SERMON, March 30, 2008

2 Easter John 20:19-31

Our story begins the morning with the church—we might take the liberty of calling this gathered group of Jesus’ friends—the church—it begins with the church gathered in a state of disorientation, depression and defensiveness. (Some might describe the church today in similar terms—there is some evidence for this) The disciples are locked in a room and not only are they filled with fear about the possibility that they too might meet the same fate as Jesus—but we can only imagine that they are filled with guilt and remorse. Not only is Jesus dead—whatever hopes they’d pinned on him dead with him—but they, each of them, at least the so-called inner circle of his most intimate friends—had all abandoned him. When push came to shove, they’d all run away. Those in the room would have included some who had not run—the women, for example, who had stood watching from a distance as he died—but the combination of fear and remorse must have filled the room.

Years ago I spent some time in South Africa, just before the election when Nelson Mandela was elected President. It was a time of great fear—everyone was on edge because hardly anyone could believe that there wouldn’t be armed rebellion. Blacks and whites alike were almost exhausted from their anxiety. I can still feel that fear in my body—the fear that filled every space. You would walk into a room and it didn’t matter the color of the people there—fear was in the room. You could feel it. The air was thick with it.

It’s into this kind of situation that the resurrected Jesus appears—wounds still visible—hands, feet, side. I try to imagine their shock. And the feelings that ran through them—awe, incredulity, joy, and some fear I would think. Still some fear. After all, many of them were the ones who had abandoned him. Peter had denied him. The rest had disappeared—even the women had stood at a distance. It must have been a bit like meeting up with someone you loved who died before you could say you were sorry—someone you’d deeply hurt, and you’d never been able to make amends before they died. I knew a woman once whose grown son had died in an accident after they’d had a huge argument. Her last words to him had been words of judgment and anger. She had such grief, not only about his death, but about the way they’d parted, about her actions.

“Peace be with you,” says Jesus. You’ll remember perhaps that he’d promised them the gift of his peace. His shalom. That peace that passes understanding—where oneness, unity is the key. Not some false superficial, let bygones be bygones, kind of peace—or that kind of peace that exists just because you don’t talk about certain things, you pretend all is well when really everyone knows it isn’t. No, Jesus’ peace is the peace of true community—with one another and with God—with all of creation in fact.

“Peace be with you,” says Jesus. Imagine the relief that filled the room. Where they’d expected rejection, judgment, they’d received peace. Jesus had not abandoned them as they had abandoned him. The wounds were there—clear evidence of the horrors of his death, proof positive perhaps to them of their own choices to desert him. The grace with which he had judged the world was the grace they received that day in the closed-off shut-up space. They were forgiven. He’d talked, and taught, and lived forgiveness. He’d lived the life of God’s radical inclusive love—sitting down to eat with the lost and rejected—calling the powerful and the judgmental to remember their own need for forgiveness. He’d lived the forgiving grace of God among them—but now, in the place they’d least expected it, they knew they were forgiven and loved—as they never had before. Perhaps now they understood how much they needed forgiveness. Forgiveness risen from the grave. Joy fills the room, and begins to waft out the windows I suspect.

It doesn’t end there. In John’s gospel Pentecost and Easter are of a piece. John tells us that Jesus breathed on his disciples—breathed the living Spirit into them. This is such a shockingly intimate act—this breathing on the community gathered. This group of forgiven people. Echoing the breath of God that moved over the deep and brought all things into being, the breath of God breathed into the humans created out of the mud. The breath of God breathed into the dry bones of Ezekiel’s great vision—bringing them to new life. Jesus breathes on his friends and fills them with the Holy Spirit—gives them the gift of new life. They are transformed through forgiveness and Spirit. Their lives will never be the same as the Spirit continues its work within and among them.

And, then the commissioning: “I send you out as I have been sent,” he says. Continue my work—God’s work, as you have experienced it in me. The work of forgiveness—the work of judgment by mercy. Binding and loosing of sin. One of the most puzzling of statements—mulled over and disputed throughout church history—used and abused. It is related perhaps to the admonition in Leviticus to forgive and to bring out into the open the truth of hurts between neighbors. But in the context of John’s gospel sin is not moral laxity or bad behavior—sin is blindness to the revelation of God in Jesus. In John’s gospel Jesus brings people to judgment—to a moment of choice—by his revealing work and life in the world. Jesus’ revelation of God’s love for all, God’s forgiveness offered before there is repentance, God’s lifting up of the oppressed, and healing of the sick; it is rejection of Jesus as revelation of God that is sin.

He calls his friends out into the world—in the power of the Spirit—to live as he has lived—to be their own little revelations of God at work in the world. That is the commissioning. They are to do as he did—to bring their world to its own moments of decision and choice—by presenting it with God at work in their midst.

This is heavy stuff. It requires a living ever more deeply into the truth of our own forgiveness. The church is in fact a community of the forgiven. A community of people inspired (breathed into) by the Spirit—brought to new life. Called to live more and more deeply as God’s beloved in the world.

We are never fully there. We are always in need of forgiveness. Always able to learn more and more about what it might mean to live as representatives of God’s love in the world. God’s forgiveness. Imagine you and I offering others a chance to make a choice to give themselves over to that love—to be made new by forgiveness. Imagine you and I letting go of our own habits and ways that distance, that judge, that reject, that separate—the patterns of our lives that disrupt the possibility of peace—of shalom. Imagine you and I inviting others into God’s peace.

Kierkegard I think it was who said that we suffer from shut-upness. And I would have to agree. We have all in one way or another shut ourselves up and off—in our despair, grief, hopelessness, in times of great frustration or fear we have closed the doors, shut the windows, drawn the drapes and hunkered down. And in a sense too, if you are like me, you often wander the streets, carry on your lives in shut-upness. Living as though there were no resurrection. I find myself trapped in a seemingly endless capacity to judge others, to distance myself from them, to draw back from those who are different. I forget that the forgiveness that arose from the grave is forgiveness for all. The love that came to Mary, Thomas and the others with wounds is love of all. No one excluded. I forget my calling to be a follower of Christ offering others a glimpse—albeit oh so imperfect—of the great love that is God’s. I have so much to unlearn in order to grow up into Christ—into maturity of faith.(1)

Just the other day I was in a little Mexican restaurant and a woman I recognized was in front of me placing her order. She is a homeless woman, and she often listens to voices in her head, and sometimes behaves quite differently. I know her and have talked with her. On this occasion after she ordered her food and paid, she took the tray with the chips and salsa on it, and held it high above her head on the tips of her fingers and sashayed toward her table, singing. The woman taking orders smiled at me and I at her as we enjoyed her childlike exuberance. But here’s where I strayed. I didn’t say hello, and I didn’t ask if I could join her for lunch. I sat by myself in the other room. My habits of a lifetime took over and I failed to live into the resurrection. Who knows how the Spirit might have blessed me or her, had I asked to be seated with her. Who knows what that little offering of presence might have meant to either of us? I will never know. I stand everyday in need of forgiveness, of transformation, of being set free to live more deeply as a Christian.

Each of us has our own choices to make everyday. Whether to draw near to others—to enter their personal space as Christ did when he breathed on his friends or to distance ourselves—whether physically, or by judging, or rejecting, or dismissing or simply not taking note of. Whether to remain in our shut-upness or to open ourselves to the movement of the Spirit. We face these moments of resurrection possibility in our families, at home, at work, in the market, at church, wherever we are.

The wounds of the risen Christ remind us—not only of God’s presence with us in our own woundedness—but of his call to us to go out to others who are wounded—to those who do not know about the love of Christ or the forgiveness of God. We are called to draw near to those who are stuck in their own shut-upness.

We have been forgiven and given the gift of the Spirit, and we have been commissioned. We are a new people. The resurrection is all about new life—it’s about a whole new world right here and now beckoning us to draw near and to know God’s peace. The peace of our oneness with each other, with God and with all creation. May that vision of peace be always before us nudging us --calling us to step out into newness.

Amen. May it be so.

------- 1 I’m grateful for this notion of our call to unlearning so eloquently described in L. Gregory Jones’ Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Eeerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI), 1995.

SERMON, March 23, 2008 EASTER SUNDAY

MATTHEW 28:1-10

“He has been raised from the dead and indeed is going before you….” Happy, happy Easter!

St. Matthew is the man of the earthquakes. The great earthquake that came over the land at Jesus’ death—when the earth shook, the rocks were split and the tombs were opened. The cataclysmic event of the crucifixion felt even in the earth itself. Jesus who came to judge us by his forgiveness, by his wild and radical inclusion of everyone—everyone is loved by God—you are forgiven get up and walk!—Jesus judged by the powers that be of his day, judged and sentenced and then killed on the cross. The One who came among us to show us the boundarylessness of God’s love—so threatening was he to the powers that be—that they had to condemn him to death. God among us subjecting Godself to our judgment and rejection. The earth shook when it happened. Nothing was ever the same.

And now we read of the Easter morning quake. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb to see—Matthew tells us. To see the place where he was laid. To keep vigil as they had at his death—from a distance. They came to see and ….. there was a great earthquake. And, I love this image of the terrifying sight of an angel coming down from the heights, rolling back the stone and simply sitting down on it. No, sweet cherub this one, baby-faced, wings aflutter. No this one sits before them bristling with lightening—clothes white as snow. Refined no doubt by the refiner’s fire. It was enough to set the guards shaking and then to grasp them so by fear as to render them useless. Mute, stone still.

Maybe you’ve lived through an earthquake. Many of us who live in California have. But the biggest earthquake I ever experienced was in southern Chile many years ago. It was in the 6+ range, and the buildings shook—and kept on shaking. It seemed to go on and on—I could hardly keep standing: I reached for the wall but that wasn’t comforting, it was moving. There was nothing I could rely on. My utter fragility was so very clear. I was afraid. The place where I lived was a place still full of the evidence of a huge earthquake that had struck maybe ten years earlier—it had demolished whole towns, and its tidal waves had brought boats miles and miles up rivers depositing them willy-nilly on the land. The people in the town where I lived were very much attuned to the slightest tremors—they’d learned the hard way. At the first hint of movement beneath their feet, and they were out of there! To the streets—they rightly enough didn’t trust their buildings to survive. An earthquake makes it crystal clear that we are not in charge—not the greatest power on earth.

It’s so hard to talk about Easter—the mystery and the promise of Easter. In our country today we celebrate Easter with bunny rabbits, spring flowers and eggs. Valid symbols of new life all right—but they mislead us I think. They suggest that Easter is about the regenerative powers of nature. The way that winter moves into spring. Seeds buried deep begin—even this early—to pop up out of the ground and we see that good old reliable new life before us.

Matthew says that that is not what Easter is really about, at all. He does so with these images of earthquakes—the shaking of our lives to their foundations—the shaking loose of our long-held beliefs, our business-as-usual ways of living. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the dead are dead, the one with the most guns wins. You know these ways. I know these ways. Easter summed up as a bunny or a chocolate egg is a passing fancy. Life goes on. Nothing really has changed.

I don’t really have to go into the details—they are ingrained in our minds. So much talk of our need for security—as a nation, as families, as individuals. How we need to be safe, to play it safe, to protect ourselves, to be insured, to have money in the bank, to live in gated communities, to distrust the person who is different—because you never know. Underlying all this emphasis on security is fear. You and I are reminded in countless ways to live lives based on fear, lives under threat. The threats seem infinite in number –you name it: cancer, terrorism, foreclosure, loss of jobs, schools closing, collapse of our medical system, aliens, the heartbreak of psoriasis…. whatever!

And you know, for all the talk of security and strength and winning—these days as we hear more and more about our state’s financial crisis, the recession, the cost of the war, corruption in high and low places—we begin to wonder—just how secure are we? How safe? Are the signs we see just the usual—business as usual—or are they signs of a deeper malaise? Are our systems beginning to collapse around us?

In the midst of this bad news world comes the resurrection. The earthquake—the angelic host—with earth-shattering, business-as-usual/shattering, hum-drum/shattering, there’s-nothing-we-can-do/shattering, this is how-it-is-and-always-has-been/shattering news. News about God. who God is. how God acts. What God is up to in this world of ours.

This is not about the resuscitation of a body. It is not about friends of Jesus missing him so much they imagine he is still with them. It is not about a fairy tale. It is not about spring. It is about God and God’s action.

And it’s about earth quake. About turning our low expectations on their heads. About our lives so often lived in near-despair or in “let’s pretend it isn’t so”—about those very lives being opened to the truth—God’s truth. As the crucifixion revealed that God had entered the very depths of life unto death. God had come among us judging our judgment by forgiving us. The resurrection reveals that death does not have the last word. Death is not the last word. Judgment, rejection and killing are not the last words. Vengeance is not the last word. Nor is security. Nor is fear.

Do not be afraid. It’s hard to let go of business as usual. It’s hard not to just come here on Easter Sunday and then go home or go back to work or wherever and expect nothing to be different. It’s hard. Hard not to just shrug it off as a nice myth. We are so accustomed to business as usual. To our low expectations. To pretending to trust the systems we have come to distrust. To letting the powers that be tell us what is truth. We get so stuck in how its always been.

“Do not be afraid. Jesus has been raised. He goes before you. You will see him. Tell my brothers. They will see me.”

In spite of the angel’s admonition, the women are afraid. They leave the opened tomb with fear… and great joy! But, their fear is not like ours--the fear of a bomb on an airplane or of having my house burglarized. It is the fear of amazement. Their fear is the fear of God who has come and turned them inside out and upside down—set their sorrowing hearts aflame. God who makes a way when there is no way. God who comes to those who had abandoned him. God who forgives those who had rejected him. This is what we’d call awe. And, it’s coupled with joy. Transcendent joy.

Jesus goes ahead of us, showing us the way. Inviting us into the truth that lies beneath the surface of our everyday lives. Easter is God’s great laugh I suppose. Not sarcastic. A genuine belly laugh. All that Jesus kept saying, kept teaching, kept living, kept praying: “God is love. Turn around, let go of business as usual, don’t pin your hopes on the powers that be. Food for the hungry. Wine and water for the thirsty. Hands reaching out to heal that bear the scars. You are forgiven. You are made for one another. You are God’s beloved. Nothing can separate you from the love of God.” Nothing. Not even death.

What would our lives look like if we began once again to give ourselves to the Jesus who lives? If we opened ourselves to receive the gift of Easter? This truth of God. This resurrection God. Could we step out trusting the forgiveness that rose from the grave to make us into more forgiving people? Could we step out trusting the God who has drawn near to us to free us to draw near to others? even to those who are different? or to those who have hurt or abandoned us? Can we let our own wounds become sources of healing for others? In this world of so much longing for the pure gift of love can we embody in our own lives the resurrected life?

“The earth is quaking. (It’s the BIG ONE!) Do not be afraid. Jesus has been raised. He goes before you. You will see him.“ Alleluia. Alleluia.

SERMON, March 15, 2008

Palm Sunday Matthew 20:29-21:11

Last summer when I was contemplating my retirement from parish ministry a friend who had retired some years earlier told me that she had set ten goals for herself for her first year of retirement. This had helped her give some structure to her days—and furthermore, she told me, she had accomplished them all! I actually tried to do this. But the truth is that I couldn’t come up with ten goals. My list was a lot shorter. Topping the list is something I am still working on and praying for: the gift of open eyes. I am trying to learn how to see—more clearly and in new ways. This—in spite of the fact that I know that physically speaking my eyes aren’t what they used to be—in fact I’m going in for a check-up soon. “Lord, let my eyes be opened.”

“Let our eyes be opened,” the words of the blind men Jesus encounters on his way out of Jericho as he sets his face toward Jerusalem. The two men cry out to Jesus for mercy. He asks them what they want—I love the way Jesus does that so often—not presuming to fix them, but asking them what they want. “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” After their healing with their eyes newly opened they follow him on the way—to Jerusalem—the donkey—the abandonment--betrayal—arrest—the trial—ridicule—the cross—death. With their eyes open they follow him.

In most Episcopal churches today the story of the entry on the donkey is read, and then the passion story itself is read. After the ride on the donkey comes the lifting up on the cross. This custom of reading the whole story began I think when church leaders realized that so few people get to church on Good Friday—so few actually hear the whole story. It better be read when they are there. So that people don’t get the impression that Jesus entered the city to acclaim and then rose from the dead—the next Sunday! Best not to skip over the suffering and death—the cost.

The truth is that the entry itself gives us plenty to think about—in important ways it foreshadows what is to come. It gives us clues about the cost. And, it is so provocative. We’ve lost that I think—how provocative an act it was. (And how hard to see for those whose eyes are not opened).

If you are one of those who thinks that faith and politics should not be mixed together—should not be discussed—then this is one of those Jesus moments you need to skip over. For there were two processions into Jerusalem that week. The one we read about this morning—and another one—much easier to see and to understand. The Roman governor of Judea made it his habit to come to the city for Jewish festivals. Not to affirm them or participate in them—but to make sure there were no uprisings. Pilate entered the city from the West—from Caesarea Maritima on the coast where he lived. His procession was one well-known and understood by the people. He came mounted on a war-horse, accompanied by the cavalry and long lines of foot soldiers—armored, helmets shining, weapons on display--metal and gold—the clatter and sound of marching—the show of military might. A procession proclaiming the kingdom of Rome—the Roman empire. You can imagine the streets lined with silence—people with their eyes wide open. Here before them was real power—the power of Rome and, to the Roman way of thinking, also the power of God—the governor was the emperor’s man—and the emperor was the son of God.

Jesus’ entry from the East—the passion story starts and ends on the Mount of Olives—his entry is radically different. A single man—not on a war horse—no weapons—no clatter of metal—stamping of feet. The clip clop of the hooves of a donkey and its colt according to Matthew—and that softened by the cloaks and palm branches strewn before him. His followers shouting out “Hosanna!” “God save us!” and passers-by who took note—who had the eyes to see—not comprehending—asked “Who is this?” “Who is this?” “The prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.” An outsider to the powers that be—this one—a prophet.

Matthew quotes words from the prophet Zechariah when he tells this story. These are words that would have affected Matthew’s community deeply. Kind of the way if I quoted to you just a few words, say “Fourscore and seven years ago…” you would think of Abraham Lincoln, of the Emancipation Proclamation, of the Civil War—of the whole history. Just a few words would set your minds going—recovering the larger story.

When Matthew quotes the prophet “Look your king is coming, humble and mounted on a donkey…” This little snippet would have triggered in his people the context of those words and the lines that followed. Lines that describe how Yahweh will cut off the war-horse and the battle bow, and command peace to the nations. They would have remembered that Zechariah was a visionary—a man who described how Yahweh was going to do a new thing—setting the people free from the oppression of others.

Jesus on the donkey and the words of Zechariah would have set them thinking about the new thing God was going to do—a new thing that wasn’t like the old—wasn’t like the other procession. Matthew, you see, edits out a line of Zechariah’s prophecy—a line that describes the king as coming “triumphant and victorious” on the donkey. People would have noticed that missing line. They would have wondered about that. About the humility that stands alone. The humility that rides into the city. About perhaps God’s new thing in humility. The power of God processing in humility.

When I was a child I grew up in Latin America—in Venezuela for a number of years where we lived through various coups and changes in government—all brought on by military action. I can remember standing on the curb watching military parades go by—to me they seemed most impressive—tanks, and armored cars, foot soldiers, guns everywhere. This didn’t have any overt religious meaning—but it was clear to me even as a child that this was all about who had the power and what kind of power.

The people in Jesus’ day and Matthew’s day knew about the two processions. And you and I do too. For whether we’ve seen a military procession like the one I described or not—we live enmeshed in a culture of power—power built not on humility but on the power to coerce. And I’m not talking here just about the military power of the United States—but the power to coerce behavior. It runs deep in all our systems of governance, even in our schools and social services, and often in our families as well. The power to make things happen. The power to make others do what we want.

Have my eyes been opened? Who do I see coming into town? Coming into my life? Who do you see and follow? Which procession are we in? I mean which one are we in most of each of our days? Jesus who came riding into town on a donkey—stood up before the powers of his day—and spoke hardly a word. He stood before them in his truth—the truth of God’s radical inclusive love—coming in humility—not to force or coerce—but to invite. He suffered the consequences—the powers that be don’t get it—but they do understand that this kind of power in lowliness threatens their ways. Coercive power has its effects of course--we know that. You can make most people obedient—you can shrink them sometimes—change their behaviors by making them fearful—you can breed violence with violence—but you can’t coerce them to become more loving, more truthful, more generous, more welcoming, more forgiving, more joyful. Only love can transform us into the people we are meant to be. And love is humble and risky. It invites.

It is not always easy to accept the invitation. But, there are choices to be made. Always. We are invited this morning to live with open eyes. We need them to see beneath the hype and the surface of things: to see the one who comes in humility. We need to see him to dare to accept his invitation to follow. To join in the procession of the faithful—the one with the donkey. To let the love of God transform us and make us new. God is doing a provocative new thing—right now in the midst of the old thing that so pervades our days. Right now. Right here.

------ Note: Marcus Borg and John Dominick Crossan in The Last Week (HarperSanFrancsco: 2006) offer their interpretation of the meaning of the two processions.