The Fourth Sunday in Lent
I Samuel 16: 1 – 13
Sunday, April 3, 2011 Ephesians 5: 8 – 14
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 9: 1 – 41
He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
John 9: 25
The glory of God is graciously and suddenly revealed this morning in our reading from the gospel of John as Jesus gives sight to a man born blind. Jesus anoints this man’s eyes with spit and mud and then tells him to go wash in a pool of water. The man comes out of the pool able to see for the first time in his life.
But as soon as this man is able to see, his neighbors, the religious leaders and his parents are thrown into a conundrum, not knowing what to believe as this man continues to assert that after Jesus anointed his eyes and sent him to wash, his eyes were opened. At first, the neighbors are not sure this man is the same man they have known for years sitting outside the gates of the city begging for alms. Then the Pharisees begin to argue about this man Jesus who has broken the commandment to do no work on the Sabbath. And finally, the man’s parents, fearing they will be forced out of their community of faith, leave their son to make his confession without their support.
A man born blind has suddenly received his sight and no one is rejoicing, no one is celebrating. Rather, in the face of a mystery no one can understand, this man is driven out of the community, forced into exile because he was once blind but now can see.
As we listen to our text today, which admittedly is long, the entire ninth chapter of John’s gospel, John invites us to listen to a conversation which sounds a little like a ping pong match. When asked by his neighbors where this Jesus fellow is, the man replies: “I do not know.” When questioned by the Pharisees, this man’s parents say: “We know that this is our son but we do not know who opened his eyes.” The Pharisees then say of Jesus: “We know this manner is a sinner” to which the once blind man responds: “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” Back and forth like a ping pong ball goes the question: “What do you know?”
Much ink has been spilled by theologians over the centuries as they have sought to answer that question. What do we know and what can we say about God?
We can know nothing about God, the church has said for centuries, unless God reveals Godself to us. Unless God reveals Godself to us, God remains an impenetrable mystery, beyond our knowing. The very word “revelation” means an unveiling, a disclosure of something hidden from us.
And the Church has long affirmed that God has revealed Godself to us in different ways. Many have looked to the beauty of creation and the wonders of nature to claim that a world such as this did not just “happen.” With a complexity and profundity we are only beginning to appreciate, the world does “tell of the glory of God,” in the words of the psalmist. And yet, in light of the recent tsunami and earthquake in Japan, we are appreciating anew the sheer power of the forces of nature, forces over which we have no control and which are not always congenial to human life in this world. Who is this God that turns night into day and brings forth fruit in due season but has also created a world in which tectonic plates threaten to destroy all that lives?
Others have looked to the Bible as the definitive and authoritative word about God. The Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century said “scripture alone” reveals God to us. The reformers were reacting against a Church that professed to have infallible truth about God. The church, in their view, had assumed more authority than the witness of scripture to teach us who God is.
But what do we do when we get to I Corinthians 14: 34 and Saint Paul writes to the church at Corinth: “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home”? Paul, in his life and by his death, bore eloquent witness to this God who blinded him on a road to Damascus; but Paul was also, as we all are, a product of his times. Who is this God who chooses to reveal himself to us through the words of scripture, words which can never be more than mere signs of God’s presence?
And of course, there is us, particular embodied beings who can think and feel and act and from time to time, like Paul, have a sense we have been blinded by God. God does reveal Godself to us through the events of our lives, the conviction of our conscience and the deep longings of our hearts which led Saint Augustine to write: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” Who is this God who chooses to reveal himself to us through our yearnings and our longings, which can lead us, as we all know, not necessarily to God but simply back to ourselves?
While the church affirms that God does indeed reveal Godself in nature, through the scriptures and in our own souls, the church confesses that God revealed Godself most completely and perfectly in Christ. In Christ, we know God fully.
But Christ wrote no books, left no letters, made no movies and did not author the Nicene Creed we will confess in a minute. Christ made no pronouncement on abortion or birth control, capital punishment, the ordination of women or same sex unions. The gospels which were not written by Christ, tell us Christ called a bunch of simple fisherfolk to leave their jobs and their families to follow him. What the gospels tells us is that when a rich young lawyer asked Christ how to inherit eternal life, Christ told him to give away all that he had. What the gospels tell us is that women were the first to find the tomb empty. What the gospels tell us is that Christ died and on the third day was raised from the dead.
So what do we know about God? If we trust the witness of Mathew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul and the author of Hebrews, we can only say in the words of theologian Daniel Migliore, that “the revelation of God is always a disturbing, even shocking event.” We certainly get a taste of that shock in our reading this morning. A man blind since birth is given his sight and a whole community dissolves into chaos, preferring to drive the man out of their community rather than be disturbed by what has happened. What they know has been thrown into question and they do not like being disturbed.
Knowing God is more like the way we come to know a person rather than the way we “know” two plus two makes four. I might “know,” in other words, that you are five foot six and weigh one hundred and fifty pounds and have brown hair and hazel eyes, but none of that means I “know” you. Coming to know a person takes time, and we can never really say we know everything about another human being; as we “reveal” ourselves to others, something always remains to be known. To come to know another in a personal way means we must first love them; and only as we love another human being can we come to know them, and then never completely. We do not, as persons, first “know” someone and then choose to love them; rather, we first must love them and only then, can we dare to come to say we “know” them.
Knowing God, such as we can, means we must first want to know God, we must desire to know God, we must allow God to speak to us, to reveal Godself to us. When we presume to “know” God and God’s ways, we close off the possibility that God may be revealing something new to us.
In our gospel reading, Jesus gives sight to a man born blind and an entire community goes blind. In their blindness, the community drives the man out, unable to love what they cannot understand. Likewise, the man born blind does not understand how he was healed of his blindness but he does know who healed him and who loves him.
Sunday, April 3, 2011 Ephesians 5: 8 – 14
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 9: 1 – 41
He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
John 9: 25
The glory of God is graciously and suddenly revealed this morning in our reading from the gospel of John as Jesus gives sight to a man born blind. Jesus anoints this man’s eyes with spit and mud and then tells him to go wash in a pool of water. The man comes out of the pool able to see for the first time in his life.
But as soon as this man is able to see, his neighbors, the religious leaders and his parents are thrown into a conundrum, not knowing what to believe as this man continues to assert that after Jesus anointed his eyes and sent him to wash, his eyes were opened. At first, the neighbors are not sure this man is the same man they have known for years sitting outside the gates of the city begging for alms. Then the Pharisees begin to argue about this man Jesus who has broken the commandment to do no work on the Sabbath. And finally, the man’s parents, fearing they will be forced out of their community of faith, leave their son to make his confession without their support.
A man born blind has suddenly received his sight and no one is rejoicing, no one is celebrating. Rather, in the face of a mystery no one can understand, this man is driven out of the community, forced into exile because he was once blind but now can see.
As we listen to our text today, which admittedly is long, the entire ninth chapter of John’s gospel, John invites us to listen to a conversation which sounds a little like a ping pong match. When asked by his neighbors where this Jesus fellow is, the man replies: “I do not know.” When questioned by the Pharisees, this man’s parents say: “We know that this is our son but we do not know who opened his eyes.” The Pharisees then say of Jesus: “We know this manner is a sinner” to which the once blind man responds: “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” Back and forth like a ping pong ball goes the question: “What do you know?”
Much ink has been spilled by theologians over the centuries as they have sought to answer that question. What do we know and what can we say about God?
We can know nothing about God, the church has said for centuries, unless God reveals Godself to us. Unless God reveals Godself to us, God remains an impenetrable mystery, beyond our knowing. The very word “revelation” means an unveiling, a disclosure of something hidden from us.
And the Church has long affirmed that God has revealed Godself to us in different ways. Many have looked to the beauty of creation and the wonders of nature to claim that a world such as this did not just “happen.” With a complexity and profundity we are only beginning to appreciate, the world does “tell of the glory of God,” in the words of the psalmist. And yet, in light of the recent tsunami and earthquake in Japan, we are appreciating anew the sheer power of the forces of nature, forces over which we have no control and which are not always congenial to human life in this world. Who is this God that turns night into day and brings forth fruit in due season but has also created a world in which tectonic plates threaten to destroy all that lives?
Others have looked to the Bible as the definitive and authoritative word about God. The Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century said “scripture alone” reveals God to us. The reformers were reacting against a Church that professed to have infallible truth about God. The church, in their view, had assumed more authority than the witness of scripture to teach us who God is.
But what do we do when we get to I Corinthians 14: 34 and Saint Paul writes to the church at Corinth: “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home”? Paul, in his life and by his death, bore eloquent witness to this God who blinded him on a road to Damascus; but Paul was also, as we all are, a product of his times. Who is this God who chooses to reveal himself to us through the words of scripture, words which can never be more than mere signs of God’s presence?
And of course, there is us, particular embodied beings who can think and feel and act and from time to time, like Paul, have a sense we have been blinded by God. God does reveal Godself to us through the events of our lives, the conviction of our conscience and the deep longings of our hearts which led Saint Augustine to write: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” Who is this God who chooses to reveal himself to us through our yearnings and our longings, which can lead us, as we all know, not necessarily to God but simply back to ourselves?
While the church affirms that God does indeed reveal Godself in nature, through the scriptures and in our own souls, the church confesses that God revealed Godself most completely and perfectly in Christ. In Christ, we know God fully.
But Christ wrote no books, left no letters, made no movies and did not author the Nicene Creed we will confess in a minute. Christ made no pronouncement on abortion or birth control, capital punishment, the ordination of women or same sex unions. The gospels which were not written by Christ, tell us Christ called a bunch of simple fisherfolk to leave their jobs and their families to follow him. What the gospels tells us is that when a rich young lawyer asked Christ how to inherit eternal life, Christ told him to give away all that he had. What the gospels tell us is that women were the first to find the tomb empty. What the gospels tell us is that Christ died and on the third day was raised from the dead.
So what do we know about God? If we trust the witness of Mathew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul and the author of Hebrews, we can only say in the words of theologian Daniel Migliore, that “the revelation of God is always a disturbing, even shocking event.” We certainly get a taste of that shock in our reading this morning. A man blind since birth is given his sight and a whole community dissolves into chaos, preferring to drive the man out of their community rather than be disturbed by what has happened. What they know has been thrown into question and they do not like being disturbed.
Knowing God is more like the way we come to know a person rather than the way we “know” two plus two makes four. I might “know,” in other words, that you are five foot six and weigh one hundred and fifty pounds and have brown hair and hazel eyes, but none of that means I “know” you. Coming to know a person takes time, and we can never really say we know everything about another human being; as we “reveal” ourselves to others, something always remains to be known. To come to know another in a personal way means we must first love them; and only as we love another human being can we come to know them, and then never completely. We do not, as persons, first “know” someone and then choose to love them; rather, we first must love them and only then, can we dare to come to say we “know” them.
Knowing God, such as we can, means we must first want to know God, we must desire to know God, we must allow God to speak to us, to reveal Godself to us. When we presume to “know” God and God’s ways, we close off the possibility that God may be revealing something new to us.
In our gospel reading, Jesus gives sight to a man born blind and an entire community goes blind. In their blindness, the community drives the man out, unable to love what they cannot understand. Likewise, the man born blind does not understand how he was healed of his blindness but he does know who healed him and who loves him.
The Fifth Sunday in Lent
Ezekiel 37: 1 – 14
Sunday, April 10, 2011 Romans 8: 6 – 11
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 11: 1 – 45
When he had said this, Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
John 11: 43
Easter is just two weeks away and the shelves of the grocery store overflow with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow eggs. The dark colors of winter have been replaced at Macy’s with pale yellow and pink dresses just in time for Easter Sunday. Hallmark hopes you will send out Easter cards, and has carefully marked as “religious” those cards that mention God in any way, in case you would like to celebrate Easter but would prefer to leave God out of your greeting. The azaleas are blooming, the tulips are opening and the days are growing increasingly warm and sunny. Spring is here; winter is over and Easter is a time to celebrate.
Easter is a time to celebrate but not the return of spring. What we celebrate on Easter is an empty tomb. Our Easter acclamation is not that spring has come but rather that “The Lord is risen!” Our Easter joy is grounded not in the renewal of the earth but in the victory of God over death. On Easter, the power of death was overpowered by God and pink bunnies seem to miss the point. Death, the enemy of life, was undone by the power of God on Easter and a resounding “Alleluia!” seems more appropriate to that news than marshmallow eggs.
Easter, the proclamation of the Resurrection, makes no sense unless we acknowledge the reality and the power of death. Our Easter acclamation is the mad claim that God raised Jesus from the dead and, as we all know, no one who dies comes back to life. What we know is that all of life ends in death and there is no coming back. “There can be no true proclamation of the Resurrection,” writes preacher Fleming Rutledge, “until there has an acknowledgment of the power and the finality of death.” Death is, she says “the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled.”
This morning is the Fifth Sunday in Lent, that season in the church year which begins on Ash Wednesday, when we are marked with ash and hear the somber words: Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” During Lent we contemplate our mortality, the reality that we all will one die. During Lent we acknowledge the power of death, a power over which neither you nor I nor any living thing have control. We may stave off death for awhile but none of will escape the power of death. All of life lives under the shadow of death and Lent invites to consider the many ways death warps the ways we live.
Now I daresay, no one would dispute the reality that we will not live forever. But most of us are bit uneasy thinking about death, particularly our own. Our dis-ease with death can be seen in the language that we use to speak of death. Rather than say that someone has died, we often prefer to say they “have passed on” or they “have gone to a better place.” Funerals are often called “celebrations” or “homecomings” and we, the living, are encouraged not to dwell on the cold, chilling finality of death.
Death is the enemy of life, and no matter how much we might understand someone’s death as an end to their suffering, which death often is, what we really want is not death but an end to suffering in all of sufferings hideous forms.
Our deepest inclinations, if we dare to give them voice, is that we not die. Our deepest inclination, if we dare to give it voice, is that we want to live, even though we know we all will die. For sure, many deaths are untimely, but even threescore years and ten is not enough. We have been given life and death, no matter when death comes, is like a thief in the night, robbing us of what we want most. Death ends life and you and I were created to live.
Our gospel reading from John this morning is a final dramatic confrontation between Jesus and the power of death. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and immediately after Jesus does so, in the verses that follow our reading, the religious authorities set in motion their plot to kill Jesus. Turning water into wine does not make Jesus a threat; raising the dead, though, would rob Rome of Rome’s capacity to keep people in line – the threat of death enabled Rome to keep the peace. What power would Rome have if folk no longer feared death?
Our evangelist John takes pains to let us know that Lazarus was really dead. Jesus delays going to Bethany for two days and when he finally arrives, we are told Lazarus has been dead for four days. As if to drive home the point, Martha warns Jesus who wants the tomb opened, that after four days, the smell of decaying flesh might be enough to dissuade Jesus from rolling away the stone. Martha along with her sister Mary, knew Jesus might be able to heal their sick brother, but Lazarus is dead now and opening the tomb will only confront the living with the stench of death.
But what comes forth from the tomb is not the smell of death but rather Lazarus still bound by his burial clothes. “Unbind him,” Jesus says, “and let him go.” The power of death holds Lazarus no more.
“Death is the obvious meaning of existence, if God is ignored,” writes lay theologian William Stringfellow, “surviving as death does every other personal or social reality to which is attributed existence in this world. Death is so great, so aggressive, so pervasive and so militant a power that the only fitting way to speak of death is similar to the way one speaks of God. Death is the living power and presence in this world which feigns to be God.” The proclamation of the Resurrection topples death from its throne, unmasking death’s pretense to be the ultimate power in this world.
The power of death is real and we do ourselves no good trying to convince ourselves otherwise. Indeed, when we make peace with death, thinking perhaps that death isn’t as awful as death is, we rob Easter of all power. None of us has the power to overpower death; only God can do that. Death is a constant reminder that we are not in control, and, we, for the most part, would prefer to believe otherwise. Easter acknowledges the real power of death but proclaims that power penultimate.
“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus tells Martha this morning. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Those are the opening words of the liturgy for the burial of the dead. In the face of death, we proclaim the resurrection and not as a kind of footnote to what seems self-evident in nature – after winter comes the spring. The resurrection is not a self evident truth we can deduce from the cycles of nature.
Whatever hope we have that death is not our destiny is grounded in the resurrection. “Because Jesus was raised from the dead,” the prayer book tells us, “we, too, shall be raised.” We bury our dead in the hope of the resurrection and not because spring always follows winter. We may liken death to winter and poets often do, but death is not a cycle of nature. We do not simply “pass through” death as we pass through winter into spring. At death, life comes to an end. Lazarus began to “stink.” Death is ugly. And we are right to grieve.
And to protest. Why does God bring us to life and fill this whole world with all manner and variety of life only to bring everything to death? Neither the Old Testament not the New Testament attempt an answer to that question. Death is a fact of life and, like that serpent in the garden of Eden, no attempt is made by our biblical authors to say why. All attempts to explain death and the reality of evil in the world are vain struggles to understand what we simply cannot understand. Denying the power of death only makes our lot worse.
I took a break from writing this sermon yesterday and went to a local Hallmark store. As I pushed open the door I was veritably assaulted with a regimen of bright yellow ducks all looking very warm and fuzzy and cuddly. Cute, I thought. Unbiblical, but cute, remembering our lessons for this morning. Thinking about Lazarus, I thought to myself that dead ducks that smelled bad wouldn’t sell quite as well. I realized yesterday that Easter is big business; Lent on the other hand is a bit dreary and probably does not lend itself to marketing. Death is not a topic we want to think about, except at Halloween, and then we laugh, making light of death in the guise of ghouls and goblins. Passing by this display of plushy ducks, I went to the card section, wondering if I might find a picture of Lazarus tearing off his grave cloths. Silly me.
Sunday, April 10, 2011 Romans 8: 6 – 11
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 11: 1 – 45
When he had said this, Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
John 11: 43
Easter is just two weeks away and the shelves of the grocery store overflow with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow eggs. The dark colors of winter have been replaced at Macy’s with pale yellow and pink dresses just in time for Easter Sunday. Hallmark hopes you will send out Easter cards, and has carefully marked as “religious” those cards that mention God in any way, in case you would like to celebrate Easter but would prefer to leave God out of your greeting. The azaleas are blooming, the tulips are opening and the days are growing increasingly warm and sunny. Spring is here; winter is over and Easter is a time to celebrate.
Easter is a time to celebrate but not the return of spring. What we celebrate on Easter is an empty tomb. Our Easter acclamation is not that spring has come but rather that “The Lord is risen!” Our Easter joy is grounded not in the renewal of the earth but in the victory of God over death. On Easter, the power of death was overpowered by God and pink bunnies seem to miss the point. Death, the enemy of life, was undone by the power of God on Easter and a resounding “Alleluia!” seems more appropriate to that news than marshmallow eggs.
Easter, the proclamation of the Resurrection, makes no sense unless we acknowledge the reality and the power of death. Our Easter acclamation is the mad claim that God raised Jesus from the dead and, as we all know, no one who dies comes back to life. What we know is that all of life ends in death and there is no coming back. “There can be no true proclamation of the Resurrection,” writes preacher Fleming Rutledge, “until there has an acknowledgment of the power and the finality of death.” Death is, she says “the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled.”
This morning is the Fifth Sunday in Lent, that season in the church year which begins on Ash Wednesday, when we are marked with ash and hear the somber words: Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” During Lent we contemplate our mortality, the reality that we all will one die. During Lent we acknowledge the power of death, a power over which neither you nor I nor any living thing have control. We may stave off death for awhile but none of will escape the power of death. All of life lives under the shadow of death and Lent invites to consider the many ways death warps the ways we live.
Now I daresay, no one would dispute the reality that we will not live forever. But most of us are bit uneasy thinking about death, particularly our own. Our dis-ease with death can be seen in the language that we use to speak of death. Rather than say that someone has died, we often prefer to say they “have passed on” or they “have gone to a better place.” Funerals are often called “celebrations” or “homecomings” and we, the living, are encouraged not to dwell on the cold, chilling finality of death.
Death is the enemy of life, and no matter how much we might understand someone’s death as an end to their suffering, which death often is, what we really want is not death but an end to suffering in all of sufferings hideous forms.
Our deepest inclinations, if we dare to give them voice, is that we not die. Our deepest inclination, if we dare to give it voice, is that we want to live, even though we know we all will die. For sure, many deaths are untimely, but even threescore years and ten is not enough. We have been given life and death, no matter when death comes, is like a thief in the night, robbing us of what we want most. Death ends life and you and I were created to live.
Our gospel reading from John this morning is a final dramatic confrontation between Jesus and the power of death. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and immediately after Jesus does so, in the verses that follow our reading, the religious authorities set in motion their plot to kill Jesus. Turning water into wine does not make Jesus a threat; raising the dead, though, would rob Rome of Rome’s capacity to keep people in line – the threat of death enabled Rome to keep the peace. What power would Rome have if folk no longer feared death?
Our evangelist John takes pains to let us know that Lazarus was really dead. Jesus delays going to Bethany for two days and when he finally arrives, we are told Lazarus has been dead for four days. As if to drive home the point, Martha warns Jesus who wants the tomb opened, that after four days, the smell of decaying flesh might be enough to dissuade Jesus from rolling away the stone. Martha along with her sister Mary, knew Jesus might be able to heal their sick brother, but Lazarus is dead now and opening the tomb will only confront the living with the stench of death.
But what comes forth from the tomb is not the smell of death but rather Lazarus still bound by his burial clothes. “Unbind him,” Jesus says, “and let him go.” The power of death holds Lazarus no more.
“Death is the obvious meaning of existence, if God is ignored,” writes lay theologian William Stringfellow, “surviving as death does every other personal or social reality to which is attributed existence in this world. Death is so great, so aggressive, so pervasive and so militant a power that the only fitting way to speak of death is similar to the way one speaks of God. Death is the living power and presence in this world which feigns to be God.” The proclamation of the Resurrection topples death from its throne, unmasking death’s pretense to be the ultimate power in this world.
The power of death is real and we do ourselves no good trying to convince ourselves otherwise. Indeed, when we make peace with death, thinking perhaps that death isn’t as awful as death is, we rob Easter of all power. None of us has the power to overpower death; only God can do that. Death is a constant reminder that we are not in control, and, we, for the most part, would prefer to believe otherwise. Easter acknowledges the real power of death but proclaims that power penultimate.
“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus tells Martha this morning. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Those are the opening words of the liturgy for the burial of the dead. In the face of death, we proclaim the resurrection and not as a kind of footnote to what seems self-evident in nature – after winter comes the spring. The resurrection is not a self evident truth we can deduce from the cycles of nature.
Whatever hope we have that death is not our destiny is grounded in the resurrection. “Because Jesus was raised from the dead,” the prayer book tells us, “we, too, shall be raised.” We bury our dead in the hope of the resurrection and not because spring always follows winter. We may liken death to winter and poets often do, but death is not a cycle of nature. We do not simply “pass through” death as we pass through winter into spring. At death, life comes to an end. Lazarus began to “stink.” Death is ugly. And we are right to grieve.
And to protest. Why does God bring us to life and fill this whole world with all manner and variety of life only to bring everything to death? Neither the Old Testament not the New Testament attempt an answer to that question. Death is a fact of life and, like that serpent in the garden of Eden, no attempt is made by our biblical authors to say why. All attempts to explain death and the reality of evil in the world are vain struggles to understand what we simply cannot understand. Denying the power of death only makes our lot worse.
I took a break from writing this sermon yesterday and went to a local Hallmark store. As I pushed open the door I was veritably assaulted with a regimen of bright yellow ducks all looking very warm and fuzzy and cuddly. Cute, I thought. Unbiblical, but cute, remembering our lessons for this morning. Thinking about Lazarus, I thought to myself that dead ducks that smelled bad wouldn’t sell quite as well. I realized yesterday that Easter is big business; Lent on the other hand is a bit dreary and probably does not lend itself to marketing. Death is not a topic we want to think about, except at Halloween, and then we laugh, making light of death in the guise of ghouls and goblins. Passing by this display of plushy ducks, I went to the card section, wondering if I might find a picture of Lazarus tearing off his grave cloths. Silly me.
Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
Isaiah 50: 4- 9a
Sunday, April 17, 2011 Philippians 2: 5 – 11
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 26: 14 – 27: 66
“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Matthew 21: 9b
Today may well be the oddest day in the whole of the church year. Today is Palm Sunday and we begin our liturgy waving palms and singing, “All glory laud and honor to our redeemer king.” But within minutes we are reading the story of the passion and shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!” We move from jubilation to condemnation in our liturgy this morning as we take our place with the crowds who at first rejoiced as Jesus rode into Jerusalem and then, within days, demanded his death.
We all are invited to participate this morning in a drama that begins as Jesus is hailed as a king, the Son of David, the long awaited savior of Israel. We begin our liturgy today outside waving palms, hearing how the crowds shouted: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” as Jesus rides into Jerusalem. The word “Hosanna!” is an Aramaic word meaning “Save us!” and is an exclamation of praise and thanksgiving as Jesus makes his way into Jerusalem to the delight of the crowds, who rejoice that God’s long awaited promised Messiah has come. Their day of deliverance has arrived and no more would they live as a people oppressed by foreign powers.
And then, their king, who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, and not upon the back of a great white horse, refuses to save himself, maddening Caiaphas the high priest who asks Jesus if he is the Son of God to which Jesus responds “You say so.” And later when Pilate questions Jesus, asking Jesus if he is the King of the Jews, Jesus once again answers in veiled language: “You say so.”
As the story of the passion unfolds, Jesus looks less and less like a savior. And the crowds get angrier and angrier, culminating in the crowd’s answer to Pilate when Pilate asks them what he should do with Jesus: “Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified!” they shout. Finally, in sheer contempt, those who pass by the cross to which Jesus has been nailed, mock him saying: “He saved others; he cannot save himself.”
As the story of the passion unfolds, whatever hope of salvation folk had when Jesus rode into Jerusalem slowly drains away. What started with such brightness as folk waved palms and hailed Jesus as the Son of David, dissolves into darkness as they curse the one they thought would save them but now cannot even save himself. As the story of the passion comes to a close, we are left with a dead body and a seemingly failed Messiah.
Now I know that we all know the “end of the story” and that today’s reading of the passion will be followed next Sunday with the story of the Resurrection. But between this Sunday and next Sunday, we are invited to make our own journey through Holy Week, when on Maundy Thursday we will remember Jesus’ commandment to his disciples on the eve of his death to “love one another” and to remember his death in the breaking of bread. And then on Good Friday, we will come together before a stripped and bare altar to hear the story of the passion according to John and remember that the joy of Easter comes only after the horror of crucifixion and death.
Holy Week is a journey to the cross, a journey in which we remember that Christ’s death was not an injustice imposed upon him by “bad” people, but rather Christ’s death was a willing surrender to God’s will. Christ went to his death voluntarily in obedience to God. At the cross, we see Christ “humbling himself” in the words of Saint Paul, who writes in our reading from Philippians: “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” And later, in the gospel of John, Jesus says: “No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord.”
Understanding the crucifixion as the ultimate surrender and not an aberration of justice means we can dare to hope that in the midst of the horrors and tragedies that often threaten to overwhelm us in this world, God is continuing to act, continuing to love us, even and maybe most especially, at those times when we can see no way out, no possibility that any good will come out of what is happening, no light at the end of the tunnel.
God remains God even at the cross. Surrendering ourselves to God’s abiding love is the journey we make in Holy Week.
As we walk in the way of Christ’s suffering this Holy Week, may we remember where we began, waving palms and saying “Hosanna!” - God save us. And when the shadow of death threatens to overwhelm us, may we know that not even death will keep us from the love of God made known to us in Christ.
Sunday, April 17, 2011 Philippians 2: 5 – 11
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 26: 14 – 27: 66
“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Matthew 21: 9b
Today may well be the oddest day in the whole of the church year. Today is Palm Sunday and we begin our liturgy waving palms and singing, “All glory laud and honor to our redeemer king.” But within minutes we are reading the story of the passion and shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!” We move from jubilation to condemnation in our liturgy this morning as we take our place with the crowds who at first rejoiced as Jesus rode into Jerusalem and then, within days, demanded his death.
We all are invited to participate this morning in a drama that begins as Jesus is hailed as a king, the Son of David, the long awaited savior of Israel. We begin our liturgy today outside waving palms, hearing how the crowds shouted: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” as Jesus rides into Jerusalem. The word “Hosanna!” is an Aramaic word meaning “Save us!” and is an exclamation of praise and thanksgiving as Jesus makes his way into Jerusalem to the delight of the crowds, who rejoice that God’s long awaited promised Messiah has come. Their day of deliverance has arrived and no more would they live as a people oppressed by foreign powers.
And then, their king, who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, and not upon the back of a great white horse, refuses to save himself, maddening Caiaphas the high priest who asks Jesus if he is the Son of God to which Jesus responds “You say so.” And later when Pilate questions Jesus, asking Jesus if he is the King of the Jews, Jesus once again answers in veiled language: “You say so.”
As the story of the passion unfolds, Jesus looks less and less like a savior. And the crowds get angrier and angrier, culminating in the crowd’s answer to Pilate when Pilate asks them what he should do with Jesus: “Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified!” they shout. Finally, in sheer contempt, those who pass by the cross to which Jesus has been nailed, mock him saying: “He saved others; he cannot save himself.”
As the story of the passion unfolds, whatever hope of salvation folk had when Jesus rode into Jerusalem slowly drains away. What started with such brightness as folk waved palms and hailed Jesus as the Son of David, dissolves into darkness as they curse the one they thought would save them but now cannot even save himself. As the story of the passion comes to a close, we are left with a dead body and a seemingly failed Messiah.
Now I know that we all know the “end of the story” and that today’s reading of the passion will be followed next Sunday with the story of the Resurrection. But between this Sunday and next Sunday, we are invited to make our own journey through Holy Week, when on Maundy Thursday we will remember Jesus’ commandment to his disciples on the eve of his death to “love one another” and to remember his death in the breaking of bread. And then on Good Friday, we will come together before a stripped and bare altar to hear the story of the passion according to John and remember that the joy of Easter comes only after the horror of crucifixion and death.
Holy Week is a journey to the cross, a journey in which we remember that Christ’s death was not an injustice imposed upon him by “bad” people, but rather Christ’s death was a willing surrender to God’s will. Christ went to his death voluntarily in obedience to God. At the cross, we see Christ “humbling himself” in the words of Saint Paul, who writes in our reading from Philippians: “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” And later, in the gospel of John, Jesus says: “No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord.”
Understanding the crucifixion as the ultimate surrender and not an aberration of justice means we can dare to hope that in the midst of the horrors and tragedies that often threaten to overwhelm us in this world, God is continuing to act, continuing to love us, even and maybe most especially, at those times when we can see no way out, no possibility that any good will come out of what is happening, no light at the end of the tunnel.
God remains God even at the cross. Surrendering ourselves to God’s abiding love is the journey we make in Holy Week.
As we walk in the way of Christ’s suffering this Holy Week, may we remember where we began, waving palms and saying “Hosanna!” - God save us. And when the shadow of death threatens to overwhelm us, may we know that not even death will keep us from the love of God made known to us in Christ.
Maundy Thursday Exodus 12: 1 – 4, (5 – 10), 11 – 14
Thursday, April 21, 2011 I Corinthians 11: 23 – 26
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 13: 1 – 17, 31b – 35
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?”
John 13: 12
Knocking over your wine glass at an elegant dinner party, sending red wine all over a white linen tablecloth makes us feel awkward. Having your check returned to you for insufficient funds is awkward. Meeting your ex wife in the grocery store with a new boyfriend is awkward. Awkward in Webster’s dictionary means “embarrassing,” that which is “difficult to explain or manage.” And awkward is the way Bishop Lee, several years ago on Maundy Thursday, described the ritual of foot washing which we will observe tonight.
Tonight on the eve of his death, Jesus kneels in front of the disciples and washes their feet. And in a few moments we will re-enact this ancient and very awkward ritual. Foot washing is awkward because our feet are generally not the part of our body we would expose to the world. Covered with dust and dirt, as feet were in the ancient world, foot washing was and is, a hugely intimate and personal activity.
Foot washers, therefore, were slaves, persons with a certain amount of anonymity, persons with whom you did not eat dinner and socialize with after they had washed your feet. We, today, prefer to have our most intimate needs met by persons we do not know, like the anonymous staff in a hospital who clean bedpans or bath patients or change dirty bed linens. Personal intimacy is awkward and we would prefer to keep a certain distance between us and those who have been with us in those “embarrassing” moments.
Foot washing is mentioned only in the gospel of John and, for John, foot washing images the intimacy of communion that Jesus shares with God and which Jesus commands the disciples to show forth in their lives together. The disciples are to be “one” as Jesus and his Father are “one,” an intimate communion of giving and receiving between God as Father and God as Son. On the eve of his death, Jesus invites the disciples into communion with one another by washing one another’s feet. Tomorrow Jesus will no be longer be with them and for them; tomorrow they will need to be with and for one another.
Peter resists when Jesus wants to wash his feet. Peter, ever the model of a struggling disciple, does not want to submit to this most awkward of requests. Peter is embarrassed by Jesus’ request. And so are we. We want Jesus to stay off the floor, keep his place at the head of the table and leave our dirty feet alone. We, like Peter, find the intimacy of communion awkward.
We prefer a somewhat more detached way of being together, something less personal, something less intimate. We would prefer to join a club rather than participate in a communion. In a club, we can be a member with rights, privileges and rules to follow. In a communion, we have only one another, for better and for worse. In a club we can commit ourselves to a cause; in a communion, we commit ourselves to one another. In a club, we are one individual among many others; in a communion we become distinctive one-of-a-kind persons, irreplaceable, very particular parts of God’s creation, someone with feet that look like nobody else’s.
Not long ago, on a Saturday afternoon, I went grocery shopping at a larger Kroeger store close to where we live in Richmond. When I arrived in the parking lot, I had to slow down to avoid hitting an older gentleman who was wandering among the parking spaces, looking anxious and perplexed. I stopped, rolled down the window and inquired if he had lost his car. His response was less than clear and, after I had parked my car, I walked over to him to see if I could help. He was concerned, he told me, about all the cars. “Look at all these cars,” he said, “Why are all these people here? Something must be happening, something must be going on.” I learned he was looking for his car and his wife. He told me he had been a football player in Blacksburg and later served in the military and was wholly confused by all these cars!
As we slowly eased our way together into the grocery store, hoping to find his wife, I was struck by his lostness, a lostness created by dementia that transforms a grocery store parking lot into an alien and utterly unrecognizable place. Yet, as soon we entered the grocery store he immediately identified his wife who was checking out and we bid one another good-bye.
While he could not distinguish his car from the other cars in the parking lot and was convinced that he had happened onto some great calamity, he instantly recognized the familiar face of his wife. “There she is!” he exclaimed as if suddenly encountering a gold mine. “There she is!” I thought to myself, a very particular, irreplaceable, one of a kind person. Communion, and I suspect they had shared many years together, had transformed her from just another older woman in a grocery store into his savior.
We are called into communion and the awkward intimacy communion demands, not to be embarrassed but to become the particular persons God created us to be. We are called into communion and given a particular place at God’s table, not as faceless nameless individuals, but as irreplaceable persons in the body of Christ. In a communion, we are valued for who we are not for what we can do. Communion is about being together and staying together and growing together, in spite of the fact that we all have ugly feet. Communion calls us to take the risk that when we take our socks off, nobody will laugh.
God creates us to be with and for one another, as God is with and for us. God yearns for a world in which no one is a disposable part, no human being or any part of creation, seen as dispensable, a throw away item in the name of some greater good. We are all part of God’s very good creation, created in God’s own image, to live in communion, to share in and show forth God’s own way of being God, not in solitary splendor, but as a communion of self-giving love between God as Father and God as Son.
In communion we find life, but only insofar as we are willing to risk intimacy, to risk sharing ourselves with one another truly and truthfully, neither despairing of our weaknesses nor boastful of our strengths, sharing with one another our hopes and fears, passions and pains, building one another up, not tearing one another apart. Communion is a gift to us from God, the offer of life, and the very means whereby we are transformed into what God intends you and I to be - very particular, one-of-a-kind never-to- be- repeated parts of God’s very good creation.
Thursday, April 21, 2011 I Corinthians 11: 23 – 26
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 13: 1 – 17, 31b – 35
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?”
John 13: 12
Knocking over your wine glass at an elegant dinner party, sending red wine all over a white linen tablecloth makes us feel awkward. Having your check returned to you for insufficient funds is awkward. Meeting your ex wife in the grocery store with a new boyfriend is awkward. Awkward in Webster’s dictionary means “embarrassing,” that which is “difficult to explain or manage.” And awkward is the way Bishop Lee, several years ago on Maundy Thursday, described the ritual of foot washing which we will observe tonight.
Tonight on the eve of his death, Jesus kneels in front of the disciples and washes their feet. And in a few moments we will re-enact this ancient and very awkward ritual. Foot washing is awkward because our feet are generally not the part of our body we would expose to the world. Covered with dust and dirt, as feet were in the ancient world, foot washing was and is, a hugely intimate and personal activity.
Foot washers, therefore, were slaves, persons with a certain amount of anonymity, persons with whom you did not eat dinner and socialize with after they had washed your feet. We, today, prefer to have our most intimate needs met by persons we do not know, like the anonymous staff in a hospital who clean bedpans or bath patients or change dirty bed linens. Personal intimacy is awkward and we would prefer to keep a certain distance between us and those who have been with us in those “embarrassing” moments.
Foot washing is mentioned only in the gospel of John and, for John, foot washing images the intimacy of communion that Jesus shares with God and which Jesus commands the disciples to show forth in their lives together. The disciples are to be “one” as Jesus and his Father are “one,” an intimate communion of giving and receiving between God as Father and God as Son. On the eve of his death, Jesus invites the disciples into communion with one another by washing one another’s feet. Tomorrow Jesus will no be longer be with them and for them; tomorrow they will need to be with and for one another.
Peter resists when Jesus wants to wash his feet. Peter, ever the model of a struggling disciple, does not want to submit to this most awkward of requests. Peter is embarrassed by Jesus’ request. And so are we. We want Jesus to stay off the floor, keep his place at the head of the table and leave our dirty feet alone. We, like Peter, find the intimacy of communion awkward.
We prefer a somewhat more detached way of being together, something less personal, something less intimate. We would prefer to join a club rather than participate in a communion. In a club, we can be a member with rights, privileges and rules to follow. In a communion, we have only one another, for better and for worse. In a club we can commit ourselves to a cause; in a communion, we commit ourselves to one another. In a club, we are one individual among many others; in a communion we become distinctive one-of-a-kind persons, irreplaceable, very particular parts of God’s creation, someone with feet that look like nobody else’s.
Not long ago, on a Saturday afternoon, I went grocery shopping at a larger Kroeger store close to where we live in Richmond. When I arrived in the parking lot, I had to slow down to avoid hitting an older gentleman who was wandering among the parking spaces, looking anxious and perplexed. I stopped, rolled down the window and inquired if he had lost his car. His response was less than clear and, after I had parked my car, I walked over to him to see if I could help. He was concerned, he told me, about all the cars. “Look at all these cars,” he said, “Why are all these people here? Something must be happening, something must be going on.” I learned he was looking for his car and his wife. He told me he had been a football player in Blacksburg and later served in the military and was wholly confused by all these cars!
As we slowly eased our way together into the grocery store, hoping to find his wife, I was struck by his lostness, a lostness created by dementia that transforms a grocery store parking lot into an alien and utterly unrecognizable place. Yet, as soon we entered the grocery store he immediately identified his wife who was checking out and we bid one another good-bye.
While he could not distinguish his car from the other cars in the parking lot and was convinced that he had happened onto some great calamity, he instantly recognized the familiar face of his wife. “There she is!” he exclaimed as if suddenly encountering a gold mine. “There she is!” I thought to myself, a very particular, irreplaceable, one of a kind person. Communion, and I suspect they had shared many years together, had transformed her from just another older woman in a grocery store into his savior.
We are called into communion and the awkward intimacy communion demands, not to be embarrassed but to become the particular persons God created us to be. We are called into communion and given a particular place at God’s table, not as faceless nameless individuals, but as irreplaceable persons in the body of Christ. In a communion, we are valued for who we are not for what we can do. Communion is about being together and staying together and growing together, in spite of the fact that we all have ugly feet. Communion calls us to take the risk that when we take our socks off, nobody will laugh.
God creates us to be with and for one another, as God is with and for us. God yearns for a world in which no one is a disposable part, no human being or any part of creation, seen as dispensable, a throw away item in the name of some greater good. We are all part of God’s very good creation, created in God’s own image, to live in communion, to share in and show forth God’s own way of being God, not in solitary splendor, but as a communion of self-giving love between God as Father and God as Son.
In communion we find life, but only insofar as we are willing to risk intimacy, to risk sharing ourselves with one another truly and truthfully, neither despairing of our weaknesses nor boastful of our strengths, sharing with one another our hopes and fears, passions and pains, building one another up, not tearing one another apart. Communion is a gift to us from God, the offer of life, and the very means whereby we are transformed into what God intends you and I to be - very particular, one-of-a-kind never-to- be- repeated parts of God’s very good creation.
Good Friday Isaiah 52: 13 – 53: 12
Friday, April 22, 2011 Hebrews 10: 1 – 25
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 18: 1 – 19: 37
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
John 18: 36
Christ is on trial tonight. In the passion according to John which we just heard, Jesus is first betrayed by Judas and arrested and then taken first to Annas, then Caiaphas, both high priests, and finally to the Roman governor Pilate. In between, Peter denies Jesus and in the end, Pilate turns to the crowds to pronounce their verdict upon Jesus. Jesus is arrested, accused, and convicted, even though Pilate can find no case against him. Jesus is tried and found guilty but does nothing to save himself from the death penalty. Jesus makes no attempt to save himself while everyone else in our narrative is desperately trying to save themselves.
When Jesus is brought before Pilate, Pilate asks Jesus what he has done. And Jesus answers: “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” In the kingdom of this world, those who stand accused defend themselves. And Jesus refuses.
On trial tonight is the kingdom of God, a kingdom not of this world, a kingdom characterized not by self defense but by self giving. And in the gospel of John, no one, not even the disciples, are prepared to live in a kingdom that will ask you to give up your life. No one, in other words, wants to be where Christ is tonight.
“All the trial narratives of the Gospels,” writes the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, “come to place one single charge against us: we choose to be somewhere other than where Christ is.” Christ is crucified tonight because his kingdom is not of this world; Christ is crucified because Christ refuses to save himself and in this world, that is foolish.
In this world, all of our instincts lead us to want to protect ourselves, to keep ourselves safe and free from harm. Nations guard their borders and we lock our doors. We do not take kindly to intruders, to anyone who might take something from us. We are careful and cautious in what we give and who we give it to. We are kind and compassionate but we all have our limits, boundaries beyond which we will not go. And for us this all sounds “normal;” to do otherwise would be crazy.
This is the truth that confronts us this awful night. This is the blinding truth about ourselves that confronts us at the cross. Christ did not save himself and each of us, in ways large and small seek to save ourselves. No, we may not greet the stranger at our door with a loaded gun, but consider how we “defend” ourselves when faced with a challenge. We move quickly to “justify” our position; we rationalize our actions to make ourselves less blameworthy; we “do the best we can” and never wonder if that might not be enough. And when life does not turn out the way we expect, when we have done “the best we can do” and our world falls apart, we wonder what went wrong.
What is wrong is a world created to be very good and which is not much of the time. What is a wrong is a world that eludes our control and which can threaten our existence. What is wrong is a world that teaches us to fear for our safety and to protect ourselves against others who might harm us. We live in an inhospitable world and we learn quickly how to survive.
We cannot the change the world in which we live. But we can, in the words of the gospel of John, choose to be “in the world but not of the world.” We can choose to be hospitable in this inhospitable world. We can choose to welcome the stranger and not be suspicious; we can choose to listen to others rather than defend our positions; we can choose not to return evil for evil even, and maybe most especially when, we know we are right. As soon as we begin to believe that we are “right,” that we are the bearers of all truth, we become our own gods.
There are no rewards for living hospitably in an inhospitable world, no feeling “good” because you have done a “good” thing. Indeed, the more hospitable we are, the more the world will take from us.
I am indebted tonight to the reflections of Rowan Williams in his essay Christ on Trial: How the Gospel Unsettles Our Judgement. Williams includes in his essay a chapter on the early martyrs which he calls “God’s Spies: Believers on Trial.” Williams writes: “The power that counts for the martyr is a power that bestows life, not a power that simply commands. God’s will can be done, and the martyr can maintain loyalty to Jesus under the most appalling threats, because something has been imparted (not ordered) – a new depth of truthful living, a new and deeper center to the self relocated in the life of Jesus, or standing in the place where Jesus stands.”
As I read Williams words I was reminded of the story of a young woman named Jean Donovan. In 1977, just two years after graduating from Mary Washington College with a degree in economics and political science, Jean Donovan left a prestigious position with the Arthur Anderson Company in Cleveland to work with homeless children in El Salvador. Three years later, Donovan was raped and murdered along with three nuns by five Salvordoran national guardsman.
Jean Donovan was a devout Catholic laywoman and her tragic death was the direct result of her desire to do mission work, to stand in the place where Jesus stands. Jean was offering hospitality in an inhospitable world and she got killed.
Tonight the light of the world is put to death. May the terrifying truth of the cross be forever before our eyes.
Friday, April 22, 2011 Hebrews 10: 1 – 25
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 18: 1 – 19: 37
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
John 18: 36
Christ is on trial tonight. In the passion according to John which we just heard, Jesus is first betrayed by Judas and arrested and then taken first to Annas, then Caiaphas, both high priests, and finally to the Roman governor Pilate. In between, Peter denies Jesus and in the end, Pilate turns to the crowds to pronounce their verdict upon Jesus. Jesus is arrested, accused, and convicted, even though Pilate can find no case against him. Jesus is tried and found guilty but does nothing to save himself from the death penalty. Jesus makes no attempt to save himself while everyone else in our narrative is desperately trying to save themselves.
When Jesus is brought before Pilate, Pilate asks Jesus what he has done. And Jesus answers: “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” In the kingdom of this world, those who stand accused defend themselves. And Jesus refuses.
On trial tonight is the kingdom of God, a kingdom not of this world, a kingdom characterized not by self defense but by self giving. And in the gospel of John, no one, not even the disciples, are prepared to live in a kingdom that will ask you to give up your life. No one, in other words, wants to be where Christ is tonight.
“All the trial narratives of the Gospels,” writes the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, “come to place one single charge against us: we choose to be somewhere other than where Christ is.” Christ is crucified tonight because his kingdom is not of this world; Christ is crucified because Christ refuses to save himself and in this world, that is foolish.
In this world, all of our instincts lead us to want to protect ourselves, to keep ourselves safe and free from harm. Nations guard their borders and we lock our doors. We do not take kindly to intruders, to anyone who might take something from us. We are careful and cautious in what we give and who we give it to. We are kind and compassionate but we all have our limits, boundaries beyond which we will not go. And for us this all sounds “normal;” to do otherwise would be crazy.
This is the truth that confronts us this awful night. This is the blinding truth about ourselves that confronts us at the cross. Christ did not save himself and each of us, in ways large and small seek to save ourselves. No, we may not greet the stranger at our door with a loaded gun, but consider how we “defend” ourselves when faced with a challenge. We move quickly to “justify” our position; we rationalize our actions to make ourselves less blameworthy; we “do the best we can” and never wonder if that might not be enough. And when life does not turn out the way we expect, when we have done “the best we can do” and our world falls apart, we wonder what went wrong.
What is wrong is a world created to be very good and which is not much of the time. What is a wrong is a world that eludes our control and which can threaten our existence. What is wrong is a world that teaches us to fear for our safety and to protect ourselves against others who might harm us. We live in an inhospitable world and we learn quickly how to survive.
We cannot the change the world in which we live. But we can, in the words of the gospel of John, choose to be “in the world but not of the world.” We can choose to be hospitable in this inhospitable world. We can choose to welcome the stranger and not be suspicious; we can choose to listen to others rather than defend our positions; we can choose not to return evil for evil even, and maybe most especially when, we know we are right. As soon as we begin to believe that we are “right,” that we are the bearers of all truth, we become our own gods.
There are no rewards for living hospitably in an inhospitable world, no feeling “good” because you have done a “good” thing. Indeed, the more hospitable we are, the more the world will take from us.
I am indebted tonight to the reflections of Rowan Williams in his essay Christ on Trial: How the Gospel Unsettles Our Judgement. Williams includes in his essay a chapter on the early martyrs which he calls “God’s Spies: Believers on Trial.” Williams writes: “The power that counts for the martyr is a power that bestows life, not a power that simply commands. God’s will can be done, and the martyr can maintain loyalty to Jesus under the most appalling threats, because something has been imparted (not ordered) – a new depth of truthful living, a new and deeper center to the self relocated in the life of Jesus, or standing in the place where Jesus stands.”
As I read Williams words I was reminded of the story of a young woman named Jean Donovan. In 1977, just two years after graduating from Mary Washington College with a degree in economics and political science, Jean Donovan left a prestigious position with the Arthur Anderson Company in Cleveland to work with homeless children in El Salvador. Three years later, Donovan was raped and murdered along with three nuns by five Salvordoran national guardsman.
Jean Donovan was a devout Catholic laywoman and her tragic death was the direct result of her desire to do mission work, to stand in the place where Jesus stands. Jean was offering hospitality in an inhospitable world and she got killed.
Tonight the light of the world is put to death. May the terrifying truth of the cross be forever before our eyes.
The Easter Vigil
Saturday, April 25, 2011
At the Easter Vigil, Bambi read St. John Chrysostom's Easter sermon preached in the fifth century.
To read the sermon, please click here.
Saturday, April 25, 2011
At the Easter Vigil, Bambi read St. John Chrysostom's Easter sermon preached in the fifth century.
To read the sermon, please click here.
Easter Day: The Sunday of the Resurrection Acts 10: 34 – 43
Sunday, April 24, 2011 Colossians 3: 1 – 4
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 20: 1 – 18
Mary Magdelene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
John 20: 18
Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Alleluia! Today is Easter. The church is full, the bells are pealing, the lilies are magnificent, the choir sounds like a heavenly host of angels and an Easter Egg hunt awaits us. Today is glorious. Alleluia!
I would be less than honest if I did not confess that I wished every Sunday felt like this Sunday. Today we pull out the stops, celebrating with family and friends, with beautiful flowers and magnificent music, the joy of the Resurrection. Every Sunday, of course, we celebrate the Resurrection but not like this! Today is definitely different. Today looks and feels like a celebration.
In the New Testament Jesus often used the image of a great celebration to image what life looks like in the kingdom of God. “The kingdom of God may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son,” write Matthew and Mark. In Luke we have the wonderful story of the return of the prodigal son and the great homecoming party his father threw for him. And in all three synoptic gospels we have the story of the feeding of thousands, a great banquet, more than enough food for everyone starting with only a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread.
The kingdom of God in the New Testament is neither dreary nor dull but alive with abundance, with good food and fine wine, a banquet hall with room for everyone not just the great and powerful, a place where the lame are dancing, the blind are seeing, and the old men are dreaming dreams. The kingdom of God for Jesus was a grand celebration and no one in their right mind would want to miss it.
Jesus did not live and clearly did not die because Jesus thought the Kingdom of God was a place of doom and gloom or only a far off possibility. Jesus preached with an urgency, saying the kingdom of God has come among you. Jesus lived and died because Jesus knew and believed that the Kingdom of God was a great and glorious experience of God’s outrageous love that we could know now. The kingdom of God was and is, outrageously wonderful and Jesus knew that in a way the church has often forgotten.
Sadly, the church has sometimes forgotten these celebratory images of the kingdom of God. Rather than a great feast to which all are invited, the kingdom of God has from time to time been portrayed as a private dinner party for the morally upright or the politically correct. Jesus’ guest list according to the New Testament excluded no one and fairly regularly included the morally suspect like prostitutes and tax collectors.
And not only did Jesus throw open the doors of the kingdom to everyone, Jesus intended for the party to begin in this life and not after we die and go to heaven.
And what a strange kingdom it is, so strange that Mary cannot believe what she sees this morning in our gospel reading from John. When Mary sees the empty tomb, she assumes someone has stolen Jesus’ body and rushes off to find the disciples. To the angels Mary sees sitting in the tomb, Mary in anguish says: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” And finally, when Mary sees a man she takes to be the gardener, she suspects he is the one who has removed the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Mary cannot believe that Jesus who was crucified and buried is now standing before her, not as a ghostly apparition but a recognizable person, her Lord who calls her by name. And with the words: “I have seen the Lord,” Mary becomes the first witness to the resurrection.
But not the last.
For us, perhaps, in the twenty-first century, the greatest power of that sentence – “I have seen the Lord” - is its capacity to confound us with its incredulity. We know people do not rise from the dead. Mary must have been deluded. Mary must have been overwhelmed with grief, following the death of the man who had loved her and given, in her grief, to visions not grounded in reality.
And yet, Mary encounters the empty tomb in the firm and only plausible conviction that Jesus’ body has been stolen. Mary knew as well as we all do that people do not rise from the dead. What happened that first Easter Day to change her mind?
For that matter, what happened to all of those first disciples who had given up everything to follow Jesus and then watched as he was crucified? What we know is that following the crucifixion, those who had followed Jesus during his brief ministry should have quietly disappeared from the scene. Their leader had been executed as a criminal by Rome and his known associates would certainly have been suspect. Yet, against all reason, those first disciples did not go away; rather, their numbers grew, enduring persecution and hardship because they said and all the gospels bear witness, that God had raised Jesus from the dead. What we know is that following the crucifixion, the church was born.
Now much ink has been spilled in trying to explain what happened on that first Easter day. The gospels tell us Jesus was transformed, made new with a body that ate and drank and passed through doors. Science has no way to explain this. And we are left scratching our heads.
Scratching our heads and wondering what a “new” creation like that of the Resurrected Christ might look like. The New Testament, particularly the book of Revelation, suggests that a “new” creation would be something like what we already know, but without death, without decay, without pain and suffering. If that would not be a cause for celebration I do not know what would be!
Saint Paul, writing some twenty years after the crucifixion and resurrection, would describe the church as “the body of Christ.” For Saint Paul, Christ is a real presence in our midst and our fellowship one with another is not rooted in our blood lines or our feelings about one another but rather in the presence of the living Christ in our midst. We, the church, are to be a sign of the resurrection, a “new creation,” a people who know that Christ is risen and that Christ lives. We, the body of the risen Christ, have every reason to dance in the aisles, even if, as Episcopalians, we prefer our celebrations to be a bit more sedate and our “rejoicing” to be done in good order.
And our joy is meant to spill out of those front doors and into the world, like rain on a parched field, bringing forth fruit, bearing witness to this “new creation” in the midst of the old. We are to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit the prisoner and relieve the sick and comfort the dying and give hope to the despairing because in the Kingdom of God, no one weeps, no one mourns, and no one goes hungry.
For sure, the Easter lilies will be a bit faded next Sunday and the choir probably will not be doing anything special. We will not be having an Easter egg hunt next Sunday. Next Sunday will not look and feel like today. But next Sunday, like this Sunday, will be a celebration, the celebration that in Christ, God’s kingdom has come. We have good news to share and much work to do. Remember the joy of this day and all those in this world of sorrows, who hunger to know, for just a moment, joy.
Enjoy this day and give thanks. The Lord is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Sunday, April 24, 2011 Colossians 3: 1 – 4
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 20: 1 – 18
Mary Magdelene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
John 20: 18
Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Alleluia! Today is Easter. The church is full, the bells are pealing, the lilies are magnificent, the choir sounds like a heavenly host of angels and an Easter Egg hunt awaits us. Today is glorious. Alleluia!
I would be less than honest if I did not confess that I wished every Sunday felt like this Sunday. Today we pull out the stops, celebrating with family and friends, with beautiful flowers and magnificent music, the joy of the Resurrection. Every Sunday, of course, we celebrate the Resurrection but not like this! Today is definitely different. Today looks and feels like a celebration.
In the New Testament Jesus often used the image of a great celebration to image what life looks like in the kingdom of God. “The kingdom of God may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son,” write Matthew and Mark. In Luke we have the wonderful story of the return of the prodigal son and the great homecoming party his father threw for him. And in all three synoptic gospels we have the story of the feeding of thousands, a great banquet, more than enough food for everyone starting with only a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread.
The kingdom of God in the New Testament is neither dreary nor dull but alive with abundance, with good food and fine wine, a banquet hall with room for everyone not just the great and powerful, a place where the lame are dancing, the blind are seeing, and the old men are dreaming dreams. The kingdom of God for Jesus was a grand celebration and no one in their right mind would want to miss it.
Jesus did not live and clearly did not die because Jesus thought the Kingdom of God was a place of doom and gloom or only a far off possibility. Jesus preached with an urgency, saying the kingdom of God has come among you. Jesus lived and died because Jesus knew and believed that the Kingdom of God was a great and glorious experience of God’s outrageous love that we could know now. The kingdom of God was and is, outrageously wonderful and Jesus knew that in a way the church has often forgotten.
Sadly, the church has sometimes forgotten these celebratory images of the kingdom of God. Rather than a great feast to which all are invited, the kingdom of God has from time to time been portrayed as a private dinner party for the morally upright or the politically correct. Jesus’ guest list according to the New Testament excluded no one and fairly regularly included the morally suspect like prostitutes and tax collectors.
And not only did Jesus throw open the doors of the kingdom to everyone, Jesus intended for the party to begin in this life and not after we die and go to heaven.
And what a strange kingdom it is, so strange that Mary cannot believe what she sees this morning in our gospel reading from John. When Mary sees the empty tomb, she assumes someone has stolen Jesus’ body and rushes off to find the disciples. To the angels Mary sees sitting in the tomb, Mary in anguish says: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” And finally, when Mary sees a man she takes to be the gardener, she suspects he is the one who has removed the body: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Mary cannot believe that Jesus who was crucified and buried is now standing before her, not as a ghostly apparition but a recognizable person, her Lord who calls her by name. And with the words: “I have seen the Lord,” Mary becomes the first witness to the resurrection.
But not the last.
For us, perhaps, in the twenty-first century, the greatest power of that sentence – “I have seen the Lord” - is its capacity to confound us with its incredulity. We know people do not rise from the dead. Mary must have been deluded. Mary must have been overwhelmed with grief, following the death of the man who had loved her and given, in her grief, to visions not grounded in reality.
And yet, Mary encounters the empty tomb in the firm and only plausible conviction that Jesus’ body has been stolen. Mary knew as well as we all do that people do not rise from the dead. What happened that first Easter Day to change her mind?
For that matter, what happened to all of those first disciples who had given up everything to follow Jesus and then watched as he was crucified? What we know is that following the crucifixion, those who had followed Jesus during his brief ministry should have quietly disappeared from the scene. Their leader had been executed as a criminal by Rome and his known associates would certainly have been suspect. Yet, against all reason, those first disciples did not go away; rather, their numbers grew, enduring persecution and hardship because they said and all the gospels bear witness, that God had raised Jesus from the dead. What we know is that following the crucifixion, the church was born.
Now much ink has been spilled in trying to explain what happened on that first Easter day. The gospels tell us Jesus was transformed, made new with a body that ate and drank and passed through doors. Science has no way to explain this. And we are left scratching our heads.
Scratching our heads and wondering what a “new” creation like that of the Resurrected Christ might look like. The New Testament, particularly the book of Revelation, suggests that a “new” creation would be something like what we already know, but without death, without decay, without pain and suffering. If that would not be a cause for celebration I do not know what would be!
Saint Paul, writing some twenty years after the crucifixion and resurrection, would describe the church as “the body of Christ.” For Saint Paul, Christ is a real presence in our midst and our fellowship one with another is not rooted in our blood lines or our feelings about one another but rather in the presence of the living Christ in our midst. We, the church, are to be a sign of the resurrection, a “new creation,” a people who know that Christ is risen and that Christ lives. We, the body of the risen Christ, have every reason to dance in the aisles, even if, as Episcopalians, we prefer our celebrations to be a bit more sedate and our “rejoicing” to be done in good order.
And our joy is meant to spill out of those front doors and into the world, like rain on a parched field, bringing forth fruit, bearing witness to this “new creation” in the midst of the old. We are to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit the prisoner and relieve the sick and comfort the dying and give hope to the despairing because in the Kingdom of God, no one weeps, no one mourns, and no one goes hungry.
For sure, the Easter lilies will be a bit faded next Sunday and the choir probably will not be doing anything special. We will not be having an Easter egg hunt next Sunday. Next Sunday will not look and feel like today. But next Sunday, like this Sunday, will be a celebration, the celebration that in Christ, God’s kingdom has come. We have good news to share and much work to do. Remember the joy of this day and all those in this world of sorrows, who hunger to know, for just a moment, joy.
Enjoy this day and give thanks. The Lord is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!
