Stephen's Witness

In a June 1965 commencement address at Ohio’s Oberlin College, Martin Luther King put forward this thought: “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.  And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”  It was a statement deeply rooted in the principles of nonviolent resistance to evil and injustice and it flies in the face of thinking that holds in order for me to come out of any situation as the winner, someone has to come out as the loser.  Certainly if Dr. King could have stood before Stephen’s executioners in today’s first reading and said to them, “You can never be what you ought to be until Stephen is what he ought to be,” they would have laughed in his face.
 

Stephen appears from out of nowhere in the Book of Acts when he is lifted up as one of the first seven ordained deacons; ministers who had a specific role to play in the early church.  Two kinds of Christians coexisted in that Jerusalem community: those who were Hebrew Jews prior to following Christ and those who before being baptized were Hellenistic (or Greek raised and Greek speaking) Jews.  You can imagine that, while having a common faith in Christ, these two groups - given their cultural backgrounds and differences - had much to overcome in order to maintain unity.  The Hellenistic Christians complained that the community was not caring for their widows and orphans at the same level as they tended to Hebrew Christian widows and orphans.  Thus, the Apostles saw fit to ordain seven deacons, Stephen being one of them, to oversee the care of all persons in need.  

Surely Stephen approached this matter with a spirit similar to Dr. King’s commencement statement; knowing that neither group benefited when one held an advantage over the other.  The good of the community demanded fair and equitable treatment for all.

In addition to this work, the Book of Acts tells us that Stephen did much teaching and also performed many signs and wonders.  He soon caught the attention of religious authorities who brought him before the formidable Sanhedrin council for investigation.  There, Stephen made an articulate defense of his faith by stating how the whole of Jewish history pointed to Jesus as being the promised Messiah.  Those leaders heard this as blasphemy and dragged him out of the city, picked up rocks, and stoned him to death, making Stephen the first person to be martyred for the Christian faith.

His dying words are truly remarkable.  If I was in his place, I might have said something like “Jesus will get you for this” or “A curse be on all of you” or maybe even in weakness, “Let me recant my testimony.”  Stephen, however, said nothing of the sort.  His last words were these: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  It is an amazing response that charts a clear and merciful path for the early church to follow as it endures persecution.  Stephen’s witness continues to reverberate into our day and age as it holds up the possibility of nonviolent resistance in the face of evil and injustice.

There is a very powerful scene in the movie Gandhi where that great leader addresses a mass gathering in South Africa.  Gandhi begins his speech:
 

“I want to welcome you all… everyone of you (he says facing the English police and authorities).  We have no secrets.  Let us begin by being clear about General Smart’s new law.  All Indians must now be fingerprinted, like criminals: men and women.  No marriage other than a Christian Marriage in considered valid.  Under this act our wives and mothers are whores and every man here is a bastard.  And a policeman passing an Indian dwelling - I will not call them homes - may enter and demand the card of any Indian woman whose dwelling it is.  He does not have to stand at the door, he may enter.” 
 

A man interrupts and shouts out, “I swear to Allah I will kill that man who offers that insult to my home and my wife.  And let them hang me.”  Another man stands and says, “I say those mean nothing.  Kill all the officials before they disgrace one Indian woman.  Then they may think twice about such laws.”  A third man supports this idea and proclaims, “I will be willing to die”. 
 

Gandhi responds:
 

“I praise such courage.  I need such courage.  Because in this cause I too am prepared to die but my friend, there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.  Whatever they do to us, we will attack no one, kill no one.  But we will not give our fingerprints.  Not one of us.  They will imprison us.  They will fine us.  They will seize our possessions but they cannot take our self-respect if we do not give it to them.” 
 

A listener interrupts: “Have you ever been to prison? They beat us!  They torture us!” 
 

Gandhi answers him by saying to all: 
 

“I am asking you to fight… to fight against their anger, not to provoke it.  We will not strike a blow.  But we will receive them.  And through our pains we will make them see their injustice and it will hurt as all fighting hurts.  But we cannot lose… we cannot.  They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me.  Then they will have my dead body.  Not my obedience.”
 

Certainly Gandhi’s thinking was inspired, in some part, by Stephen’s example.  As the old saying goes, he will love the sinner while hating the sin.  He will pronounce judgment on actions while embracing the value of the person acting.  He does not stand against other people, only opposed to what they are doing.

More and more, I am impressed by the power that you and I have through social media to join our voices with millions of others around the world in an effort to bring about justice where evil reigns.  The act of commenting, liking, and sharing posts that demand the Boko Haram free the school girls they have kidnapped brings pressure to bear on this situation.  Hopefully the same tools can help the world stand with Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman who has been sentenced to death for converting to Christianity.  Before she is executed she is sentenced to receive 200 lashes for committing adultery.  All of this comes about because an Islamic court does not recognize her marriage to a Christian man.

In his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, Dr. King wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  You and I now have powerful and productive ways to act for justice that were not available to us only a decade ago.  Stephen’s martyrdom, which was known at most to 100 people and witnessed by even less than that, today would be played out before the eyes of the world.  Your voice matters.  Your silence or indifference is also be noted and it too plays a part in every outcome.

In just a few moments we will renew our baptismal covenant by affirming our now-familiar vows to persevere in resisting evil, to proclaim by word and deed the Good News of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and to strive for justice and peace among all people by respecting the dignity of every human being.  These promises have implications both for our personal relationships and for our individual standing on a world stage.

The feeling of powerlessness is perhaps the greatest temptation to inaction.  Today we have more power than we imagine.  And, as always, in addition to social networks, our individual and collective voices are heard by God.  Prayer remains the single most powerful force in a world of deadly weapons and instruments of mass destruction.

The reading from Acts ends by introducing another new character in the Christian drama, a man by the name of Saul.  He witnesses the stoning in some official capacity and is so moved by what transpires he becomes a zealous and malicious persecutor of the early church, travelling to towns and villages to carry out arrests and tortures.  In that he was present at Stephen’s death, the martyr’s dying words of forgiveness are extended to him as well as the others: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Well, in Saul’s case, God answers that prayer in spectacular fashion.  You remember the story how the Risen Christ appeared to him as he was travelling on the road to Damascus, an encounter that left Saul temporally blinded.  But it led to his conversion and to a new name – Paul, for whom our parish is named.  Prayer matters.  Forgiveness as an instrument of resistance makes a difference.

Stephen’s witness, which was an inspiration for Gandhi and King, tells us much about who we are to be as followers of Christ.  We are not to seek what is advantageous for us alone, but for what is beneficial to all.  We do not excuse bad behavior as if it were nothing, neither do we hold others forever accountable for the wrongs they have done.  We believe that evil has been judged and condemned, and thus injustice simply is intolerable in our community, in our common life, and in our personal relationships.  We stand with every person who is powerless in the face of injustice and in the name of a just God demand that righteousness reigns for all people.  And we know that the weapons of the world are not synonymous with the ways of God.

May Stephen’s example inspire and guide us as it has inspired and guided so many before.

Spontaneous or Sustainable Generosity?

It must have been a heady and exciting time to be a follower of Jesus in Jerusalem during those early weeks after the Resurrection.  Rumor that Jesus was alive spread like soft butter on hotcakes.  The Apostles, fueled by the power of the Holy Spirit, could not stop preaching and teaching and healing.  Already thousands of people had been converted and baptized.  No one knew exactly what the future held, but certainly it included the Risen Christ inaugurating some kind of kingdom on earth in the very near future.  Everything would be much clearer then, but in the mean time, the disciples felt compelled to convert as many people as possible.

During this exhilarating period, the last thing any one was thinking about was long-term planning, probably because no one believed there would be a long term.  The faithful were living day-to-day and moment-to-moment.  Given their mindset, it is easy to understand their attitude around material possessions.  It was springtime in Jerusalem and most certainly there would be no need again for winter coats.  Whatever Jesus was going to do, certainly it would happen well before the weather turned cold.  Why not sell your coats and give the money to the poor?  In fact, why not sell just about everything you have and give it to the poor?  What better way could there be to prepare for Jesus’ immanent return?  Surely his words spoken long ago now echoed in their heads and generated an enthusiastic urgency: “Take no extra coat and no extra sandals no extra bag with you as you go to the do the work of an evangelist.” 

A kind of spontaneous generosity swept through the ranks.  Listen again to what we heard moments ago from the reading from the Book of Acts:

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

What an amazing time that must have been.  No one seemed to have a care in the world as they waited for the Risen Christ to do something.  It was as if everyone was on a retreat together – worshiping, praying, sharing meals, relaxing, being filled with a sense of well-being and good will.  Earning a living?  Not a problem.  Paying the bills?  That won’t be necessary ever again.  Maxing out the credit card?  That won’t be a problem when Jesus’ new order arrives.

Think about what a great time we could have here at St. Paul’s if we all went home, liquidated our assets, sold our property and possessions, and simply decided to hang out together.  Think about how many other people would join our fellowship if we opened it up to them.  Think about the response we would get it we spread the word that there was a free cookout tonight at 5:00.  Think about the response we would get if we invited everyone back for breakfast (with bacon) in the morning.  Heck, if we all could live off the accumulated wealth we through into the pot and invited everyone to join our ranks, I’ll bet folks would even be willing to kick back for an hour or two each day and listen to me teach and preach.  And if – if – I could toss in some miraculous healings for good affect, well, we would be a going concern!

I am sure you see the fatal flaw in this plan.  No, it is not that no one here would liquidate everything to fund a wonderful communal experience.  The fatal flaw is that each and every one of us would wonder what would happen when the money ran out.  That is not something that was on the minds of the Apostles and all those early converts.

In short order, believers were selling everything they had and giving it to the disciples.  At the end of Acts 4 we read for the first time about a follower named Barnabas.  He sells a field he owns and lays the proceeds as the feet of the Jerusalem Apostles.  From there he will eventually accompany the yet-to-be-converted Paul on missionary journeys around the Mediterranean.  They will found Christian churches in various communities and nurture them from infancy, though growing pains, and into viability.  And Barnabas was just one of many converts who gave away everything gratefully and joyfully.

But, as we turn the page to the 5^th chapter of the Book of Acts, we encounter Ananias and Sapphira, and husband and wife recently baptized.  They wanted to follow the example of others and so they sold everything they had.  But for reasons unspecified, when Ananias comes before Peter to make his offering, he holds back some of the proceeds.  Peter, perceiving what is going on, proclaims that Satan has entered into Ananias’ heart and the next thing you know the reluctant giver is stricken dead.  When his wife comes to check out what has happened, she too attempts to conceal that they did not give every penny they had and dies on the spot.  In what might be one of the most understated verses in the bible, after this takes place Scripture records “great fear fell among all the believers.”  You can be sure it led to a dramatic uptick of generous and abundant giving. 

You may suspect that another shoe is about to drop and you are right.  Here it comes.  Jesus does not return in a way that inaugurates a new order.  Eventually (and more quickly than many would suspect) the assets collected by the Apostles ran out.  Jesus’ followers were broke.  The bible doesn’t say much about this, but it does record that a great famine comes over Palestine and that this puts the church in Jerusalem in dire straights.  St. Paul initiates a great undertaking by trying to raise funds from all the churches he has founded to supply relief for the suffering.  Most of his New Testament letters in one way or another implore believes to respond as they are able. 

Out of all of this, I want to lift up a tension we all live with: the tension between spontaneous (and perhaps lavish) generosity verses what I want to call sustainable generosity. 

You can scarcely go through a week without being compelled to make an act of spontaneous generosity: “Would you like to round up your change to help cause X?”, “Can you please do something to help me with my light bill?”, or a placard that reads “Homeless and need money for food.”  Spontaneous generosity typically presents us with a single, immediate way to meet a need that generally we know little or nothing about.  It plays on a particular emotion – not righteous indignation about a situation we find abhorrent, or passionate support for a worthy cause, but just straight, plain guilt.  Spontaneous generosity never addresses the problem, it only puts a Band-Aid on the need, assuaging – temporarily – our sense of guilt that we have more than we need when confronted by a person who has such obvious need.  That is not always a bad thing, but is there a better way?

What does sustainable generosity look like?  Well, first off, it looks like me giving in a way that does not exhaust my personal resources.  It allows me to take care of my basic needs in a way that the early Church model failed to do.  Second, it looks like me being generous.  I can take care of my ‘needs’ and even many of my ‘wants’ in a manner that still leaves me with significant resources to share with others.  The biblical model of the tithe suggests that 10% is a good benchmark.  Sustainable generosity is never born of guilt.  It is born of obedience to Christ’s call to care for others.  It is born of a belief in justice and in equity for all people.  And it is born in a belief that I can, through the power of my actions and the appropriation of my resources, make the world a more just place for every person.

I think about the Haitian mother of four who will receive a micro-finance grant from our Lenten offering.  I think about how she will use that money to purchase sheep and a weaving loom.  I think about how she will create products that she can sell at market and how that money will help her to provide food, medicine, and education for her children.  And, because in that society, a little bit goes a long way, she will be able to reach out in love and concern for her neighbors in material ways she could not before.  I think about her and how little it cost you and me to make it happen and I want to hit the reset button.  I want to say we have only dipped our toe in the water and in doing so discovered that the water feels nice.  Let’s keep going.  What’s next?  How do we begin to bring the idea and methodology of sustainable generosity to downtown Suffolk?

Bill and Ginger Rodgers have figured out one thing.  They helped to initiate a program where children with learning challenges can read to therapy dogs.  What a great idea!  In fact, it was such a great idea that when they launched the program absolutely no one came to benefit from it.  They talked to the library and got nowhere.  They talked to the school board and – shockingly – got nowhere.  But here is the greatest shock of all… they and their partners did not give up and finally they are starting to make some inroads.  Don’t I remember a fantastic preacher in this very pulpit once saying “God can’t make much use of quitters!”?   I think I do.

Today we observe two calendar events.  Liturgically, the Fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday.  Our collect and lessons focus of the image of Jesus as shepherd in our lives.  Today is also Mothers’ Day.  Shepherds and mothers are wonderful images of sustainable generosity, don’t you think.  They teach us much about how to care for self while being constantly oriented toward the care of others.  They remind us through their roles in life that living for self alone is no way to live.  They embody the words of St. Francis’ Prayer that it is in giving we receive. 

Let’s spend some time in thought and conversation thinking about the difference between spontaneous generosity and sustainable generosity and how we might move from one to the other in our lives.   

Known in Word & Sacrament

Sometimes I feel a little bit like the minister who stood before a congregation on Easter Sunday and said, “My friends, I have in my possession three colorful eggs.  If you buy the first egg it will cost you $100, but the sermon will only be 10 minutes long.  If you buy the second egg, it will cost you $50, but the sermon will last 25 minutes.  The third egg only costs $20, but comes with a 45-minute sermon.  We are going to take an offering now so I can see which egg you want me to deliver.”  Well, I don’t know if I’ll lay an egg this morning or not, but I can promise you two things: first, you don’t have to pay for it and second, it will be over in about 10 minutes.  During this time I want to describe my personal history with today’s gospel reading.  I encountered it one way growing up in the Presbyterian Church and another here in the Episcopal Church. 

I have said before that I learned my bible in the Presbyterian Church.  Every Sunday we children had a memory verse to learn and recite the next week.  Youth groups, starting in Middle School, focused on the bible, as did the bible study that began an hour before youth group.  Our Senior High youth group, along with another bible study on a weeknight, drilled home in me the content of the bible and much of its meaning.  Add to this that we were encouraged to read the bible on our own, which I did one chapter a night before bed for almost fifteen years.

So you can imagine how in that environment the focus on today’s reading honed in on the verse, “Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted for them the things about himself in all of scripture.”   From there the focus skipped forward to the two disciples saying to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he… was opening the scriptures to us?”  For us, the bible was the primary sacrament of the church.  Knowing it was central to knowing God.  The headwork of knowing the bible led to a heart on fire for God.

When I entered college in the fall of 1978 I did so with the intention of majoring in religion and philosophy.  Philosophy morphed into economics, but I stayed with religion.  I had classes in Old and New Testament survey, which were largely content driven and easy for me.  I also took a class in New Testament Greek, which was a significant challenge.  Over the next few semesters I had classes on the life of Paul, Old Testament theology, the Minor Prophets, the Book of Revelation, and on and on.  There was a lot of bible and even in massive doses it fueled my spiritual life.

During this time I drifted away from the mainline Presbyterian Church and tried out a couple of different bible churches before settling in to a small Orthodox Presbyterian Church in my college town.  They hired a new pastor from New Zealand who decided early on to start a preaching series beginning at Genesis 1:1 and making his way from there through the entire bible.  That is an ambitious undertaking both for the preacher and for the congregation.  Worship at the O.P. Church was something straight out Puritan England – an opening hymn, a long pastoral prayer (and let me emphasize the long part), a responsive reading from the psalter, an offering, and a 45-minute sermon.  Now, when I say ‘sermon’, please don’t mistake this experience with the wonderment I weave here Sunday in and Sunday out.  These sermons were straight bible commentary – comparing and contrasting the position of several renowned scholars arguing over the intricacies of some nuanced point. 

By the middle of my senior year, what with classes in the bible six days a week (yes, my college had Saturday classes) and what felt like another whole class on Sunday morning, the warm, burning I had come to associate with reading the bible cooled off dramatically.  Over the previous two years that pastor had preached is all the way to the 9^th chapter of the book of Genesis and I found myself longing not for words about God but for an experience of God.  I returned to the mainline Presbyterian Church in my college town and there became reacquainted with worship as opposed to study.

I returned home to Ohio after graduating in 1982 and that summer was introduced to the Episcopal Church through, of all things, a bible study.  But this is not what grabbed me.  What grabbed me was the worship.  I was moved by the music (the church had an incredible Men & Boys Choir associated with the Royal School of Church Music), the liturgy (which I found made my heart burn within me), and the preaching (which, rather than engaging the bible as an academic exercised, focused more on applying it to daily life and experience). 

I vividly recall the first Morning Prayer service I attended on the 4^th of July weekend.  I remember being dumbstruck as the Officiant offered a Collect for our Armed Forces and a Collect for Peace.  What impressed me so deeply was that he made no attempt to reconcile the two, no effort to articulate to God exactly how opposites should be balanced and tensions resolved.  We simply, humbly, and gracefully offered our prayers to God and then trusted in God to hear them and to guide us.  How refreshing it was not to be exposed to a lengthy survey on scholarly opinions and what a relief it was not to be subjected to the particular point of view of the person praying!  We all came before God, said our prayers, and put ourselves in a position of trust.  I was hooked for life.

The next Sunday was the first time I participated in the Eucharist at an Episcopal Church.  At every other church I had attended, we sat in the pew while communion was passed out to us.  Every other church I had attended, there was no clear reason even to have communion except a couple of times a year (and even then, many resented that the service took longer than usual because of it).  In my mind’s eye, I can still envision walking up the long center aisle of the church, into the chancel, past the singing choir, and kneeling for the first time at an altar rail.  I can still taste the bread and see the large chalice (filled with wine, not juice).  The basic act of coming forward and kneeling, as everyone else in the church did, started a burning in me that I had never felt before.  It began in me what has been a complex and amazing journey of finding Jesus made known in the breaking of the bread.

Initially I experienced the Eucharist as a deeply penitential moment.  In it I recounted all my sins from the previous week, promised to do better in the week to come, and then hit the reset button on the following Sunday feeling all the while like a miserable sinner because I had failed at my reforms.  Over time, my experience of the Eucharist began to change, not because I was any less a sinner, but because I began to find in it God’s deep acceptance of me for who I am.  This phase of the journey began innocently enough when I received communion from a priest who looked me in eye as he gave me the bread, smiled, and said, “Keith, the body of Christ which is given for you.”  In that moment I felt loved by God for who I am, not condemned by God for who I am not.

I do not regret a thing about my upbringing with its emphasis on knowing the bible.  Frankly, I continue to be surprised at how life-long Episcopalians can sit through services week in and week out and still lack a coherent understanding of the bible.  Beginning this summer with our Wednesday evening pot-luck dinners, I am going to start walking us through the bible and its stories beginning (where else) at Genesis 1:1.  My hope is to expose us to the basic content of the bible and to gain a better sense of its historic flow.

My personal testimony is this: word without sacrament lacks something of the mystery of God.  It is too small.  Too confined.  When God wanted humanity to know God, God became a person, not a book.  That person went through life without writing a thing.  And when he wanted to institute a ritual to remember him and his words, he did so at a meal rather than a bible study.  But sacrament without word is not sufficient either.  The basic stories of our tradition along with its teachings and wisdom begin a holy conversation even in our day.  Without the conversation, the experience of God may happen while the voice of God goes unheard.  At its best, our Episcopal tradition gives us both.  I invite you to commit to a regular practice of reading the bible and conversing about it while at the same time engaging in the worship and sacramental life of the church.

An Irrefutable Witness

One of the great differences between middle school and adulthood is that in middle school it is cool to be hurt.  Back in my day, no one ever tore or cut anything, being injured meant having a broken bone.  Girls who normally wouldn’t even look at you vied for the opportunity to sign your cast.  Teachers excused you from class five minutes early under the premise that you needed more time to navigate the halls.  Best of all, because you were deemed unable to carry your own books, you got to choose someone to leave early with you.  You could pick a friend or perhaps someone who was going to the same class, but most guys, if they knew anything about anything, designated the cutest girl in the class to assist them.  During these precious moments you felt as free as Andy Dufresne sipping suds with his buddies after tarring the prison roof. 

But now, as an adult, injuries, aches, pains, and wounds carry very little, if any, benefit.  They are the marks we bear for having the timidity to live this thing we call life.  No one – and I mean NO ONE – gets through life unscathed. 

On the Sunday after Easter the Lectionary always has us explore the Risen Christ’s early appearance to the disciples when Thomas is not present.  When Thomas does show up they tell him what he missed.  He famously replies, “Unless I see the wounds and touch them for myself, I will not believe” – a response that gets him dubbed with the nickname “Doubting Thomas”. 

We might want to ask why the wounds were so important to him.  I mean, he could have required anything as proof – walking on water, calming a raging storm, or restoring sight to the blind.  A straight-forward answer could be that the wounds would authenticate it was in fact Jesus and that he had in fact been put to death.  But something is going on here that is much deeper and more significant than the hunt for basic evidence.  What might that be?  (Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, old Corny a Lapide can shed no light on this question, presumably because he took off the Sunday after Easter).

Consider this: Did you know that Christianity is the only religion that worships a wounded god?  All other religions worship a being who is above pain and suffering.  Our God became incarnate and suffered as we suffer, yet rose victorious and promises that we will rise with too – not only in the next life, but also in this one.  Over the centuries, millions and millions of believers have come to understand that the wounds Jesus endured are symbolizes of the wounds we experience in life.

The wounds on Jesus’ back (inflicted by the whip) have come to stand for broken promises.  It is difficult to get through life without breaking a promise and darn near impossible to get through life without enduring a promise made to you being broken.  I have been on both sides and neither feels good.

The wounds to Jesus’ head (caused by the crown of thorns) have come to stand for broken thoughts – those ways we tear ourselves down or allow the words of others to ruminate in us to our detriment.  It may be the voice of an overly critical parent reminding that you will never amount to anything.  It may be the voice of society saying you should be thinner.  Or it may even be your own voice articulating expectations about life that are completely unrealistic.

The nail wounds in Jesus’ hands and feet have come to represent the brokenness of our bodies.  Some of us experience this as the aches and pains of getting older, while others live with chronic and debilitating conditions.  That nearly 25% of our income is spent of healthcare suggests there is much about our physical bodies that is broken.

The spear wound to Jesus’ side now stands for broken relationships.  Leonardo da Vinci included a fascinating detail in his famous painting of the Last Supper.  Under Judas’ elbow there is a spilled salt cellar because in that day salt was a symbol of friendship of hospitality.  There is not a person here this morning who has not suffered at least one very painful broken relationship in life. 

Jesus’ fifth wound, the piercing wound to his heart, has come to represent broken faith.  Wounds and wrongs have a way of sticking like burrs to the soul.   C.S. Lewis once said that praise is inner health made audible, but for many it is an act that simply is not possible.

That Jesus had been wounded Thomas believed.  That he could be raised given those wounds Thomas questioned.  If you consider the wounds of your life you will certainly understand his position.  Broken things stay broken for a long, long time.

I personally have visited very few of the great cathedrals in Europe, but those who have say that one of the most beautiful stained glass windows is found at the Cathedral in Winchester, England.  It tells no Biblical story nor does it refract the mystery of light, but rather it radiates a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors. 

The Winchester window was not always as it is now.  One day in the 17th century soldier’s of Cromwell’s army used sticks and bars to destroy the ancient windows of Winchester Cathedral along with all the medieval statuary.  Outside the cathedral on that dark day, the lawn was strewn with tiny fragments of glass, irrevocably shattered.  When the soldiers left, the people came out to look at the ruins.  One man stepped forward and began to collect the smashed debris.  Soon the whole community joined him until many bushels were gathered. 

It was evident that a reconstruction of the original work would be impossible.  Still, a cathedral glass worker asked to have the fragments and promised to do the best he could with what had been recovered.  Step by step, inch by inch, high on a scaffold above the cathedral nave, the artisan arranged the little pieces into an intricate abstraction.  Nothing like it had ever been seen before and some shook their heads and grumbled at the novelty of it all. 

When the great window was finally completed, all the assorted little pieces were fit together in an array of jewels.  Those who visit that cathedral today stand in a light radiating through that broken glass which proclaims the essence of the Christian faith more powerfully than any sermon ever could: God can take all the shattered, broken fragments of our lives and create inexpressible beauty.

When Thomas says “I will not believe he is risen until I touch his wounds myself” he is saying he is desperate to know that religion is not a facade masking unhealable pain, that God knows how broken our lives have become and how much we suffer, and that those wounds can be transformed into something strong and beautiful so that their witness is irrefutable. 

The choice of every human being is twofold.  Either we can fall through the cracks of our lives, or we can allow God to shine through them.  Jesus Christ accepts us as we are (broken, limited, sinful and struggling), long before we accept him.  Where we would put ourselves down, Christ bends to lift us up.  Where we would heap judgment and blame upon ourselves, Christ tenderly forgives and accepts us.  Where we are filled with despair or overwhelming sorrow, Christ loves us with a love that recreates us.  You must always remember this: the broken conditions of our humanity elicit Christ’s redemptive touch.

At every service of public worship, in every moment of private prayer, and at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, in one way or another, the question is asked, “Is your heart breaking?  Then let it break here.  Is your body broken?  Then bring its broken parts here.  Does your mind sometimes break down in a deep anguish you never knew was possible?  Then bring its broken fragments here.”  Then and only then can we say with Julian of Norwich, “All our wounds are seen before God not as wounds but as worships.”

Back in middle school, walking those halls with casts and crutches, it must have been said a hundred times, “The doctor told me that the strongest part of any human bone is the place where a fracture has healed.”  Today we look on our wounded Lord who has been transformed into glory and we look upon the marks of His suffering.  From the witness of the wounds we know that he is like us.  We know that he understands us.  And we know that if we share in his resurrection we can be made whole like he is.  We know all of this because of the witness of the wounds.

 

Nothing Changes in the World until Something Changes in You

The angel said to the women, “Go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed is going ahead of you to Galilee’; there you will see him.’”

Suddenly Jesus met them and said… “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

If you look at Matthew’s gospel from the perspective of a narrative with force and flow and weight, this Easter story is not at all what you would expect.  As straight literature, the miracle of the Resurrection is superseded by suspense relating to what will happen in Galilee.  If we took Matthew’s telling to heart, today would be a ‘low’ Sunday and we all would gather next week to hear the dramatic conclusion.  What is going on here?

Jesus, of course, was crucified just outside the city of Jerusalem and buried nearby.  His followers were staying close enough that the women were able to walk to the tomb in the predawn hours following the Sabbath Passover.  In Matthew’s telling of the Resurrection, the only time Jesus appears to any of his followers in Jerusalem is the single, brief encounter with the women we heard just moments ago. 

Since all of Jesus’ closest followers where still in Jerusalem, why not meet them there?  Travelling on foot, Galilee is 68 miles to the north, which is a healthy three or four day walk away.  Getting there will require no small effort, but, according to Matthew, that is what the eleven remaining disciples do.  Again we ask why.  Why did Christ want to meet his followers in Galilee?

Well, in this day and age, all you have to do to get an answer to this sort of question is type it into a google search box and – presto – like magic you are pointed toward the insights of one Cornelius a Lapide, a seventeenth century Flemish Jesuit and biblical scholar.  Old Cornelius pondered this very question and, after some quality reflection, put pen dipped in ink to paper and recorded his thoughts:

He goeth before you into Galilee.  First, because Galilee was the native country of the Apostles, to which, after the death of Jesus, they were purposing to return, that they might live more safely among their own relations. 

Secondly, because in Galilee Christ willed to show Himself openly to all His assembled disciples.  For the Jews would not have permitted them to assemble in Judea. 

Thirdly, because in Galilee Christ had for the most part preached, and had performed very many miracles.

Ahhh, if only Cornelius could see your eyes glazing over as I can while I read his thoughts aloud.  Truth does not always have to be dynamic, but there has to be something more significant and a little less practical behind Jesus’ pointed focus to go home.

Think about this: for centuries, when people strive to find God they often do so not by returning home, but by going away.  The pilgrimage – a journey with a holy destination – is a time-honored way to find God.  So too is a retreat – leaving behind the cares of the world for a quiet place where one can commune more closely with the Holy.  Even the weekly practice of going to church emphasizes that when we want to find Jesus we leave home in order to facilitate an encounter.

Home is a place of daily chores and stifling routines.  Meals must be made, floors swept, and clothes cleaned.  At home you have to wake up early in order to go to work all day.  Do this long enough and you will soon find yourself in need of a vacation – a time of solitude and rest and reflection.  If Jesus had sent the disciples to the beach we might have understood, but back home?  It boggles the mind.

I think Corny a Lapide (and he lets friends like me call him that) was on to something when he said the Resurrected Jesus did not want to appear openly in Jerusalem.  Had he done so, it would have been an act with tremendous political and ecclesiastical implications.  Being the seat of power – both for the ruling authority and for the Temple – any open post-resurrection appearance to the masses there would have started a revolt.  Roman officials would have been cast out and Jesus enthroned.  Temple officials would have been swept away and Jesus installed.  And Rome would have responded by crushing the Jesus movement before it ever got started.

By meeting his disciples in Galilee, Jesus is saying that his Kingdom first and foremost is neither political nor institutional.  It is personal.  It begins, if it begins at all, with changed lives and changed hearts and changed minds and changed ways.  The Welsh poet and Anglican priest R.S. Thomas beautifully captures this notion in a poem titled “The Kingdom”:

 

It’s a long way off but inside it

  There are quite different things going on:

Festivals at which the poor man

Is king and the consumptive is

Healed; mirrors in which the blind look

At themselves and love looks at them

Back; and industry is for mending

The bent bones and the minds fractured

By life.  It’s a long way off, but to get

There takes no time and admission

Is free, if you purge yourself

Of desire, and present yourself with

Your need only and the simple offering

Of your faith, green as a leaf.

I like Thomas’ basic message that nothing changes in the world until something changes in you. 

When Jesus meets his followers in Galilee he gives them a charge.  He does not tell them to launch a political campaign nor does he direct them to reform the church.  He tells them this:  “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  Jesus’ Kingdom is about touching hearts and changing lives.  It is about leading people into the truths that Jesus taught; truths that will enable individuals to live in this world with all the freedom and grace and goodness God intended from the beginning of Creation.

In time, individuals will become communities, and communities will become multitudes, and multitudes will become nations, and nations will become peoples.  In time, structures will need to be redeemed and institutional faith purified.  But the Kingdom begins by baptizing one disciple at a time.  Nothing changes in the world until something changes in you.

I know some clergy who, on this day, will call out the ‘C&E’ crowd – those people who come to church only at Christmas and Easter.  I remember one priest telling them rather pointedly we will have services again next Sunday and 8:00 and 10:30, in case they did not know.  As much as I like to poke fun whenever and wherever possible, I have never warmed to chastising the ‘C&E’ folks in the parish.  Here at St. Paul’s, many of the C&Eers are visiting from out of town.  You have gone to considerable effort to be here this morning and I, for one, thank you.  Your presence adds so much to the celebration of our Easter joy.  There are other folks here today who might mistakenly be labeled as ‘C&E’, but that is not entirely accurate.  Yes, you are here on Christmas and Easter, but also on odd and unpredictable days – a Sunday in July, Shrove Tuesday, two or three weeks in a row in the fall.  You have your reasons and, while curious what they might be, I will not judge them.  I am glad you are here because you too add much to the joy of our celebration.  Easter is the kind of day that brings people to our church for the first time.  You have been thinking about attending a service, but needed the push of a high, holy day to spur you to action.  You too are most welcome here.  And then there are those of you who are here pretty much every Sunday and any other time the doors are open.  I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoy gathering with you on a regular basis to worship, to laugh, and to care for one another.

Here is the thing we can all take away from today:  No matter how spectacular the Resurrection is (and make no mistake, if true it is the seminal moment in human history), this day is not an end unto itself.  The main point of this day, at least as I can discern from Matthew’s gospel, is not to rejoice that death has been vanquished nor is it to count on a hope of eternal life.  The point of this day is to go to Galilee (whatever and wherever that may be for you), to live now into the teachings of Jesus, and to work now so that others might become disciples (even as you strive to deepen and authenticate your own discipleship).  Nothing changes in the world until something changes in you.

 

"Closer Than All of Them the God Listened"

Fritz Kreisler

I have mentioned before (and will reference again on Easter Sunday) that I have been reading through the works of the Welsh poet and Anglican priest R.S. Thomas.  He is considered by some to be one of the most influential poets of the last century.  I would not describe his work as brimming with sunshine.  His thinking reflects the darkness of an era of world war, Holocaust, genocide, nuclear proliferation, social upheaval, the failure of industry, the triumph of technology, unabashed faith in science, and everything else you might consider to be part and parcel of the 20^th century western world.  You might expect an ordained poet to articulate exactly how God can be found in all of this, but this is precisely where Thomas struggles.  For him, God is most often the God of silence and absence. 

There is perhaps no better articulation of his thinking than a poem titled “In Church.”  In it, Thomas describes his search for God as he sits in the quiet of a church on a Sunday afternoon after everyone has gone home from the services earlier in the day.  In my experience, worship spaces take on a very different feel and personality Sunday afternoon through Saturday night.  They are not at all the same lively, dynamic place we experience them to be on Sunday mornings.  You can feel the quiet and taste the emptiness.  Listen to Thomas’ poem:

Often I try
To analyse the quality
Of its silences.  Is this where God hides
From my searching?  I have stopped to listen,
After the few people have gone,
To the air recomposing itself
For vigil.  It has waited like this
Since the stones grouped themselves about it.
These are the hard ribs
Of a body that our prayers have failed
To animate.  Shadows advance
From their corners to take possession
Of places the light held
For an hour.  The bats resume
Their business.  The uneasiness of the pews
Ceases.  There is no other sound
In the darkness but the sound of a man
Breathing, testing his faith
On emptiness, nailing his questions
One by one to an untenanted cross.

Many people, it seems to me, experience God as being rather, well chatty – always talking, always teaching, always close at hand to lend aid, cheer, and sappy inspiration.  That God might be anything but never seems to enter their mind.  Yet this was Thomas’ experience.  Often is it mine.  And I suspect it may be yours as well. 

Earlier this week I was reading through the bible’s story of Abraham.  According to the text, the Lord spoke to him when he was eighty-four years old, promising that he and Sarah would have a son.  The Lord appeared to Abraham again when he was ninety-nine and reissued the promise.  Laying aside the question of procreation at such an old age, think about what the story suggests – that Abraham went fifteen years in between hearing from God.  That is a long silence.  That is a lengthy, and for some I suspect, an alarming absence.

Even though we fill this moment with the words of scripture and liturgy and preaching, more than any other time of the year this hour in this space feels like a time of profound silence.  You will not encounter a chit-chatty God here.  The Passion reading lays out a pervasive silence that no words can change.  Like the disciples at the foot of the Cross, we simply watch and wait.  Regardless of the words we recite and say, no words really are necessary.  No words we utter can mask the fact that God says nothing in the story we just heard.  I for one am fine with this.  In fact, God’s silence is what draws me to this day. 

R.S. Thomas found a way to be comfortable with it by coming to understand that silence and absence are not at all the same thing.  He articulated this through a poem titled “The Musician” which is especially poignant today.  The poem begins with Thomas attending a performance by the master violinist Fritz Kreisler and then moves to the Cross:

A memory of Kreisler once:
At some recital in this same city,
The seats all taken, I found myself pushed
On to the stage with a few others,
So near that I could see the toil
Of his face muscles, a pulse like a moth
Fluttering under the fine skin,
And the indelible veins of his smooth brow.

I could see, too, the twitching of the fingers,
Caught temporarily in art’s neurosis,
As we sat there or warmly applauded
This player who so beautifully suffered
For each of us upon his instrument.

So it must have been on Calvary
In the fiercer light of the thorns’ halo:
The men standing by and that one figure,
The hands bleeding, the mind bruised but calm,
Making such music as lives still.
And no one daring to interrupt
Because it was himself that he played
And closer than all of them the God listened.

God as listener.  God as focused observer.  God as mesmerized by the beautiful music one makes of one’s life.  God as attentive to the sorrowful sound of every plaintive cry.  God as one who does not say something snappy or syrupy or sentimental and cheap.  God as one who will not offer a technical explanation of atonement theory or some other theology so as to sweep up the moment as part of some grand scheme we need to embrace in an act of what some mistakenly call ‘faith’. 

“Closer than all of them the God listened.” 

Every performer knows the value of an audience.  As a preacher, I know the profound difference between reading my sermon aloud in preparation for a service and actually preaching it in a setting such as this one.  Even though you do not say a word as you listen, your listening makes all the difference.  It means that my words matter.  They are not merely reverberating off the walls.  Your listening gives shape and form to what I say and it holds the promise of an impact.  While I prefer compliments to criticism, it is your listening that I crave.  And even though you are silent I sense your participation in this moment.  You are silent, but you are not absent.

This, I think, is what R.S. Thomas came to understand and he came to understand it in the silence he experienced on this day at this moment.  He came to sense that God was most present in the depths of the deepest silence imaginable.  I suspect some people, perhaps many, are not comfortable with a God who listens, but says little or nothing.  I, for one, find it refreshing, moving, and greatly appealing.  There are times when words are not appropriate and there are times when words are not possible.  It can be moments of great joy or tremendous sorrow.  It can even be true of moments so ordinary that their enormous value often escapes us.  What these moments require is not narration, but attention; listening, not description.

Today God listens to the Son’s beautiful music that makes music still.  Today God is silent.  God will not speak tomorrow either.  But on the third day the God who listens will act.  From today’s silence something new and extraordinary will emerge.  For people of faith, the Listening God is enough.  The immediate divine word giving way to a constant verbal barrage does not seem authentic.  I like when God is silent because often the silence is what needs to be said.  Resurrection will happen.  New life will come.  Sowing with tears will give way to reaping with songs of joy.  Holding to this is what faith is all about.  Being comfortable in the absence of words in the space of the suffering moment is the surest sign that one’s faith is grounded in that which is solid, in that which is God. 

Will you give me the gift of sitting with me for a few moments in silence, allowing God to listen closely to the music the Son has played?