Easter Repentance

Three ministers get together for lunch.  “What do want to talk about today?” one asks.  “I know,” says another, “Why don’t we each confess a secret sin!”  So the first minister says, “My secret sin is my church members think I pray for them all the time, but I don’t.”  The second minister says, “My secret sin is that I haven’t written a sermon in years.  I download them off the internet.”  The third minister, the one who suggested the conversation topic in the first place, says, “My secret sin is I love to gossip and I can’t wait until this lunch is over!”

Don’t get me wrong.  I enjoy Lent, but it is always wonderful to be on this side of Easter.  There is so much going on in Lent.  One week I was not home for dinner a single night.  I can’t describe for you the pleasure it has been this past week to make a meal for myself every evening.

Well, in addition to the schedule letting up, Easter season also brings the welcome relief of new and more joyful themes.  One can only take so much penitence.  I enjoyed the midweek Lenten community services and hearing other ministers preach, but there was so much focus on sin.  One pastor said the word sin so much that halfway through his fifteen-minute sermon I decided to start counting.  In the final seven minutes he said sin eighteen times.  That is two and half times a minute.  Good riddance to that and Welcome Happy Morning, right?

So what is up with these readings today? 

· “If we say that we have fellowship with God while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not know what is true.”

· “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

· “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Jesus a liar, and his word is not in us.”

· Jesus said to the disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

[heavy sigh]  Well, I guess it is back to Lent – part 2.

A few years ago, Gary Anderson, an Old Testament scholar, wrote a book on the history of sin, examining how metaphors about it change in the bible.  He notes that early on sin is thought of as being a weight or a burden.

In the Book of Genesis, after Cain kills his brother, he says, “the weight of my sin is too great for me to bear” (4:13)[1].  When Cain first protests that he is not is brother’s keeper, he has yet to feel the weight of his crime.  But once God imposes the severe penalty he is overcome by a tremendous burden and begins to grapple with the terrible nature of his offense.

The Day of Atonement is first described in the 16^th chapter of Leviticus.  Here, God instructs the people of Israel to load their sins on the back of a pack animal – a scapegoat – and to drive it into the wilderness.  If you experience your sins as a weight, what better way is there to deal with it than finding an animal to carry them away!

According to Anderson, almost 90% of the Old Testament describes sin as being a weight or burden up until the end of the Exile in the 5^th century BC when the metaphor shifts to the notion of debt.  It becomes the dominant motif by Jesus’ day and this sheds light on why he speaks about debtors and creditors.  Think of the parable where a servant begs forgiveness for an exorbitant debt and receives remission only to turn around and refuse to forgiven the much smaller debt another owes to him. 

Along with this idea of sin as debt, there emerges the thought that good deeds create a credit.   If sin is a debt, that means you owe money.  And if virtuous activity is going to be a credit, the most obvious way to accumulate it is by giving away money through almsgiving.  Jesus himself implores his followers to build up treasures in heaven.  The Church continued to develop this notion and it became a seminal issue during the Reformation – Roman Catholics holding that indulgences relieve debts as opposed to Protestants who believe that the debt for sin is so great it cannot be repaid except by Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross.

The bible uses other metaphors to describe sin. 

· It is described as being a stain.  The prophet Isaiah says to the people of Israel, “Your sins are like scarlet”.  Redemption, using this metaphor, is a cleansing or a washing.

· Sin is described as the posture of crouching, like a lion waiting to pounce and devour.

· It is compared to leprosy because it makes a person unclean before God.

· Paul writes about being a slave to sin.  It becomes one’s master in a way similar to how addiction controls of a person.

· Sin is thought of as a blemish, a mark or imperfection of the image of God in which we are created.

· It is described as missing the mark like when you shoot an arrow and fail to hit the target.  It describes the common experience of having good intentions, but failing to meet them.

· Sin is compared to crookedness.  Words like perversion and depravity describe how sin twists and distorts a person’s life. 

· Sin is thought of as rebellion, a violent resistance to God’s authority.

· Lawlessness is another metaphor sin.  Paul wrote that God’s laws are written on the human heart, but that we willfully disregard them.

· Sin is described as trespassing, as in offending another, overstepping, neglecting, or violating a boundary.

· And finally, sin is compared to brokenness.  You cannot sit on a broken chair because it can no longer perform its proper function.  Sinners are broken people, unable to live in communion with God.

Well, so far, by my count, I have said the word sin, sins, and sinner thirty-five times.  That is an impressive number for an Episcopal priest.  But, still, people… it is the Easter season.  Why in the world of the Resurrection are we talking about sin?

Well, I think the answer to this question involves the Resurrection.  You see, in Lent, we attack our sinfulness as an obligation or a duty.  I will give up something that is dragging me down because I am supposed to do so.  But the Resurrection discussion of sin is framed in an entirely different context.  Rather than being about should and must, Easter repentance is about desire; about the desire for a new life. 

You see, once we look in the Resurrected eyes of our Lord we have a new vision for life, for our life.  If Lent is like looking at your sinful life and taking one step back from it and then another and another, Easter is like turning from sin (what John describes as darkness) and looking at Jesus (what he refers to as light).  The Easter presence of our Lord has an amazing power to draw us toward a new and glorious life.  Whereas a Lenten discipline calls upon us to forsake our sins, Easter life invites us to move toward the true life we see lived by Jesus. 

Allow me, humbly, to use myself as a shining example. 

In Lent, I gave up sweets, among other things.  Like many Lenten disciplines it was an attempted to reign in an aspect of my life that was out of control.  I still see it.  I realize it is there.  I work hard to keep a distance from it.  But now, in Easter, I have a vision of new life; of what life can be like for me.  I have put on a lot of weight over the past few years and it takes a toll on me.  My bones ache and I lack energy.  I have decided to make some serious adjustments to my diet – not out of a Lenten sense of should, but out of an Easter sense of can. 

Why are we talking about sin in Easter?  I am convinced the reason is because the motivation has changed.  We have moved from should to can, from demand to invitation, from law to grace, from darkness to light, from duty to desire.   We are invited to take into ourselves not the power of the law, which condemns, but the Spirit of grace and power that raised Jesus from the dead. 

Today, this morning, in the name of the Risen Christ, I invite you to turn from the dark places in your life and walk toward the Light into new life.

---

[1] Some translations use the word punishment rather than weight, but Anderson, who is fluent in Hebrew, says this is not correct and that the mistranslation changes the focus from the act to the punishment. 

 

Not with an Answer, but with a Question…

We called an emergency meeting of the Vestry earlier this week fearful that so many people might attend today’s service that not everyone could find a place to sit.  We landed on a bold idea.  We are going to offer four distinctive Easter worship services from today forward.  The first service will be for those who are new to the faith.  The second will be for regular members who prefer a more traditional service.  Next, there will be a service specifically geared toward those who have lost their faith.  And finally, we will have a service for those who a bad experience with a church in the past.  In order to market each service, the Vestry has decided to name them Finders, Keepers, Losers, and Weepers.

Imagine you are sitting in a theatre looking at the screen as the movie comes to an end.  Queue the music and the final credits.  First to appear is the name of the star, then other lead actors and actresses.  The director, cinematographer, and producer follow.  After that comes a list of names that demonstrates it take a lot of people to make a movie: best boy, key grip, drivers, hair stylists, second set coordinator, etc.  I like to focus on what are known as the bit parts.   In the credits these roles appear as the ‘third police officer’, ‘child with a popsicle’, and ‘old woman with a baby carriage.’ 

Mark’s gospel has a bit role that is both curious and significant.  It involves an anonymous young man who makes only two brief appearances in the narrative. 

In Mark 14, after Jesus is arrested and all the disciples flee, we read this:

A certain young man was following Jesus, wearing nothing but a linen cloth.  The arresting party caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.                                    (14:51-52)

Have you ever noticed this character before?  Who is he?  What is he doing following Jesus?  And what is the significance of wearing only a linen cloth?

The only real clue we have comes from the Greek word used to describe the wrap.  The word is sindona, which is used only to describe a type of linen used to bury the dead.  Symbolically, this young man is clothed with the shroud of death.  That he casts it off, leaves it with authorities, and runs off naked suggests that Jesus is going to take upon himself the death intended for the young man.  This anonymous young “follower” of Jesus appears to understand something the disciples never seem to get.  On several occasions Jesus tells them that he must die, but each time either they reprimand him, change the subject, or remain silent.  This young man – who some say may be Mark himself – becomes the first person saved by Jesus.  But who he actually is, why he follows Jesus, and to where he flees are subjects not addressed by Mark’ gospel. 

We might be inclined to forget about him altogether if it were not for the fact that he makes another appearance in the narrative four days later. 

When the woman go to the tomb to finish the burial work so hastily begun on the Friday before the Passover, they encounter the same young man sitting in the open tomb where Jesus had been buried.  He is now dressed in a “white” robe (a word used in only one other place – in the story of the Transfiguration where Jesus’ clothes become radiant white).   The person who once wore the shroud of death is now clothed with a royal garment that symbolizes the new life of the Resurrection. 

This bit player in the grand narrative of Mark’s gospel is given the role to make the greatest announcement in human history:

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised.  He is not here.  Look, there is the place they laid him.”

The young man directs the women to go and tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee.  They flee the tomb in terror and amazement (literally in trauma and ecstasy), but say nothing to anyone about what they have seen because they are afraid.

In Mark’s gospel, in its most ancient form, this young man is the only person who testifies to the Resurrection.  Most scholars believe that the original gospel did not end here, but describes what happens when the disciples go to Galilee.  But, like a book where the last page has been torn out, Mark’s story ends at this odd place.  Most bibles include two possible alternative endings, but note that both were added some time later by well-meaning editors who wanted to give the story a proper ending.  Still, each is so different stylistically from the rest of Mark that they could not possibly be authentic.

So we are left with what many consider to be the most unsatisfying conclusion of the four gospels because it does not describe an encounter with the Risen Christ.  But perhaps, just perhaps, it is the best gospel for our modern age.  You see, many today easily dismiss accounts of a person rising from the dead.  Zombie Jesus, they wag.  But Mark’s lean story forces us to ask what happened.  How can we understand the end of the Jesus movement on the cross in a way that makes sense of how the Christian faith has come down through history to us?  How did one person’s death give rise to the world’s greatest religion?

Did the women go to the wrong tomb?  Well, if they did, why didn’t someone go to the actual tomb and produce Jesus’ lifeless body?  Did someone steal the corpse – maybe this anonymous young man – and move it to a different location?  If that happened, why did no one ever find the body?  And more critical, how did a missing body manage to invigorate Jesus’ dispirited disciples?  Each gospel account reports that the empty tomb leaves Jesus’ followers feeling bewildered and afraid.  Perhaps, some say, after some time passed, those dispirited disciples decided to commit their lives to perpetuating Jesus’ message and teaching.  Well, frankly, that doesn’t seem likely.  They themselves might have embraced the deeper meaning of what Jesus taught and did, but it is difficult to comprehend how this became a worldwide movement and has fueled the human spirit and imagination for two centuries.

If those explanations do not seem credible, what is left?  What could possibly explain how Christianity grew from an anonymous young man’s testimony that left a small group of women both ecstatic and traumatized (as if they had just departed from the latest high-tech roller coaster)?  How did it grow if these women depart this tomb and, at least at the outset, say nothing to anyone?  Let me finish this sermon consist with Mark’s gospel – not with an answer, but with a question… How do you make sense of why we are here today?

Taking What is Broken / Offering What is Blessed

Not too many years ago a bishop told the story of taking a break in the middle of the day to go to a department store to buy his wife a Christmas present.  A nicely dressed young woman waited on him at the perfume counter.  Because he was working, the bishop was wearing his purple shirt with collar and a blue blazer.  Around his neck was a chain from which hung a large, gold pectoral cross.  The young woman commented on how pretty it looked.  She then asked him if it had any special meaning. 

Lest we be too judgmental of the sales clerk, we might want to remind ourselves that there are people from different eras who would frown upon the cavalier way we use the cross today.  For us, it functions theologically as a symbol of redemption.  It functions devotionally as a sign of God’s great love for us.  It functions spiritually to remind us to pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus.  But for the Jewish people of Jesus’ time, it functioned one and only one way.  It was a political symbol of Roman power and domination.  It was an instrument Rome used to intimidate and humiliate any person or group or movement that threatened the ‘peace’ they brought to the regions they occupied.  This horrific method of execution made a very, very public statement to occupied people, “You really don’t want to ruffle our feathers.” 

Thousands upon thousands of people were crucified by Rome every year.  Typically it would take several agonizing days for a person to die.  It was not unusual for corpses to remain on a cross for days and weeks.  For occupied people living under Roman rule, the way we wear and display crosses today would be for them the equivalent in our day of wearing a symbol of an electric chair.  It was as repulsive to them as Jihadist videos of beheadings are to us.

That the Cross has been transformed in our eyes is a testimony to God’s ability to redeem the absolute worst in life.  We risk losing an appreciation for the magnitude of this great act if we lose sight of how terribly awful the cross really was.

John’s account of the trial and crucifixion leaves no doubt that Jesus is put to death for claiming to be the King of Jews.  More than in the other gospels, in John’s telling it is Jewish leaders who force the issue with Rome’s authority.  Pilate, for his part, is portrayed as a reluctant participant who eventually hands over Jesus to an ugly and murderous mob.    While other gospels place more weight and responsibility on Pilate, all four agree that Jesus is crucified for claiming to be a king. 

There is a second thing to which all four gospels testify.  The kingship of Jesus begins as he reigns on the cross. 

His kingdom begins with an exchange.  On the cross God says to humankind, “I take upon myself all the hurt and all the pain and all the brokenness and all the evil and all the sin of the world.  I forsake none of it.  I turn my back on no one for any reason.  I take it all into myself as the ultimate demonstration of my deep desire to be in a covenant relationship with all that I have created.”  And then God says, “I take into myself all that is bad so that I can pour into you all that is good.  I fill you with my love so that you may love as I love you.  I extend to you forgiveness and grace so that you may offer forgiveness and grace to one another.  I give of myself to you so that you may give of yourselves to one another.”

Years ago I knew a brilliant neurosurgeon who was an incredibly down to earth person.  He talked with me about my work and my interests and the conversation always flowed so naturally.  One day he had to take a phone call from a colleague and immediately launched into conversation of medical terminology that might as well have been a foreign language.  The issues they discussed were completely beyond my comprehension.  It was then that I realized how much my friend took upon himself to be in relationship with me.  I could never ever have picked up on all his medical training so that I could relate to him.

Good Friday proclaims that God does what is necessary to be in relationship with us, what we ourselves can never do.  God in the person of Christ bears all that is broken so that we might live into all that is blessed.  This is the kingdom of God. 

There has been a good deal of conversation this week about Indiana’s religious freedom law.  I can’t speak to other religions, but I believe we followers of Christ are never called to discriminate against a person or group based on our religious belief.  We believe that on the Cross God takes into God’s self all of the evil and the sin in the world and pours into us all that is good.  Our call is not to judge, not to accuse, not exclude, but to welcome, to affirm, and to embrace. 

Look at Jesus’ life.  Look at those with whom he associates.  They are tax-collectors and prostitutes and lepers and people possession by demons and Roman military officials.  He sits at table with these folks and invites them to be his disciples.  He extends God’s love in his day to the very people who would have been the targets of a ‘religious freedom’ bill had there been one.

We are about to engage the Solemn Collects, which are my favorite part of the Good Friday liturgy.  They remind us that as Jesus’ work in this world comes to a close, our work in Jesus’ Name begins.   Like the Cross, the Collects remind us that Christ bears all that is broken so that we might live into all that is blessed. 

 

Making Sense of the Senceless

This week I was reading a scholarly journal that examined Jesus’ curious command to enter the village and find a colt.  Just as Jesus said, the beast’s owner asked the disciples what they were doing.  “The Lord needs it.”  Their response seems to satisfy him.  The journal presented two possible explanations.  Either Jesus was able to see into the future (what is known as precognition) or he had made previous arrangements with the colt’s owner. 

I think there is a third possibility. 

Jesus is going to Jerusalem to observe the Passover – the festival that celebrates the Hebrew’s exodus from bondage in Egypt.  The city’s population of 40,000 people swelled to nearly half a million for the event.  The festival is conducted against the backdrop of Roman occupation.  Pilate made quite a spectacle of marching columns of extra troops into the city to fortify the garrison at the Temple.  By its very nature, the Passover fuels hatred for the occupation and heightens the hope that a messiah will rise up to lead a revolt.

Messianic fever is especially high at this particular celebration.  People are aware of Jesus and what he has been doing.  Stories of his teaching and his miracles have spread throughout the land.  Whenever someone wanted to proclaim Jesus as the messiah, he ordered that person to be quiet.  For whatever reason, he was not willing to pick up that mantle.  But before entering Jerusalem, something changes for Jesus and the donkey is a clear signal of this. 

Throughout the Scriptures there are many references to the Messiah.  They are familiar not only to Jesus, but to everyone.  Especially well known is Zechariah’s centuries old statement that the king of Israel will ride into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey (9:9).  When the disciples tell the owner that the Lord has need of the donkey, he understands this to mean that Jesus is taking a dramatic, symbolic step to change the fortunes of the Jewish people.

When the crowds see what Jesus is doing they too understand the symbolism.  They begin to shout out messianic verses from the psalms.  They fuel what is happening by waving palm branches as he passes.

Jesus could not have sent a clearer signal that he intends to challenge the powers that be – the Roman rulers who occupy the country and the Jewish leaders who capitulate with them and benefit financially from this arrangement.  That Jesus embraces this role is indisputable.  What he thinks will come of it is not at all apparent. 

On Monday Jesus enters the Temple, overturns tables, and pronounces God’s judgment on the whole corrupt system.  On Tuesday he returns to the Temple and challenges the teaching and authority of its leaders.  Did Jesus think others would rise up and follow him?  He never signals for violence.

On Wednesday a woman anoints Jesus with an absurdly expensive perfume.  His followers are critical for allowing such an extravagant waste.  By then Jesus realizes he will not survive his actions.  He says she is preparing him for his burial.

On Thursday evening Jesus gathers his followers for what he believes will be their final meal together.  After supper they go to a remote location where Jesus becomes unhinged.  He is breaking down in the face of what is obvious to him.  He prays for God to intervene but comes to understand that no such act is going to happen.  Jesus is arrested, put on trial, and crucified before nightfall on Friday.

It is a story that seems to make no sense.  For all intents and purposes Jesus either wanted to die or made a serious miscalculation regarding the consequences of his actions.  Many in the Christian tradition gloss over this reality by saying it was all part of God’s bigger plan and that Jesus, knowing this, lived into it.  More and more I am skeptical of such thinking. 

What I do believe is that God found a way to redeem this awful event, just as God works to bring about redemption and new life in our broken and hurting world.  Without the Resurrection, Jesus’ death, if remembered at all, would have been little more than a tragic blunder by a naïve Middle-eastern teacher from a peasant class.  For the Romans, it would have been just one of many, many torturous executions meant to intimidate an oppressed people into compliance and passivity.  For Jewish leaders it would have been a necessary trade-off; better that one person die alone than 10,000 devotees rise up and die with him.

Jesus, for his part, feels forsaken as he hangs on the Cross and at the end says it is finished as he commends his spirit to God.  For the disciples, this is the end of the road.  They hide in fear behind locked doors and wonder if they can melt into the throngs of pilgrims who are about to make their way home after the Passover.  They wonder if they will be able to return to a normal life in Galilee or if the authorities will come looking for them to punish them for their association with Jesus.

Many, if not most, in the Christian tradition associate the Cross with atonement theology – the belief that Jesus had to die on the Cross to take upon himself the punishment for human sin; the notion that we are washed clean by the blood of Jesus.  Obviously, this is an enormously popular perspective reinforced by our liturgy and hymnody.  And while I accept it, it also puzzles me that we as society not currently steeped in animal sacrifice for the atonement of sin turn to this ancient metaphor as our singular and strongest interpretation of Jesus’ death. 

Earlier this week I read something by Anthony Bloom, from his book Beginning to Pray.  It helps me to make sense of the Passion reading in our modern context:

In a world of competition, in a world of predatory animals, in a world of cruelty and heartlessness, the only hope one can have is an act of mercy, and act of compassion, a completely unexpected act which is rooted neither in duty nor in natural relationships, which will suspend the action of the cruel, violent, heartless world in which we live.

What I like about Bloom’s perspective is that it challenges us to move past a child-like understanding of religion focusing on how I am a bad boy whose father is displeased with me to a more adult question of what is required of me and what difference will my actions make.

Jesus’ self-offering inaugurates the Kingdom of God.  From this moment forward there is no turning back.  God’s reign in this world is established, but it is not complete.  You and I build on God’s reign every time we conduct an act of mercy, an act of compassion, a completely unexpected act which is rooted in something beyond our own self-interest.

We would not be here this morning if Jesus had not offered himself in this way and we would not be here this morning if generation after generation of his followers had not offered themselves selflessly as he did. 

We, in our time, are called upon to do our part to continue the reign of God’s kingdom in this world.  Give yourself selflessly to life.  Give and ask nothing in return and you will find two things: first, your life will matter, and second, you will be blessed beyond all measure.

A Covenant of the Heart

The destruction of Jerusalem and exile to Babylon in the 6^th century BC, led the prophet Jeremiah to envision a new kind of covenant between God and God’s people.  Almost everyone believed that the ruinous events that befall the people of Judah were a direct consequence of breaking covenant with God; specifically the covenant with Moses that had been chiseled in stone.  Jeremiah realized that the covenant relied too much on the exterior; that it was too much like public laws guiding behavior by dictating what people may not do.  He dreamed of a new covenant that would come from the interior; a covenant that guides each person to do God’s will.  He described this new way with the phrase “a covenant of the heart.”

This morning we hear the word of God as spoken to Jeremiah:

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The Jewish people understood the heart to be the center of a person’s essence.  The heart may be noble or wicked or in transformation.  The author Gail Godwin notes that although the Jews were the first people to arrive at an abstract notion of God and thus forbade images of God, from the very beginning they understood God to have a heart like theirs.  They believed there was a central place in God that can be hurt and angered and softened and even changed.

The psalmists knew that the human heart could be exceedingly evil, but also understood it as a place from which God could speak to a person:

I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel;

my heart teaches me, night after night. (Ps. 16)

You speak in my heart and say, “Seek my face”

Your face, Lord, will I seek. (Ps. 27)

We in the Christian tradition hold that God’s Spirit dwells within us through baptism and is strengthen through Confirmation.  It is God’s Spirit that works in our hearts to guide and direct us.  And this work does not come upon us by force – as if an outside influence was making us to do one thing when our desire is for another.  The Spirit works to change our hearts to desire what God desires, to love what God loves, to act as God acts.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, placed great emphasis on the role of the heart in spiritual discernment.  The Jesuit David Fleming writes this about Ignatian spirituality:

Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me...  We come to know who Jesus is and strive to make him the center of our lives.  We make our decisions within the context of this relationship of love.  It is a relationship of the heart.  Our heart will tell us which decisions will bring us closer to Jesus and which will take us away from him.   

Listening to your heart.  Listening because it will be from heart that God speaks to you.  I like what Tao Te Ching says:

Do you have the patience to wait

till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving

till the right action arises by itself?

I hope that for you our Lenten journey with the ancient covenants has been a time of waiting, of letting the mud settle until the water is clear and the right action arises within you.  Each Sunday in Lent I have given you time at the end of the sermon to ponder in silent contemplation how God is inviting you to live into the covenants in a deeper, more authentic way.  My hope and prayer is that each of us has spent time listening to our hearts in order to hear God say one thing.  And this morning I am going to give you time to commit those things to writing.

Let me tell you what God has put in my heart:

• In order to live more fully into God’s covenant with all creation through Noah, I am exploring with city officials ways that I can volunteer to pick up liter once a month along a section of our city streets.
• In order to live more fully into God’s covenant with the human family through Abraham, I have signed up to receive updates from the Anglican Church’s Network for Inter Faith Concerns (nifcon).  This ministry provides news and insights that are different and deeper than what we hear from secular media outlets.  They provide a more comprehensive perspective on events that affect and shape our human family.
• I order to live more fully into God’s call to be representatives and ambassadors through the covenant with Moses, I am committing myself to treat with dignity and respect every person who calls or comes to the office looking for financial assistance.  It is not that I am rude to these folks, but perhaps short and dismissive.  I can do better.
• And finally, I acknowledge that I am a covenant breaker, no different than the Hebrew people in the wilderness who were bitten by poisonous snakes and stood in need of healing.  I have defined myself and allowed my self-image to be shaped by people close to me who have rejected me rather than by God’s love for me.

These are the things that God has put on my heart during this Lenten season.  These are concrete ways I can live more fully in covenant with God. 

What about you?  What is God speaking in your heart?  There is a handout in your bulletin that gives you an opportunity to write out what your heart is saying.  I will give you some time now to ponder your response.  When finished, I invite you to come forward and put your sheet in the basket in front of the Cross on the table.  It will be a tangible sign of the covenant we each make with God this Lenten season.

 A Covenant of the Heart

The Fifth Sunday in Lent, 2015                                                        St. Paul’s Church, Suffolk, VA

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.    - The Prophet Jeremiah

Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me...  We come to know who Jesus is and strive to make him the center of our lives.  We make our decisions within the context of this relationship of love.  It is a relationship of the heart.  Our heart will tell us which decisions will bring us closer to Jesus and which will take us away from him.     - David L. Fleming, SJ on the Spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola

To more fully live into God’s covenant with Noah and all of creation, my heart is inviting me to…

To more fully live into God’s covenant with Abraham and all his descendants, my heart is inviting me to…

To more fully live into God’s covenant with Moses and all the people of Israel who are called to represent God in the world, my heart is inviting me to…

It is on my heart that I have broken covenant with God by…

I repent and look to the Cross for forgiveness and healing.

A Snake for Covenant Breakers

Confession time.  Let me tell you about the single worst liturgical mistake I have ever made.  Now, I know what you are thinking: is there one glaring example that stands head and shoulder above all the rest?  Well, in fact, yes there is.  I had been ordained for just three weeks.  Through a myriad of circumstances you really don’t want to hear about – but let me tantalize you by saying they involved the rector being on vacation and a blind supply priest – it fell to me to lead the post-communion prayer of thanksgiving after everyone had received communion.  A simple task, you say to yourself, but the degree of difficulty was heightened by the fact that I did not have an actual prayer book in my hands.

No problem, I thought to myself.  I’ll get it started and everyone will join in and take over.  “Let us pray,” I said.  No, there is one post-communion prayer in Rite 1 and two in Rite 2 and all three begin slightly differently: 

· Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee for feeding us…

· Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us…

· Almighty and everliving God, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food…

Well, I managed to cobble together an opening sentence that combined elements of all three: something like, “Eternal and everliving Father, we most heartily give thanks for accepting us with spiritual food…”  At that point I ran out of words to say and hoped the congregation would take it from there.  That was my plan.  Given that I had launched into a prayer never before spoken in the English language, no one joined in for all the obvious reasons.  An awkward, dead silence filled the worship space.  The lay Eucharistic minister took matters by his own hands, hurdled the altar rail (no mean feat in full robes), riffled the choir stalls, found a prayer book, and tossed it to me.  I fumble for the page, found it, and said, “Turning to page 361, let us pray”: “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.”  That was the exact moment I committed to myself never again to be responsible for leading any kind of worship without a prayer book in my hand!

As a clunking segue, let me say how much I enjoy humoring you with my worst liturgical mistake, but be certain of this: I will not speak of my worst moral failure, my most ethical lapse, or my single deepest spiritual fault.  Some things are too personal, too vulnerable, too frightening, too vivid, too real.

Throughout our Lenten journey we have been hearing stories of Old Testament covenants:

· God’s covenant with Noah and all of creation, the sign of which is the rainbow.

· God’s covenant with Abraham and all his future descendants that we all will be one family with a common ancestor.

· God’s covenant with Moses and the people of Israel calling them to be ambassadors who live life by the 10 Commandments.

Today we don’t encounter another covenant, only a consequence of being in a covenant relationship.  Today we encounter the inevitability of failure; of failing to live into the promises and vows we make to be in relationship with God.  Today we face head on the reality of sin, of things done and left undone, in thought, word, and deed.

The story of the snake bites in the wilderness and the healing power of a bronze serpent most likely would have faded into Old Testament obscurity had not Jesus tied his life to it metaphorically – “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.”  For Jesus, the wilderness story is deeply revealing of the meaning of his own act on the Cross.

Let me provide some background on this curious episode.  After Moses led the Exodus out of Egypt, the people of Israel spent years wandering in the Sinai wilderness.  It was a barren land with few resources, yet God gave water to drink and food to eat.  The ‘eatable’ substance God provided was called ‘manna’ – a Hebrew word meaning, “what is it?”  Aptly named, this flaky, sticky stuff (imagine having nothing to eat for forty years other than something like communion wafers) was the only food the people had for years on end.  Go figure, they grew sick of it and literally retched to get it down.  You can imagine that they complained bitterly and God, like the chef at a fine restaurant, did not take kindly to criticism of the menu.

The King James Version of the bible says that God sent “fiery serpents” among the people that bit them.  Other translations just say “venomous snakes”.  What exactly these things were is a real mystery.  But no matter, the people were dying and they reason it is because they offended God.  They ask Moses to pray for forgiveness.

Now, this is where the story really gets interesting if you are a fan of the Hebrew language.  God tells Moses to make an image of a serpent and mount it to a pole.  Whoever looks at the snake will be healed, God says, and whoever does not will die.  Notice that God doesn’t specify what material to use in crafting the image.  Moses, as if humored by the absurdity of it all, elects to make the snake out of bronze.  Now, he could have chosen any material – wood (easy to chisel), stone (he had already worked with it on the Commandment tablets), but in play on words, Moses decides to make the snake (nehash in Hebrew) out of bronze (nehoshet).  He makes a nehash nehoshet and do you know what, it works! 

The instrument of rejection, judgment, and punishment becomes the means of forgiveness, redemption, and healing because God’s power works through it.  The people of Israel hung on to that nehash nehoshet for centuries as a sacred reminder of God’s goodness, but destroyed it once people began to believe that it, not God, had mysterious, healing powers.  After that, Hebrew theologians became embarrassed by the details of the event and when the poet of today’s psalm set out to write a song of praise, he or she sanitized the story by omitting the weird serpents and snake pole, saying only that the people were afflicted and God spoke a word so they would be healed.  Most likely the story would have slipped into obscurity had not Jesus breathed new meaning into it.

So, on our Lenten journey with God’s covenants – covenants that serve to remind us of God’s invitation to be in relationship with God and one another- here is what we learn from today’s readings: we fail, we fall short, we do not live up to our part of the bargain.  And God, though God’s infinite graciousness and love, continues to invite us into relationship.  And the sign of this invitation is the Cross.

For us, the Cross is a one-time event.  It happened in a particular place – Golgotha, which lies just outside of the old city of Jerusalem – at a particular moment in time – the best estimate is on the Friday before the Passover in what we now refer to as the year 33 AD (give or take).  But for God, who exists beyond time and for whom all moments in chronological time are always present, the Cross is ever-present.  Just as the rainbow exists to remind God never again to destroy the world in anger, the Cross is always before God as a symbol of God’s deep desire to take our failure and our shortcomings into God’s self in order to foster a covenant relationship with us.

Today we add to the rainbow ribbons (reminders of God’s covenant with all creation), the paper figures (God’s covenant with the entire human family), and the tablets (God’s call to each of us to live as examples and witnesses of God’s dream for all people) a simple wooden cross.  It serves as a painful reminder that each one of us is a covenant breaker; that each one of us has embraced what God has offered, committed ourselves to it, and then come up short – though thought, word, and deed; through things done and left undone.  As the Cross stands in judgment, it also speaks of invitation: “Come back to me,” God says through it.  “I love you.  I always have.  I always will.  Make a small step toward Me and you will find Me waiting to embrace you with open arms.”  When we look at the Cross we see our failures.  When God looks through the Cross at us God sees people God wants to be in covenant relationship with.

Have you ever thought about the Cross in this way; as a snake on a pole revealing all that you have done wrong or failed to do and yet still being the means of healing and grace?  As we continue on our covenant journey through Lent, I will give you a few moments of silence to ponder where you have come up short.  I am not talking about the rookie liturgical mistakes in life, but our deep moral, ethical, and spiritual failures; the things we may not even be able to speak to another person.  The Lord God tells us to name it, to claim it, and to look at the Cross and be healed.  Be healed.  Know that it is you, but let it go.  Let it go and begin to serve again our Lord God with gladness and singleness of heart.