Category Archives: sermons

The Spirit, the bride, and all the people say, “Come”: A Sermon for 7 Easter 2019

Posted on by
Reply

We are nearing the end of Eastertide. It’s a long season that sometimes feels to me as if it drags on a bit longer than necessary. In all there are 50 days—counting from Easter Day which was April 21 this year and continuing through next Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost. The further away we get from Easter itself, the less we focus on the specifics of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead and the more we look at the ways Christ continues to be present among us and also all of the ways that his presence among us differs from either his earthly ministry or his presence among the disciples after his resurrection. Continue reading →

Disappearing Feet: A Homily for the Feast of the Ascension

Posted on by
2

Originally preached in 2010.

Albrecht Dürer, The Ascension, from the Small Passion, Nuremberg 1511

Disappearing Feet: A Homily for the Feast of the Ascension

Posted on

May 13, 2010

I’ve been thinking about the Ascension these past few weeks in preparation for tonight’s Evensong. I keep reflecting on the oddness of the doctrine of the ascension. It may the aspect of the church’s teaching about Jesus Christ with which we have most difficulty in the twenty-first century. It’s not that the Incarnation or Jesus’ death and resurrection are easy to accept. Rather, I think it’s because both Christmas and Easter have enough cultural significance and liturgical drama that we are able to lay aside most of our doubts and questions, at least most of the time.

Not so with the Ascension. It is a doctrine and a feast that goes unnoticed by the wider culture, and largely unnoticed by Christians as well. So when we come together to celebrate it, we’ve got no crutches of nostalgia or tradition with which to protect ourselves. We are forced to confront it head on.

And that’s the problem. The ascension seems to require a whole lot of cultural baggage that we just don’t carry with us anymore. The very word, ascension, implies the traditional ancient understanding of the universe as a three-tiered structure with hell somewhere beneath our feet and heaven up there beyond the clouds. And that’s something none of us can really take seriously anymore, not since the rise of science, astronomy, and space exploration.

In fact, I hope you chuckled as you glanced at the Durer woodcut that is reproduced on tonight’s service bulletin. It does rather remind one of the blast-off of a rocket. That, combined with the fact that we see Jesus’ toes may lead the less reverent of us to laugh.

The physics of ascension isn’t the only problem. There’s another one, a theological one. For if Jesus Christ has ascended to heaven, how is it that we can still claim to experience his presence among us, his presence in the bread and wine of the Eucharist? That may not be a big issue for you or me, but it was at the heart of the Eucharistic conflicts during the Protestant Reformation. In fact, some of the reformers argued that because Jesus Christ had bodily ascended and now sat at the right hand of the Father, the body of Christ could not be present in the Eucharistic bread.

So we moderns, or post-moderns, if you will, have a great deal of trouble with the doctrine of the ascension. To find meaning in it in the twenty-first century seems almost impossible. But before dismissing it altogether, let’s look a little more closely at how the gospels deal with it.

The first observation to make is that only two gospels, Matthew and Luke describe the scene of the ascension with Jesus’ disciples gathered around him, looking upward as he leaves earth. Mark, typically, doesn’t say anything about it, but then Mark doesn’t describe the resurrection either.

As is often the case, John is the most interesting. He uses language of ascent throughout his gospel, but it’s often not clear whether he is referring to the cross (“being lifted up”) the resurrection, or the ascension. And because he refers to the cross repeatedly as Christ’s glorification, there’s a sense in which crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are all the same for him.

In John’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples again and again, both before and after his crucifixion, that he will be leaving them. That message is hard for them to hear. Their difficulty of imagining life without the presence of Christ comes out in that poignant resurrection scene when Mary Magdalene encounters the Risen Christ in the garden. She falls to his feet and he warns her, “Don’t touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” It’s as if he were telling her, “Don’t hang on to me. Don’t hold me down!”

Something of the same comes out in Luke’s account of the ascension in Acts 1. Luke says that Jesus was lifted up and “a cloud took him out of their sight.” But the disciples continued to gaze up toward heaven, until two angels suddenly appeared and asked them why they were still looking up.

The Ascension is not primarily about the physics or chemistry or astronomy of Jesus Christ’s departure from earth. Rather, it concerns the mystery of Christ’s presence and absence among us. We proclaim Christ’s presence among us. We proclaim his presence in the sacraments. We assert that we are the body of Christ; many of us believe that in the face of the hungry, homeless, and naked, we see the face of Jesus.

But yet, Jesus Christ is not here among us. Each time we recite the creed, we proclaim our faith that Christ has ascended to heaven.  We assert that his physical body, though raised, is no longer present with us. If he is present among us, it is in a very different way than he was present among his disciples, whatever we say to the contrary. We cannot touch and feel him; his physical body is not here, no matter what we say.

That is why the gospels, all of them, struggle with the ascension. The gospel writers struggle to convey to their readers what sort of body Christ’s resurrected body was and they also struggle to make us, their readers understand that in spite of the absence of that body, Christ is among us. Thus, Matthew has Jesus say to his disciples, just before he departs from them, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

That’s why we struggle, in the twenty-first century, with the doctrine of the ascension. We know we do not have the benefit of Jesus Christ’s physical presence among us—most of us would scoff at any claims to the contrary. Many of us would ridicule any beliefs that traces of that presence  are here now, traces like the Shroud of Turin. Instead, our experience teaches us that Christ is present here; present in the hearts of the faithful, in the body gathered, in the bread and wine, and yes, in the faces of the hungry and homeless.

In fact, so obvious is that presence to us, that we cannot imagine what the ascension might mean. We chuckle at images of Jesus’ feet sticking through the clouds, and balk at picturing him actually seated on a throne in majesty, in heaven. Therein lies the meaning of it for us today.

It’s easy for us to claim Jesus is present to us. The words flow easily off of our lips, and onto our mission statements and into our sermons. Because of that, it’s very easy for Christianity, especially mainline liberal or progressive Christianity, to degenerate into social service agencies or political action groups. It’s also easy for us to end up celebrating ourselves and all the good things we do in the name of Christ.

The ascension won’t let us do that. It reminds us that the presence of Christ among us is not all the Christ there is, that whatever our experience of Christ here and now, whatever the church’s experience of Christ and embodiment of Christ over the centuries, that there is something about him that eludes our grasp. The ascension compels us to look beyond ourselves, beyond our neighbor, to seek the transcendent, the traces of the divine, that elude our grasp, elude our sight, and elude our understanding. Amen.

A Sermon of three cities: Madison, Philippi, the New Jerusalem (6 Easter, 2019)

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve all seen the headlines and read the stories pronouncing Madison one of the best places to live in the country. Most of us love it here—the restaurants, the entertainment possibilities, the lakes, UW. That Madison is a popular place to live is evidenced by the ongoing construction boom. I was on the near east side, what is now called the Capitol East neighborhood this week. I hadn’t really noticed everything that’s happened there recently. There’s the Sylvee, a new hotel, more apartment complexes. The difference driving down E. Washington today from ten years ago is remarkable. Continue reading →

It might be a vision from God, it might be your stomach growling: A Sermon for 5 Easter, 2019

Posted on by
1

Today marks the end of the program year for our Christian Formation program. It’s a custom here at Grace that on this day we recognize all those who have worked in our Christian formation program as teachers and as volunteers and to invite the children and youth in the program to participate in our service by serving as ushers, lectors, and Eucharistic ministers. Things are always a bit chaotic on this day, which is not necessarily a bad thing. We experience the full breadth and depth of our congregation—its diversity in ages. And we see concretely how our Christian formation program has grown over the last decade. This year we added a second class during the 10:00 service to accommodate that growth, and next year, we anticipate dividing the older group that meets at 9 into separate classes for middle and high schoolers. Much of the success of the program is due to the energy, passion, and creativity of Pat Werk, and also to all those volunteers whom we will recognize later in the service.

That’s all a sign of growth and change at Grace. While we might welcome such growth, it’s also important to recognize that growth brings with it some challenges. We may not know or recognize everyone who worships with us on Sunday mornings; the presence of children in our services can also make things a little more chaotic, and not just on this Sunday morning. And we are struggling with space. As we consider splitting the youth into two classes, finding space for the second class to meet will require some flexibility and creative thinking.

In the book of Acts, we read the story of the spread of the gospel and the growth in numbers of the followers of Jesus in the first years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Luke tells us a story full of drama and excitement but he also records some of the conflict that such growth involved. We see some of that conflict here, in the story of Peter and Cornelius.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone you respected, someone in authority told you to do something you had never done before, something that went against everything you had been taught, would have challenged your very sense of identity, who you were, how you understood yourself, your deepest values? Can you imagine that? How would you respond?

That’s just what happened to Peter. He was staying with Simon the Tanner in Joppa and as he waited for lunch, he had a vision that unsettled him and challenged his very sense of self. A cloth comes down, on it are all sorts of unclean animals. A voice calls to him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” Peter refuses. The same thing happens three times, and just as the vision comes to an end, messengers sent by Cornelius knock at the door. Peter and some others go with them. Peter preaches to Cornelius’ household, the Holy Spirit comes down on those present, and Peter baptizes them.

We hear the second version of that story, as Peter retells it to the gathered community in Jerusalem after his return from Caesarea. It wasn’t a simple update from Peter to the home office. There was grave concern about what had happened while he was traveling:

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

In other words, they weren’t bothered that Peter had preached to Gentiles or that he had baptized them. What concerned them was that he had eaten with them. Peter had visited Cornelius, stayed with him for several days, and had eaten at his table. From Luke’s perspective, this all would have been offensive to observant Jews.

Let me take a moment to unpack this. It’s crucial to compare the New Testament accounts with what we know from other sources and in this case, Luke is mis-stating the nature of Jewish practice in the first century. Certainly, observant Jews maintained strict dietary laws—eating only those foods that were clean by biblical standards. That’s what was at stake in the vision Peter had. But the notion that as Luke records a bit earlier (Acts 10:28) “it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile” is wrong. In 1stcentury Palestine, it would have been impossible for Jews not to have had contact with Gentiles. So Luke is depicting Judaism in negative terms here, and also caricaturing the position of Peter’s critics.

Now certainly there were important issues at stake. We will see the conflict again next week as we hear the story of Paul’s visit to Jerusalem and the so-called Jerusalem council. The question whether Gentiles who accepted Jesus as the Messiah needed to be circumcised and to follow Jewish dietary laws was an important one. From the perspective of 21stcentury Americans, it’s hard to understand what was at stake, and to take seriously the concerns around circumcision. We know how the story ended.

But given the resurgence of Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism, we must recognize when new testament texts and their authors present Judaism in negative light and provide cover for contemporary anti-semitism. This is one of those places. It’s obvious to us that circumcision and Jewish dietary laws no longer apply and we regard those who wanted to maintain them misguided. They were in a very different place. The relationship between the Jesus movement and Judaism was not defined. The emergence of two religions—Judaism and Christianity—was not at all an obvious development.

But there are other lessons for us here. We should think carefully about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, the ways in which our sacred texts and Christian history have led to persecution, anti-semitism, and ultimately the Holocaust.

We often look at the story of Acts, the spread of the Gospel, the movement of the Holy Spirit, and the resistance to that from certain parties and interpret our own experiences and the life of the 21stcentury church in light of that narrative. How many times have people said when change is happening in the church, that the Holy Spirit is moving or doing a new thing? When the question is asked that way, the speaker always is advocating that change is good, that the innovation is a faithful adaptation of our faith to new realities.

I’m not so sure. There’s a passage in Deuteronomy that I’ve always found helpful here. The text is addressing the rise of false prophets and raises the question of how to distinguish true from false prophecy. Well, the answer that’s offered isn’t particularly reassuring—basically the advice is to wait and see whether the prophecy comes true. In other words, you can’t really distinguish true and false prophecy until after the fact.

Our congregation is experiencing change. The Episcopal Church is experiencing change, Christianity in America and worldwide is experiencing change. We may be uncomfortable with some of those changes; we may welcome them but as faithful Christians our ultimate task is to discern the work of the spirit, to listen to scripture and tradition, to pay attention to voices on all sides of an issue, and seek God’s wisdom and will in the midst of it, recognizing that our perspective might not be correct in the long run.

And the vision we receive, the voice that tells us, “Get up, kill and eat” may be heaven. It may also be our stomachs growling.

 

 

 

 

The Disciple named Tabitha: A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, 2019

Posted on by
1

When I was a boy, one Wednesday a month, my mother would drop me off at my grandfather’s house to spend the day while she took my grandmother and my sisters to the church to what was called “Sewing.” The women of the church gathered together to work on quilts, comforters, and other sewing projects that would be donated to relief sales or sent to people in need—after natural disasters, for example. I’m not sure when or if the custom ended, if it died out like so many other customs did with our changing culture. Continue reading →

Easter Encounters, Easter Relationships: A Sermon for Easter, 2019

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve long been fascinated with cemeteries. When I lived in Massachusetts, I loved to walk through old graveyards—the Old Granary Burying Ground in Boston, or the old graveyard in Newburyport. They are places of history and witnesses to the lives of those who are buried there.

As a priest, I’ve buried people in family plots in almost forgotten cemeteries in Greenville, SC, or in rural cemeteries throughout Southern Wisconsin. But increasingly, as our culture changes and we are less connected to family and to place, we find other ways to remember our loved ones and the notion of visiting a cemetery to mourn or remember a dear friend or family member is increasingly uncommon.

Not so in the first century. Mary Magdalene came to Jesus’ tomb while she was still raw with grief. The other gospels offer an explanation for the appearance of the women at the tomb—they come to anoint Jesus’ body with spices and ointment for burial. Mary Magdalene came to the to grieve. Her grief is the grief shared by humans everywhere at the loss of a loved one. It’s a grief we’ve all experienced. No doubt, some of you carry such grief in your hearts this morning.

But her grief is especially familiar to those who have lost friends and family members in an untimely fashion, and especially those who grieve the deaths of those they love because of the violence, oppression, and hate of other humans. No doubt, in her grief is also fear, and anger, impotence and rage.

Imagine her surprise, her horror when she discovers that the tomb is empty, a final indignity to her friend. He couldn’t even be allowed to rest in peace. In fear and anger she runs to her friends, to tell them what has happened, to share the outrage. Peter and the other, the beloved disciple run to see, look at the empty tomb, see the discarded grave clothes and leave.

Mary stays behind, lingering in the garden, lingering with her fears and doubts, lingering with her dashed hopes. The angel tells her what has happened—but she cannot take it all in. She can’t understand the meaning of his words. And so she turns. She sees the gardener, deciding to ask him where Jesus’ body was taken.

And in that moment, everything changes. He calls her by name; the mist of incomprehension is cleared from her eyes, and she knows him, “Rabbouni, Teacher,” she cries out. Suddenly Mary, and all of us, experience the world, our lives made new in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The risen Christ transforms her grief into joy. In his presence, she experiences the power of God’s love.

I’m not expecting you to understand or make sense of the resurrection. I am asking you to believe it, to experience it. I’m hoping you’ll experience it like Mary Magdalene did, in that moment that Jesus called her name. I’m hoping you’ll experience that flash of recognition, suddenly knowing Jesus Christ, knowing yourself, and knowing the possibility of resurrection in your own life.

For the resurrection is not just about an empty tomb and a two thousand year old story. It is about relationship, with God in Jesus Christ. It’s experiencing a God who overcomes death, a God who created us and the world, a God who in Jesus Christ is making a new creation in ourselves and in the world. It is a story about a God who doesn’t give up, a God who doesn’t abandon us to our own devices and desires. As Rowan Williams has said, “the resurrection is at least in part about the sheer toughness and persistence of God’s love.”

Last night, we baptized two people; this morning we will baptize two more, Grant and Luke Flannery. They will be baptized by their grandfather, Rev. Floyd Schoenhals, who already knows them intimately and has called them by name many times. In baptism, we are all called by name by Jesus, we all enter into relationship with him, and whoever we are, whatever we have done we are made new in that moment. Called by name, recognized by Jesus Christ, marked as Christ’s own forever.

In our world, there are so many voices, so many people who try to name us, to tell us who we are, and what our worth and value is. We are bombarded by imagery and advertising that holds up impossible ideals of beauty, wealth, and success, that tells us repeatedly, endlessly that unless we do this, or buy this, or have these, we are of no worth. We live in a culture where still, the color of our skin, our national origin, our gender or sexual identity, our educational attainment, defines who we are, what our value is. We internalize those messages and sometimes we are filled with self-loathing, insecurities. Often those messages and identities shape our lives, our futures, our destinies.

When Jesus said, “Mary” he broke through all of the barriers in her life that prevented her from knowing him fully. When Jesus said, “Mary” he removed the mists of incomprehension from her eyes and from her heart. When Jesus said “Mary” he also says all of our names, inviting us into relationship with him, inviting us to know and experience him fully, inviting us to experience the wonder and persistence of God’s love.

Just as Jesus called “Mary,” he calls us, inviting us into relationship, inviting us into experiencing the risen Christ, inviting us to experience transformed humanity, the world made new by the God’s creative love. Jesus calls us by name. He tells us who we are, his beloved children, marked as his own forever.

When the Risen Christ calls us by name and invites us into relationship, the power of resurrection begins to transform us and our lives, making us new creations, remaking us in his image and likeness.

We mustn’t let it end there, however, not with our own experience of the wonder and persistence of God’s love. Like Mary, our joy should be so great, our hearts so overflowing that we want to share the good news of that love, inviting others into relationship with Jesus Christ, calling others by name as he called us by name, making present to them the transforming power of new life in Christ, inviting them to experience the power of resurrection.

Living the Easter story: A Sermon for the Easter Vigil, 2019

Posted on by
Reply

A few minutes ago, we baptized Adrian and Roland. If my math is correct, Adrian celebrated his 30thbirthday yesterday; Roland was born on January 15, so he’s just over 3 months old. Adrian has a story he tells about himself, where he came from, who he is. Roland’s story is just beginning and he isn’t able to tell it yet.

But tonight, both of them entered into another story, the story of salvation. We heard some of those highlights in the series of readings from Old Testament, beginning with Creation, the Flood, and the deliverance at the Red Sea. We heard another version of that story in Paul’s description of baptism from the letter to the Romans: Continue reading →

Scandal and Glory: A Sermon for Good Friday, 2019

Posted on by
Reply

We have heard again the dramatic, heart-breaking story of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution as recorded in the Gospel of John. For those of us who know it well, it is a story that grips us with gut-wrenching power. It also may repel us because of the ways it has been interpreted, the ways we’ve internalized the story and meaning of the crucifixion, and in John’s case the unrelenting, offensive anti-Judaism that jumps out at us. Continue reading →

Walking, Riding, Dying: A Homily for Palm/Passion Sunday, 2019

Posted on by
Reply

How many miles had Jesus walked on his long journey to Jerusalem? Way back in chapter 9, Luke tells us “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” But even before that, he had been walking throughout Galilee. He had walked and along the way he had healed and taught. Now, finally, as he approaches Jerusalem, he instructs his disciples to fetch a donkey so he could ride on it for a bit.

He may have been tired. He may have been full of anxiety and fear about what would happen in Jerusalem, but he didn’t ask for a donkey so that the final leg of his journey would be less taxing. He wanted to ride on a donkey to make a point—to stage a demonstration. It’s a clear reference to Zechariah 9:9: Continue reading →

The Disciple who poured out love: A Sermon for Lent 5C, 2019

Posted on by
Reply

A few days ago, I had one of those uncomfortable encounters I have from time to time in Madison. I had stopped into Barrique’s for a cup of coffee, and sat down at a table to read through the latest Isthmus edition. There were two well-dressed men at the next table having a conversation. One of them saw me and began to ask me about the shelter. What followed was a fifteen minute rant about the evils of homelessness and the need to construct a shelter somewhere else than downtown. Their brilliant idea was to put it down by the Alliant Center, far away from their places of business and residence downtown, far enough away that they wouldn’t be bothered by homeless people, or presumably by panhandlers because they could not get downtown anymore. Continue reading →