Monday, April 30, 2012
"The Gate, The Gatekeeper and The Invitation", April 29, 2012
John 10: 1-1-18
Acts 4:1-12
The Tom Troeger poem "Traveler, Are You Passing Through"
The entire testimony of the Bible, from Adam and Eve being put out of the Garden, through Noah and the Tower of Babel, down through Jesus walking the road toward Jerusalem, and the Apostles being sent out to the ends of the Earth, is that as human beings, we are travelers, travelers through time and space. With ever new forms of media, we are the most informed, most socially connected culture that has ever existed. Where during the Viet Nam war, our governments and media debated whether we should be shown pictures of the violence, today we know of revolutions, earthquakes, fires and tsunamis around the world, by streaming video from smartphones. But with all the points of connection, with all the friends we may have on Facebook and people following us on Twitter, we are more isolated and lonely than ever before. According to AARP over 35% of us as North Americans describe ourselves as lonely, isolated, alone and fearful; over 1/3 of us, and that is up from 1/5 of us just a decade ago.
TRAVELER, ARE YOU PASSING THROUGH? WE ARE ON A JOURNEY TOO.
HERE WE MEET TO FEAST AND REST, EACH OF US LIKE YOU A GUEST.
WE HAVE FOUND A DEEP SPRING HERE, CONSTANT WATER, PURE AND CLEAR,
A FIRE TO KEEP US WARM THROUGH THE NIGHT, THE COLD AND STORM.
The great travesty of the Church is that, as Shepherds imitating The Good Shepherd, our role and function in life was to provide INVITATION and instead we have too often been GATEKEEPERS. The purpose of the Church, the purpose of the Christian life is not to exist unto ourselves for eternity. We are to be The GATE, the doorway, the point of entry by which all the world might come to God. We have throughout Millennia named the Scriptures and the Sacraments as being Holy and Sacred. To be “Holy & Sacred” are words which literally mean set apart for a Divine purpose, NOT to be worshipped unto themselves, but designated by God for use.
TRAVELER, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR WAY? WE HAVE ROOM FOR YOU TO STAY.
COME ON IN AND SPEND THE NIGHT. WAIT UNTIL THE MORNING LIGHT.
TELL US WHERE YOU STARTED FROM, WHERE YOU'VE BEEN, HOW FAR YOU'VE COME.
WE WILL TELL WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED: WHERE WE DOUBLED BACK AND TURNED.
I am told that generations ago when shepherds worked the land, one of the responsibilities of a shepherd was to watch for lambs to be born. After the Ewe had dropped her lamb, the shepherd would clean it, then pick up the lamb and hold it around their own neck. In this way, the lamb came to identify the breathing, the scent and voice of the shepherd. The imprinting would be so strong, that when a shepherd was near a village, they could put their sheep with the flocks of several other shepherds over night, and in the morning when the gate was opened the sheep would separate themselves to follow their master's voice.
Sheep are different from herding cattle. You can control cattle with a sharp pencil, or a loud noise. Cattle are pushed and prodded and frightened to go where you direct. Sheep are different, if standing behind sheep, you make a loud noise, they scatter and reform behind you. Sheep cannot be pushed where you want them to go, but must instead be led. Sheep need to be invited, to be shown the way is safe. Sheep need to be shown where the pastures are green, and the water is clean. If you have ever seen how absorbent a wool blanket can be, you understand why sheep are afraid of calm deep waters.
But also, that when a shepherd was not near to a village, they looked for a canyon or enclosure that had one opening, and the shepherd would lay down and sleep across the opening using their body as the gate. Years ago on mission trip with male and female Senior highs, I recall sleeping on the floor of the hallway between their rooms, for much the same purpose. Any escapees, or predators, must step over the shepherd to reach the flock.
TRAVELER, HAVE YOU FAR TO GO? UP AHEAD IS HARD AND SLOW.
AT OUT TABLE TAKE A SEAT. WE HAVE MORE THAN WE CAN EAT.
JOIN US AND RENEW YOUR STRENGTH, NEEDED FOR THE JOURNEY'S LENGTH.
YOU, OUR GUEST, BE HOST INSTEAD. BLESS AND BREAK AND PASS THE BREAD.
In earlier generations, what united people was belief in Freedom.
When there was no middle class, when the masses were poor, or bought and sold in slavery, freedom seemed an elusive goal, an unattainable dream. As a Nation we were founded on a search for Religious Freedoms, then tempered and tested like the forging of steel, in the desire for Freedom from foreign tyranny. In each of these historic battles, like the hearing of Peter and John before the Sanhedrin, the underlying question is of POWER and AUTHORITY. There was no question whether John and Peter had been part of a Miracle. There was no question whether puritans and pilgrims wanted to be free, or whether the inhabitants of this new land wanted self-determination. The question has continually been, by whose Authority, according to what Proof, what Power, what Law gives you your rights? The purpose of the LAW was to give people Identity, relationship. If we obey these basic laws of the sanctity of life, the sanctity of truth, the rights of others, and above and beneath all our individual laws to trust God, then we can be free to live life and enjoy relationship with God and one another. But those with power guarded and protected that power. Where the Law had been established to grant and to protect our freedoms, instead the Law became a burden and obligation and threat. Years ago, I was advising a church, and meeting with their Session they read this passage of the Shepherd and the Gate and claimed authority that as the Church we must keep sinners out, we must guard the gate from those who might come in. How different this, from an understanding that as the Church, our purpose and identity is to open the gate, even to extend the gate wider to welcome others in.
The great blindness of those within the church is that we have cut out individual verses or phrases to use as a club to protect the church as a club. Simon Peter is recorded as having said that: “There is Salvation in no one else, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Christianity is the only way that has focused on SALVATION. Others have focused on FREEDOM, on ENLIGHTENMENT, on PURITY. The Saducees did not believe in resurrection to eternal life, whereas as Christians our Baptism, the devotion of our lives is for RECONCILIATION WITH One another, to try to forgive and be forgiven. We do not need to know how.
What we need to know are the words of Jesus, “I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD. I KNOW MY OWN AND MY OWN KNOW ME, JUST AS THE FATHER KNOWS ME AND I KNOW THE FATHER; AND I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR THE SHEEP. I HAVE OTHER SHEEP THAT ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD; I MUST BRING THEM ALSO, AND THEY WILL HEED MY VOICE.”
Listening to the Bell Choir rehearse the last few weeks, a recurrent phrase has been said. With the Spitzer family here, with the church enjoying this music, we wish Margaret herself were sitting in the pew. But the point is that she is! All those who are to come, all those who have gone before are part of the Body of Christ. The identifying feature of the church, our greatest treasure, is living our lives as an invitation to one another to the Table.
TRAVELER HAVE WE MET BEFORE? SHARING BREAD, WE SHARE FAR MORE. SHARING STORIES, SONGS AND PRAYERS, SHARING COMMON HOPES AND CARES, UNTIL IT DAWNS ON US TO TRACE IN ONE ANOTHER'S EYES AND IN THE LINES IN YOUR FACE, WHAT WE SENSED BUT HADLY KNEW: CHRIST OUR FRIEND IS HERE IN YOU.
A friend was a Presbyterian missionary on the West Bank in Jerusalem. He describes that one evening there was a knock at the door. Outside were a small group of College students, asking to pitch their tent in his yard over night. Jerusalem is such a contentious place between differing powers, that in such circumstance you have to file a registration permit, which they did. The following morning the travelers were gone. A few days later the police arrived saying he was under arrest. What he had not realized was that there are two permits required, like a Visa, one to enter and stay, another to leave and they had not. During the week, his colleague, the local Rabbi invited him to preach on the Sabbath. Every preacher knows the sinking feeling when they step out of the pulpit to walk down the aisle at the end of the Worship service, questioning if you connected with people and the Scripture. In Moby Dick, Ahab preaches, and doing so, pulls the ladder up after him into the pulpit. On this Sabbath, as he stepped out of the pulpit, six gargantuan men stood up and surrounded him. As he approached the door they kept him walking, out into the air, down the main street, into the Market place. At the center of the Village was an immense long table laden with food, with bread and wine. At the end of the meal, he spoke to those gathered, saying: “Friends, thank you. But tomorrow when I stand before the authorities, do not bring problems upon yourselves, allow me to go and stand alone for what I have done.” They responded with hurt and indignation. “If we abandoned you, God would judge us!” May we stand beside one another, and draw them in to God's care.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
"Variations on a Theme", April 22, 2012
Luke 24:13-48
Acts 3: 12-19
Next Sunday, we have the honor of debuting an original musical composition for Handbells from a world renowned composer! As I understand, our Bell Director was moved by a Call to Worship, we had shared, about Invitation to Worship, Invitation to share at Table in the Company of God! Composer Kevin McChesney was then inspired to create variations on the theme of that Invitation which, I had repeated from a poem by Tom Troegger. Many of the world's great compositions are Variations on a Theme. I am told that Franz Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Benny Goodman all created individual works of art as variations on a theme from composer Paganini. One way of thinking about life is that we are perpetually responding to and creating variations on themes of what has happened in our lives; and also that these then become the basis for others to go forth creating variations on our themes. The basis of psychiatry is understanding the variations of our story, and the root cause beneath all the various themes.
The great disconnect of the 21st Century is that all Creation is repeating dominant themes of fear.
What do we do when leaders are caught in scandals? What do we do if Planes fall from the skies, and skyscrapers come tumbling down? What do we do when businesses too large to fail, fail? When Blue Chip investments are filled with red Ink? In a society where 50% of marriages end in divorce, will our love last? When Empires as old as Greece collapse, what are we to do? All these various themes seek climax and conclusion.
We said the great disconnect of the 21st Century, because the recurrent underlying theme of Creation is that the God of Adam, the God of Noah, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of Love and Covenant Commitment, known to us in Jesus of Nazareth cannot be stopped, cannot be prevented from loving us. No matter what! This is a theme without resolution, the theme of love keeps playing over and over again. No power, no government, no height, nor depth, not angels or monsters, or terrorists, or economies, can ever resolve or separate us from the love of God.
The counterpoint is these two themes working themselves out. God loves us, God will always love us. And our continual variation of fears, attempting to dominate and control and seek nice neat resolution.
After hearing and living with the Covenant promise, not just for years, or for Centuries, but as measured in the rise and fall of Empires. From the time of King Tut's Great Grandfather, at the height of the Egyptian Empire, through Generations of being Nomads in the Wilderness; through the time of the Jebusites and Hittites and Amorites of the Canaanite Empires; through the rise and fall of Israel's King Saul, and the Dynasties of David and Solomon in all his Glory, through the conquering invasions of the Assyrian Empire, then the Babylonians, the Medes and the Greeks and the Romans under Caesar.
Through all this time, Israel had heard the recurrent theme of God's love, God's never failing love. When suddenly came the incarnation, the physical reality, of a common man, a Carpenter of Nazareth, who demonstrated the reality of that love, that never failing love. Crowds heard him preach, and teach, and saw the reality of healing. But as leaders do, the leaders of his time were filled with fear. What happens if we lose power? What happens to our power, if greater powers than we become afraid of him? The fears of society had him arrested for inciting people. He was tried and put to death for claiming to be a King, not of this world, but of having power and truth this world did not understand. The world saw this man of promise die. Being lifeless his cold dead corpse was taken down and buried.
In the silence, we hear the recurrent variation of the theme of love. John and Simon Peter heard it in the silence at the tomb. Mary Magdalene heard the tune of never failing love in Jesus calling her name.
Two among the company had said, I need a break! I need to get out of town! I am going for a walk, riding a bike around the lake, let's watch a game, how about a swim, wanna go to a movie, shopping? Emmaus is Avoidance. What ever we do, to get away from it all. To let our minds rest, to recoup and gather strength for facing the ever recurrent dominant themes of this world. Yet even when trying to get away from it all, on the way to Emmaus, they were accompanied by Jesus, the incarnation of God's love.The funny part about musical compositions, is that at times, it seems we get lost in playing with the variations, we become so caught up with where we are, we forget to recognize the underlying theme. Suddenly in the breaking of the bread, later that evening in the upper room, they saw Jesus.
Simon Peter, who himself had knuckled under to the dominant themes and denied Jesus not just once but over and over three times, developed his own variation on the theme of never-failing love, a recurrent theme that named denial, named betrayal and persecution and death, in order to work itself out. In response to the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter had begun to preach this theme, and in response 3000 people were converted in a single day.
This day, Peter and John who had been the two running to the tomb the morning of the Resurrection, who had been the two who had heard and believed the theme even in the silence before it had been repeated by Mary and the others, these two had been out walking. It was weeks after Passover, days following Pentecost, they were in Jerusalem, walking along beside the Temple to God built by Solomon, met a crippled beggar who asked for help.
The variation that happens here, is that Peter recognizes it was not his power to make this man whole. It was not the power of the water, not any power other than the one the people of Israel had known all along. The God of Adam, of Noah, The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and Jacob, the God of Moses, the never failing covenant love of God known to us all through Jesus of Nazareth had healed this man. Everyone, the Government, the leaders, the people themselves, including Peter had all denied God, had all denied the ever recurrent theme of love. Yet here was evidence that despite the denial, despite all the dominant themes of fear, all the competing themes trying to work out their own business and control, still there was the love, the never failing love, known to all creation in Jesus Christ.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
April 15, 2012 "Peace Be With You"
Acts 4:32-35
John 209;19-31
Yesterday morning, we took the Confirmation Class to Jewish Synagogue to experience worship.
Yesterday was the 8th Day of Passover, a Day for remembering those who have died in the last year. The focus of each of the readings and prayers was about the tythe we owe God for life, reminder that every 7th year all human debts were to be forgiven, because ultimately everything we have belongs to God. Driving to Syracuse one of the Confirmands commented about the price of Gasoline. Immediately, another suggested: “I know a way that you could lower the price of gas by $1, and it will only cost you $1 per gallon to do it.” It seems our young believers have already learned the lessons of this world, how to safeguard against personal needs and fears by creating schemes to make money.We have taught our children well.
On the Evening of the Resurrection, and again a week later, the Risen Jesus stood before the Disciples and said to them: “Peace Be With You!” Such a simplistic phrase.
Peace Be With You! I recall in the hours and days and weeks after 9-11-2001 we longed for a Savior who would come to us where we were, locked away with our fears, to stand among us, to pronounce those words: Peace Be With You! Not a Victory over our enemies, but desire for the power to put the worms back in the can, to make everything and everyone seem nice and happy. Peace Be With You!
Increasingly, throughout the last Century, I do not know whether it was the advent of Saturday Evening Post-style journalism as opposed to hard News, the Norman Vincent Peales and Robert Schullers, the sprawl of suburban lifestyle, or the growth of capitalism and our Madonna's mantra that possessing a Material world would grant us access to virtual worlds; but with all of this, the focus and purpose of being the Church changed! “Peace Be With You!” has come to represent emotional peace, security, spiritual and metaphysical comfort, a lack of anxiety, and one-ness with control over our fears of our world.
Perhaps it is only nostalgia, but there seems to have been a time in which “Peace Be With You!” and the purpose of the community of faith, were that we could change the world, not to conquer with a Christian Empire, but that we could bring about the Kingdom of God in our lifetimes and cultures, we could witness a “Resurrected Peace for Everyone.” Those now of a passed generation, created The Presbyterian Manor's, the St. Joseph's Hospitals, the Columbia Presbyterian Hospitals, as a mission to make the world outside our doors different, to live in a world where death did not control, where fears did not limit, but where we could offer hope and life beyond, where we could live as a resurrected people of God!
An NPR Commentator this week described a reality, I had never before considered. Throughout the rest of the world, the safety-net, caring for the poor, providing hospitals and food, have come through government aid and the aid of International government agencies. North America is unique in that the role of the Churches and Synagogues, the communities of faith, has been to provide that safety-net. That same day, an editorial appeared in the Syracuse paper about the effect of church closures on the historic sky-scape of the city, a perceived need to rescue and preserve historic buildings because of their architecture, long after the church ceased to be, to act and believe as the community of faith.
John's Gospel names how our fears have prevented us from believing in Easter and acting as a community of faith. Over time, we have attempted to castrate this story by emphasizing the weakness of Thomas, giving him the moniker and ascribing all blame as “Doubting Thomas”. The point of recalling this story is that On the Evening of that Very Day... which Day? On the day of Resurrection, the 3rd Day after he was crucified to death, when Mary claimed to have seen the resurrected Lord, and Peter and John found he was no longer dead and buried, instead of the Disciples singing, working miracles, living as a resurrected Easter people, they locked themselves away in an upper room out of fear. The focus of this story is not on Thomas, not on the need for physical proof, the focus of this story is on THE LOCKED DOOR, the door which keeps the world out, and restrains us to sit with our fears.
The Old Testament routinely uses Biblical phrases like “Behold”, John's Gospel challenges us by reframing events with the counterpoint “AND”. The disciples had locked themselves away in the Upper Room for Fear, AND JESUS Came and stood among them. There is no explanation how he came through a locked door. The reality of this story is that Jesus is not a ghost, not a spirit, but physically tangible and real, he can be heard and touched, his breath can be felt, and he especially bears the wounds of his suffering and death. The Resurrected Jesus stands among his disciples in the Upper Room where the last time they had gathered together he had washed their feet and created Communion AND YET on Easter and again exactly one week later the Resurrected Jesus says “Peace Be With You” and they do not know who he is! That is what fear does to us, how fear obscures all other realities, even prevents us from making logical connections or risking to act in faith.
The translation to English of what Jesus said here needs polishing... the point is not “Do not doubt but believe”, but rather “Do not be held captive to your fears, do not be unbelievers, Instead act based on the power of God at Easter, the power of the Resurrection to change reality.”
A short time later, about two months according to the Book of Acts, the Community of Faith has formed. “The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed to possess anything of his own.” Pentecost did far more than increase the number of believers, and allow the apostles to speak in different languages, this people were living seemingly without fear. The disciples spoke openly of their faith and experience. And no one had NEED of Anything. Whenever anyone sold property it was laid before the Apostles' feet and distribution was made to any who had need. As if to make the authority and power of this more explicit two stories are told.
One man named Joseph, who had been a Levite and from far distant Cyprus, one whom the apostles had called Barnabas, sold a field and laid everything at the Apostles' feet. This Barnabas, this voice of encouragement, goes on to become the missionary traveling companion of Paul. Meanwhile, there was also a couple named Ananias and his wife Sapphira. They too sold a piece of property, but the two conspired together against the community, that they would lie about the value, so as to make it seem as though they gave everything when actually out of fear for themselves and their need to get ahead they kept a portion for themselves. The point does not seem to be what they gave, but that they were motivated by their fears, by their lack of trust and faith, and they chose to conspire together against God. Laying their offering before the Apostles' Peter asked Ananias why he had chosen to lie? And immediately Ananias died. Three hours later, his spouse Sapphira came in and was asked whether they had conspired in fear, or given everything, and she again lied protecting what they had kept back, and Sapphira died.
About three years ago, I was walking through Sunday School Classrooms and when considering what we as a community of faith are doing to change the world, they had had no answer. The point is not a debate of faith versus works righteousness, or preaching the Bible versus not doing so, but that often we do share with our children, or teach new believers what it is to live the Resurrection. By not teaching, by not witnessing the work of God in this community and in the world, our children are left in their fears, left believing faith is only a comfort for our fears, an alternative to locking ourselves away. Perhaps it is only baking cookies for a Memorial to one who has died. Perhaps it is a lifetime of singing in the choir or accompanying worship. Perhaps it is providing food for people who are hungry through the Food Pantry. Perhaps it is lifting a hammer to provide a home to a family who cannot otherwise change their circumstance. Perhaps it is in providing healthcare to a people on the other-side of the world you will never meet. Christian Faith is not simply theoretical. Christian Faith does not encourage and bless us for having protected ourselves financially against our fears. Faith recognizes that all reality, all the world, all of our lives come from God and belong to God. Christian Faith calls us to action questioning how we shall live knowing that there are no limitations, nothing to fear, to hear and know and experience Peace as a faith that changes the world.
John 209;19-31
Yesterday morning, we took the Confirmation Class to Jewish Synagogue to experience worship.
Yesterday was the 8th Day of Passover, a Day for remembering those who have died in the last year. The focus of each of the readings and prayers was about the tythe we owe God for life, reminder that every 7th year all human debts were to be forgiven, because ultimately everything we have belongs to God. Driving to Syracuse one of the Confirmands commented about the price of Gasoline. Immediately, another suggested: “I know a way that you could lower the price of gas by $1, and it will only cost you $1 per gallon to do it.” It seems our young believers have already learned the lessons of this world, how to safeguard against personal needs and fears by creating schemes to make money.We have taught our children well.
On the Evening of the Resurrection, and again a week later, the Risen Jesus stood before the Disciples and said to them: “Peace Be With You!” Such a simplistic phrase.
Peace Be With You! I recall in the hours and days and weeks after 9-11-2001 we longed for a Savior who would come to us where we were, locked away with our fears, to stand among us, to pronounce those words: Peace Be With You! Not a Victory over our enemies, but desire for the power to put the worms back in the can, to make everything and everyone seem nice and happy. Peace Be With You!
Increasingly, throughout the last Century, I do not know whether it was the advent of Saturday Evening Post-style journalism as opposed to hard News, the Norman Vincent Peales and Robert Schullers, the sprawl of suburban lifestyle, or the growth of capitalism and our Madonna's mantra that possessing a Material world would grant us access to virtual worlds; but with all of this, the focus and purpose of being the Church changed! “Peace Be With You!” has come to represent emotional peace, security, spiritual and metaphysical comfort, a lack of anxiety, and one-ness with control over our fears of our world.
Perhaps it is only nostalgia, but there seems to have been a time in which “Peace Be With You!” and the purpose of the community of faith, were that we could change the world, not to conquer with a Christian Empire, but that we could bring about the Kingdom of God in our lifetimes and cultures, we could witness a “Resurrected Peace for Everyone.” Those now of a passed generation, created The Presbyterian Manor's, the St. Joseph's Hospitals, the Columbia Presbyterian Hospitals, as a mission to make the world outside our doors different, to live in a world where death did not control, where fears did not limit, but where we could offer hope and life beyond, where we could live as a resurrected people of God!
An NPR Commentator this week described a reality, I had never before considered. Throughout the rest of the world, the safety-net, caring for the poor, providing hospitals and food, have come through government aid and the aid of International government agencies. North America is unique in that the role of the Churches and Synagogues, the communities of faith, has been to provide that safety-net. That same day, an editorial appeared in the Syracuse paper about the effect of church closures on the historic sky-scape of the city, a perceived need to rescue and preserve historic buildings because of their architecture, long after the church ceased to be, to act and believe as the community of faith.
John's Gospel names how our fears have prevented us from believing in Easter and acting as a community of faith. Over time, we have attempted to castrate this story by emphasizing the weakness of Thomas, giving him the moniker and ascribing all blame as “Doubting Thomas”. The point of recalling this story is that On the Evening of that Very Day... which Day? On the day of Resurrection, the 3rd Day after he was crucified to death, when Mary claimed to have seen the resurrected Lord, and Peter and John found he was no longer dead and buried, instead of the Disciples singing, working miracles, living as a resurrected Easter people, they locked themselves away in an upper room out of fear. The focus of this story is not on Thomas, not on the need for physical proof, the focus of this story is on THE LOCKED DOOR, the door which keeps the world out, and restrains us to sit with our fears.
The Old Testament routinely uses Biblical phrases like “Behold”, John's Gospel challenges us by reframing events with the counterpoint “AND”. The disciples had locked themselves away in the Upper Room for Fear, AND JESUS Came and stood among them. There is no explanation how he came through a locked door. The reality of this story is that Jesus is not a ghost, not a spirit, but physically tangible and real, he can be heard and touched, his breath can be felt, and he especially bears the wounds of his suffering and death. The Resurrected Jesus stands among his disciples in the Upper Room where the last time they had gathered together he had washed their feet and created Communion AND YET on Easter and again exactly one week later the Resurrected Jesus says “Peace Be With You” and they do not know who he is! That is what fear does to us, how fear obscures all other realities, even prevents us from making logical connections or risking to act in faith.
The translation to English of what Jesus said here needs polishing... the point is not “Do not doubt but believe”, but rather “Do not be held captive to your fears, do not be unbelievers, Instead act based on the power of God at Easter, the power of the Resurrection to change reality.”
A short time later, about two months according to the Book of Acts, the Community of Faith has formed. “The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed to possess anything of his own.” Pentecost did far more than increase the number of believers, and allow the apostles to speak in different languages, this people were living seemingly without fear. The disciples spoke openly of their faith and experience. And no one had NEED of Anything. Whenever anyone sold property it was laid before the Apostles' feet and distribution was made to any who had need. As if to make the authority and power of this more explicit two stories are told.
One man named Joseph, who had been a Levite and from far distant Cyprus, one whom the apostles had called Barnabas, sold a field and laid everything at the Apostles' feet. This Barnabas, this voice of encouragement, goes on to become the missionary traveling companion of Paul. Meanwhile, there was also a couple named Ananias and his wife Sapphira. They too sold a piece of property, but the two conspired together against the community, that they would lie about the value, so as to make it seem as though they gave everything when actually out of fear for themselves and their need to get ahead they kept a portion for themselves. The point does not seem to be what they gave, but that they were motivated by their fears, by their lack of trust and faith, and they chose to conspire together against God. Laying their offering before the Apostles' Peter asked Ananias why he had chosen to lie? And immediately Ananias died. Three hours later, his spouse Sapphira came in and was asked whether they had conspired in fear, or given everything, and she again lied protecting what they had kept back, and Sapphira died.
About three years ago, I was walking through Sunday School Classrooms and when considering what we as a community of faith are doing to change the world, they had had no answer. The point is not a debate of faith versus works righteousness, or preaching the Bible versus not doing so, but that often we do share with our children, or teach new believers what it is to live the Resurrection. By not teaching, by not witnessing the work of God in this community and in the world, our children are left in their fears, left believing faith is only a comfort for our fears, an alternative to locking ourselves away. Perhaps it is only baking cookies for a Memorial to one who has died. Perhaps it is a lifetime of singing in the choir or accompanying worship. Perhaps it is providing food for people who are hungry through the Food Pantry. Perhaps it is lifting a hammer to provide a home to a family who cannot otherwise change their circumstance. Perhaps it is in providing healthcare to a people on the other-side of the world you will never meet. Christian Faith is not simply theoretical. Christian Faith does not encourage and bless us for having protected ourselves financially against our fears. Faith recognizes that all reality, all the world, all of our lives come from God and belong to God. Christian Faith calls us to action questioning how we shall live knowing that there are no limitations, nothing to fear, to hear and know and experience Peace as a faith that changes the world.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
"Mary Tweeting Easter"
Isaiah 25: 6-9
John 20: 1-18
Before our children begin school, they learn to know to identify numbers and letters, even beginning to spell and to count. Year by year, we are taught to know how to add and subtract, multiply, divide and perform square roots, not only amassing a vocabulary but the grammatical skills to parse sentences and translate languages. Then suddenly, after having been taught this cumulative volume of knowledge, students are presented with geometry, and for several weeks a glassy stare crosses their expressions. All that they had been taught and know is locked in their understanding, but theoretical proofs, mathematical theorems and formulae are disconnected from what they have known to be problems. Day by day, each one individually comes to a new awareness, like lightbulbs being turned on, like the sun dawning after a long night, and with geometry they see reality differently, that numbers are not simply equations on a page but each can calculate the volume and mass and dimensions of their reality.
Easter morning is embracing a SPIRITUAL GEOMETRY, as each person individually wrestles with understanding, understanding both our reality and existence and faith in the unknown. Spiritual geometry is wrestling with the concepts of whether life is only an accident, the cataclysm of gases in time and space which happened to create being, the consumption of grains, proteins and carbohydrates which enabled thought and reasoning; or whether there is something, someone greater than ourselves, that our reality is only piece of God's greater reality. More than what we have been taught, more than everything we have experienced, seen and known, Easter's Resurrection is awareness and acceptance of this different reality. Life and death are in constant struggle, and intellectually we know that ultimately every living thing must die, we are mortal, creaturely.
Now there are those among us who will say, “It's Easter! This is a time for Joy and Chocolate, children in white gloves and bonnets, why speak of death. Historically, I can remember the time not so many years ago when there was nothing celebrated between Palm Sunday and Easter, when we went straight from “Oer All The Way green Palms and Blossoms Gay” and “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” to “Jesus Christ is Risen Today Alleluia!” There was no mention of his arrest, or suffering or death or burial. Not only do suffering and death seem bigger and more frightening when we avoid them, but our acceptance of Easter becomes hollow as we build from Success to Success without struggle, without loss.
The Old Testament Book of the Prophet Isaiah builds for 24 Chapters, as God knows the people will not change, will never listen, and in the 24th Chapter God calls all the Nations together including the people of God, for judgement. But afterward, after the suffering and hardship, which is hard on God as well, in our passage this morning, God is recorded as providing this feast, this banquet on the mountain. The Biblical reality is that out of the Valley of Death we do come to Mountaintop experiences; out of suffering we come to salvation; out of death we come to new and everlasting life.
Death is the reality of an end to our existence; but also the end of ideas, the domination of anything and everything weaker, death is control over our lives and relationships and circumstances, death is avoidance that anything could have power over us. Death is our ability to isolate ourselves, to separate from every other living being until we are totally and absolutely alone in existence, everything else dead. According to the book of Genesis, In the beginning the earth was a “Tohu wavohu” literally a Waste and a Void. In entropy that is what we each seek, beyond amassing all that is possible to own, to have to know, when we have used up all our stuff, we anticipate a waste and avoidance in the void between time and space. The point of the Biblical witness is that then and only then, WHEN DEATH IS REALITY for us, does God call us to new and everlasting life.
On this the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went before dawn to the place of the burial. Where Matthew, Mark and Luke describe her going with a group of others, going to anoint the body, even though they knew they could not reach it because of the guards and the stone, John does not identify any of that. Mary went out in the dark, before the sun's rising, to the place of the tomb, not with oils or perfumes, not with anyone or anything, she went to the place of death, so as to be swallowed up by the darkness, to sit in the absolute quiet of death's nothingness. But arriving at the tomb, she found something, some thing beyond the silent, void of death. The cold stone tomb was open. Today, Mary would have TWEETED, Mary would have BLOGGED for all the disciples to form a FLASH MOB at the tomb in the garden. But she hurriedly went and found Peter and the Beloved Disciple and told them.
They both immediately set out. John's Gospel seems fascinated with this footrace between Peter and John, between the Church and the Spiritual Community, for who would win. John's point is not that one group wins and the other loses, but that both run full out, faith and works, tradition and searching match one another, breath for breath, pace for pace. Arriving, each in turn looks in, expecting to find Proof of Death, but there is none, nor that there had been a grave robbing... for robbers would not have taken time to unwrap the cloths from the body, or to fold up the cloth from his head separately. What they do get, is that DEATH was not the final word. Instead of hearing TAPS being the final sound played over history, there is as if a REVELE calling life us to rise up to believe in something, a new and glorious day after death's void. They do not yet fully understand, there has not been time to allow what they have experienced and what they know to seep together in understanding. But what Peter and John do believe: Is death is not THE END.
Good Friday I received the most wonderful question from someone attending the Maundy Thursday Worship. He had listened as the Disciples did not understand about the Foot washing; he knew from earlier passages that they were not prepared to understand about the suffering and death on the Cross, let alone the resurrection of Easter, but what he wanted to know was whether the Disciples understood when Jesus took the Bread and said This is My Body Broken for You... And pouring the Cup said This is the New Covenant sealed in my own Blood... Did they understand? I responded to him, “Probably Not” but we also need to wonder about the meaning of these words for the Church throughout history, that these are the words of meaning for our Sacrament of Communion, and most of all, What do we understand? Do we go through the motions of the ritual of Easter, the consuming of bread and juice, or are we able to live our lives in a different reality, as a resurrected people believing God has suffered and conquered every power (including our own) to bring about closure in order to redeem everlasting life and hope and peace?
MARY stood there weeping. She is too unsettled to sit or lay down. She witnesses the angels who ask what she is doing, because they know this is not a place for weeping but for celebration! Yet Mary still does not understand.
What a wonderful description... Almighty God, the Creator who formed all of life, formed the Garden which is this planet, So whom does Mary imagine to see when looking at Jesus but “The Gardener”. Rather than attempting to explain proofs to her. Rather than trying to make her understand the Givens and the theories and Laws of the Universe, Jesus speaks her name: Mary! And she responds. In the community of faith, we each have a name, an identity of belonging. We are lifted up and embraced and witnessed for being unique and remembered.
John 20: 1-18
Before our children begin school, they learn to know to identify numbers and letters, even beginning to spell and to count. Year by year, we are taught to know how to add and subtract, multiply, divide and perform square roots, not only amassing a vocabulary but the grammatical skills to parse sentences and translate languages. Then suddenly, after having been taught this cumulative volume of knowledge, students are presented with geometry, and for several weeks a glassy stare crosses their expressions. All that they had been taught and know is locked in their understanding, but theoretical proofs, mathematical theorems and formulae are disconnected from what they have known to be problems. Day by day, each one individually comes to a new awareness, like lightbulbs being turned on, like the sun dawning after a long night, and with geometry they see reality differently, that numbers are not simply equations on a page but each can calculate the volume and mass and dimensions of their reality.
Easter morning is embracing a SPIRITUAL GEOMETRY, as each person individually wrestles with understanding, understanding both our reality and existence and faith in the unknown. Spiritual geometry is wrestling with the concepts of whether life is only an accident, the cataclysm of gases in time and space which happened to create being, the consumption of grains, proteins and carbohydrates which enabled thought and reasoning; or whether there is something, someone greater than ourselves, that our reality is only piece of God's greater reality. More than what we have been taught, more than everything we have experienced, seen and known, Easter's Resurrection is awareness and acceptance of this different reality. Life and death are in constant struggle, and intellectually we know that ultimately every living thing must die, we are mortal, creaturely.
Now there are those among us who will say, “It's Easter! This is a time for Joy and Chocolate, children in white gloves and bonnets, why speak of death. Historically, I can remember the time not so many years ago when there was nothing celebrated between Palm Sunday and Easter, when we went straight from “Oer All The Way green Palms and Blossoms Gay” and “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” to “Jesus Christ is Risen Today Alleluia!” There was no mention of his arrest, or suffering or death or burial. Not only do suffering and death seem bigger and more frightening when we avoid them, but our acceptance of Easter becomes hollow as we build from Success to Success without struggle, without loss.
The Old Testament Book of the Prophet Isaiah builds for 24 Chapters, as God knows the people will not change, will never listen, and in the 24th Chapter God calls all the Nations together including the people of God, for judgement. But afterward, after the suffering and hardship, which is hard on God as well, in our passage this morning, God is recorded as providing this feast, this banquet on the mountain. The Biblical reality is that out of the Valley of Death we do come to Mountaintop experiences; out of suffering we come to salvation; out of death we come to new and everlasting life.
Death is the reality of an end to our existence; but also the end of ideas, the domination of anything and everything weaker, death is control over our lives and relationships and circumstances, death is avoidance that anything could have power over us. Death is our ability to isolate ourselves, to separate from every other living being until we are totally and absolutely alone in existence, everything else dead. According to the book of Genesis, In the beginning the earth was a “Tohu wavohu” literally a Waste and a Void. In entropy that is what we each seek, beyond amassing all that is possible to own, to have to know, when we have used up all our stuff, we anticipate a waste and avoidance in the void between time and space. The point of the Biblical witness is that then and only then, WHEN DEATH IS REALITY for us, does God call us to new and everlasting life.
On this the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went before dawn to the place of the burial. Where Matthew, Mark and Luke describe her going with a group of others, going to anoint the body, even though they knew they could not reach it because of the guards and the stone, John does not identify any of that. Mary went out in the dark, before the sun's rising, to the place of the tomb, not with oils or perfumes, not with anyone or anything, she went to the place of death, so as to be swallowed up by the darkness, to sit in the absolute quiet of death's nothingness. But arriving at the tomb, she found something, some thing beyond the silent, void of death. The cold stone tomb was open. Today, Mary would have TWEETED, Mary would have BLOGGED for all the disciples to form a FLASH MOB at the tomb in the garden. But she hurriedly went and found Peter and the Beloved Disciple and told them.
They both immediately set out. John's Gospel seems fascinated with this footrace between Peter and John, between the Church and the Spiritual Community, for who would win. John's point is not that one group wins and the other loses, but that both run full out, faith and works, tradition and searching match one another, breath for breath, pace for pace. Arriving, each in turn looks in, expecting to find Proof of Death, but there is none, nor that there had been a grave robbing... for robbers would not have taken time to unwrap the cloths from the body, or to fold up the cloth from his head separately. What they do get, is that DEATH was not the final word. Instead of hearing TAPS being the final sound played over history, there is as if a REVELE calling life us to rise up to believe in something, a new and glorious day after death's void. They do not yet fully understand, there has not been time to allow what they have experienced and what they know to seep together in understanding. But what Peter and John do believe: Is death is not THE END.
Good Friday I received the most wonderful question from someone attending the Maundy Thursday Worship. He had listened as the Disciples did not understand about the Foot washing; he knew from earlier passages that they were not prepared to understand about the suffering and death on the Cross, let alone the resurrection of Easter, but what he wanted to know was whether the Disciples understood when Jesus took the Bread and said This is My Body Broken for You... And pouring the Cup said This is the New Covenant sealed in my own Blood... Did they understand? I responded to him, “Probably Not” but we also need to wonder about the meaning of these words for the Church throughout history, that these are the words of meaning for our Sacrament of Communion, and most of all, What do we understand? Do we go through the motions of the ritual of Easter, the consuming of bread and juice, or are we able to live our lives in a different reality, as a resurrected people believing God has suffered and conquered every power (including our own) to bring about closure in order to redeem everlasting life and hope and peace?
MARY stood there weeping. She is too unsettled to sit or lay down. She witnesses the angels who ask what she is doing, because they know this is not a place for weeping but for celebration! Yet Mary still does not understand.
What a wonderful description... Almighty God, the Creator who formed all of life, formed the Garden which is this planet, So whom does Mary imagine to see when looking at Jesus but “The Gardener”. Rather than attempting to explain proofs to her. Rather than trying to make her understand the Givens and the theories and Laws of the Universe, Jesus speaks her name: Mary! And she responds. In the community of faith, we each have a name, an identity of belonging. We are lifted up and embraced and witnessed for being unique and remembered.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Maundy Thursday 2012 "Do This In Remembrance of Me"
John 13: 1-17
I Corinthians 11: 23-26
John 13: 31-35
Among all thought, of all philosophy and poetry, human ideas about God have been our loftiest, most prized and esteemed. It is as if there needs to be a common vernacular for the existence of life, but when praising God, when singing glory to God in excelsis, when postulating about human existence and the meaning of life in relation to the Divine, we need a different, more eloquent language, a King's English as compared to colloquialisms. However, as much as we desire for our worship and language about God to be our very finest, faith is experienced in the most base and elemental relationships of life. In vows of commitment at marriage, in the changing of priorities which come with the birth of children, in their becoming adults, in remembrance of the dead, and daily gathered at the table in the breaking of bread or sharing of wine.
Throughout the last year, our Session have tried to offer the Sacrament of Communion in differing and meaningful ways, until returning to what has been most familiar and most expedient, of each person receiving while seated in their regular places.
As Jesus broke bread naming and claiming this unleavened element of the passover, this manna of God as being his own body broken for us, we have tried having one loaf. Yet human concerns about the touching and handling of the common loaf have caused us to return to having the bread broken for us to each receive.
As Jesus shared a cup of wine as being the cup of his own blood, and the sacrificial lamb's blood of the covenant of our redemption, we attempted to share wine; as well as unfermented juice for those unable to receive, and also in individual cups, which became cumbersome to identify each of these three as being different and yet being the sign and seal of the covenant.
This evening we have invited each to get up from their regular places of worship to sit at table as companions. We do so for several reasons... First because we are “companions in communion”... the word Companion made up of two Latin words cum meaning together and panis being the word for bread, so companions are literally those with whom we share the breaking of bread. It is theologically and physically impossible to have communion alone. Also, we have been invited to move from our regular places to sit at table together with The Table in the shape of the Cross from the Chancel down the aisle of the church, because this was the means of the Church of Scotland from which the Presbyterian Church in the USA originates. In the Catholic Church, the Lutheran and Anglican, their emphasis at Communion was to kneel as sinners before an Altar. In the Scottish Highlands the Reformation shift was that Jesus sat at Table with his disciples, whom he loved and trusted as companions. Third, that on this evening of Christ's Last Supper we dare not simply wait to be served in our pews unchanged, but that we need in communion to physically and spiritually and intellectually and emotionally get up from where we have routinely been, and consider whether we will claim the place we are invited to at the table.
In differing cultures around the world throughout history, believers have shared communion differently. While the Scriptures describe jesus sat at Table with his disciples, the Middleastern practice would not have been to sit on straight back Sinclair chairs from Mottville, but rather to recline on pillows on the floor. 25 years ago, I had the experience of traveling across the USSR visiting churches, none of which had pews, because they perceived it would be the height of arrogance for sinners to sit in the presence of God. One could stand, or kneel, or lay prostrate with your face on the floor, but never sit comfortably. A favorite experience came from serving another congregation, which received a memorial gift for cushions on the pews, and the church debated for six months if we should really be that comfortable in worship, or if there was not something important to us as Calvinists in sitting on hard Oak pews. What was most intriguing in sharing communion in a Georgian Orthodox Church was that when the host was offered, there were tiny loaves on a silver tray, and like birds flocking for food, the believers rushed forward, only to bring the roll sized loaf back for them to break and serve another.
What has always been fascinating about the Last Supper is that in Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet, and in his giving the gift of this Sacrament, knowing what he was about to do, Judas was present. For one of Jesus' twelve disciples to betray the Savior with a kiss for 30 pieces of Silver is the sin of Judas, that causes him to be scapegoated throughout history. But more than a simple betrayal, having known this in his mind, with the decision already made, Judas allowed Jesus to kneel down and wash his feet... Judas was given the bread and the cup, nothing was withheld from him. The invitation to receive is here for everyone, the struggle of Simon Peter is that in order to be part of the communion we first have to choose to receive.
Peter's dilemma is that Jesus is modeling something which is a complete anathema servant leadership. Peter had never been motivated by servanthood, but rather by self-interest and self-preservation, the climax of which comes this night in his being asked three times to identify himself as a companion, and three times he rejects Jesus.
To lead by servanthood, is to give up all control...
to trust that serving the needs of others will empower the body to accomplish what needs to be done,...
to vulnerably give up the pride of the leader to decide, assured that God is in control.
According to The Mechilta, one of the oldest Hebrew midrash (sermon) commentaries, not even a Hebrew Slave would Never be required to wash the feet of others. This was so intimate and so filthy a task, that while a Host was required to provide a bowl and pitcher of water and towel as an invitation, each individual would only ever wash their own feet. What Jesus offered in stripping down, wrapping the towel about himself and washing the feet of his disciples was the most servile, most subjective, lowest and most base means of service.
A towel is what a servant always had at hand. A Towel is what you wiped up spills with, what we wiped the dirty face of a child with, what you used to clean a wound, or to swaddle a child, to blot tears, or to cool a fever. A Towel goes back to the symbolic mantle of the Prophet, which Elijah struck the water with and passed on to Elisha as the badge of his office. A Towel is the origin of a pastor's stole. Different from Pontius Pilate washing his hands at the Crucifixion, Jesus' Foot Washing is an act of Apology, Forgiveness and Reconciliation. In 2004 at the World Forum for Evangelism, those who were Hutu and those who were Tutsi the warring people of Rwanda washed one another's feet, and those who were Palestinian and Israeli washed one another's feet. In 2006, a former Government Official of South Africa in a public act of apology washed the feet of an Anti-Apartheid Activist.
World culture is in the midst of change, radical, relentless change.
What we thought we knew and how we knew it, the values and priorities of the world, all have been tossed up in the air, waiting to settle. Up until recently, we thought we could make decisions by logic and deductive reason. Life was described as being a Game of Chess, the mastery of which was to think through moves and counter-moves to always be one step ahead, we each imagined we could win. While world culture has become increasingly capitalistic, with winners and losers and greater and greater segregation between us, every person believing everything and everyone has a price...
Still this Sacrament has always been an Invitation to the Whole World:
“You do not know now what God is doing, but later you will understand.”
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
I Corinthians 11: 23-26
John 13: 31-35
Among all thought, of all philosophy and poetry, human ideas about God have been our loftiest, most prized and esteemed. It is as if there needs to be a common vernacular for the existence of life, but when praising God, when singing glory to God in excelsis, when postulating about human existence and the meaning of life in relation to the Divine, we need a different, more eloquent language, a King's English as compared to colloquialisms. However, as much as we desire for our worship and language about God to be our very finest, faith is experienced in the most base and elemental relationships of life. In vows of commitment at marriage, in the changing of priorities which come with the birth of children, in their becoming adults, in remembrance of the dead, and daily gathered at the table in the breaking of bread or sharing of wine.
Throughout the last year, our Session have tried to offer the Sacrament of Communion in differing and meaningful ways, until returning to what has been most familiar and most expedient, of each person receiving while seated in their regular places.
As Jesus broke bread naming and claiming this unleavened element of the passover, this manna of God as being his own body broken for us, we have tried having one loaf. Yet human concerns about the touching and handling of the common loaf have caused us to return to having the bread broken for us to each receive.
As Jesus shared a cup of wine as being the cup of his own blood, and the sacrificial lamb's blood of the covenant of our redemption, we attempted to share wine; as well as unfermented juice for those unable to receive, and also in individual cups, which became cumbersome to identify each of these three as being different and yet being the sign and seal of the covenant.
This evening we have invited each to get up from their regular places of worship to sit at table as companions. We do so for several reasons... First because we are “companions in communion”... the word Companion made up of two Latin words cum meaning together and panis being the word for bread, so companions are literally those with whom we share the breaking of bread. It is theologically and physically impossible to have communion alone. Also, we have been invited to move from our regular places to sit at table together with The Table in the shape of the Cross from the Chancel down the aisle of the church, because this was the means of the Church of Scotland from which the Presbyterian Church in the USA originates. In the Catholic Church, the Lutheran and Anglican, their emphasis at Communion was to kneel as sinners before an Altar. In the Scottish Highlands the Reformation shift was that Jesus sat at Table with his disciples, whom he loved and trusted as companions. Third, that on this evening of Christ's Last Supper we dare not simply wait to be served in our pews unchanged, but that we need in communion to physically and spiritually and intellectually and emotionally get up from where we have routinely been, and consider whether we will claim the place we are invited to at the table.
In differing cultures around the world throughout history, believers have shared communion differently. While the Scriptures describe jesus sat at Table with his disciples, the Middleastern practice would not have been to sit on straight back Sinclair chairs from Mottville, but rather to recline on pillows on the floor. 25 years ago, I had the experience of traveling across the USSR visiting churches, none of which had pews, because they perceived it would be the height of arrogance for sinners to sit in the presence of God. One could stand, or kneel, or lay prostrate with your face on the floor, but never sit comfortably. A favorite experience came from serving another congregation, which received a memorial gift for cushions on the pews, and the church debated for six months if we should really be that comfortable in worship, or if there was not something important to us as Calvinists in sitting on hard Oak pews. What was most intriguing in sharing communion in a Georgian Orthodox Church was that when the host was offered, there were tiny loaves on a silver tray, and like birds flocking for food, the believers rushed forward, only to bring the roll sized loaf back for them to break and serve another.
What has always been fascinating about the Last Supper is that in Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet, and in his giving the gift of this Sacrament, knowing what he was about to do, Judas was present. For one of Jesus' twelve disciples to betray the Savior with a kiss for 30 pieces of Silver is the sin of Judas, that causes him to be scapegoated throughout history. But more than a simple betrayal, having known this in his mind, with the decision already made, Judas allowed Jesus to kneel down and wash his feet... Judas was given the bread and the cup, nothing was withheld from him. The invitation to receive is here for everyone, the struggle of Simon Peter is that in order to be part of the communion we first have to choose to receive.
Peter's dilemma is that Jesus is modeling something which is a complete anathema servant leadership. Peter had never been motivated by servanthood, but rather by self-interest and self-preservation, the climax of which comes this night in his being asked three times to identify himself as a companion, and three times he rejects Jesus.
To lead by servanthood, is to give up all control...
to trust that serving the needs of others will empower the body to accomplish what needs to be done,...
to vulnerably give up the pride of the leader to decide, assured that God is in control.
According to The Mechilta, one of the oldest Hebrew midrash (sermon) commentaries, not even a Hebrew Slave would Never be required to wash the feet of others. This was so intimate and so filthy a task, that while a Host was required to provide a bowl and pitcher of water and towel as an invitation, each individual would only ever wash their own feet. What Jesus offered in stripping down, wrapping the towel about himself and washing the feet of his disciples was the most servile, most subjective, lowest and most base means of service.
A towel is what a servant always had at hand. A Towel is what you wiped up spills with, what we wiped the dirty face of a child with, what you used to clean a wound, or to swaddle a child, to blot tears, or to cool a fever. A Towel goes back to the symbolic mantle of the Prophet, which Elijah struck the water with and passed on to Elisha as the badge of his office. A Towel is the origin of a pastor's stole. Different from Pontius Pilate washing his hands at the Crucifixion, Jesus' Foot Washing is an act of Apology, Forgiveness and Reconciliation. In 2004 at the World Forum for Evangelism, those who were Hutu and those who were Tutsi the warring people of Rwanda washed one another's feet, and those who were Palestinian and Israeli washed one another's feet. In 2006, a former Government Official of South Africa in a public act of apology washed the feet of an Anti-Apartheid Activist.
World culture is in the midst of change, radical, relentless change.
What we thought we knew and how we knew it, the values and priorities of the world, all have been tossed up in the air, waiting to settle. Up until recently, we thought we could make decisions by logic and deductive reason. Life was described as being a Game of Chess, the mastery of which was to think through moves and counter-moves to always be one step ahead, we each imagined we could win. While world culture has become increasingly capitalistic, with winners and losers and greater and greater segregation between us, every person believing everything and everyone has a price...
Still this Sacrament has always been an Invitation to the Whole World:
“You do not know now what God is doing, but later you will understand.”
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
Sunday, April 1, 2012
April 1, 2012, "A Fickle Faith"
Psalm 118: 1-2 & 19-29
Mark 11:1-11
What do we do with Palm Sunday? What does this passage teach us about Christian faith?
The innocence of the Christ-child, the feeding of the 5000, restoring sight to the blind and healing to lepers, Jesus' suffering and death and resurrection, all of these teachings have had application to humanity throughout history. Other than that this actually happened in this way, why did each of the Gospel Evangelists insist on describing Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?
Throughout time, Preachers have extolled Palm Sunday sermons about Power and Righteousness, projecting meaning and interpretations for why Palm Branches, why children were included, why they laid their robes on the ground, the meaning of a colt never ridden, versus a donkey, reminding us that the words Hosanna Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord comes from Psalm 118 and was the greeting pronounced for passing of religious pilgrims on their way to the Temple.
Jim Forbes was my Preaching Professor who suggested that Palm Sunday would be an excellent time for First Person Sermons... the first year taking the identity of a child who gathered palm branches and laid them for him; the second year to take the identity of a disciple who did as instructed untying the donkey and bringing it to Jesus; the third year to take the identity of a person of means taking off their robe or coat for the donkey to walk upon; the fourth year to take the identity of a Palm Tree, watching over the whole procession, mining the road to from the Mount of Olives to the Temple, and from the Temple to the Cross; but to be careful the fifth year of preaching a first person sermon because the principle role that is left is of being the donkey.
Every one of these sermons are frustrated with irony, because while the Crowds watched Jesus' Triumphal Entry, while Jesus was pronounced Son of David, while the roads were covered in Palm branches, while everything was done as had been foretold, within the week the very ones who had shouted Hosanna, cried CRUCIFY HIM! Where all of Scripture is filled with hope, while the point of faith is not only acceptance but forgiveness and redemption... Palm Sunday we know will end with Good Friday's suffering and death. Rather than a story of redemption, rather than a silver lining of hope, Palm Sunday is filled with discord waiting for the shoe to drop, waiting for the fears and anxiety of people to turn from triumph to accusation.
INSTEAD of the FICKLENESS OF FAITH, what I hear in these passages this morning, is a reflection on Love.
Each of the Gospels up until this point have seduced us. We have been told of this individual. We have been courted by the power of his words, by the compassion of his heart, by the miracles he commands, to Fall in love.
For most of us, the experience of falling in love is as close to a religious experience as we will have. Falling in Love is different from Loving, Falling in love is larger than life, greater than reality, there is always something overblown and Spiritual about falling in love. The difficulty with falling in love is that LOVE LIES, just a little. Love is the desire to like and to be liked, which is so addictive, which feels so good when satisfied, that love edits the facts of reality in order that we continue to feel the euphoria of remaining in this desire. To Fall in Love is to PROJECT the most noble parts of one's self onto another. We envision our own image of the divine in another human being. There is divinity in the other person, but we cannot see it clearly until we remove our own projections, of our desires. Making this fine distinction is one of the most delicate and difficult of tasks in life.
The Gospel of Mark describes the infatuation the crowds had with Jesus being like that for a Rock Star. They ripped off their shirts and coats for him, they swooned and bowed down for him. The problem of Palm Sunday was NOT that people did not Love Jesus, but that theirs was a superficial love. Christian Faith is the practice of living more than a projection of love. We rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us beyond the superficiality of the moment, beyond our projections of our desires, to what endures.
Woody Allen in the film Love & Death may have described it best that “TO LOVE IS TO SUFFER.” So to avoid suffering one must not love, but then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, and not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy then is to suffer but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore to be unhappy one must love or love to suffer or else suffer from too much happiness.”
The Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments challenge us to be scared of the full revelation of God's love, both that looking on God's holiness is more than any sinner can take in, and the revelation of God's glory in Jesus Christ includes greater suffering than humanity had ever known.
God's Love ought to scare us, because it reveals that Love is not the desire to hold another person like a pet, an object that can be controlled, because an object is not what that other person is, and if that is all we see – all we are in love with is our projection of our self.
Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week because rather than being the Climax of the Story, the first great Crescendo, Palm Sunday is a instead the beginning of the Catharsis, a transformation from the infatuation of having Fallen In LOVE to the Enduring Commitment of LOVING that will do whatever is needed. The point of love is not “For Richer or Poorer, or Better or Worse, or in Sickness or in Health” but no matter what to love.
Mark 11:1-11
What do we do with Palm Sunday? What does this passage teach us about Christian faith?
The innocence of the Christ-child, the feeding of the 5000, restoring sight to the blind and healing to lepers, Jesus' suffering and death and resurrection, all of these teachings have had application to humanity throughout history. Other than that this actually happened in this way, why did each of the Gospel Evangelists insist on describing Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?
Throughout time, Preachers have extolled Palm Sunday sermons about Power and Righteousness, projecting meaning and interpretations for why Palm Branches, why children were included, why they laid their robes on the ground, the meaning of a colt never ridden, versus a donkey, reminding us that the words Hosanna Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord comes from Psalm 118 and was the greeting pronounced for passing of religious pilgrims on their way to the Temple.
Jim Forbes was my Preaching Professor who suggested that Palm Sunday would be an excellent time for First Person Sermons... the first year taking the identity of a child who gathered palm branches and laid them for him; the second year to take the identity of a disciple who did as instructed untying the donkey and bringing it to Jesus; the third year to take the identity of a person of means taking off their robe or coat for the donkey to walk upon; the fourth year to take the identity of a Palm Tree, watching over the whole procession, mining the road to from the Mount of Olives to the Temple, and from the Temple to the Cross; but to be careful the fifth year of preaching a first person sermon because the principle role that is left is of being the donkey.
Every one of these sermons are frustrated with irony, because while the Crowds watched Jesus' Triumphal Entry, while Jesus was pronounced Son of David, while the roads were covered in Palm branches, while everything was done as had been foretold, within the week the very ones who had shouted Hosanna, cried CRUCIFY HIM! Where all of Scripture is filled with hope, while the point of faith is not only acceptance but forgiveness and redemption... Palm Sunday we know will end with Good Friday's suffering and death. Rather than a story of redemption, rather than a silver lining of hope, Palm Sunday is filled with discord waiting for the shoe to drop, waiting for the fears and anxiety of people to turn from triumph to accusation.
INSTEAD of the FICKLENESS OF FAITH, what I hear in these passages this morning, is a reflection on Love.
Each of the Gospels up until this point have seduced us. We have been told of this individual. We have been courted by the power of his words, by the compassion of his heart, by the miracles he commands, to Fall in love.
For most of us, the experience of falling in love is as close to a religious experience as we will have. Falling in Love is different from Loving, Falling in love is larger than life, greater than reality, there is always something overblown and Spiritual about falling in love. The difficulty with falling in love is that LOVE LIES, just a little. Love is the desire to like and to be liked, which is so addictive, which feels so good when satisfied, that love edits the facts of reality in order that we continue to feel the euphoria of remaining in this desire. To Fall in Love is to PROJECT the most noble parts of one's self onto another. We envision our own image of the divine in another human being. There is divinity in the other person, but we cannot see it clearly until we remove our own projections, of our desires. Making this fine distinction is one of the most delicate and difficult of tasks in life.
The Gospel of Mark describes the infatuation the crowds had with Jesus being like that for a Rock Star. They ripped off their shirts and coats for him, they swooned and bowed down for him. The problem of Palm Sunday was NOT that people did not Love Jesus, but that theirs was a superficial love. Christian Faith is the practice of living more than a projection of love. We rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us beyond the superficiality of the moment, beyond our projections of our desires, to what endures.
Woody Allen in the film Love & Death may have described it best that “TO LOVE IS TO SUFFER.” So to avoid suffering one must not love, but then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, and not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy then is to suffer but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore to be unhappy one must love or love to suffer or else suffer from too much happiness.”
The Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments challenge us to be scared of the full revelation of God's love, both that looking on God's holiness is more than any sinner can take in, and the revelation of God's glory in Jesus Christ includes greater suffering than humanity had ever known.
God's Love ought to scare us, because it reveals that Love is not the desire to hold another person like a pet, an object that can be controlled, because an object is not what that other person is, and if that is all we see – all we are in love with is our projection of our self.
Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week because rather than being the Climax of the Story, the first great Crescendo, Palm Sunday is a instead the beginning of the Catharsis, a transformation from the infatuation of having Fallen In LOVE to the Enduring Commitment of LOVING that will do whatever is needed. The point of love is not “For Richer or Poorer, or Better or Worse, or in Sickness or in Health” but no matter what to love.
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