Meeting the Brokenhearted

 This past week was yet-another sad and sorrowful time of shootings and state legislative attacks on the LGBTQ+ community of Florida. Now, apparently, going to the wrong house, getting into the wrong car, pulling into the wrong driveway are all reasons to shoot a person. 

And attempting to live your life as a queer or trans person in Florida is also verboten. 

Between this and the every day stuff of living and listening to the individual pains of people, I admit that I was having a really hard time putting this sermon together. Because my heart was hurting. And maybe that was the perfect space to be in as I considered those two disciples encountering Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

Text: Luke 24: 13-25; Ps. 116: 1-4; 10-17

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Our Gospel lesson for this morning is a story of the heart.

Not just because of that line about the disciples’ hearts burning within them when Jesus was speaking.

We call this story “The Road to Emmaus” but really I think we might call it “Heartbreak Road.”

Because this seven-mile long journey away from Jerusalem… is a road of sadness, disillusionment, and crushed hopes and dreams.

It’s the road traveled by those whose hearts are broken.

So if we can… let’s step into the sandals of Cleopas and whoever the other disciple is…another ol’ what’s-their-name.

Let’s imagine how confused and terrified they must have been.

It was bad enough that Jesus had been so brutally killed by the state.

Horrible that it was one of their own who betrayed their teacher and leader.

Now there are these stories from the women and a small band of the men that Jesus’ tomb is empty… and they have no idea what’s happened to the body.

And all they want to do now is get away.

Leave Jerusalem.

Get out of that place where they had hoped Jesus would sock it to the Roman Empire…and just go home.

Their hearts are heavy with grief.

And grief drops them into an almost other-worldly state of being…blurry with tears and minds shrouded from the sun.

Grief is liminal space.

When we’re in the throes of grief… time seems suspended…and we find ourselves moving at a pace that isn’t the same as other people.

And… just as with the appearance in the locked upper room…this is the moment when Jesus shows up.

He’s this stranger who comes along side these two as they are walking and talking.

And as they are ambling along, he asks, “Whatcha talkin’ about?”

This interruption and intrusion on their conversation by some random guy puts a full stop to their walk along Heartbreak Road.

“What are we talking about? You haven’t heard? Have you been living under a rock or something, mister?!’

Cleopas begins sharing the pain… the anguish… the dashed hopes…this deep lament at losses far too many to name.

This seems like a typical human reaction.

It’s at those times when our hearts are hurting the most that we feel comfortable opening up to total strangers.

Sort of like when a person sits down at the bar… and bends the ear of a bartender about how the world is weighing them down.

The barkeep may sigh and nod… maybe offers some words of encouragement… but mostly they’re just a disinterested third party… there to pour drinks and let people just be.

And while Jesus isn’t serving up a drink to these apostles… he is listening.

He has come into their space…entered into their worries…and he can sense how much hurt there is in their hearts.

Our psalm from this morning begins:

“I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplication. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as I long as I live.”

Jesus hears the words… and knows that underneath all their expressions is evidence of a broken and contrite heart.

And “a troubled spirit” (Ps.51:18) is the opening for God to pour in the balm of Love.

This is the chance for God to reach past that gatekeeper of the brain and the rationale of the ego and to speak to the heart.

And it’s always easier for God to reach us when our hearts aren’t hardened and sealed shut… but broken open… to receive the gift of love Jesus is offering.

And there is a lot of breaking in this Gospel.

Once Jesus encounters these brokenhearted disciples wandering along their road of heartbreak to Emmaus… he breaks open the Scriptures for them.

He traces all the history… going back to Moses… and all the prophets of Israel… to help them understand that the pain and the disquiet they’re feeling in their hearts is all part of a larger plan of salvation that has been in the works from the beginning.

And just when Jesus is ready to keep moving along… Cleopas and his buddy disciple break down and insist that Jesus come to dinner with them.

Then at the table… Jesus breaks bread.

Suddenly… through that fog and despair of grief… the light breaks through to them and their clouded vision clears, and they realize they have been in the presence of God.

Now… their eyes are opened.

Now… they understand.

Now… with the recognition of the burning fire in their broken hearts… they are renewed… restored… and ready to go back to Jerusalem… giving praise to the Lord.

Not through words… but through experience.

Religious experiences are much more heart-felt than something we comprehend with our intellect.

As the American theologian Jonathan Edwards said, it’s the difference between having an abstract knowledge that honey is sweet and the inward comprehension of the sweetness of honey on the tongue.

The mind always wants logic.

Our brains want to put our mental furniture in place with the right feng shui…neat and tidy.

Our egos want to assert control and authority over things that seem irrational.

But the true experience of Jesus is not comprehensible in that way because He meets us in the heart.

Having had their hearts now fired up inside them… the disciples have a better comprehension of God…and the meaning of the resurrection… than what they would have achieved through their minds alone.

Now their hearts and minds are aligned and ready for action.

These encounters with Jesus in locked rooms and dusty roads… whether it’s in the First Century Palestine… or the Twenty-First Century Valdosta… are the ways we connect to the Divine and prepare us for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

It’s through the working of that Spirit that we can find our voice… and our passion… to address the wounds we see inflicted in a world that sometimes seems too cruel and petty.

It is through our own broken hearts that we meet others with the love and compassion they need…and help them discover the sweetness of a Love that is with us always.

In the name of God… F/S/HS.

 

Thomas and the Wounded Jesus

Easter Sunday was so wonderful. I was feeling joy at seeing so many show up for the O'Dark Early Easter Vigil. We had a delightful breakfast and I had managed to do an honorable job of chanting Eucharistic Prayer D, a major hurdle for this priest. The wrong notes I hit at the Vigil got fixed for the prinicipal service, and so all was good and right and joyful in my head.

And then came Easter Monday morning.

Images of panic, police tape. A shooting in Louisville, KY, not far from the church where my mentor serves as the rector.

Later that night, a text message from a parishioner I knew from my days at St. John's Tallahassee. She told me to Google the name of a state legislator. And when I did, I saw the video of his tirade calling people who had come to testify before a Florida House Committee, "mutants of the earth" "demons" and "imps." I looked further to see who he was addresssing.

Trans and non-binary youth. And their parents. 

I went to bed that Easter Monday evening with so much sadness in my heart. God's dream revealed on Sunday had so quickly been marred and changed back into the nightmare.

And I thought about Thomas, who hadn't seen Jesus. And I found I could relate to him in yet another way. 

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I love St. Thomas!

It’s always tickled me that the congregation that took me in…and raised me up to become a priest was named for St. Thomas.

Everyone gets on him for having doubts. But I don’t know that he really “doubts” Jesus… as much as he has a lot of questions about the stories his fellow apostles are telling him about Jesus.

And why wouldn’t he?

I mean… let’s think about this for a second.

Thomas… just like the others… knew Jesus had been killed.

He knew his body was in a tomb.

And when Jesus shows up the first time… Thomas wasn’t in the room.

We don’t know where he was… we just know that he wasn’t in that locked Upper Room.

If this was you or me… wouldn’t we also think our friends were a bit delusional if they started telling us that they had seen someone we knew was dead and that this dead someone had mysteriously appeared in this locked room?

It had to be hard.

My guess is that many of us have had our own Thomas moments… those times when our faith in the unseen takes a gut punch and we’re wondering if the God of Love is for real.

I can certainly understand people who feel their faith gets tested almost on a daily basis.

Just this past Easter Monday morning… fresh off that high of celebrating the resurrection and Jesus’ victory over the grave… a man shot to death five of his former coworkers at a bank in downtown Louisville.

Only blocks away from that shooting… a college student gunned down one of his classmates on a community college campus.

And there was yet another shooting last night at a park in Louisville.

Later that same Easter Monday morning… a state legislator in Florida unleashed a verbal attack on teenagers and their parents who had come to testify before a House committee…

He called them demons, imps, and mutants. All in the name of Christ. All because they were different from him.

Not exactly the way of keeping that Easter joy alive.

It’s sad that as we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection… events in the world remind us that there are those who would rather see him buried once and for all.  

Such things can and do challenge our faith.

The Christians of the early church were living in times that were equally as turbulent and fraught as our own.

Just like us… the circumstances around them…were disturbing and unsettling.

The Roman Empire had obliterated their Temple… a grounding point for the Sadducees and others.  

And then there was the internal struggle with their fellow Jews as the people of God began to disagree about whether the Messiah had actually come or not.

These early Christians didn’t know if their group was going to survive the various pressures on them.  

Like us… they were living at a time of anxiety and uncertainty.

And so the story of Thomas… which only shows up in John’s Gospel… is a story about them…and their angst.

A story which still resonates in our world today.

It’s into this place of heightened fear that we see Jesus enter with a simple:

“Peace be with you.”

Peace be with you all you nervous, scared, anxious, concerned people who see all that brokenness and despair all around you!

Peace be with you… and receive the breath of the Holy Spirit.

That Spirit which will keep you going through these trying times.

That was great for those in the room… for those who were already present.

But Thomas wasn’t there.

He missed this moment. And now he hears all the others carrying on and having their hope renewed…and it seems all too weird and improbable.

So Jesus comes back.

Have we ever wondered that Jesus came back?

Maybe because he knew Thomas was wanting to believe but needed more empirical evidence.

Jesus wants to help Thomas with any of his unbelief.

He doesn’t dismiss Thomas for wanting to know if this resurrected Jesus is for real.

Instead, he meets him in his questioning space and invites Thomas to touch his hands…place his palm in his side.

“This is really me, Thomas!”

But Thomas doesn’t need to do it.

Having seen the risen Christ… with a body still bearing the scars inflicted by his executioners… Thomas simply exclaims, “My Lord and My God!”

Jesus showed up for Thomas…for the apostles… and for us with all his wounds visible.

This is Jesus’ way of saying to Thomas… and to us… “If you’re wounded, so am I. I know pain. I know disillusionment. I am with you in this struggle. Believe!”

The Jesus who appears in the Upper Room to all the disciples including Thomas is not a perfect Jesus.

He still has holes from the nails.

He still has a pierced side.

As the Reverend William Adams notes…the Jesus who comes back to us is a wounded Jesus.

This is a God who understands intimately the ways in which we humans hurt and destroy one another.

Whether we use weapons or words… God knows and has experienced what we’re going through.

And God keeps coming back to us…wounds and all…to meet us…greet us in peace… and offer us the gift of life built on Love.

Not romantic love.

The love that is that living hope that no matter what… the joy of Easter is not going to get locked up in a tomb.

This Love has a vision of a world where each of us can see that spark of the Holy Spirit in one another.

This is a Love that guides us into that truth that we are all the adopted children of God.

And that Love is the engine which drives us toward engaging in our community to move us away from the hatred, violence, and division that seem to be our constant companions.

St. Paul describes Love in his First Letter to the Corinthians.

He reminds us that Love “isn’t boastful, or arrogant, or rude. But bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” (1 Cor. 13:4b; 7). 

This the Love that shows up for Thomas…for the apostles and for us…wounds and all.

In the name of God… F/S/HS.

 

This is Our Story: A Sermon for Easter Year A

I find that the Easter Gospel text of the resurrection is the sermon. 

There's really not a whole lot else to say. 

But the expectation is there that I will, as a preacher, have to say something about it. And so I decided to just go headlong into the text and consider what that moment must have been like for Mary, Peter, and everyone else. 

Text: John 20:1-18

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Mind blown.

I think that’s the best way to describe the Easter moment.

I mean, how can this be anything but a really mind-blowing event?!

A man was killed… in a gruesome act of government violence.

All his friends saw it happen.

They saw the body removed from the cross.

They knew he was put in a tomb.

There was a large stone rolled in front of it.

End of story….right?

But then… as John tells us… while it was still dark… something incredible happened.

Mary goes to the tomb. Maybe to pay more respects…to continue grieving the loss of her teacher and friend.

And when she gets there…

What?!?!?

Where’s the stone?

What’s going on here?

And something of a pandemonium erupts.

Mary goes running to find Peter.

Peter and the “other disciple whom Jesus loved”… probably John… dash off to see what’s going on with Jesus’ tomb.

They get in a foot race with one another and then…

What?!?!

Where’s the body?

The wrappings… the cloth wrappings around his head and his body… they’re… they’re…they’re tossed aside?!

Who has unbound Jesus?!

Where is he?!

Mystified… Peter and what’s his name disciple… go home.

They just go home.

Mary Magdalene… on the other hand… can’t leave.

This whole thing makes no sense.

And it’s shocking.

She begins to cry.

“Woman…why are you weeping?”

Why is she weeping? Why WOULDN’T she be weeping?

And—whoa—who are you two? Angels?

“Woman…why are you weeping?”

Oh great: here comes another dude with the same question.

Good grief! Why wouldn’t she be crying?

We can hear her exasperation…something like…

Look buddy. I don’t know who you are but if you know who made off with….

“Mary!” he says.

Wait.

Wait a minute.

Is it?

Yes. It is.

Yes it is!

Mind blown!

This moment… this incredible moment… jolted everyone who had followed Jesus… believed in his teachings… and were in such a state of emotional distress at his death.

And now… vindication. Victory. Let the song of triumph be sung.

He really did it! He really has risen on the third day!

It’s not surprising that all of Jesus’ closest associates were having these moments of shock and awe!

 

I think we all can understand how stunning it can be when we think things are a certain way in the world… and then something totally unexpected flips the script.

It reminds me of a song by Sweet Honey in the Rock which starts “Don’t no one at sunrise how this day is going to end.”

It can be so easy for us to be so caught up in our own stuff… our own way of living and perceiving the world that we can easily miss those moments when God appears before us.

Perhaps that’s why this resurrection had to be so far over the top incredible.

Sometimes… God has to really shake up our reality to get our attention.

Nothing like raising someone from the dead to do that!

And it’s not as if Jesus was the first dead person to rise from the dead.

In John’s Gospel… Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead…commands Lazarus to come out of his tomb… and then Jesus has to look around and tell others to unbind Lazarus.

Get that man out of all those wrappings of death.

But now… in this resurrection…no one unbinds Jesus.

Jesus is unbound.

God the Son… the Word made flesh…is free.

God has liberated Jesus once and for all… and we declare in a loud voice: Alleluia!

(motion to them to repeat: Alleluia!)

By extension… and in that way in which laws of gravity, time, and space mean nothing to God… this resurrection is a sign that our Creator has liberated us as well.

Everyone who has a part in the Body of Christ… through our baptism… through partaking of the Eucharist… are just as much a part of this resurrection of Jesus.

 We…like Jesus… have gone down into the grave… figuratively speaking.

We experience our own sufferings in our lives.

Some have felt the sting of rejection… others find themselves locked in battles with bullies and tyrants.

We’ve suffered losses of friends and family members.

But just as God was never far from Jesus on the cross… the Holy One is never far from us.

And the promise fulfilled on this day is that for every Good Friday moment we’ve endured… Easter will happen.

God will be there to unbind us.

And Jesus stands as the Greatest Liberator from Oppression ever.

Now…there’s another interesting part of this Gospel message from John.

When Mary recognizes the voice of her shepherd… her teacher… the immediate response is not only her exclamation “Rabbouni!” but in her rapture she’s ready to hang on to Jesus.

Having lost him once… she wants to cling to him and never let him go.

But Jesus tells her “Don’t hold on to me because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say that I am ascending to my Father…”

Go on Mary! Go preach! Go tell the story of what you’ve seen… what you’ve experienced!

Tell the brothers how you’ve been blown away by all this!

Just like Mary Magdalene… we are called to share this phenomenally good news with others.

Not with bullhorns… or whacking people over the head with the Bible… in the words of the great theologian Rocky the Flying Squirrel of Bullwinkle fame: “That trick never works!”

God doesn’t need us to scream at or beat people up with this news.

But each of us does have a story to share.  

Consider these things:

·                 What have you learned about yourself through whatever Lenten practice you’ve had over the past several weeks?

·                 Or…In what ways has God’s love manifested for you during this Lent and Holy Week?

·                 Or even…what is it about this story of Easter and the resurrection that roused you out of bed this morning to come to church and listen to this wild ride of a story?

Whatever it is that has moved us to be here in the presence of God on this day of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus… that is our story…that is our song.

And it’s meant to be shared.

Sing that song to the person who has lost their voice…or have been made weary from a world that keeps trying to drown them out.

Tell it to the person who turns to you when they need a kind word from a friend…a word grounded in the Spirit that knows what it is to have their trusted companions deny and betray them.

Live it by knowing that God has loved all of us… every single one of us… without conditions or black-out dates… or asterisks… and has loved us back to life.

That is the wonderfully mind-blowing story of this day.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Resetting the Bones: A Sermon for the Easter Vigil, Year A

I find the toughest thing about Holy Week preaching is to come up with words to match the story we're telling that don't sound as if I'm just repeating old tropes over and over. Writing four sermons is also very challenging. And, as much as I do enjoy insights from commentaries, I also think that the worst sin preachers commit is when we get too worried about staying "above the fray" if you will and not drawing on our own relationship with the Holy, which, hopefully, we have one that we have experienced and tended to through our own prayer life. I have personally hated those times when I am listening to my priest preach a sermon knowing full well that half of what their saying is not even remotely close to the person they present to me and others when they're out of the pulpit. 

That's why I was so happy that I took the time on Tuesday of Holy Week to attend the service where the bishop, priests and deacons renew our ordination vows. As I sat in the pew in Cordele, I contemplated and reviewed in my mind's eye all the bumps, bruises, joys, sorrows, struggles, rejections, affirmations, and a-ha's that I had experienced along my faith journey... from the time I was an acolyte at Christ Church in Exeter, NH, to the first affirmation at St. Thomas in Thomasville as a deacon, and then that incredible moment of feeling all those hands on me as I became a priest at St. Barnabas in Valdosta. 

In all of it, I experienced the promise of God, a God who has come to the aid of all who have ever been rejected by the church or society or both. 

To hear the sermon Bishop Logue delivered at that service... and to have had that review of my own path toward ordination... gave me some great words to share with the congregation assembled for The Great Vigil of Easter. 

Text: Ezekiel 37: 1-14

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We heard the reading from Ezekiel only a couple weeks ago. Our lectionary diviners paired it with the story of the raising of Lazarus.

Now we hear it in the context of the resurrection of Jesus.

And just a few days ago… it was brought to my attention again when I went to the service with Bishop Logue where priests and deacons renew our vows of ordination.

So wisdom tells me… if I hear something that many times and in such a short time span… I might want to pay attention to what is going on here.

I’ve already talked about the meaning behind this moment with the prophet of Ezekiel staring at a landscape littered with bones.

This is a metaphor for what has happened to Israel with one invasion after another… the scattering of the people… all the best minds captured and taken off to Babylon.

In some ways… this feels like an apt image for our times.

War has scarred and battered the people of Ukraine.

Violence and catastrophes have sent many fleeing from their homelands in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Central America.

And in our own country… we are deeply polarized along political lines to the point where we can’t seem to agree on basic facts. And some of the most marginalized groups are getting further shoved into the proverbial corners of society.

That question… “Can these bones live?”… is so haunting and feels so real under the circumstances.

Bishop Logue recalled the words he heard our late Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold speak when he was addressing the students and faculty at Virginia Theological Seminary. Griswold… who led a life steeped in prayer… quoted from the mystic Thomas Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation as he considered the Valley of Dry Bones. Merton wrote:

In the whole world, throughout the whole of history... Christ suffers dismemberment... All over the face of the earth the avarice and lust of [humans breeds] unceasing divisions among them, and the wounds that tear [people] from union with one another widen and open out into huge wars, murder, massacres...Christ is massacred in His members, torn limb from limb.”

Merton added: “As long as we are on earth the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another. Because of this, love is the resetting of a body of broken bones.”

Bishop Griswold applied Merton’s thinking to the Ezekiel 37 reading we’ve heard. Griswold said this reading is about “the resetting of broken bones.”

He said: “Through Baptism we are all caught up in this resetting of broken bones, which is the work of love in us. The Eucharist then is the unfolding of the mystery of communion over time, by which we are formed into a people of communion.”

We can hear that, can’t we, in the reading.

God commands Ezekiel to tell these bones that God is going to restore them… with breath… and ligaments… and sinews. God will pull this broken and desperate people out of their depression and misery and give them new life.

In our Christian story… on this morning… we recall the way God resurrected Jesus from the dead… to the surprise and astonishment and awe of Mary Magdalene and all the other followers of Jesus.

This resurrected Christ stands as the symbol to all who have felt the sting and pain of society’s hatred and rejection and have had our voices silenced or ignored by the powerful and privileged.

But Love will not go away or be put down so easily.

Through the waters of our own Baptism… we have been made one with the Crucified Jesus who triumphed over the grave.

Our bones… dry and brittle… at odds with one another… can be made into a living, breathing, and healthier community.

While the world keeps pushing for us to divide ourselves… and dismember Christ… Love insists on coming back from the dead…and piecing us back together.  

The light keeps piercing through the darkness.

We are brought back together in communion… no matter who we are…or what ideological positions we hold.

And through the sharing of bread and wine God re-members us back into the Body of Christ.

In just a moment… we are going to be renewing the vows made at our baptism.

It is in our baptism that our lives become joined like bone-to-bone into one Christian body.

Listen to those promises which we make with God’s help.

May we recommit ourselves to the mission of Love and putting our trust in a God who is ready to breathe us back to life.

In the name of God… F/S/HS.