Category Archives: sermons

I will not leave you orphaned: A homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, 2020

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May God take our minds and think through them. 
May God take our lips and speak through them. 
May God take our hands and work through them. 
May God take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

 

“We are in unprecedented times.” How often have you heard or read that or a similar phrase over the last two months? We are living through something none of us could have imagined a year ago, an economic collapse deeper than the Great Depression, a disease that is devastating in its effects, with no cure or vaccination. For us as Christians, we are not able to worship together, to celebrate or receive the Eucharist.

But I’m a historian, a historian of Christianity, and when someone says something like “we are living in unprecedented times” I want to examine that. Indeed, many have reached back to the past in search of parallels to the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, or to the Black Plague of the 14th century. Certainly as we think about the future of Christianity, the future of the church, the future of the Diocese of Milwaukee, we might think about how Christians have responded to techtonic cultural shifts like the fall of the Roman empire in the West, or the Protestant Reformation. We sense that the things have shifted dramatically, perhaps even permanently, and the roadmap into the future isn’t clear at all.

As I’ve thought about our situation in these months of COVID-19, I find myself returning to the story of Japan’s hidden Christians. You may be familiar with part of it. During the sixteenth century, as Spanish and Portuguese explorers sailed across the globe, Christian missionaries sailed with them and followed in their paths. Jesuit missionaries like St. Francis Xavier who first went to the Portuguese colony of Goa in India, then to the Philippines and Japan. He died there while preparing for a trip to China. In Japan, Jesuit and Franciscan priests converted thousands before Christianity was outlawed around the end of the sixteenth century. The story of the martyrdom of some of those priests is powerfully told in Japanese author Shusaku Endo’s Silence, which Martin Scorsesemade into a film a few years ago. If you know the story, that’s probably where it ends.

But the story didn’t end there for Japanese Christians. The faithful went underground. They maintained their faith in secret for the next 250 years. Over the centuries of isolation, they developed and adapted Christian rituals to their situation. With no priests, no Eucharist, they continued to practice their faith as best they could. After Japan was opened by Western traders in the 19th century, and Christian missionaries returned, Catholic priests were shocked when native Christians came out of hiding; there were perhaps as many as 30,000. Their faith, their persistence against great odds and at great risk to their lives, remains a powerful witness to us.

As I think about our situation, all of the fear and uncertainty, the challenges that face us, and as I think about all of the challenges faced by Christians seeking to be faithful to God over the last two thousand years, the words of today’s gospel reading provide comfort, encouragement, and admonition. We are again, still, reading from the lengthy farewell discourse in John’s gospel, still at the Last Supper with the disciples and Jesus. Jesus is preparing his beloved friends for his departure—for his crucifixion and resurrection.

“I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever.” Jesus and the gospel writer are talking about the Holy Spirit here. They use a word here that is unique to this gospel and significantly deepens our understanding of the Holy Spirit—the word in its Anglicized form is “Paraclete,” literally the one who comes alongside us—and advocate in the sense of the one who pleads our case, takes our side, is perhaps the best translation possible. There are other English words that have been used: Comforter, Encourager.

When we think of “advocate” we are apt to think of a court of law, the advocate who pleads our case before a judge. And so when we hear the word used hear, we might think that the Spirit is the Advocate on our behalf before God. There’s no doubt some truth in this—the Holy Spirit as the one who pleads on our behalf to God when we have fallen short, when we have failed to love Christ and keep his commandments as the first verse in our reading tells us.

But there are other ways to think of the Spirit as Advocate. Sometimes, the Spirit comes alongside us and pleads God’s case to us, reminding us who we are as disciples of Jesus, beloved by God and by Jesus, as followers of Jesus called to love him, each other, and the world. It’s easy when there are so many other messages being sent in our world, when the language of fear and despair and hate dominates our world and burrows into our minds, to lose hope and to lose sight of the one who has called us into new life and relationship, the one who has called us to love. Especially now, the Spirit, the Advocate may strengthen us and guide us on the perilous journey that lies ahead.

We can be sure that comes what may, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will be with us, guiding us, leading us, comforting us. We needn’t lose heart, or lose our way. We may wish we could go back, we may long for the past, but the Advocate is leading us forward into the future.

There’s another chapter to the story of Japan’s Hidden Christians. When the Christian missionaries came in the 1850s most of the underground Christians came out and embraced the opportunity to worship freely, to receive the sacraments, to learn about the faith they and their ancestors had sought to follow without leadership for 250 years. But some of those indigenous Christians, as they encountered this new and strange Catholic Christianity, became afraid and went back to their villages and homes, turned their backs on the foreigners’ faith and church and instead continued to follow the traditions and rituals that had developed. Fear conquered them; they preferred a familiar past to a new and different future. I encountered this story via a documentary by Chrystal Whelan: Otaiua: Japan’s Hidden Christians.

We are living in the midst of a crisis and we know that there is no map for the journey that lies ahead. Nonetheless we are not alone. The Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide is walking with us, leading us into the future, assuring us of God’s presence and the love of Christ. Thanks be to God.

 

The Ambiguity of Resurrection: A Homily for Evening Prayer on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2020

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The gospel reading for the Daily Office on the Fifth Sunday of Easter is Luke 4:14-30.

Even as we are settling into this new uncomfortable routine, I find that I am learning and discovering new things. As much as I miss gathered worship with hymns and Eucharist, I am also discovering the spiritual power of gathering online for the Daily Office, whether it is our Monday-through Friday of Morning Prayer at 9:00 am, or our offering of Evening Prayer Rite I on Sundays. Coming together as we do on Sunday evenings has come to be one of the highlights of my week, and certainly of my day, as it brings together various things and offers an opportunity to ask God’s blessings on what has passed and what will come.

One of the suprises for me in all this is my encounter with the gospel readings for the Sunday daily office. They are, especially in this season of Easter, a familiar yet disorienting set of texts. Familiar, because we encounter many of them in the Sunday morning Eucharistic lectionary. Disorienting because I read them differently in this context because they are taken out of the roughly sequential order of the 3-year lectionary and often, as in the case both today and last Sunday, they include additional verses that provide additional context and possible focus for reflection.

Take the case of today’s gospel. A portion of this reading, verses 14-21 are read on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany in year B, the year we read the Gospel of Luke. In that context, it’s clearly meant to symbolize Jesus’ proclamation of the coming of God’s reign, a symbol of the season of the Epiphany, when we explore all the ways God comes to us.

But today is the 5th Sunday after Easter and the significance of Jesus’ first sermon seems less important than other themes that emerge from reading this text in the context of our celebration of Christ’s resurrection, not to mention our immediate context, as well.

The drama and power of that sermon, Jesus’ reading those verses from Isaiah, sitting down, and saying, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your midst.” The promise of fulfillment, the promise of the coming of God’s reign continues to beckon us. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ we see the first fruits of the realization of that promise—the power of God’s reign breaking in upon the world, conquering humanity’s greatest fear: death and the grave.

To end the reading with verse 21, Jesus saying, “Today this scripture is being fulfilled in your midst” is to end it on an unambiguously positive, powerful note. We are left with no questions, no uncertainty. But the story doesn’t end there it continues with confrontation, doubt, opposition, and an attempt to kill Jesus. He escapes by passing through their midst. We might imagine a fog descending on the crowd to disorient them and to hide him from them.

So today’s reading ends on a much more ominous note than the reading as it appears in the Eucharistic lectionary. It’s a puzzling story when it’s looked at as a whole and leaves us wondering. In the context of the gospel, it seems to be foreshadowing the conflict that will come between Jesus and the religious authorities of first-century Judaism, and Rome, as well, I suppose. In the context of Eastertide, it reminds us not of the victory of Christ’s resurrection, but of its ambiguity. It reminds us of all those stories that mention the disciples’ fear when they encountered the Risen Christ; all of the stories that emphasize the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus until they heard his voice; all those stories of doubt, and questioning, and wonder.

We tend to emphasize the power of resurrection, the story of God’s victory over death and vindication of Jesus Christ against the forces of evil and darkness. But the truth is more complex than that. “The strife is o’er the battle won” but the war is not over. Evil is not finally vanquished. We live in a world where Christ’s victory over evil and death has only begun, in which the forces of evil continue to do battle.

As we reflect on our lives today and on the struggles going on throughout our community, nation, and world, it’s clear that good has not yet triumphed over evil. The battle still rages. Whether it is in the senseless murder of a young black man jogging down a Georgia road, or the apparent willingness of so many to sacrifice the lives of the weak and vulnerable for their own “freedom;” whether it’s the abandonment by persons in our government of the rule of law and our constitutional norms, it’s clear that the battle between good and evil continues, that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ has not finally vanquished Satan and the forces of evil.

The news is dire. Not just the apparent tolerance of the deaths of tens of thousands, or the hate that divides communities and our nation; not just the reality being laid bare of the deep inequities in our society as unemployment skyrockets and people risk their lives and the lives of their loved ones to work jobs with low pay. The brokenness of our society is on display for all to see.

Yet here we gather, if only virtually, in the small number of those of us who choose to take these few moments from our day to pray and read and listen. Even this may be as much an occasion for despair as for hope and faith as we wonder what the future holds for our gathering and our congregation.

In all of this fear, and doubt, and despair, we wonder. Yet we are not alone. Jesus did proclaim the coming of God’s reign. Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.

We are not alone, either in our homes or in this virtual gathering. As the letter to the Hebrews we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who give us strength and hope; a great cloud of witnesses whose faith inspires our own, and we follow Jesus Christ, the great pioneer and perfecter of our faith. May we take heart and trust that God is with us, that through God’s power and justice, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the beginning of something completely new; that in his resurrection, we can glimpse a future where Christ reigns over all and all suffering and death are brought to an end. Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

Come away to a deserted place: A Homily for Evening Prayer on the 4th Sunday of Easter, 2020

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The Gospel reading is Mark 6:30-44

“Come away to a deserted place and rest a while.”

There are sayings of Jesus, gospel stories, passages of scripture that I am experiencing very differently in the midst of pandemic than I have ever experienced them before. The realities of our situation, the lengthy isolation, my struggle to encounter Christ in the absence of the Sacrament and communal worship, the tenuous connections we make through our disembodied conversations on the web or phone calls, have caused me to read scripture with new eyes.

So this invitation of Jesus: “Come away to a deserted place and rest a while”—I’ve always heard it as an offer to enter into silence and distance myself from others, to go on spiritual retreat. Such retreats have been restorative; they’ve given me spiritual strength and sustenance to re-enter the world and my vocation with new energy and insight.

But now, such an invitation causes me to recoil, laugh even. The last thing I want is to go to a deserted place. What I crave, what I desperately long for are crowds—the joyous gathering of friends, a full table at a favorite restaurant, a packed worship service. I want the stimulus of a room full of loud conversations, a crowded dance floor.

As we yearn for community, for gathering, for our friends and loved ones, Jesus’ invitation to “come away to a deserted place and rest a while” seems less like an opportunity to flourish and gain strength and more like a punishment. But it’s worth remembering that Jesus wasn’t speaking to us but in this instance to the “apostles”—it’s one of the few times the word is used in the Gospel of Mark. This invitation comes after he has sent them, the twelve out, into mission, into the towns and villages of Galilee. His sending of them was an extension of his own ministry and mission, to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom, to heal the sick and to cast out demons.

Now, they are back and it’s likely they need the rest.

But they don’t get any downtime. By the time they arrive at the deserted place, crowds have gathered. Jesus sees them and has compassion on them for they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he taught them many things. Still, it’s a deserted place and as evening comes the disciples worry about providing for the crowd. Then follows the feeding of the five thousand. All ate and were filled from the five loaves and two fishes.

There’s a powerful message in all of this. First, Jesus sees the need of the apostles to rest after their hard work and travels. He encourages them to do just that. But as they are about to rest, they encounter a crowd that has gathered to see and listen to Jesus. Again, Jesus sees the need. Our translation says he “has compassion on them” but the Greek is much more visceral—something like “he felt it in his guts.” He responds to their need by teaching them, filling their souls with the good news.

Today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Each year on this 4th Sunday after Easter, the gospel reading comes from John 10—Jesus’ discourse on the Good Shepherd. Each year we say or chant Psalm 23 “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” on this day. In today’s daily office gospel reading, we have Jesus using the image of a shepherdless flock to describe the crowd that gathered around him. They are looking for spiritual sustenance, hope, meaning in life. He ends up providing for both their spiritual and material needs.

Even as Jesus attends to the material needs of his listeners, he is also attending to their spiritual needs and pointing to the intimate, may I say, sacramental, connection between the two. The language Mark uses to describe Jesus’ actions: “Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples…

Taking, blessing, breaking, giving…

That’s the language of the Eucharist, the language of the last supper. The meal, the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand draws our attention not just to this meal in this deserted place. It also directs our attention to the supper of the Lord, when we gather at the altar and share in Christ’s body and blood. Indeed, as was implied in Jesus’ encounter with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, when Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of the bread, when we gather at table, every meal is potentially a Eucharist, reminding us of Christ’s presence in our world and in our lives. When we share bread and wine with each other, no matter how ordinary or how many times we do it, we invite Christ’s presence among us. When we share our bread with those who have none, when we open our tables and our homes to the homeless, when we pause before we it, to bless our food we invite Christ’s sacramental presence among us.

We are living in a time of Eucharistic fast, when the bread and wine that nourishes our souls, when the gathered body of Christ that unites us is a distant memory and a mourned absence. In a time like this, to sit at table alone, or with our family is not just a reminder of the loss we are experiencing but it is also an invitation to welcome Christ’s presence, to be fed spiritually by him. We may find spiritual solace and strength in remembering and re-enacting Christ’s actions in the feeding of the five thousand. To lift up our eyes to heaven, to take the bread, bless and break it, and to give it to ourselves and our loved ones, may bring us into closer communion with our fellow Christians throughout the world, and with Christ himself.

In our deserted places being sheep without a shepherd, we are not alone. The love of Christ binds us together; Christ is with us in our lives and at our tables.

 

 

They knew their Lord: A Homily for Easter Evening, 2020

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The gospel reading is Luke 24:13-35

Could you imagine an Easter as strange as the one we’re experiencing this year? Empty churches, live-streamed worship, virtual choirs. All of the things we associate with this day—new clothes, Easter lilies, brass accompaniment, packed churches—all of those things seem remote memories, more the stuff of fantasy than of the reality we are experiencing. And those memories can be gut-wrenching. As I was looking through photos of Easter at Grace from over the last few years, I found myself grieving that we couldn’t be together as a congregation, that our normal services, the Great Vigil on Saturday night, the contagious joy and happiness of gathering on Easter Day, our voices joined in singing the great familiar hymns of the day, would not take place and that we would struggle to find other ways of observing the day—by joining live-streamed worship from the diocese, or the National Cathedral, or, well, any number of other places. But I’ll be honest with you, even those live-streamed services seemed less joyful and more a reminder of what we’re missing this year, than they are a celebration of Christ’s resurrection.

It’s fascinating that we are gathering virtually this evening for Evening Prayer, doing something I doubt any of us could have imagined doing two months ago, or let’s be honest, something that would be unimaginable under ordinary circumstances. It’s our custom to worship on Sunday morning, and on Easter, after that worship to celebrate with family and friends, and have no thoughts to gather for prayer or worship later in the day.

Maybe, just maybe, our gathering like this invites us to see deeper connections between our celebration of Easter this year and the first Easter. Many have observed that the first Easter wasn’t accompanied with brass choirs and large crowds, and joyous celebration. Easter began with women coming to the tomb, in fear and grief, to do what women did—care for the bodies of their dead loved ones.

 

That first Easter ended in much the same way. In John, we’re told that the disciples were gathered behind locked doors, because of fear. In the story we heard from Luke’s gospel, we hear of two disciples returning to Emmaus from Jerusalem at the end of the day. They were full of grief at Jesus’ death and disappointment that whatever they had hoped would occur when Jesus entered Jerusalem ended instead with Jesus’ death.

And here we are. Perhaps not behind locked doors but in lockdown. We are waiting, and wondering, and worried. Think of those two disciples on their way home, trying to make sense of what they had experienced in the past few days, and longer over the months that they had accompanied Jesus. They hadn’t heard the news of the empty tomb and the message that Christ was raised. So they were living in the same fear and uncertainty they had been living in since Jesus’ betrayal and arrest. They might have talking to each other about the things Jesus had done and said. They might have expressed how excited and hopeful they had been. Now, they were probably wondering how to pick up their lives after all that, whether they could return to normalcy, what normalcy even was.

As they made their journey at the end of that day, at the end of that eventful week, they came across a stranger who knew nothing of what they had been through, or what had happened. And so they told him the story, and in response he told them where they really had been and where the history of the world was going.

Kind wayfarers that they were, they invited the stranger to come to their home, to eat with them, relax, perhaps spend the night before continuing his journey. Suddenly as bread was blessed and broken, their eyes were opened and they saw their Lord.

Suddenly, the world changed.

Suddenly grief was joy, sadness hope.

In the breaking of the bread, they encountered the Risen Christ

Suddenly, he was gone, and they were going—back to where they had been. Back to Jerusalem, back to the other disciples, to tell them what had happened to them. In their telling, they were told, of the empty tomb, of Peter’s encounter with Christ, of the promise of faith, and victory over death.

The extravagance and noise of our Easter celebrations often distract us from seeing the silence and uncertainty of resurrection, of simple, profoundly personal encounters between disciples like Mary Magdalene or the two unnamed ones on the road to Emmaus. Disciples who weren’t quite sure what or who they were seeing’ disciples who came to know when they were named by Jesus, who called Mary by her name, and in that moment she knew her Lord.

Or disciples, who in the casual and common blessing and breaking of bread, suddenly knew their Lord who at table three days earlier had blessed, broken, and gave bread, saying, “This do in remembrance of me.”

This is a quiet, confusing, domestic Easter, shared with close friends and family around tables, or virtually via modern technology. But this Easter, our Lord comes to us as he came to Mary at the tomb and to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, intimately, lovingly, touching our lives and our hearts, giving us hope, strengthening our faith. When we see him, recognize him, open ourselves to that encounter with him, our lives change, and our world changes.

 

Christ comes to each of us, calling us by name, offering us sustenance, filling us with hope. The risen Christ has conquered death. His love breaks through all lockdowns and locked doors, binds up our wounds and heals our bodies and souls. May the power and love of the Risen Christ bring hope and healing to us and to the world.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Christ’s suffering and ours: A Sermon for Good Friday, 2020

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One of my rituals since I’ve come to Grace is to spend most of the morning on Good Friday in the empty nave of Grace Church. On this day, it is completely devoid of decoration. On Maundy Thursday, we strip the altar and the chancel bare—removing all of the paraments, candles, prayer books and hymnals. The Christus Rex that hangs from arch in the chancel is veiled in black. It’s a time for me to reflect on the day, to prepare for the drama and power of the Good Friday liturgy, to pray for myself, for our congregation and city, and for the world. It’s a time of silence, when I leave behind all of the tasks related to Holy Week worship for a few hours, set aside all of the stress and anxiety, and focus on the cross, on Christ’s great gift of love.

Of course, this year is different. The church is empty as it always is on Good Friday morning, but it has been empty for over a month, and it will remain empty for some time to come. Our Good Friday liturgy is live-streamed from my home, unaccompanied by music.

Our observances of Holy Week this year are marked not by the usual rituals and gatherings, marked not by the great hymns of the Christian tradition. Instead, our worship takes place in atmosphere of fear, anxiety, and suffering. The loneliness of our isolation is deepened when we hear the voices of friends and loved ones over the phone or see them via zoom or facetime. We are made aware daily of the suffering in the world caused by COVID-19, and all the ways in which the virus exposes the inequities and dysfunction of our society and world.

In the midst of all of this, our anxiety and fear, our loneliness and isolation, we gather virtually to remember the events of this day that occurred almost two thousand years ago. We pause in the midst of our own struggles, pain, and helplessness to remember the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.

His crucifixion, a bloody, horrific death, often called “execution by torture” because the way that crucifixion caused death-by asphyxiation, often a process that could take days, was reserved by Romans for the most notorious of criminals, revolutionaries, rebellious slaves, and the like. It was public, meant as a warning to passers-by of the fate that awaited them if they challenged Rome’s power.

It’s a death that’s alien to us, even if we are familiar with its images. The sort of suffering it causes is known to us only through artistic images or Hollywood movies.

In spite of that, the crucifixion has often been interpreted as connecting Christ’s sufferings with our own, or with the suffering of humanity. One of the most powerful and most famous artistic representations of the crucifixion is that of the 16th century painter Matthias Gruenewald, whose Isenheim altarpiece depicts Christ’s suffering in visual detail, his body riddled with sores, and bleeding. Painted for a hospital for victims of the plague, the sores on Christ’s body looked very much like the sores a plague victim might have, and so, by the patients could find solace and comfort from the suffering that Christ shared with them.

Today, this Good Friday, perhaps that is the only message that we need to hear. Perhaps that is the message of the cross, of Jesus’ suffering and death. That in the cross, we see Christ suffering, but that he is suffering not for himself alone but for us. In the cross, we see Christ suffering with us.

Whatever our pain, whether it is the loss of our jobs, worry about the immediate or more distant future. Whether it is our own illness, the illness or suffering of a friend or loved one, whom we cannot support or accompany right now; whether it’s the death of a loved one, or a friend’s grief at the death of their loved one. Whatever it may be, whatever suffering we might be experiencing right now, Jesus is here with us, suffering with us, taking our pain on as his own.

We are in a dark and difficult place right now, but Jesus is here with us. In the cross, he takes on our suffering; he has taken on the world’s suffering. His great love will carry us through. Even in the death and darkness of Good Friday, and in the silence of the tomb that marks Holy Saturday, Jesus’ love bears our pain and heals our suffering souls. May Jesus’ love break through our isolation, our fear, our pain, fill our hearts, and transform our lives.

 

 

He loved them to the end: A Homily for Maundy Thursday, 2020

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It’s all so strange and disorienting, isn’t it? There’s a certain familiarity in the fact that most of us are confined to our homes or apartments, places we’ve lived for some time. We’re surrounded by familiar things, the various items that we’ve accumulated over our lifetimes, photos, mementos, and the like. These are all things that tell us who we are and where we’ve been. They help to orient us in the world. The only strange thing is that we are around them all of the time now, or most of the time. And after several weeks of “shelter at home” even the unfamiliar has become familiar. We’ve grown accustomed to working or worshiping on-line. Many of us have overcome our fear of zoom or facebook live, and we are finding new ways to connect with each other.

Still, it doesn’t take much to remind us how strange this all is. Venturing outside, seeing people wearing masks, or noticing the lack of traffic at should be rush hour. The parking lots of stores are empty. I haven’t been inside a store in over 3 weeks. We’re making do with curbside pickup, or deliveries, or mail order.

For me, there’s another level of disorientation, as the grounding I get for my faith by worshiping through Holy Week is missing. I’m floundering a bit, spiritually, religiously. I miss the familiar rituals of Sunday and midweek Eucharist, and now I am experiencing a Holy Week far-removed from the ritual drama of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter.

But Holy Week it is even in these strange circumstances. Tonight is Maundy Thursday when we the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the Eucharist. We remember, even though we cannot celebrate it ourselves, we cannot eat the bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood, and proclaim his death until he returns.

Similarly, as our gospel reading indicates, we remember Jesus’ great act of love and service when he got up from the table, wrapped a towel around himself, and washed his disciples’ feet. When everything is about social distancing, our ordinary squeamishness at the intimacy and strangeness of footwashing becomes even more unlikely, more offensive as we consider the implications of touching a stranger in that way.

Still here we are, gathered via the miracles of technology, to remember and worship on this Maundy Thursday. Perhaps it’s enough for us to think about what both of these acts symbolize and enact—Christ’s love for us and for the world.

This is such a poignant and powerful story, introduced with language that is at once eloquent and pregnant with meaning. “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

            Think about it. Jesus knew what was going to happen—that he would be betrayed, arrested, crucified. Knowing where he had come from and where he was going. With that knowledge as background, the gospel writer continues, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

Knowing what he knew, loving his own to the end, what did Jesus choose to do? He got up from the table, wrapped a towel around himself, and washed his disciples’ feet.

Think of those feet, dusty, sweaty, from all those miles they walked. Think of all they had been through as his disciples followed and listened to him. Think of Jesus, touching, washing his disciples’ feet, as a few days earlier, Mary of Bethany had anointed Jesus’ feet with costly nard and wiped them with her hair.

It’s something with which we are uncomfortable, even if we admit the potential power of the act; getting on our knees, washing the feet of a friend or a stranger. And for us, now, we can hardly imagine doing such a thing, with social distancing, instructions to wash our hands for twenty seconds, and masks covering our faces when we go outside.

But then, after it’s over; after Judas leaves the gathering of friends to betray Jesus, Jesus has more to say. A new commandment to love one another as Jesus loved his disciples, to love one another as Jesus loves us.

In footwashing, in this intimate, offensive act, we see Christ’s love for us. In the foot washing, an act that transgresses so many boundaries, we see Christ’s love for us. We know that Jesus loves us. We see that love here, and on the cross, drawing us to him, drawing the world to him.

We see that love here, as Jesus stoops down, kneels down to act out that love. And as he does that, he provides us an example of how we are to love, by reaching out to others, by transgressing boundaries. He calls us to kneel before each other, and before the stranger, to wash their feet, to care for them, and love them.

Even now, as we rely on Christ’s love for us, as we yearn for Christ’s love across the chasm of isolation and social distancing, he calls us to reach out in love to others, he challenges us to love our neighbors, and strangers, the homeless and the hungry. As we receive the gift of Christ’s love, may we also offer that gift, our own love, to the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus weeps for Jerusalem and for: A Homily for Evening Prayer on Palm Sunday

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The Gospel is Luke 19:41-48.

 

So many of us are weeping right now. We weep for lost jobs and income, for relationships that are strained because of social distancing and isolation. We weep for missing the usual rhythms of the spring—March Madness, high school and college seniors going through the rituals that lead to graduation. We weep for a world we sense we may have lost, for those who are suffering and have died. We weep because we cannot observe Holy Week in all the familiar and powerful ways and because the joy of Easter will be tempered by empty churches, no gatherings of friends and family.

Our gospel reading, from the gospel of Luke, is one of those vignettes from the last week of Jesus’ life that we rarely notice, or might not even know. It’s a story told only by Luke and it’s place immediately after the Triumphal Entry—or perhaps “Entry” is not the right word for it. Because in Luke’s telling, the scene we recall on Palm Sunday takes place outside the city, on the path down from the Mt of Olives. It’s after that that Jesus stops, looks over the city and begins to weep.

Jesus weeps for its coming destruction. We can imagine Luke, writing perhaps a generation after Jerusalem’s destruction, still mourning the temple’s destruction and the exile of many of the city’s inhabitants, we can imagine Luke wishing there had been some way to avoid that violence and tragedy, and having Jesus weep in advance for all of the carnage and loss.

We saw Jesus weeping in last week’s gospel as well—the story of the raising of Lazarus. Jesus wept at the death of his friend and as he experienced his own deep grief and the deep grief of Mary and Martha, Lazarus’ sisters. Perhaps he was also weeping for what he might have done and didn’t. Had he come earlier, as Martha reminded him, Lazarus would likely not have died.

Holy Week is a powerful, emotionally wracking week in the lives of Christians who follow the daily rituals. There’s the high of the Palm Sunday procession followed immediately and abruptly, with the reading of the Passion Narrative. We enter into Jesus’ final days. We accompany him to the temple as he teaches and debates with other religious leaders. And finally we come to Maundy Thursday—the Last Supper, his betrayal, and arrest, his trial and crucifixion, his death and burial.

Our church’s rituals help us enter into these events. We aren’t simply imitating them or remembering them, through our liturgy, we become participants in the great mystery of our faith, Jesus’ death and resurrection.

But those events and those rituals will take on new, very likely different meaning this year, as we experience them not as a community gathered physically, but very often on our own, as individuals or as families. Perhaps many of us will not even take time to notice them, or to participate as we might in other years.

Perhaps for you, as I am sensing it will be for me, the emotional weight of being separated from the gathered body of Christ will be simply too great for me to attempt any pale imitation of the great liturgies of our church—especially the Great Vigil of Easter.

Like Jesus, and perhaps like many of you, I am weeping this week, weeping for Jerusalem, for the church, for the world. I am weeping for the world we have lost and the great suffering that is taking place. I am weeping because I will not be able to enter into the liturgies of Holy Week in the way I have done in previous years, that I will not be present with other Christians as we wash each others’ feet, remember Christ’s death on Good Friday, and celebrate his resurrection with the Lighting of the New Fire, the exsultet, and everything else that makes the Great Vigil of Easter the highpoint of the liturgical year.

I am weeping, but I am not alone, for Jesus weeps, too. He weeps for all of us, for our church, and for the world. He weeps for the dead and the dying, the lonely and the fearful, and for all those who are putting their lives on the line to save the lives of others.

This is our Holy Week this year, this is the way of the cross we are walking. But even as we walk with heavy hearts and feet trembling with fear, we are walking this way with Jesus—and the cross is not the end of the story, nor is the tomb the final act. Christ is raised from the dead. His victory over death is a victory over all the forces of death and evil that we face. We may be alone, but he is with us, fighting for us, and through his death and resurrection, he has already claimed victory. Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tombs and Resurrection: A Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, 2020

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This is the now the third Sunday that we have gathered virtually instead of physically, and even as we are growing accustomed to life in time of pandemic, the difficulties presented by our isolation, by “safer at home,” the disruptions to our lives, world, and economy are only now becoming real to us. Some of us have lost our jobs. Many of us are trying to juggle childcare, home-schooling, and our own work schedule. We worry about our loved ones and our futures. And the virus itself is coming closer, touching our community now for the first time as we learn of friends, relatives, or acquaintances who have tested positive, are hospitalized, or even have died.

Full of fear, worried about today and tomorrow, wondering whether life will look at all the same on the other side, if we ever make it to the other side of the pandemic, we gather to worship, to listen to words of comfort from scripture, to pray for ourselves and for the world.

We may even remember that it is the fifth Sunday in Lent. If you’re like me, most of the Lenten disciplines you began in February have fallen by the wayside as they seemed like meaningless gestures next to everything we have had to give up-the easy sociability of friends gathering, a restaurant meal, Sunday worship, the Blessed Sacrament.

Yet it is Lent, the 5th Sunday in Lent, and although the Lent of COVID-19 will continue for many weeks, liturgically we are drawing near to Holy Week, near to the cross and the tomb, nearer to Christ’s victory over death in his resurrection

As if a foretaste of the great joy of Easter, deferred though it may be this year, we hear the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And for us in our place, behind closed doors, isolated from the world and from physical connection with our fellow humans, it speaks to us.

The poignancy of Mary and Martha’s fear and grief touches us even as the apparent callousness of Jesus’ response to them offends. They send word to him that their brother, Jesus’ friend, Lazarus, is sick. Instead of changing his plans and going to be with them immediately, Jesus tarries for two days, a long enough delay that Lazarus is dead and buried by the time Jesus and his disciples arrive in Bethany.

Then come the recriminations. We understand Mary’s anger and frustration—Lord, if you had been here he would not have died. But instead of sitting with her in her grief, Jesus turns this moment into an object lesson about his identity. “I am resurrection and I am life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in m will never die.”

Words, words. Sometimes in John’s gospel, even the most beautiful, the most powerful, the most profound words that Jesus says can come to seem less than connected with our lives. He says so many things, so many times he says the same things in slightly different ways, or uses the same words or images again and again. The words may begin to wash over us, or worse, we may simply tune them out because they don’t speak to, or for, us.

After the words, actions. The group goes to the tomb. Suddenly, words matter; suddenly the reality of it all hits home. Jesus tells them to roll the stone away. Martha reminds him that Lazarus has been dead four days; that the stench will be overwhelming. And now we are in the presence, the overwhelming power of death. Even if we’ve never come near a dead body, or opened a tomb, we can imagine what’s going. We’ve seen enough movies, we’ve watched enough TV to know what is happening, what has happened.

Yet the stone is rolled away. And Jesus cries out, “Lazarus, come out!” He comes out, a dead man walking, and Jesus tells them to unbind the graveclothes from him. And we get the punchline. “Many of the Jews believed in him”

A story of miraculous power, of resurrection and life. A story of faith, Mary’s, and Martha’s, and the bystanders who came to faith. A story of love—of two sisters for their brother, and the love of Jesus for his friends. A story of death, and grief, and deep, deep feeling. All those adjectives used of Jesus here: “Jesus greatly disturbed and moved in spirit” Jesus began to weep, and again, repeating that Jesus was “greatly disturbed” All of these powerful emotions given to Jesus the Son of God at a time of the deepest distress of his friends.

Like Lazarus, we are in tombs, tombs of isolation, despair, anxiety, and fear. We don’t know how long this will last. We don’t know whether the pandemic will touch us more deeply and closely. We can’t see beyond the next few days or next few weeks.

But we are not alone. The one who is resurrection and life calls to us, “Lazarus, come out!” He calls to us to come out of our tombs of anxiety and despair. The risen Christ is with us here and now. He has conquered death and gives us life.

I pray that in this time of loneliness and fear, when we are separated from our friends and family, separated from the gathered body of Christ, that we listen for the voice of Jesus. It is a voice that calms our fears and gives us hope. It is a voices that offers us strength and life. And may we look forward to the day when, emerging from the tombs of isolation, we are freed from the bindings that restrict us by the loving hands of our fellow believers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus’ Healing Touch: A Sermon for 4 Lent, 2020

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My sermon from 2017 is here

My sermon from 2014 is here

A blind man sitting by the side of a dusty road. It’s likely something that he did every day, sitting there, presumably begging, although we’re not told that in the text. Born blind, he had struggled with that challenge all his life.

Jesus and his disciples were passing by. We may assume that the blind man wasn’t alone, that there were others congregating with him, as beggars, panhandlers do, in places they hope have lots of foot traffic. And like Jesus, when we see them, we very likely pass by as well.

But the disciples took notice. Not of the man’s suffering or need; their theological curiosity was piqued. Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Were the disciples bored? Were they hoping their question would inspire Jesus to offer a lengthy discourse on the nature of sin, suffering, and divine justice?   Or did this question come from a genuine place of concern on their part? If so, why the blind man? What was about him that drew their attention?

Meanwhile, the blind man is just sitting there by the side of the road, undoubtedly hearing the question and the response. It’s pretty belittling, don’t you think? Unknown passers-by, asking whether your blindness was a result of your or your parents’ sin. They’re not interested in you, not interested in your difficult life. They could care less.

And at first, you’re sitting there, overhearing the callous conversation, and the teacher seems no more interested in you than any of his disciples are but at least he puts the blame for your blindness not on your or your parents’ sin.

“He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

Is that any word of reassurance? But then, and again, you don’t know what’s going on because you’re blind and there’s no one to narrate the action, you feel these hands smearing your eyes with mud.

What’s going on? How can someone invade your personal space like that and mess with your face, your eyes? But he hears this unfamiliar voice telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam, and perhaps only because he wants to get rid of the mud on his face, he obeys. As he does it and as he returns, he is able to see.

Now there’s lots more to this story. It goes on for 41 verses with many characters, plot developments, and debate. If you would like to know my take on this story from previous years, I direct you to my blog, where sermons from past years are posted.

Instead, I want us to focus on the blind man, and on Jesus. We are like that blind man. We are in the middle of a situation none of us could have imagined and for which none of us have prepared. We can’t see into the future; we can’t really even see tomorrow. We are helpless, alone, isolated. We are overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. And we are impotent. We can’t control our environment. I went out for a walk yesterday and while I was vigilant in practicing social distancing, many bikers and joggers on the bike path were not.

And there are those voices, like the disciples, in our heads and in our media, asking questions about the pandemic, seeking to lay blame, on our government, on China, or perhaps even blaming ourselves or God.

In our isolation, in our fear, in our blindness, Jesus comes to us, touches us and gives us sight. He gives us hope, courage, and strength. Jesus is the light of the world. He is our light. Shining in the darkness of these difficult days, Jesus offers us healing and hope. His touch comes to us, breaking the barrier of social distance and isolation to open our eyes and fill our hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God’s love poured into our hearts: A Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, 2020

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My beloved friends in Christ, I come before you in these strange circumstances, as we face danger like none we have ever known before, in the midst of overwhelming fear, anxiety, and growing isolation. Even as we struggle to make sense of all of this, struggle to figure out what to do, struggle to survive, we also see signs of God’s grace and mercy. I am so very grateful for your prayers for me, our staff and lay leadership as we work to respond to this situation. I am grateful for the volunteers who offered to help with the phone tree that was implemented yesterday, to provide us with yet another means of communication. I’m grateful for Vikki and the food pantry volunteers who continued that vital ministry in these difficult circumstances. I’m grateful for others who have reached out with words of encouragement and offers of help.

These are trying times, made especially so because our human instinct to come together, to gather in the face of crisis, is made impossible by the need for social distancing. The comfort and strength we gain by meeting together is lost to us. That is one reason I decided to offer online worship this morning; as a way to gather, if only via the internet, to hear familiar words and say familiar prayers, to gain strength and to receive grace from the Eucharist, even if we can experience it only visually and spiritually.

When we gather, our fellowship seems easily to nurture community. We greet each other, share polite conversation, shake hands while passing the peace, talk during coffee hour. But ours is primarily a Sunday congregation; most of us have other relationships with friends, family, and coworkers that sustain us and support us. We don’t often pay close attention, tend, or nurture any of those relationships. Proximity makes such relationships relatively easy to maintain. Now we are in a different situation. Our physical separation means that we must find new ways to build and nurture relationships. We must be more attentive, intentional. It is my hope that our experience in the coming days and weeks will create new and deeper connections that will continue when we are once again able to gather together physically.

I was moved by the power and relevance of Paul’s words in today’s reading from Romans: “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” May we gain strength for the days to come from these words and may we all experience the hope that comes from the love that God pours into our hearts.”

 

Today’s gospel reading offers insight into our situation. The story of the Samaritan woman is a familiar and beloved story. It’s a story full of symbolism and like so many stories in John’s gospel, it gains deeper significance and meaning when we read it in light of the rest of the Gospel. So for example, we could contrast Nicodemus, last week’s gospel reading, with this story. Nicodemus was a Jew, a Pharisee, the consummate insider. He came to Jesus by night. The Samaritan woman was the consummate outsider, both in her own community and in relation to the Jewish community. Yet her encounter with Jesus took place in the blazing midday sun. Is this an allusion to chapter 1: “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome (grasp) it”?

Or perhaps another allusion to chapter 1. After John the Baptist identifies Jesus to his own disciples, pointing to him and saying, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” Andrew and another one follow Jesus. When Jesus notices them, he asks, “What are you looking for?

They respond, “Where are you staying?”

To which Jesus responds, “Come and see.”

In this story, after her encounter with Jesus, the woman runs back to town and tells the people, “Come and see.” She is the first to identify Jesus as the Messiah, the first to share the good news of Jesus with others, the first evangelist.

But there’s more to the story than that. And it’s hard not to read our own situation into the Samaritan woman’s experience.

Social distancing, a concept that was unknown to us two weeks ago is now on our minds constantly. But even if we didn’t call it that, social isolation and ostracism has been common throughout human history. Indeed, the Samaritan woman herself experienced social isolation. She came to the well in the middle of the day, at the hottest time of the day, alone, because she was marginalized by her community. Tasks like these were most often communal ones in premodern, rural cultures. Women who had to do the same thing did it together, so women would come together to the well, chatting, gossiping as they did. It was a time of fellowship. But this woman, because of her status came to the well by herself.

But when she arrived, she discovered someone else was there. And when he asked her for water, she practiced social distancing on him, reminding him of religious and cultural convention that prohibited their conversation, and prohibited him from drinking water from a jug that she had touched. Contamination, you see.

As their conversation deepened, they broached the cause of the division between Samaritan and Jew. Samaritans had built a temple to worship God on Mt. Gerizim, while Jews believed the only temple where valid worship could occur was Jerusalem. As they continued to chat, Jesus said:

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

I am saying this in an empty nave, a place where people have worshiped for more than 160 years each Sunday. It is a place that we cherish; a place we gather to hear the Word of God proclaimed, and where bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ. It is a place we love; it is a place where we encounter God, where we are the body of Christ. But today and for the foreseeable future, we will not be able to gather here for worship and fellowship. Our relationships with God and each other will be nourished not by hugs, or by bread and wine, but by all of the ways we connect thanks to modern technology—the telephone, social media. Even as we often criticize such technology for distracting us or for loosening the ties that bind us to our faith or our communities, now, we are going to have to rely on that technology and learn new ways of connecting.

Worship in spirit and in truth. It’s almost as if we are given a way forward. Jesus is reminding us that the building doesn’t matter all that much. He’s reminding us that in spite of the fact that Christianity is an embodied religion, that we worship a God made flesh, who lived among us, a God whose body suffered like ours do, a God who died like we do, but was raised again, worship and relationship happen in other ways, too.

May we find ways to nurture and deepen our relationships with each other and with God, and may we find ways to share God’s love in these difficult days.