.

This, I think, is what Jesus is trying to say. Those people who were killed by Pilate and those people who died when a tower collapsed didn’t deserve it any more than any of the rest of us. It just happened. So how should you respond to this? When Jesus says, “Unless you repent you will perish as they did,” I hear him saying that life is short and carries no guarantees. We may be comfortable now, but each of us will know hardship and struggle. Therefore, he says, there is no time to waste. Get your affairs in order – that is number one. And number two – make your life count for something… starting today.

Get your affairs in order. I have been negligent in my duties as your priest, at least as far as one of the rubrics of the prayer book is concerned. To make amends, I ask you know to open your prayer book and turn to page 445. There we find the following:

The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people, from time to time, about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of their families, and of all persons to make wills, while they are in good health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses.

Worse than dying suddenly is dying unprepared. For most of us a simple will will suffice. For young families especially, it is important that life insurance provides some finance assistance to help our loved ones move forward without us. As we get older and fewer people depend on us, we come to a joyous time when we can think about gifts that will support institutions that matter to us. I am grateful that Gail Pruden is working with Roy Waller, John Rector, Kent Spain, and others to raise awareness in the parish about making these kinds of gifts. For any of you so willing, I am more than happy to sit down and help you think through the details of the Burial Office – the last rite each of us will be a part of in the Episcopal Church. Picking out hymns and readings and articulating other details is a great gift and comfort to family members who otherwise might be groping to discern your wishes.

As a footnote, please don’t ask me if I have tended to these things. This is one of those times when you should do as I say, not as I do. I shudder to think of the mess I am leaving for family to sort through. Perhaps from time to time you can gently ask me if I am making any progress. It might encourage me.

Make your life count for something. If you feel like your life doesn’t matter then you need to make a change and you need to do it now. God’s world is pregnant with opportunity and groaning with need. This Lenten season we are pointing in this direction by reflecting on what we offer to God and to others. We have invited you to bring food and drink to distribute through our Food Pantry. Next week we invite you to bring a dish to share at an informal Breakfast Eucharist in the Parish Hall at 8:00 or Brunch Eucharist in the Parish Hall at 10:30. In two weeks we invite you to bring in change so that we can fund a well for a family farm in an underdeveloped part of the world.

Make your life count for something. I know that this is a hard time for several families in our parish who are effected by the sequestration. A 20% drop in income is very difficult to weather. What can you do with your day off that will be redeeming? How might you invest it in your family, your community, or in yourself?

This morning we hear Jesus issue what we today refer to as a ‘wake-up call.’ A senseless act of violence and a horrific tragedy serve to remind us that life is short and comes with no guarantees. For Jesus, this is not cause for sadness or anxiety, but rather serves as motivation. In the parable of the fig tree, Jesus is not the vineyard owner who wants to do in the fruitless tree, he is the gardener, working diligently to nourish us for good works. He tells us to get up, get going, get after it right now. There is not a minute to waste.

Walt Kowalski & Jerusalem Moments

Today’s Gospel reading casts Jesus as a provocateur. Warned that Herod wants to kill him, and keep in mind that Herod already has beheaded John the Baptist, Jesus (to use today’s terminology) starts talking trash. “Go and tell that fox this for me…” Herod fancied himself to be a lion, the king of the beasts. Foxes, well, they were just slightly better than rats and vermin. “When I finish my work,” Jesus says, “then I’ll make my way to Jerusalem because it is there that a prophet must die.” In effect, Jesus is saying, “Tell Herod I am coming for him.”

We don’t usually think of Jesus as being the one to ratchet up the tension, but that is exactly what he does here. Jesus meek and mild he is not. We might want to ask why. Why does Jesus need to go to Jerusalem? Why does he continue on a collision course that will cost him his life? 2,000 years later it is easy for us to answer this question because we know how the story plays out. But put aside all your theology about dying for the sins of the world and place yourself back in this moment. Jesus had plenty of other options, but he chose to go to Jerusalem. Why?

I suggest that we think of Jerusalem not so much as a city but as a symbol. It represents that conflict that can not be avoided. It stands for that injustice that must be confronted. It symbolizes for that problem that can not be ignored. There are times in life when you simply have to do something that is going to be costly. It is the only way to right what is wrong. That is what Jerusalem is as a symbol.

How many of you saw the 2008 film Gran Torino staring Clint Eastwood? Clint plays Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed, retired factory worker living in a Detroit neighborhood that has seen better days. Kowalski is as bigoted as they come, especially toward his new neighbors who are part of a growing Hmong community in the area. It matters not to Kowalski that these people fled Laos after the communist takeover. He does not distinguish them from the people he fought and killed in the Korean War.

In many respects we have seen Eastwood play this character before. Kowalski is a tough-talking, gun toting, take no guff off of anyone kind of person. Even in his late 70’s he stands tall and proud against neighborhood thugs and gangs.

As the movie unfolds, Kowalski is grudgingly drawn into relationship with his Hmong neighbors. He begins to mentor Thao, a teenager being pressured to join a gang. He finds in his neighbors the kind of ethic for work, family, and respect of elders that he admires and finds lacking in his own family. As Kowalski’s affection for them grows, so too does the tension between he and an area gang. In one scene, Kowalski saves Thao from a gang attack – how else – by pulling out the biggest shot-gun you have ever laid eyes on. In another scene he saves Sue, a young woman in family member.

One day the gang attacks Thao on the way home from school. When Kowalski sees the injuries he goes to the gang’s house and brutally beats one of the members as a warning. The gang retaliates with a drive-by shooting of the Hmong home and by kidnapping and raping Sue. No witnesses are willing to talk so there is nothing that the police can do.

It is time for Clint Eastwood to do what Clint Eastwood characters always do. It is time to ride over the gang house and, against unbelievable odds, take out all the bad guys. The entire film he has been on the road to this symbolic ‘Jerusalem moment’ and nothing is going to deter him. Standing in front of the gang house, making enough of a scene so that the entire neighborhood is watching, with a half-dozen automatic weapons trained on him, Kowalski slowly makes a move to reach into his jacket as if to pull out a weapon and is gunned down in a hail of bullets. He has no gun, only a cigarette lighter. Kowalski’s body lies on the ground arms extended outward. It is a crucifix position.

The gang members are driven away in police cars with the promise that they will be put away for a long time. The movie closes with a scene of Thao driving Kowalski’s Gran Tornio, which was left to him. The family is safe and their future is secure. The sacrifice of one person exposes evil for what it is and makes new life possible for many.

Have you ever had to go to Jerusalem; to that moment or place or encounter where you had to confront a person or a situation? I’m not talking about shooting it out with a bunch of bad guys. Our Jerusalems tend to be moral or relational in nature. It might have been something at work. Perhaps it involved something between you and a friend. Have you ever had to go to Jerusalem? I suspect each of us can think of at least a time or two when we accepted risk and did what needed to be done, no matter what the cost.

How about right now? Is there a Jerusalem on the horizon? Is there a situation in your life that you need to engage, even though there is a price to pay? Is there something you need to say to a friend or a family member that is difficult?

If so, here are a couple of things you might think about that we can draw from today’s reading:

• When Jesus learned that Herod was after him he said that he still had work to do, but that soon enough he would be on his way to Jerusalem. Jesus chose when, where, and how he was going to engage. It is never good to get drawn into confrontation when you have not set the terms.

• Make sure you are in the right or at least have the right motivation. It isn’t a Jerusalem moment if everything always has to be done your way. There is a big difference between confronting injustice verses matters of taste. How do you know you are in the right? I do three things. First, I pray. Then I talk to a few people I respect and trust, making it clear I want honest feedback, even if it is not what I want to hear. And finally, I pray even more.

• Jesus called Herod a fox. Name-calling is not my style. It tends to exacerbate the situation and make resolution more difficult. Still, there are times when revered villains have to be exposed for what they are. Naming it takes courage and can come at a cost.

• Speaking of cost, don’t forget what happened to Jesus in Jerusalem. He was betrayed, arrested, tried, tortured, and executed. The Herods of this world rarely play nice and even more rarely admit they are in the wrong. If you are going to speak the truth to power you had better be ready to accept the consequences that come from doing it.

• Finally, God promises resurrection – new life – on the other side of Jerusalem. What this new life looks like in any particular situation is hard to say. It may look like a restored relationship or it may look like an ending in order for something new to begin. I spoke with someone this week who grew so frustrated at work that he simply had to quit and go somewhere else and start over. It was a very difficult process, but he is much happier now.

Through our baptismal vows we promise to follow Jesus as our guide. His life witnesses to how life is to be lived. It is helpful to know that his life was not absent of conflict. Neither is ours. Seeing how Jesus handled his ‘Jerusalem’ is instructive for us. And more than being a model for us to follow, Jesus promises to be with us throughout life, but especially in our most challenging ‘Jerusalem moments.’

The Temptation to Forget

Each week, in preparation for writing a sermon, I do copious research to help me better understand the bible and subjects it addresses. This research can, and often does, take me down a rabbit hole or two. Knowing that the season of Lent always begins with the story of Jesus’ testing in the wilderness, I decided to google the word ‘temptation.’ I am here to testify that you do not want to look at the images tagged to the word ‘temptation.’ Don’t go there, just don’t.


While the image avenue proved less than fruitful, somehow I found my way to a link labeled as “Bumper Stickers about Temptation.” Because I love a good bumper sticker, allow me to digress for just a moment. These were my favorite non-temptation bumper stickers from the site:

“Cover me. I’m changing lanes.”

“Sometimes I wake up grumpy; Other times I let her sleep”

“Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.”

“Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.”

“I’m not as think as you drunk I am”

“I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather… Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car!”

If you are looking to put a bumper sticker on your car that makes a statement about temptation here are your choices:

“Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself.”

“I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.”

“Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

“Better to shun the bait, than to struggle in the snare.”

Today we hear again of the temptations Jesus faced. They are as old as they are new.

“Turn these stones to bread.” Given that Jesus was in the midst of a forty day fast, this temptation was aimed at a concern as basic as survival. In our time, it sets its sights on instant gratification for human cravings… I am hungry, I am bored, I want sex, I want to be comfortable. Think about the commercial industries that have mushroomed to prominence to satisfy these basic human drives. In our culture, these are not temptations, they are profit opportunities.

The bible describes heaven as being like a sumptuous banquet, so food in and of itself is not evil. In fact, in God’s Kingdom gathering for a meal not only nourishes the body, but it also creates community through table fellowship. It is an opportunity to thank God for daily bread, to extend hospitality to the stranger in our midst, and to share with those who have nothing to eat.

God wants us to be comfortable and promises that those who put their trust in God will lack for nothing. Note that lacking nothing is not the same as opulence or excess.

Sexual intimacy, which brings two people into a singular relationship, is ordained by God. The human drive toward relationship finds its highest expression not through promiscuous conquest, but through life-long, mutual commitment marked by fidelity, monogamy, affection, respect, and careful, honest communication: the kind of intimate relationship into which God seeks to enter with us.

We are much, much more than the sum of our human urges but we have lost touch with the purpose for and value of subduing basic cravings. We are to master them, not they us. And when they master us, we transform gifts God has given to us into something destructive to us and to those around us.

“Bow down and I will give you authority.” For Jesus this temptation must have been particularly tricky. You see, it is the Father’s will that, at a certain point in human history, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. The tempter offers what the Father desires, but (as they say) the devil is in the details. The tempter’s offer involves a shortcut. No obedience, no suffering, no crucifixion, just kneel down now. “Take the easy road, after all you deserve it. Why study? Why work hard? Why save? You can have it all right now. You should have it all right now. You deserve to have it all right now.”

When we yield to this temptation we come to expect that the world owes us, well, the world. We shift from the godly call to mark our lives by offering to wanting to get something. We sit back waiting for someone to do for us when we are called to follow the example of our Lord and do for others. The easy road the tempter offers is a dead end.

I am now 53 years old; old enough not to be young and not to be old. I am old enough to have a sense that what authority I have in life has come the hard way: trials I have endured through the grace of God, persecution I have withstood while doing God’s will, deaths I have suffered from being faithful. None of these are to my credit. It is just what happens when by the grace of God you endure. I sense a little more each day and month and year people acknowledging an authority in me that comes from having been around the block once or twice. There is no shortcut to get this. It is won through faithfulness, admission of failure, tears, confession, tears, forgiveness, and more tears. It is especially tempting when we are young to short-circuit all of this for the easy authority we dream should be ours. It is especially tempting as we get older to be bitter about the things that never came our way when.

“Throw yourself off this pinnacle and let the angels catch you.” Today the tempter would offer to help Jesus go viral! We all want to be ‘somebody’; someone who captures attention, someone who is known for something, anything. The ultimate goal in our age of hyper reality is fame. Deep down we fear that we are nobody, that we don’t matter. This is where the tempter finds us most vulnerable. “I can make you somebody. I can make your life matter. I will get others to notice you. Once you are famous and people admire you, you will feel good about yourself.” So dress for success, sculpt your body into the likeness of a Greek god, upload a video of a stunt to YouTube, if you are really desperate, walk into a school armed to the teeth.

Who wouldn’t want to make the catch that wins the Super Bowl or walk down the runway in a designer dress or author an acclaimed book or even orchestrate a church initiative that revitalizes the prospects of a congregation we deeply love? The tempter’s efforts here are all about the show, not about the sacrifice. Jesus got what the tempter offered, except he died to accomplish it.

The tempter works on our notion that the only reality that matters is a public reality. Jesus reminds us that those who pray or fast or do acts of charity in order to be seen by others have their reward. They do get noticed. What they do not get is the benefit of developing a private, interior world where they will discover that they are loved by God and that this love is the most important thing in life. It is what we were made for.

Think about the tempter approached Jesus: “If you are the Son of God…” Do you recognize how this is a challenge to his identity? And coming within forty days of his baptism, it is no small challenge because Jesus cannot be at all clear as to the full meaning of the Voice he heard proclaiming him “the Beloved.” The tempter presents plausible possibilities. In the end, Jesus overcomes each temptation by knowing who God is and who he is in God’s eyes.

Who are we? The bible says you and I are wayward children adopted into God’s family through the work and love of Jesus Christ. It is not something we earn. It is something we embrace.

How differently do we approach the world when we understand ourselves to be loved and valued in God’s eyes verses if we believe ourselves to be lacking or worthless? Temptation is not so much something we get led into or stumble across – “If only I hadn’t clicked on that website or walked into that bar or sat down on the couch with a bag of chips” – but rather something that has its roots deep inside our soul and self-understanding. When we are confident in who we are to God then we move comfortably in this world. When we are unsure who we are in God, or when we reject who we are in God, then we turn to any number of things to fill that void and salve the hurt.

I suppose if I were going to make up a bumper sticker it might say, “The tempter wants us to forget. Jesus wants us to remember.”

You see, temptation is about forgetting; forgetting that we are God’s children; forgetting that the body is more than food and clothing; forgetting that greatness comes from serving others; forgetting that what really matters is not what we are known for, but who we are on the inside. Every time we gather in worship we gather to remember what often we are tempted to forget. We remember that we are God’s children, deeply loved for who we are, more precious than fine jewels, lacking nothing, possessing everything in Christ. We remember that our Savior Jesus Christ has shown us the way. We remember that what God says is what matters most and that the voice of the tempter only gains leverage as we forget.

Joseph Kennedy taught his children always to remember that they were a ‘Kennedy.’ No matter where you, no matter what you are doing, he said, always remember that you are a ‘Kennedy.’ His children grew up to be presidents, senators, and great humanitarians because they had an identity which they never forgot. You and I have an identity even stronger then theirs. We are God’s children and God showers the rich blessings of grace upon us each and every day. If you remember this there is no temptation against which you cannot stand. As we forget this, we experience how temptation distorts life and makes it something God does not intend. We are blessed that God invites us to remember and to return. This invitation comes to us each and every day, but is especially present during the season of Lent. Who are you? Do you remember? How do you need to reassert in your life your identity as a child of God?