John 10:22-30
Acts 9: 36-43
Robert Browning provided the poetic invitation
“Grow old with me for the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made!”
There is a tension balanced in the words, that somehow the future, the present, the past, are all one. There is a constancy to change, where youth is the seed of later years, and the fullness of life, the drawing together of all the threads and memories of human existence. The circumstance of decades ago affect us. We can no more wish that that experience had never happened, that that relationship had never been, than we could remove a freckle; some relationships are chosen, more occur and effect us not because we wanted or desired, but because when presented with circumstance, we responded.
In each of us, everyone, there is the infant, we once were. Innocent and malleable, the genetic predisposition of blue eyes, hazel, green or brown, Red hair, brown, blonde, or black. In each of us is the potential of being a great-grandparent, with cataracts and hair as white as snow, possessing the wisdom to reflect upon what has ben lived, finally appreciating every person, taking time because we want life's experiences to be remembered to endure.
We live in a youth obsessed, death denying culture, ever focused on how we would have responded if we had known then, what we know now. Ignoring that circumstances would have been changed and we never would have learned what now we think we know.
I love this passage from the book of Acts, on so many different levels. A week ago, we heard how Saul of Tarsus was knocked to the ground by a blinding light, his life turned round by faith to no longer persecute others for believing differently, but to instead serve others. Then the evangelist returns to the story of Peter at Joppa. Aeneas is a very old man who has been confined to bed. Peter sits with him and commands Aeaeas “In the Name of Jesus Christ to rise”, and the one who was bed-ridden does rise! Tabitha, whose name translated into Greek is Dorcas meaning Gazelle, is one of the few women named as a Disciple. She had created her own system of caring for the poor and those in need. She provided sweaters and shawls, food and clothing, to all who were in need. Tabitha died, which not only created anxiety at her death, but a hole in the community because without her no one was caring for the needs of the widows and poor. Peter prays with her and calls her by name, and she rises. SO in this community you have one who was named GAZELLE, who lay dead, who through faith rises up to care for others. You have Aeneas who was bedridden and others had made accommodations to keep him in bed all the rest of his days, who gets up to walk. You have fishermen who preach to the Religious authorities. You have one who was torturing and persecuting others, who suddenly gives his life to serve others. Faith is not about wishing things were different, but changing our lives to do what we thought impossible, because we believe. SO first, this is story of people responding to act in faith.
Second, and this takes conjecture. I believe that part of raising Tabitha before the community, was that by Peter naming her as doing these things as an act of faith in Jesus Christ, rather than focusing on just how beautifully she stitched, others in the community were no longer intimidated about taking up the work she had done and carrying it on.
Third, How often, when someone has died, do we want to eulogize and immortalize them for what they have done. All the community were bringing out the sweaters and shawls and gifts of Tabitha to describe what a talented seamstress, what good works she had done, but Peter called her from death to life because of her faith. How often we describe that he served in the Navy; she had 16 grandchildren; he built his own home; she was active in the Garden Club; he was a Rotarian... all of which are good, but like displaying Dorcas' gifts are just the things of a life lived. What was important was not simply what she had done, what brought smiles to other people's lives, but that she had been a disciple! She had been baptized and she believed!
There is a monumental shift taking place in Christian Faith today, from a singular belief in Salvation After Death; to searching for satisfactions and meaning IN life. For the last thousand years, Christianity, like most of the world's religions has been about Eternal Salvation, answering the fears of folk about an after-life, after a plague, after War, can there be hope. While for us, this is still an important question, there is now also a search to experience, to share in feeling fulfilled by what we do, can our lives prevent a war, can we ease suffering. Christian Faith is not only about life after death, but the search for meaning, for relationships and satisfactions that are more than entertainment. In this way, the Sacrament is the washing away of Sin, but more than this, Baptism is the beginning of a life in search of meaning.
There was a time in human understanding in which we believed there was a Singular Correct Answer to life's mysteries, discerning the Natural Law would objectively answer our questions. But just as Youth and Age can be enjoyed and lived independently, there is also beauty and power in perceiving youth as the seeds of what is to come, and age as the harvesting of work throughout our lives. Life can be understood in multiple dimensions.
The difficulty of this Passage from John, is that it plays a vital role within the Gospel, as well as in Church Doctrine, though the two are separate and distinct.
Doctrine is for understanding form interpretation, the Nicene Creed relied heavily on this passage for explanation of the relationship between God and Jesus within divergent parts of Christianity. Eastern and Western thought, Catholic and Protestant, Evangelical and Social Gospel, Can we all agree on who Jesus was and is?
The Gospel is not primarily concerned with understanding or interpretation, the Gospel was not written for controversies between different parts of Christianity. The Gospel is Story, the revelation of Jesus as one united with God among us. In John's Gospel more than any other, we cannot separate Theology (What we believe about God) from Christology (What we believe about Jesus) from Ecclesiology (The role of the Community of Faith in the World).
In a time of horrific oppression, when citizenship required obedience to the Roman Gods, to the Roman Empire, and to the Roman Army; In a time when logic and reason of the Greeks was all brand new; In a time after Exile diaspora when the Nation have lived among other nations and faith was Cultural: John's Gospel revealed that GOD and CHRIST and OUR LIVES are intimately linked.
The people were looking for a direct answer from Jesus about blasphemy: “Are you saying you are God, or not?” To which, Jesus describes being so intimately connected that God is in all Christ does, and Christ is in God. To many, the scrolls of the Old Testament address whether God can be trusted? God formed the world and everything therein, is this world out to destroy us, is God intent on our destruction, what are the Laws of the Creator, and what happens if God's Laws are broken?
The Gospel of John affirms that God is the Creator, personally revealed to us all as like a Father, a loving parent, to whom honor and respect are owed, but who is also loving and forgiving. Jesus is the REDEEMER, who when we have broken God's Laws, when we have done harm to ourselves, to others, to the world, done harm to God, does whatever is necessary to make the relationship with God healed, restored, and new. The question of the New Testament is not whether God can be trusted, but rather Knowing we CANNOT BE TRUSTED, Will God love us, no mater what?
The question of this current era, is whether there is meaning to life, whether Christian faith makes a difference? And whether, being forgiven, being Baptized and sharing in one Communion, we will live our lives differently?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Converted to be Converted
John 21:1-19
Acts 9:1-6
Earlier this weekend, we were at a restaurant, when someone approached questioning why as a faith community we were given words and phrases to recite like “mellifulous meterist” “onymonopoetic rhymer”,“impetuous dithyramb?” or such intimate phrases as “vanity conceived within our breasts!” For over a Century, Reformed Worship was marked by the most eloquent of prose, the highest most learned proofs, carefully constructed legal arguments for faith which would humble the finest philosopher or jurist. Televangelists have used the most elaborate film clips and pyrotechnics, to amaze and stupefy. But ultimately, these are all words, and even if, the most elaborately constructed, these are only a highly developed convincing, a sales pitch, for prose only allow us to argue, to comprehend, to explain and interpret, and try to understand, not to feel. Poetry, Psalms, Songs, slow down our speech, painting pictures, developing rhythm, growing ideas, drawing illustrations, catching us up and challenging us as human beings to place ourselves into a different reality.
Conversion is not an inescapable legal proof, or philosophic argument. According to the Protestant Reformers and the Evangelists of John and Acts this morning, Conversion is not the abandonment and rejection of one set of beliefs for another, not trading gods or even exchanging No God For God. Gospel Preaching, the experiences of life, do challenge a person TO believe. But Conversion is from Belief, to deeper more profound commitments. Baptism may occur once in life, as we are given to God, never to be taken back from God, as we abandon worldly desires for faith. But we are Converted and converted over and over throughout our human existence.
The 21st Chapter of John is different from all that went before, so much so, that many believe this was added by a different witness. The 20th Chapter of John had been filled with one story after another of the Resurrection appearances of Easter, even marked in time, as: Early on the Third Day before the dawn, later that same day two were walking on the road to Emmaus, On towards evening the Disciples were again in the upper room for fear, and Six days later locked away. This 1st Chapter after the 20th, evades all reference to time, “After these things, Jesus revealed himself again, and revealed himself in this way.” Rather than the story of an Easter Appearance of the Resurrected Jesus, this is a Revelation for the Community of Faith. In John it is virtually impossible to separate Theology from Christology, to believe in Christ is to believe in God; but also, one cannot separate Theology from Christology from Ecclesiology, belief in God and Christ from The Community of Faith.
The Gospel had begun with confronting the followers of John the Baptist, who were following Jesus, Andrew, James and John, “to Come and See.” Andrew had found his brother Simon, saying “We have seen the Lord!” And Jesus found Nathaniel the Canaanite of Galilee, revealing to him all that had happened in Nathaniel's life, inviting him to come and see far greater things. To the Fishermen he had promised “Follow me on the Way, and I will make you Fishers of Men.” According to John, Jesus and the disciples had gone to a Wedding where the guests were without Wine, and Jesus provided an overwhelming supply, far greater than any had ever tasted. So here at the end, there is a catch of fish, by these same disciples, a catch greater than any had seen 153 different kinds!
Here, after Easter is over, the disciples were aimless, lost, without hope, their Rabbi, the one they had known was the Messiah to change the world, had been crucified, dead and buried, and raised so there was not even a body or grave to hold. Human beings cannot live without hope! We must have a purpose, an aim, a reason for rhyming! More than going through the motions set by the meter, we are thrilled by the clap of thunder, awed by the streak of lightning, we desperately need to love, we need to believe in something beyond ourselves. When Simon Peter said he was going fishing, it was not the thrill of the Opening of Trout Season, not awaking before dawn giddy that the fish had been whispering to him all night! His brother and friends were worried, they were not about to let him go off into the darkness in a boat alone at night. However, being aimless, only sharing company without any desire or hope of catching, they caught nothing, until confronted by the reason for their hope. They witnessed him a hundred yards off, they joined him in the breaking bread and sharing of a breakfast.
As Americans we take for granted eating at least three meals a day, every day. Later this morning, over breakfast Larry will be speaking with us about differing Spiritual disciplings. One of the ancient acts of faith, that was present in Judaism and early Christianity was Fasting, choosing to set apart the time we routinely eat, as a time of prayer. We eat so much and have so much, we rarely take pleasure in a meal, in the tastes and textures of foods, by fasting, we cleanse our palate and our mind, as well as our bellies, of all that has been, and when ready when actually hungry, we break the fast, giving thanks to God for our human desires of taste and sense, and our yearning for what cannot be sensually known.
The Gospel of John is beautifully written, eloquently told. Three different times, we hear Peter wrestling with his conversion, struggling with his faith. First when they walked along the Road, and Jesus asked “Who do you believe I AM?” And Simon Peter leapt to say “You are the Christ”. Second the night when they were at Table, and Peter having denied that Jesus should serve him, confesses “Even though all the others fall away, I will not abandon you” and Jesus responds that before the cock crows Peter would deny him three times. Here now, in this last revelation of the Gospel of John, Jesus walks along beside Peter and again three times asks him of his love. There are times in which I imagine the difference between Judas and Simon Peter, is that while both betrayed and abandoned him, Judas isolated himself from forgiveness, and Simon Peter though he had sinned still wanted to hope, so this conversation became his conversion.
Somehow, we have gotten the impression that knowing the hour and place of our conversion is important, that at 10:22pm on a foggy morning the haze parted and in a shaft of sunlight we suddenly believed. The point of the New Testament stories of Conversion are not to KNOW that this person was Converted and when and how; But Rather, so What? SO each of us can also believe!
In one of her essays Flannery O'Conner described that “This man needed to be knocked down off his horse in order to be able to hear Jesus, to be able to listen and to believe!” Ironically, there is no evidence in the Book of Acts that Saul was riding a horse, but it is true that each of us need to be knocked down from our pretense, from our sense of having built ourselves up, in order to believe. The Ethiopian Eunuch who was a Priest of a different Faith, a Roman Centurian whose child was ill, a woman who had died, even the person so full of himself, so filled with hate that he would persecute others for not believing as he did, all were converted to believe and to live in faith.
Hans Kung described that we are called to live in METANOIA, that process of “breaking down” everything we have built ourselves up with, in order to approach life innocent as a child, to be healed of our desire for control.
I would confess to you, that I grew up in the church, never having known a time apart from the community of faith. As an infant, my mother died in my birth, and the vow which the congregation takes at baptism, of whether you will nurture this child, for me was very real. Several years ago, I met a man who was very hard to be with, he would throw papers and storm out of meetings, swearing profanity. When asked why, He said, “This is the Church, Here I can act out knowing you have to forgive!” To which we responded, “No, we chose to forgive, but we are each called to try again and again to act in faith and commitment.”
I recall when Logan's parents were married in this Sanctuary. They described having two very well behaved dogs who with a handler, they wanted to have as the Ring Barer and Flower Girl. On the appointed day, the Groom and Bride stood before the congregation, as two Golden Retriever 6 month olds jumped over members in the pews. When they got to the Chancel, I took hold of the collar of one with the rings, and they bolted, but we had the rings! And we asked the couple, of their INTENTIONS, then of their VOWS of COMMITMENT to one another, then for the GIFTS of love they presented to one another. This day, they renew that CONVERSION yet again as they present their child, giving to him their love and their faith.
Acts 9:1-6
Earlier this weekend, we were at a restaurant, when someone approached questioning why as a faith community we were given words and phrases to recite like “mellifulous meterist” “onymonopoetic rhymer”,“impetuous dithyramb?” or such intimate phrases as “vanity conceived within our breasts!” For over a Century, Reformed Worship was marked by the most eloquent of prose, the highest most learned proofs, carefully constructed legal arguments for faith which would humble the finest philosopher or jurist. Televangelists have used the most elaborate film clips and pyrotechnics, to amaze and stupefy. But ultimately, these are all words, and even if, the most elaborately constructed, these are only a highly developed convincing, a sales pitch, for prose only allow us to argue, to comprehend, to explain and interpret, and try to understand, not to feel. Poetry, Psalms, Songs, slow down our speech, painting pictures, developing rhythm, growing ideas, drawing illustrations, catching us up and challenging us as human beings to place ourselves into a different reality.
Conversion is not an inescapable legal proof, or philosophic argument. According to the Protestant Reformers and the Evangelists of John and Acts this morning, Conversion is not the abandonment and rejection of one set of beliefs for another, not trading gods or even exchanging No God For God. Gospel Preaching, the experiences of life, do challenge a person TO believe. But Conversion is from Belief, to deeper more profound commitments. Baptism may occur once in life, as we are given to God, never to be taken back from God, as we abandon worldly desires for faith. But we are Converted and converted over and over throughout our human existence.
The 21st Chapter of John is different from all that went before, so much so, that many believe this was added by a different witness. The 20th Chapter of John had been filled with one story after another of the Resurrection appearances of Easter, even marked in time, as: Early on the Third Day before the dawn, later that same day two were walking on the road to Emmaus, On towards evening the Disciples were again in the upper room for fear, and Six days later locked away. This 1st Chapter after the 20th, evades all reference to time, “After these things, Jesus revealed himself again, and revealed himself in this way.” Rather than the story of an Easter Appearance of the Resurrected Jesus, this is a Revelation for the Community of Faith. In John it is virtually impossible to separate Theology from Christology, to believe in Christ is to believe in God; but also, one cannot separate Theology from Christology from Ecclesiology, belief in God and Christ from The Community of Faith.
The Gospel had begun with confronting the followers of John the Baptist, who were following Jesus, Andrew, James and John, “to Come and See.” Andrew had found his brother Simon, saying “We have seen the Lord!” And Jesus found Nathaniel the Canaanite of Galilee, revealing to him all that had happened in Nathaniel's life, inviting him to come and see far greater things. To the Fishermen he had promised “Follow me on the Way, and I will make you Fishers of Men.” According to John, Jesus and the disciples had gone to a Wedding where the guests were without Wine, and Jesus provided an overwhelming supply, far greater than any had ever tasted. So here at the end, there is a catch of fish, by these same disciples, a catch greater than any had seen 153 different kinds!
Here, after Easter is over, the disciples were aimless, lost, without hope, their Rabbi, the one they had known was the Messiah to change the world, had been crucified, dead and buried, and raised so there was not even a body or grave to hold. Human beings cannot live without hope! We must have a purpose, an aim, a reason for rhyming! More than going through the motions set by the meter, we are thrilled by the clap of thunder, awed by the streak of lightning, we desperately need to love, we need to believe in something beyond ourselves. When Simon Peter said he was going fishing, it was not the thrill of the Opening of Trout Season, not awaking before dawn giddy that the fish had been whispering to him all night! His brother and friends were worried, they were not about to let him go off into the darkness in a boat alone at night. However, being aimless, only sharing company without any desire or hope of catching, they caught nothing, until confronted by the reason for their hope. They witnessed him a hundred yards off, they joined him in the breaking bread and sharing of a breakfast.
As Americans we take for granted eating at least three meals a day, every day. Later this morning, over breakfast Larry will be speaking with us about differing Spiritual disciplings. One of the ancient acts of faith, that was present in Judaism and early Christianity was Fasting, choosing to set apart the time we routinely eat, as a time of prayer. We eat so much and have so much, we rarely take pleasure in a meal, in the tastes and textures of foods, by fasting, we cleanse our palate and our mind, as well as our bellies, of all that has been, and when ready when actually hungry, we break the fast, giving thanks to God for our human desires of taste and sense, and our yearning for what cannot be sensually known.
The Gospel of John is beautifully written, eloquently told. Three different times, we hear Peter wrestling with his conversion, struggling with his faith. First when they walked along the Road, and Jesus asked “Who do you believe I AM?” And Simon Peter leapt to say “You are the Christ”. Second the night when they were at Table, and Peter having denied that Jesus should serve him, confesses “Even though all the others fall away, I will not abandon you” and Jesus responds that before the cock crows Peter would deny him three times. Here now, in this last revelation of the Gospel of John, Jesus walks along beside Peter and again three times asks him of his love. There are times in which I imagine the difference between Judas and Simon Peter, is that while both betrayed and abandoned him, Judas isolated himself from forgiveness, and Simon Peter though he had sinned still wanted to hope, so this conversation became his conversion.
Somehow, we have gotten the impression that knowing the hour and place of our conversion is important, that at 10:22pm on a foggy morning the haze parted and in a shaft of sunlight we suddenly believed. The point of the New Testament stories of Conversion are not to KNOW that this person was Converted and when and how; But Rather, so What? SO each of us can also believe!
In one of her essays Flannery O'Conner described that “This man needed to be knocked down off his horse in order to be able to hear Jesus, to be able to listen and to believe!” Ironically, there is no evidence in the Book of Acts that Saul was riding a horse, but it is true that each of us need to be knocked down from our pretense, from our sense of having built ourselves up, in order to believe. The Ethiopian Eunuch who was a Priest of a different Faith, a Roman Centurian whose child was ill, a woman who had died, even the person so full of himself, so filled with hate that he would persecute others for not believing as he did, all were converted to believe and to live in faith.
Hans Kung described that we are called to live in METANOIA, that process of “breaking down” everything we have built ourselves up with, in order to approach life innocent as a child, to be healed of our desire for control.
I would confess to you, that I grew up in the church, never having known a time apart from the community of faith. As an infant, my mother died in my birth, and the vow which the congregation takes at baptism, of whether you will nurture this child, for me was very real. Several years ago, I met a man who was very hard to be with, he would throw papers and storm out of meetings, swearing profanity. When asked why, He said, “This is the Church, Here I can act out knowing you have to forgive!” To which we responded, “No, we chose to forgive, but we are each called to try again and again to act in faith and commitment.”
I recall when Logan's parents were married in this Sanctuary. They described having two very well behaved dogs who with a handler, they wanted to have as the Ring Barer and Flower Girl. On the appointed day, the Groom and Bride stood before the congregation, as two Golden Retriever 6 month olds jumped over members in the pews. When they got to the Chancel, I took hold of the collar of one with the rings, and they bolted, but we had the rings! And we asked the couple, of their INTENTIONS, then of their VOWS of COMMITMENT to one another, then for the GIFTS of love they presented to one another. This day, they renew that CONVERSION yet again as they present their child, giving to him their love and their faith.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Disproving Gnosticism
John 20: 19-31
Acts 5: 27-32
This morning we begin with a reverse offering, where instead of putting into the plate, we invite you each to receive. Each to take a square cut nail, and hold it in the palm of your hand throughout listening to the sermon. In this Post Modern era, over two thousand years after the death, two thousand years into the resurrection, we un-like Thomas are not able to feel the imprint of the nails in Jesus' hands, BUT we can feel nails in our own!
Those who proof-read and print the Bulletin came to me this week saying: “You have an error, surely you meant: DisApproving of Agnosticism” And I said “No, faith is not about our judgement and disapproval neither is the Gospel about NOT Knowing as in “Agnostic”. But instead, PROVING that we NEED NO PROOF, that we need not see in order to believe. We need not know and we cannot fully understand; though because we live, because we feel, we can believe!”
GNOSTICISM was an early form of belief among the Greeks, competing with Christianity. The Gnostics understood that the world was reasonable, logical, and if each went off by themselves, or in schools where they could reason together, the Gnostics thought they could figure out all about God. The Gnostics believed that the Resurrection was not a physical death, but intellectual, theoretical, in answer to which the story of the Night of Easter and One Week hence are about EXPERIENCE for those who need proof; not to be convinced, but to feel. The Christian Gospel is not taught as knowledge retreating to figure out theoretically only carries us so far, the Christian Gospel must be lived!
Many of us struggle with computers and electronic media, because we were taught that to do anything, you first must understand how it works. When we were in school, those with pocket protectors and horn-rimmed glasses learned to write in the computer-code of DOS, which then has come through leaps and hurdles to PC, to HP to Apple and WiFi. Today, few understand why or how, but when we get stuck, there is always the combination of CONTROL ALTERNATE DELETE that will exit to start all over again. We use deductive reasoning as far as we can go, knowing that there are things in life, which cannot be reasoned and are not Strategically Evolved, which instead we approach INDUCTIVELY and through relationships and trust, through trial and error, feeling our way, we experience.
Our passage from The Gospel of John begins that after the Resurrection to Mary at sunrise at the Tomb, after the journey to Emmaus and the breaking of bread, the Disciples were filled with ANXIETY and FEAR. Like many of us, when traumatized by change, by loss, we look for certainty, we want to know, to prove, to have our fears and anxiety answered by fact. Responding to this anxiety, Jesus said “PEACE, BE STILL. Put out your hand and feel.”
There is a Golden Chapter of The Early Church, that most of us have never heard let alone experienced. We know all about Jesus calling the Disciples; His Teaching and Instructing with Parables; we know the Teachings about the Crucifixion and Resurrection; we know about Peter standing up to the Sanhedrin and Paul on Missionary journeys preaching to convert the world that had not known God. We know about the Crusades and the Reformation, and the Modern Church. But in between, how did a marginalized, obscure movement become one of the greatest forces shaping human culture?
In the latter half of the first Century, there were diseases that spread through the Roman Empire. Whole Cities were decimated by fever and illness. Not knowing the cause or means of cure, families abandoned the ill in the streets, whole cities evacuated leaving the infected to die. And the Christian Community went out into the streets to offer compassion. These illiterate, former prostitutes and money-grubbing tax collectors, sat up with people through the night. They offered a cold compress to bring down fevers. They kept them clean and gave them a cup of pure water to drink. They offered care and compassion to those who were dying, to those who had been abandoned by family and friends and culture to die, and miraculously, by caring, by their acts of compassion, these who were dying – lived. The experience of life after being condemned to die, after being abandoned by the world, what greater evidence could there be for the Christian Faith.
To most the world, “Church” means worship in a Sanctuary for one hour on Sunday morning, Choirs of our members who sing to us, Confirmation Classes to teach our children what we believe, what was promised in their Baptism, Women's Circles and Men's Groups cooking for fellowship of the Church. What if, we turned our established paradigm of the Church on its head? What if we did not come into the Church as a means of escape from the world, a time of being spiritually fed, to figure out the answers in order to cope with the anxieties of secular life? But instead, we saw our time together in Worship, Education and Fellowship as training and practice, rehearsal for going out into the world? Throughout recent years Utube has been filled with glimpses of what are called “Flash-Mobs”. People going through ordinary routines in Grand Central Station, when suddenly Irish Dancers begin clogging. People shopping at a mall when from every corner, choirs begin to arrive singing the Halleluia Chorus. What if, instead of our Bell Choirs rehearsing, so that at the appropriate time in Worship they could process forward to play, if on Memorial Day as the Scouts and Veterans march from cemetery to Cemetery through the Village and waited at the Veteran's Park for Blue Angel Fighter planes to fly over which no longer can, before the first politician speaks, if at that moment as the whole community gathers together, Bell ringers from each of the Churches began playing “For All The Saints”?
We are part of a culture where in the Public schools they can only sing Secular Christmas songs. What if, at the end of the Christmas Concert, before the audience applauding, believers began to sing “Silent Night” or “Joy to the World”?
Public prayer has become a political nightmare. What if, at Graduation Commencements, School days, and Baseball games, instead of a professional Clergyman leading the body in prayer, what if as we each start our day, as we begin a Board meeting, or God help us as we enter the Voting Booth, individually as believers, we silently offered a Prayer to God for guidance?
In recent years, as your pastor, then Contractors from this congregation went to Sudan to build a clinic, then Doctors and Nurses and volunteers went to serve, we commissioned them and prayed for them. A week ago, as a Daughter of this congregation described going to China to teach for the next two years, and we offered to pray for her. One of the finest moments I recall of us being the church, was when her brother was set to be deployed as a Green Beret and came to worship the morning before he left, we placed a baby in his arms as he walked the aisles of the congregation, and we vowed to pray for him. I remember charging him, that if you can carry an M16 Rifle into battle, you can carry a baby in your arms. What if faith, were not to be a private matter behind the closed doors of the Sanctuary, but if we understood we have each been Called to Serve? That each of us, as a Priesthood of Believers, have been breathed on and blessed and commissioned by Jesus Christ to go out into the world as believers?
Peter was arrested for acting in faith, what we are called to is not acts of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, but rather to EXPERIENCE FAITH IN LIFE. The response of Peter to the Authorities was to Question whether we are acting on the Side of God, or not? To the Community of Believers, Peter Challenged do not try to work out all the words of your testimony ahead of time, buyt live and speak from your heart of what you believe. The words of Gamaliel, if it is a human enterprise, like a fad it will die out, but if this is of God, who knows what may happen?
Acts 5: 27-32
This morning we begin with a reverse offering, where instead of putting into the plate, we invite you each to receive. Each to take a square cut nail, and hold it in the palm of your hand throughout listening to the sermon. In this Post Modern era, over two thousand years after the death, two thousand years into the resurrection, we un-like Thomas are not able to feel the imprint of the nails in Jesus' hands, BUT we can feel nails in our own!
Those who proof-read and print the Bulletin came to me this week saying: “You have an error, surely you meant: DisApproving of Agnosticism” And I said “No, faith is not about our judgement and disapproval neither is the Gospel about NOT Knowing as in “Agnostic”. But instead, PROVING that we NEED NO PROOF, that we need not see in order to believe. We need not know and we cannot fully understand; though because we live, because we feel, we can believe!”
GNOSTICISM was an early form of belief among the Greeks, competing with Christianity. The Gnostics understood that the world was reasonable, logical, and if each went off by themselves, or in schools where they could reason together, the Gnostics thought they could figure out all about God. The Gnostics believed that the Resurrection was not a physical death, but intellectual, theoretical, in answer to which the story of the Night of Easter and One Week hence are about EXPERIENCE for those who need proof; not to be convinced, but to feel. The Christian Gospel is not taught as knowledge retreating to figure out theoretically only carries us so far, the Christian Gospel must be lived!
Many of us struggle with computers and electronic media, because we were taught that to do anything, you first must understand how it works. When we were in school, those with pocket protectors and horn-rimmed glasses learned to write in the computer-code of DOS, which then has come through leaps and hurdles to PC, to HP to Apple and WiFi. Today, few understand why or how, but when we get stuck, there is always the combination of CONTROL ALTERNATE DELETE that will exit to start all over again. We use deductive reasoning as far as we can go, knowing that there are things in life, which cannot be reasoned and are not Strategically Evolved, which instead we approach INDUCTIVELY and through relationships and trust, through trial and error, feeling our way, we experience.
Our passage from The Gospel of John begins that after the Resurrection to Mary at sunrise at the Tomb, after the journey to Emmaus and the breaking of bread, the Disciples were filled with ANXIETY and FEAR. Like many of us, when traumatized by change, by loss, we look for certainty, we want to know, to prove, to have our fears and anxiety answered by fact. Responding to this anxiety, Jesus said “PEACE, BE STILL. Put out your hand and feel.”
There is a Golden Chapter of The Early Church, that most of us have never heard let alone experienced. We know all about Jesus calling the Disciples; His Teaching and Instructing with Parables; we know the Teachings about the Crucifixion and Resurrection; we know about Peter standing up to the Sanhedrin and Paul on Missionary journeys preaching to convert the world that had not known God. We know about the Crusades and the Reformation, and the Modern Church. But in between, how did a marginalized, obscure movement become one of the greatest forces shaping human culture?
In the latter half of the first Century, there were diseases that spread through the Roman Empire. Whole Cities were decimated by fever and illness. Not knowing the cause or means of cure, families abandoned the ill in the streets, whole cities evacuated leaving the infected to die. And the Christian Community went out into the streets to offer compassion. These illiterate, former prostitutes and money-grubbing tax collectors, sat up with people through the night. They offered a cold compress to bring down fevers. They kept them clean and gave them a cup of pure water to drink. They offered care and compassion to those who were dying, to those who had been abandoned by family and friends and culture to die, and miraculously, by caring, by their acts of compassion, these who were dying – lived. The experience of life after being condemned to die, after being abandoned by the world, what greater evidence could there be for the Christian Faith.
To most the world, “Church” means worship in a Sanctuary for one hour on Sunday morning, Choirs of our members who sing to us, Confirmation Classes to teach our children what we believe, what was promised in their Baptism, Women's Circles and Men's Groups cooking for fellowship of the Church. What if, we turned our established paradigm of the Church on its head? What if we did not come into the Church as a means of escape from the world, a time of being spiritually fed, to figure out the answers in order to cope with the anxieties of secular life? But instead, we saw our time together in Worship, Education and Fellowship as training and practice, rehearsal for going out into the world? Throughout recent years Utube has been filled with glimpses of what are called “Flash-Mobs”. People going through ordinary routines in Grand Central Station, when suddenly Irish Dancers begin clogging. People shopping at a mall when from every corner, choirs begin to arrive singing the Halleluia Chorus. What if, instead of our Bell Choirs rehearsing, so that at the appropriate time in Worship they could process forward to play, if on Memorial Day as the Scouts and Veterans march from cemetery to Cemetery through the Village and waited at the Veteran's Park for Blue Angel Fighter planes to fly over which no longer can, before the first politician speaks, if at that moment as the whole community gathers together, Bell ringers from each of the Churches began playing “For All The Saints”?
We are part of a culture where in the Public schools they can only sing Secular Christmas songs. What if, at the end of the Christmas Concert, before the audience applauding, believers began to sing “Silent Night” or “Joy to the World”?
Public prayer has become a political nightmare. What if, at Graduation Commencements, School days, and Baseball games, instead of a professional Clergyman leading the body in prayer, what if as we each start our day, as we begin a Board meeting, or God help us as we enter the Voting Booth, individually as believers, we silently offered a Prayer to God for guidance?
In recent years, as your pastor, then Contractors from this congregation went to Sudan to build a clinic, then Doctors and Nurses and volunteers went to serve, we commissioned them and prayed for them. A week ago, as a Daughter of this congregation described going to China to teach for the next two years, and we offered to pray for her. One of the finest moments I recall of us being the church, was when her brother was set to be deployed as a Green Beret and came to worship the morning before he left, we placed a baby in his arms as he walked the aisles of the congregation, and we vowed to pray for him. I remember charging him, that if you can carry an M16 Rifle into battle, you can carry a baby in your arms. What if faith, were not to be a private matter behind the closed doors of the Sanctuary, but if we understood we have each been Called to Serve? That each of us, as a Priesthood of Believers, have been breathed on and blessed and commissioned by Jesus Christ to go out into the world as believers?
Peter was arrested for acting in faith, what we are called to is not acts of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, but rather to EXPERIENCE FAITH IN LIFE. The response of Peter to the Authorities was to Question whether we are acting on the Side of God, or not? To the Community of Believers, Peter Challenged do not try to work out all the words of your testimony ahead of time, buyt live and speak from your heart of what you believe. The words of Gamaliel, if it is a human enterprise, like a fad it will die out, but if this is of God, who knows what may happen?
Monday, April 5, 2010
Resurrection Day, April 4, 2010
Luke 24:1-35
Of all the stories of the Old and New Testament, this is the one we need to be able to hear and resonate with.
Most of us have never seen Gopher Wood, let alone know what a cubit is, to understand God's command to Noah in building the Ark, we have seen news film of flooding, even tsunami, but 40 days and nights of rain, when all the earth is awash in chaos is hard for us.
Moses on a mountain and coming back with his face shining carrying stone tablets is not part of our context.
Elijah sacrificing a Bull and commanding a lightning bolt to consume his offering then killing 400 Baal Priests,
Even the birth of a baby in a stable, having Kings arrive bearing gifts from far distant lands, then our family having to flee to a distant country because all the babies are being slaughtered, is not something we can know.
But death, death's emptiness where we are left with this void of expectancy is something we are too acquainted.
The wonder of Easter's Resurrection is that we have confused EXISTENCE, with ETERNITY. We mark our calendars and set our clocks to look for Jesus to return from death to life, as if we could have a Welcome Home Party at the Tomb, as if He were to live for another 30 years before dying. That is EXISTENCE, Not RESURRECTION ETERNITY.
We believe far too well in MANIFEST DESTINY, that each person can only succeed as much as they try for themselves! Easter is not something we as the Believers, as the Church, can do, not even something Jesus could have done for himself! Easter is God's response! All the verbs in the Easter story are passive past tense, to identify that it is not Jesus who IS RISING from the dead, But Jesus who HAS BEEN RAISED. The Resurrection Day is God's Response to Jesus' Death. Jesus' suffered and died and was buried, and God raised him. Jesus had compassion for the poor and the hungry, Jesus had forgiven the sinners, Jesus had healed Lepers, the deaf and blind, God took Jesus from death to Eternal Life!
Luke's telling of Easter is so VERY HUMAN! The passages we read on Maundy Thursday ended with naming several women who had watched the crucifixion, had watched him die and marked the place where the soldiers buried him. The Soldiers sealed the tomb with a large rock and posted a guard that no one could steal the body. This first day of the week, the women go to mourn the dead, they go wanting to cleanse and anoint the body with oils and spices, knowing that they probably will not be allowed by the guard, they will not be able because of the rock, they cannot see him again because he is dead. But still they go to the tomb, and he was not there, he was risen. They go and tell the Disciples, but it seems a foolish idle tale, no one would believe. Peter goes to check it out, and finds nothing at the tomb but begins to wonder and to believe.
With all the archaeological work that has been done, no one has been able to find where Emmaus was, or of what significance. We do know it was about 7 miles from Jerusalem, so about as far from here as Auburn or Bordino. According to Frederick Buechner, Emmaus represents where we go when we want to avoid life. Emmaus is a bar, a movie, the internet, the television, that place you go when you are fed up, and want to scream “Nothing makes any difference!” Perhaps it is buying a new car, or a new pair of shoes, buying an extra scoop of ice cream that you know is not on the diet, going alone into the woods or out on the lake, to get away from everything and everyone. Yet it is on the road to Emmaus, where we retreat when life is too much with us, that we encounter the risen Savior. Who as we explain ourselves responds “Don't you understand?”
How often, we describe other people being uncommitted or too tired to help us. How often we imagine no one else cares. We see how a circumstance effects us, we complain and judge others on our way out, without questioning what if the world does not revolve around me, but instead revolves as God ordained? What then does this circumstance mean in God's creation? and What am I, what are we going to do?
Jesus explained the connections between everything from Moses and the 10 Commandments, down through the Prophets and how all their teachings, all of history has been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of the Messiah. This week, on Good Friday, a Cardinal at the Vatican defensively correlated the subpoena of the Pope for condoning molestation to persecution of Anti-Semitism. This was wrong on so many levels. First, because anti-Semitism is wrongly blaming the jewish people for the death of the Savior, when Jesus was Jewish! And while it was in Jerusalem, the Crowds represent just that, a human mob, who presented their case to the State and the Roman Empire condemned him. Anti-Semitism, judging any group of people because of their race, because of their culture and religion, is WRONG, and should be called for what it is.
For the church, Protestant or Catholic, to condone ministers in positions of power, abusing others with touch, is an offense against the body of Christ. Here we are NOT condemning the Catholic Church for our own church and denomination and every one has turned a blind eye in the passed. The ministry is personal, is intimate, you are dealing with people at their most fragile and vulnerable. But in addition to the abuse caused by the abusers, this means that every time any of us minister to another, we must be conscious of the accusations that may come, we must be skeptical of being on alone on the road together, or visiting someone in their home, or in the office. Christianity is focused on the incarnation of God in a human body, on the death and resurrection of that body, and yet painfully we must be aware and cautious of our touch and our authority and power.
About a month ago, there was a wonderful article in USA Today Newspaper, asking the Question: Where have all the Believers Gone? As many churches have equated regular attendance with belief and Yet according to all the polls, more people believe in God today than ever before. The author Oliver Thomas makes the point that all the things the church has preached for the last Century Freedom, Racial Justice, Women's Rights, Concern for the Poor and Hungry and of differing abilities, have been enacted into Law. They are not right perfect yet, but a long difference from where the world was with an 18 hour work day and Child labor. And yet the Church did not adapt and have a what then story. How shall we live and believe as a Resurrected people? What does it mean to be an Easter People living beyond the resurrection?
Of all the stories of the Old and New Testament, this is the one we need to be able to hear and resonate with.
Most of us have never seen Gopher Wood, let alone know what a cubit is, to understand God's command to Noah in building the Ark, we have seen news film of flooding, even tsunami, but 40 days and nights of rain, when all the earth is awash in chaos is hard for us.
Moses on a mountain and coming back with his face shining carrying stone tablets is not part of our context.
Elijah sacrificing a Bull and commanding a lightning bolt to consume his offering then killing 400 Baal Priests,
Even the birth of a baby in a stable, having Kings arrive bearing gifts from far distant lands, then our family having to flee to a distant country because all the babies are being slaughtered, is not something we can know.
But death, death's emptiness where we are left with this void of expectancy is something we are too acquainted.
The wonder of Easter's Resurrection is that we have confused EXISTENCE, with ETERNITY. We mark our calendars and set our clocks to look for Jesus to return from death to life, as if we could have a Welcome Home Party at the Tomb, as if He were to live for another 30 years before dying. That is EXISTENCE, Not RESURRECTION ETERNITY.
We believe far too well in MANIFEST DESTINY, that each person can only succeed as much as they try for themselves! Easter is not something we as the Believers, as the Church, can do, not even something Jesus could have done for himself! Easter is God's response! All the verbs in the Easter story are passive past tense, to identify that it is not Jesus who IS RISING from the dead, But Jesus who HAS BEEN RAISED. The Resurrection Day is God's Response to Jesus' Death. Jesus' suffered and died and was buried, and God raised him. Jesus had compassion for the poor and the hungry, Jesus had forgiven the sinners, Jesus had healed Lepers, the deaf and blind, God took Jesus from death to Eternal Life!
Luke's telling of Easter is so VERY HUMAN! The passages we read on Maundy Thursday ended with naming several women who had watched the crucifixion, had watched him die and marked the place where the soldiers buried him. The Soldiers sealed the tomb with a large rock and posted a guard that no one could steal the body. This first day of the week, the women go to mourn the dead, they go wanting to cleanse and anoint the body with oils and spices, knowing that they probably will not be allowed by the guard, they will not be able because of the rock, they cannot see him again because he is dead. But still they go to the tomb, and he was not there, he was risen. They go and tell the Disciples, but it seems a foolish idle tale, no one would believe. Peter goes to check it out, and finds nothing at the tomb but begins to wonder and to believe.
With all the archaeological work that has been done, no one has been able to find where Emmaus was, or of what significance. We do know it was about 7 miles from Jerusalem, so about as far from here as Auburn or Bordino. According to Frederick Buechner, Emmaus represents where we go when we want to avoid life. Emmaus is a bar, a movie, the internet, the television, that place you go when you are fed up, and want to scream “Nothing makes any difference!” Perhaps it is buying a new car, or a new pair of shoes, buying an extra scoop of ice cream that you know is not on the diet, going alone into the woods or out on the lake, to get away from everything and everyone. Yet it is on the road to Emmaus, where we retreat when life is too much with us, that we encounter the risen Savior. Who as we explain ourselves responds “Don't you understand?”
How often, we describe other people being uncommitted or too tired to help us. How often we imagine no one else cares. We see how a circumstance effects us, we complain and judge others on our way out, without questioning what if the world does not revolve around me, but instead revolves as God ordained? What then does this circumstance mean in God's creation? and What am I, what are we going to do?
Jesus explained the connections between everything from Moses and the 10 Commandments, down through the Prophets and how all their teachings, all of history has been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of the Messiah. This week, on Good Friday, a Cardinal at the Vatican defensively correlated the subpoena of the Pope for condoning molestation to persecution of Anti-Semitism. This was wrong on so many levels. First, because anti-Semitism is wrongly blaming the jewish people for the death of the Savior, when Jesus was Jewish! And while it was in Jerusalem, the Crowds represent just that, a human mob, who presented their case to the State and the Roman Empire condemned him. Anti-Semitism, judging any group of people because of their race, because of their culture and religion, is WRONG, and should be called for what it is.
For the church, Protestant or Catholic, to condone ministers in positions of power, abusing others with touch, is an offense against the body of Christ. Here we are NOT condemning the Catholic Church for our own church and denomination and every one has turned a blind eye in the passed. The ministry is personal, is intimate, you are dealing with people at their most fragile and vulnerable. But in addition to the abuse caused by the abusers, this means that every time any of us minister to another, we must be conscious of the accusations that may come, we must be skeptical of being on alone on the road together, or visiting someone in their home, or in the office. Christianity is focused on the incarnation of God in a human body, on the death and resurrection of that body, and yet painfully we must be aware and cautious of our touch and our authority and power.
About a month ago, there was a wonderful article in USA Today Newspaper, asking the Question: Where have all the Believers Gone? As many churches have equated regular attendance with belief and Yet according to all the polls, more people believe in God today than ever before. The author Oliver Thomas makes the point that all the things the church has preached for the last Century Freedom, Racial Justice, Women's Rights, Concern for the Poor and Hungry and of differing abilities, have been enacted into Law. They are not right perfect yet, but a long difference from where the world was with an 18 hour work day and Child labor. And yet the Church did not adapt and have a what then story. How shall we live and believe as a Resurrected people? What does it mean to be an Easter People living beyond the resurrection?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Jesus' Seven Last Words
Mark 15: 33-39
Luke 23: 32-49
John 19: 25-30
This week, in addition to being Holy Week and the first taste of Spring, has been the week of Passover, which does not always happen, as one is based on the cycle of the Sun and the other on the cycle of the Moon. On the first night of Passover, we were honored to be invited to share the Seder meal with a family of this community who are both Jewish and Christian. After the lighting of the candles, the washing of hands, and the breaking of bread at the start of the sacred meal, there is a remembrance of all God has done for us in salvation throughout history. After naming each, there is a response Dayenu, meaning “It would have been enough.”
God created life from the waste and void of time and space:“It would have been enough, Dayenu! God separated light from the darkness, dry land from the waters of chaos, and made every living thing to fill creation, even giving us partners for life: “It would have been enough,” Dayenu!
Humanity oppressed & subjugated one another as slaves and God heard our prayers and cared!Dayenu! God sent a series of 10 plagues, the final of which being the gift of the passover for our ancestors and the death of the firstborn for their oppressors. Which would have been enough: Dayenu!
God parted the seas to set them free: Dayenu! God gave the people the 10 Commandments: Dayenu! God provided for them in the wilderness: Dayenu! God brought them to the Promised Land: Dayenu! God loved David and promised a King forever for Israel: Dayenu!
Loving the world so much, God gave God's only begotten Son: Dayenu!
Who called leaders to follow and taught them: Dayenu.
He fed the poor, healed the sick, brought Lazarus back from death, would have been enough Dayenu! Christ Jesus gave us this sacred meal, as sign and seal of our forgiveness: Dajenu!
But this night, we lift up, that the one who was God's gift, the incarnation Emmanuel God with us, Suffered and died for us: Dajenu!
And we wait in anticipation and hope and faith for God to raise him from the dead: Dajenu!
So this night, instead of explaining the elements of Communion or the washing of feet and servanthood we listen for the last words of Jesus as the Christian Passover during the Sacrifice on the Cross.
Over the years I have heard many ministers and believers make reference to “Jesus 7 Last Words”. What is surprising is that one phrase is used by Mark and Matthew, though for different reasons. Luke has three other final words from Jesus, and John yet three others. Such that, while each of the Gospels describes Jesus' Baptism, and his calling Disciples, and the Last Supper of Communion, and that he was arrested and crucified, died and rose again, none of the Gospels do so the same way, they use different names for the disciples, and even Jesus' last words are recorded differently.
In John's Gospel, Jesus is first described by John the Baptist as The Lamb of God, the Passover sacrificial lamb whose blood takes away the sins of the world. Here the Cross becomes his throne, as Jesus is lifted up in Mock Coronation as “King”.
The three words from Jesus, in John, are first to his Mother and the Beloved Disciple, that they should be given to care for one another as Parent and Child. John is writing differently from Matthew, Mark and Luke, instead of to an individual or a Church, the Gospel is addressed to a Community of Faith, that as the community we should care for one another. Would that when loved ones die, we did assign to one another, not just who gets the car and how to divide up the assets, not only living wills of what extraneous measures we desire, but who will care for our loved ones for us.
Second, there is a symbolic reference, remembering that Jesus said to the Woman at the Well, the woman who had had 7 husbands and was living with an 8th, that he was Water of Life! And yet here, Jesus says: “I Thirst.” Each of the Gospels, as different as they are, each emphasize that Jesus is completely human, as well as being the Messiah. At his death, Jesus the Man, is yearning for something more! Yet, the guards misunderstand and give him vinegar spoiled wine.
John's Gospel tells the cosmic story, beginning not with birth in a stable, but “In the Beginning” and his final words from the cross are “It is finished.” Everything about the Crucifixion is as an ending, closure control, finality, Dajenu! and yet God offers more.
Luke has the interchange between Jesus and the two criminals condemned to death. As the crowd has condemned him, as the soldiers crucify him as deserving death, when Pilate and Herod have found no guilt in him; Jesus proclaims: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Which as all humanity has done this to him, is forgiveness for us all. Perhaps it is because so many of the generation that fought WWII have lived longer lives, perhaps it is Spring and the beginning of a new year after a long winter, but it seems there have been more deaths this year. Repeatedly, of late, I have been asked by many, that their spouse, their father or child, did not practice faith in God, so what will happen. I have to believe that there is power in our love of one another. That as you believe, as you have loved mother or father, spouse and child, your love, like the love of Christ forgives those who know not what they do.
As one of the Condemned blasphemes, as do the crowd, “You saved others save yourself”, one of the two condemned repents of his wrong and turns to follow Jesus. At which, Jesus promises “This day, you will be with me in paradise.” Luke's Gospel is all about that redemption, the Lost Coin found, the Lost Child returned Home, the Prostitute and Civil Servant each turning to God through Jesus' love. The point is not whether faith comes repeatedly throughout life, or even when condemned to die and hanging on the cross, the point is to believe.
At which point in Luke, Jesus offers up “Into Thine hands O LORD, I commend my spirit.”
How odd, that throughout time, researchers have sought the stable where Jesus was born, sought to prove and disprove the shroud of Turin, sought to identify the tomb and the place of the skull or with the Da Vinci Code sought to prove the ancestral blood line from Jesus, AND Yet none have questioned that as Jesus' spirit came from God, it was given back to God? Many of us grieve, that a loved one did not live long enough, or that we want them back, the bigger picture is that our spirits are from God, lent to this life for a time, and then returned to God, not that they belonged to this life and were lost in death.
Mark and Matthew deal with the same phrase spoken by the Savior from the cross. “Eloi, Eloi, Lema Sabach-thani.” “My God, My God, Why have You Forsaken Me.” It is a realization that as one who is fully human, he would have felt the betrayal and abandonment of everyone: Judas Kiss, Simon Peter's three times confessing “I do Not know the man.” And as all of us feel at different times in life, that even God has abandoned us. The Broken Body of the Loaf is not simply death but abandoned betrayal. But though he feels abandoned, though he feels all alone and cut-off, God did not forsake him. We all know and love the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd”, but actually this comes as response to Psalm 22 which began “My God, my God, Why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Finally, Matthew does something different, that when Jesus died, all the tombs were opened and all the souls returned to God. What happens in the Crucifixion, is not simply a contest of Good and Evil, but Jesus atoning with his life for all the souls of all humanity, he becomes the Lamb of God sacrificed for the Passover of all the world.
The 7 Last Words of Jesus, come down to this: Forgive One Another as You are Forgiven!
Luke 23: 32-49
John 19: 25-30
This week, in addition to being Holy Week and the first taste of Spring, has been the week of Passover, which does not always happen, as one is based on the cycle of the Sun and the other on the cycle of the Moon. On the first night of Passover, we were honored to be invited to share the Seder meal with a family of this community who are both Jewish and Christian. After the lighting of the candles, the washing of hands, and the breaking of bread at the start of the sacred meal, there is a remembrance of all God has done for us in salvation throughout history. After naming each, there is a response Dayenu, meaning “It would have been enough.”
God created life from the waste and void of time and space:“It would have been enough, Dayenu! God separated light from the darkness, dry land from the waters of chaos, and made every living thing to fill creation, even giving us partners for life: “It would have been enough,” Dayenu!
Humanity oppressed & subjugated one another as slaves and God heard our prayers and cared!Dayenu! God sent a series of 10 plagues, the final of which being the gift of the passover for our ancestors and the death of the firstborn for their oppressors. Which would have been enough: Dayenu!
God parted the seas to set them free: Dayenu! God gave the people the 10 Commandments: Dayenu! God provided for them in the wilderness: Dayenu! God brought them to the Promised Land: Dayenu! God loved David and promised a King forever for Israel: Dayenu!
Loving the world so much, God gave God's only begotten Son: Dayenu!
Who called leaders to follow and taught them: Dayenu.
He fed the poor, healed the sick, brought Lazarus back from death, would have been enough Dayenu! Christ Jesus gave us this sacred meal, as sign and seal of our forgiveness: Dajenu!
But this night, we lift up, that the one who was God's gift, the incarnation Emmanuel God with us, Suffered and died for us: Dajenu!
And we wait in anticipation and hope and faith for God to raise him from the dead: Dajenu!
So this night, instead of explaining the elements of Communion or the washing of feet and servanthood we listen for the last words of Jesus as the Christian Passover during the Sacrifice on the Cross.
Over the years I have heard many ministers and believers make reference to “Jesus 7 Last Words”. What is surprising is that one phrase is used by Mark and Matthew, though for different reasons. Luke has three other final words from Jesus, and John yet three others. Such that, while each of the Gospels describes Jesus' Baptism, and his calling Disciples, and the Last Supper of Communion, and that he was arrested and crucified, died and rose again, none of the Gospels do so the same way, they use different names for the disciples, and even Jesus' last words are recorded differently.
In John's Gospel, Jesus is first described by John the Baptist as The Lamb of God, the Passover sacrificial lamb whose blood takes away the sins of the world. Here the Cross becomes his throne, as Jesus is lifted up in Mock Coronation as “King”.
The three words from Jesus, in John, are first to his Mother and the Beloved Disciple, that they should be given to care for one another as Parent and Child. John is writing differently from Matthew, Mark and Luke, instead of to an individual or a Church, the Gospel is addressed to a Community of Faith, that as the community we should care for one another. Would that when loved ones die, we did assign to one another, not just who gets the car and how to divide up the assets, not only living wills of what extraneous measures we desire, but who will care for our loved ones for us.
Second, there is a symbolic reference, remembering that Jesus said to the Woman at the Well, the woman who had had 7 husbands and was living with an 8th, that he was Water of Life! And yet here, Jesus says: “I Thirst.” Each of the Gospels, as different as they are, each emphasize that Jesus is completely human, as well as being the Messiah. At his death, Jesus the Man, is yearning for something more! Yet, the guards misunderstand and give him vinegar spoiled wine.
John's Gospel tells the cosmic story, beginning not with birth in a stable, but “In the Beginning” and his final words from the cross are “It is finished.” Everything about the Crucifixion is as an ending, closure control, finality, Dajenu! and yet God offers more.
Luke has the interchange between Jesus and the two criminals condemned to death. As the crowd has condemned him, as the soldiers crucify him as deserving death, when Pilate and Herod have found no guilt in him; Jesus proclaims: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Which as all humanity has done this to him, is forgiveness for us all. Perhaps it is because so many of the generation that fought WWII have lived longer lives, perhaps it is Spring and the beginning of a new year after a long winter, but it seems there have been more deaths this year. Repeatedly, of late, I have been asked by many, that their spouse, their father or child, did not practice faith in God, so what will happen. I have to believe that there is power in our love of one another. That as you believe, as you have loved mother or father, spouse and child, your love, like the love of Christ forgives those who know not what they do.
As one of the Condemned blasphemes, as do the crowd, “You saved others save yourself”, one of the two condemned repents of his wrong and turns to follow Jesus. At which, Jesus promises “This day, you will be with me in paradise.” Luke's Gospel is all about that redemption, the Lost Coin found, the Lost Child returned Home, the Prostitute and Civil Servant each turning to God through Jesus' love. The point is not whether faith comes repeatedly throughout life, or even when condemned to die and hanging on the cross, the point is to believe.
At which point in Luke, Jesus offers up “Into Thine hands O LORD, I commend my spirit.”
How odd, that throughout time, researchers have sought the stable where Jesus was born, sought to prove and disprove the shroud of Turin, sought to identify the tomb and the place of the skull or with the Da Vinci Code sought to prove the ancestral blood line from Jesus, AND Yet none have questioned that as Jesus' spirit came from God, it was given back to God? Many of us grieve, that a loved one did not live long enough, or that we want them back, the bigger picture is that our spirits are from God, lent to this life for a time, and then returned to God, not that they belonged to this life and were lost in death.
Mark and Matthew deal with the same phrase spoken by the Savior from the cross. “Eloi, Eloi, Lema Sabach-thani.” “My God, My God, Why have You Forsaken Me.” It is a realization that as one who is fully human, he would have felt the betrayal and abandonment of everyone: Judas Kiss, Simon Peter's three times confessing “I do Not know the man.” And as all of us feel at different times in life, that even God has abandoned us. The Broken Body of the Loaf is not simply death but abandoned betrayal. But though he feels abandoned, though he feels all alone and cut-off, God did not forsake him. We all know and love the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd”, but actually this comes as response to Psalm 22 which began “My God, my God, Why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Finally, Matthew does something different, that when Jesus died, all the tombs were opened and all the souls returned to God. What happens in the Crucifixion, is not simply a contest of Good and Evil, but Jesus atoning with his life for all the souls of all humanity, he becomes the Lamb of God sacrificed for the Passover of all the world.
The 7 Last Words of Jesus, come down to this: Forgive One Another as You are Forgiven!
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