Keeping Hope Alive in the Face of Hopelessness

 

 This is a really rough Easter season for anyone who is paying attention to news in the United States.  It is even tougher when you live in a part of the country where there are many who don't seem to want to believe that the administration currently in the White House is, well, fascist. 

This is not enviable place for those who are charged to preach hope. There are those who think we should not. That we should only live in Good Friday. 

Sorry, but I have lived through enough stuff that makes the grass grow green to throw in the towel and believe that unless I rend my clothes and sit in ashes, I am failing. 

Because even though we are in the ash heap of current events right now...I am not giving up on hope. 

I believe in the power of Love. And I believe that Love will not fail us in the end. 

See what you think.

Text: Luke 24:1-12

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Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

My mother would always call me on Easter Sunday and that was the first thing she would say. And… good Episcopalian child that I was…I knew what to say in response.

I hadn’t put a lot of thought into the power…the liberation…the absolute sense of Love having scored a major victory that is embedded into that call and response of Easter in our liturgy.

The “Alleluia” is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew phrase “Hallelujah”…a shout of joy…and yelling from the roof tops “Praise the Lord!”

Praise the Holy One for raising Jesus from the dead!

Indeed…let us rejoice and be glad in this!! Praise the Lord!

I imagine this must have been what Mary Magdalene…Joanna…and Mary and the other women were shouting as they ran to tell the eleven apostles all that they’d seen. The men were huddled somewhere…and fearfully pondering their next move.

Things up to this point had been looking bleak.

They had witnessed Jesus’ arrest.

They saw how the Empire executed Jesus …nailing him to a Roman cross.

They knew their lives were in danger.

Meanwhile…the women who had followed Jesus…also knew that there was some serious work that needed to be done.

Jesus’s burial had happened hastily.

They knew Joseph of Arimathea had taken their friend’s body…wrapped it in a linen cloth…and put in a tomb.

But because of Passover…he hadn’t taken the time to wash the body.

So the women prepared the frankincense…the myrrh…and mixed it with nard oil.

Perhaps as they put together the spices…they consoled each other…mingling their tears with this fragrant ointment.

Everything had looked so promising when they entered Jerusalem a week ago.

Jesus had filled them with such hope.

How quickly things fell apart.

They went to the tomb still in a state of shock and grief and sadness.

And when they found the stone had been rolled away…their hearts probably dropped to their stomachs.

“No, no, no. Please, no.

Wasn’t it enough to have humiliated Jesus by killing him like a common criminal?

Where is his body?

Why have they taken him?”

And as they stood there…distressed and horrified to see that his body was gone…two men suddenly appear.

The women drop to the ground.

Who were these two strangers?

Could this be their end, too?

Could these men be coming to take them away for visiting the grave of the one who had so threatened the status quo?

The jar of spices…carefully blended with love…hits the ground and spills open…filling the tomb with sweet and pungent earthiness…as these women tremble before these two unknown characters.

One of these dazzling figures offers them words of comfort and assurance:

“Mary…Mary…Joanna…it’s OK. Please…don’t prostrate yourselves. Why are looking for the living among the dead?”

We can imagine a collective gasp from the women.

“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

The women look around at each other.

Suddenly…the memories flood back into their heads of all that Jesus had said…everything that he had been telling his followers once he set off toward Jerusalem.

It’s all happened…just as he said it would.

He is risen!

Alleluia! He is risen!

They go to tell the men.

And…of course… the men don’t believe them.

There are some who have tried to argue that the men didn’t believe the women because Jewish men didn’t accept the testimony of women.

But New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine says this isn’t about sexism; this was about belief.

And as much as the male disciples said they believed…they needed help in their unbelief.

I think that’s a common issue among all of us who call ourselves Christian.

When our world gets so badly shaken…and turned inside out and upside down…our beliefs get tested to the breaking point.

Many of us are happier with concrete answers to difficult questions.

We do better with certainty than with ambiguity.

And death is a reality.

That was the same mindset of those who were these male followers of Jesus.

They knew what had happened.

They understood death.

But now these women have told them that what they thought was a fact…turned out to be a fiction.

Never mind that the women reminded them of Jesus’ promise that he would die and rise on the third day.

That’s all just talk…not reality.

Peter takes off and goes to the tomb and then confirms their story for himself.

He’s amazed.

And then he goes home.

Was this all too good to be true?

Jesus would later show himself…to the two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus …and then again to all of them as they gathered and were trying to make sense of what the women had already told them.

Jesus will open their minds to the Scriptures…and he will charge them to get out there and deliver a message of forgiveness…mercy…and love…because they have been witnesses that you can’t find the living among the dead.

Love can’t be killed.

And it will not be buried in a tomb.

Go! Get out there! Share!

I know that it’s hard sometimes to think of ourselves as evangelists…largely because that word has taken on a different and not always positive meaning in our times.

But the Easter story…this narrative that we have inherited from our ancestors…is about sticking with hope when everything seems hopeless.

And then walking alongside those who are feeling lost and afraid…reminding them that they are not alone.

Together…bound by hope…we will survive.

And when doubts arise in our hearts…as they will…return to our faith in that Source of Love who helps us to overcome our fears and guide us through those times when we feel as though we are walking a gauntlet.

Whether it’s uncertainty about the future of our job…a medical diagnosis… or even the grade on a test at school that will determine if we get to the next level of learning… our faith teaches us to not give into worry and despair when hope is always an option.

Right now… we are living at a time when it is vital for us not to keep Jesus in the tomb…but to dwell in the reality that Jesus is alive.

Tap into the liberation of knowing that Love will not be put down by the bullies and tyrants of the world…the purveyors of death… and the robbers of our joy.

Love is calling us to life.

Love is commanding us to choose life…real life.

To stand up…and keep loving…with courage…and mercy…and compassion.

When kindness is in short supply…we have faith in a God who has the means to meet the demand.

And it begins with us.

We can meet this moment…with God’s help.

May we carry this Good News in our hearts…keep hope alive…and shout it out…

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Importance of Witness" A Good Friday Sermon

This Holy Week...I have been overcome with the many "ordinary" characters who are in the Gospel readings, all of the witnesses. 

I think it's been on my mind because of everything happening in the world: shootings, bombings that continue in Gaza, the collapsing of what had been the stable economy of the United States, and the failures of different institutions...academic, legal, media, and Congress... to do anything to stop the madness that has taken over the highest office in the land. 

And as a representative of "the church," I feel compelled to not be silent about the things that are happening around me. Because the one I call the Christ was not silent about the corruption and soul-crushing meanness of the Empire in his day. A corruption in which there was complicity on the part of the religious status quo because it was a way for them to maintain some version of power. 

That is the same problem that exists today. I will not be a party to that. 

Because I am a witness to the things that are happening...and they are not good.

Even if you don't consider yourself "Christian" or "religious" this is one sermon I encourage you to read and not look away.

Text: John 18:1-19:42

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In October, 19-96….I witnessed an execution.

It was at the Florida State Prison in Starke.

The condemned man was John Earl Bush.

He and three others had kidnapped a store clerk…Frances Slater…drove her to a remote area of Fort Pierce where they shot and stabbed her to death.

The news director for the Fort Pierce public radio station had called our Florida Public Radio bureau and asked if someone could take her place as a media witness for Bush’s execution.

She was pregnant at the time and didn’t want to be exposed to such a thing.

Me…being a 28-year-old who enjoyed reporting on court cases…said yes.

I didn’t really understand what I had just said “Yes” to doing.

The way a state execution happens is methodical, clinical, sterile.

The walls of the execution and adjacent witness chamber are bright white…which are made even brighter because of the fluorescent lights.

At the time…Florida was still using an electric chair to carry out death sentences.

And while the witness chamber was technically another room…we were only separated from the death chamber by a wall with a large plexiglass window.

The distance between us and the electric chair was only about 20 feet.

John Bush…a black man…was led into the chamber by an all-white prison crew.

The guards strapped him into the chair and secured the skull cap to his head.

He was given a chance to make a final statement, but he declined.

Instead… he silently stared at each one of us…a majority white room of witnesses…as a guard wrapped a gag over his mouth.

They draped a black leather mask over his head.

The warden gave the signal to the executioner…. who was standing behind a curtain…to administer the electricity.

Bush’s body lurched up against the straps…his hands clutched into fists…and after a few minutes…he went limp…and the electricity was turned off.

A doctor then examined him…and it was announced that the death sentence had been carried out.

As a reporter…I knew that my next job was to collect my microphone and recorder and head out to the field across from  the prison and do interviews with people who had come to protest.

I also gathered statements from the spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

But it wasn’t until I was in my car and driving back to Tallahassee that I was faced with the reality of what I had just witnessed.

I had watched an otherwise healthy 38-year-old man get strapped into a chair and killed before my eyes.

What’s more: I had watched this all take place…and I had felt nothing.

I cried.

Not for John Earl Bush.

I cried because I realized that there was something wrong with my humanity.

I was ashamed that I could watch this happen as if I was watching a movie.

The next day…one of my male newsroom colleagues asked me in mocking tone of voice if witnessing this execution had “changed my life.”

And…again…being a 28-year-old woman working in a predominantly male-dominated field…I had learned to mask my true feelings.

So…for his sake…I shrugged it off as if this hadn’t been a big deal at all.

But that was a lie.

That night and that self-realization that I had had on that drive home was the beginning of God’s intervention into my life.

And it was the beginning of God’s work in me which shifted my career path to where I am today.

I share that as an example of the power of witness.

When we witness…we are not merely casual observers of the mundane and the ordinary.

We become the important conveyors of the truth of what we have seen and experienced.

And whether we are initially aware of it in the moment or not…we are transformed by what we’ve seen and experienced.

And that transformation can set us on a course to testify to the need to make right what is wrong in the world.

To raise the alarms and steer us in new directions.

This is what happens to some of our military members when they go off to war.

The experience changes them in ways that those of us who are civilians don’t always understand.

Even if they believed in the rightness of the conflict and that the war they were fighting was just…most veterans will be the first ones to caution the next generation to do all that they can to prevent us from going to war again.

Because the battlefield is not romantic; it’s hell on earth.

Journalists who are sent into war zones are also deeply affected by what they observe and what they must report.

While they may be seemingly keeping it all together when they are on camera…bearing witness to the brutality and trauma leaves scars on their psyches.

The death of Jesus on a Roman cross also left wounds beyond just the marks of the nails in his hands and feet.

Those who put him to an unjust death did so out of their fear…their anger…their need to maintain power over others.

They were the hard-hearted and stiff-necked of the First Century.

Their goal was to show the rest of the population what happens to those who step out of line and challenge the Empire.

Their intent was to make people afraid….and remind them to keep their heads down and not challenge the status quo.

And in that process…they lost another piece of their own humanity.

Those who were the oppressed and disenfranchised in Jerusalem saw what happened.

Some probably shrugged and went about their business.

They were so used to the Romans’ brutality that they were immune to it now.

Others were probably hoping this would mean the end of any more uprisings that drew unwanted attention to the Jewish minority.

And then there were those who had been so hopeful.

They had shouted Hosanna only days ago…excited that Jesus had arrived to save them.

Now they’re in shock and weeping at what they had seen: an innocent man…traded in the pardoning of an insurrectionist…is killed.

From the cross…our evangelist John reports that Jesus’ final words were “It is finished.”

True…his earthly work was finished.

But God’s work through Jesus was just beginning.

Because Jesus’ death on the cross was witnessed.

And those who took in this scene were about to be changed in ways they couldn’t imagine.

His death was about to breathe life…and light a fire in the belly of those who had come to believe in his message.

Those who saw what went down…and knew it was wrong…knew it was unjust…were going to become an even greater force….carrying forward the work of God as modeled for them in the life of Jesus.

In this way…Jesus fulfills the prophesy of Isaiah’s suffering servant:

“The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;

because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Is.53:11-12)

The bullies and tyrants of the day had done something they knew was wrong.

Those who followed Jesus knew it was wrong.

And God’s purpose was being achieved through Jesus’s death.

Because Jesus’ death on the cross was the climax of this clash between those who were rooted in the earthly practice of power-over people…and his followers who were rooted in the Love that seeks power-with people.

And power-with people is the winning strategy.

This is our story…the story of Love rejected and Love resurrected.

The story of a Love that promises to be with us when we’re afraid…and give us what we need to stand up for ourselves and those on the margins.

A Gospel that reminds us that the world is full of bullies and tyrants and people who retreat into their fears…and their smaller selves.

And a Gospel that demands we not succumb to our own fears…and so that we might live bigger and brighter.

Here…so many centuries later…we are once more at the foot of the cross.

We are again bearing witness to injustice…at a time

where many people are nervous and afraid of the government.

We are onlookers to a moment when there are illegal deportations happening…and court orders getting ignored.

While these actions may seem far removed from our day to day lives down here in this corner of Georgia...they are occurring in our name.

Jesus went to the cross to call the people’s attention to the Rule of Love.

Those who initially stood far off were eventually moved to act on behalf of Love.

Jesus’ reconciling work from the cross compels us to pay attention to what is happening to the most vulnerable people in our country…citizens and non-citizens.

I pray that we are ready to respond to this call in such a time as this.  

In the name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

 

Love Anyways

On this day...when we remember the last night Jesus was with his friends...I am heavy-hearted. 

The story of this night is chilling to me because it reminds me of times when I and others are just going about things in a light-hearted, enjoying the day, kind of way...totally unaware of that something monumentally awful is about to occur. 

That's what September 11, 2001, was like for many of us...especially New Yorkers on their way to their jobs on a crisp fall morning. Or those many others who were pulling into that enormous parking lot at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Or those folks just going about their chores on the farm in Pennsylvania. 

Or...today...those students milling about on the Florida State campus by the student union center at noon time...when a political science major and son of a Leon County sheriff's deputy and the school resource officer of the year...decided to shoot people. Word is that he was quoted in the school newspaper in January mocking those who were demonstrating against the current presidential administration: 

"These people are usually pretty entertaining, usually not for good reasons." 

The shooter used his mom's gun to carry out the violence on campus. Two people are dead. At least four others are in the hospital. 

And the Florida House of Representatives have passed a bill to lower the age back to 18 for people to purchase a firearm. It had been raised to 2021 following the Parkland shooting on February 14, 2018....my 50th birthday...which was also Ash Wednesday. 

Now here we are...seven years later...with another mass shooting on Maundy Thursday, the day Jesus commands us to love. 

Don't give in to the temptation of violence. 

What a juxtaposition. 

See what you think.  

 

I want us to picture the scene of a large gathering of friends for a dinner.

The host has been cooking and cleaning and preparing to receive everyone.

And gradually they start to arrive…greeting each other warmly…some laughter…a little small talk to catch up on what’s been happening.

It’s just a free-flowing…happy gathering with the aroma of good food in the air.

The guests take their seats…they pass the plates around…maybe someone serves the people at the other end of the table.

More talk…and sharing…and being in community.

It’s just a good time with friends.

This is the scene that John wants us to have in mind.

This is an ordinary big gathering of friends.

Even more…this is an ordinary big gathering of friends who have been engaging in some activism in Jerusalem.

Nothing involving physical violence…but plenty of what the late John Lewis would call… “good trouble.”

And it all began with that triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

At one end of Jerusalem…Pontius Pilate…and all the power and might of the Roman Army…war horses and soldiers dressed for battle carrying their spears and swords…have marched into the city through the West Gate.

It was the custom of the Roman Empire to arrive in Jerusalem at the time of any Jewish festival to make sure that the Jews remembered that Caesar was in charge…so “stay in your lane.”

On the opposite end of the city…through the East Gate…here comes Jesus.

Riding on a donkey.

With a bunch of average Joes and Janes following behind…as the crowds waved palms and cheered, “Hosanna!”

Hosanna…by the way…means “Save us!”

Save us, Jesus!

Deliver us from this obnoxious…arrogant…heartless…and brutal regime.

Jesus’ entry was a non-violent…but powerful…tweaking of the nose of the ruling class of Jerusalem.

And like so many bullies and tyrants and their underlings…the rulers didn’t take well to being mocked.

Jesus didn’t stop.

He keeps speaking out.

He calls on the people of Jerusalem to believe in him…because if they believed in him…they would be believing in the one who sent him.

“I am not going to judge you if you don’t believe in me,” he told them. “I’m not about judging y’all; I’m here to save the world not judge it. And I’m doing this out of Love…from that eternal source of Love who sent me here.” (paraphrase of John 12:44-50)

So…back at this dinner party…the guests are recounting all that has been happening…how incredible it’s been…how Jesus really got ‘em good with that donkey ride.

But Jesus isn’t the one laughing…or carrying on.

He suddenly gets up from the table…takes off his outer garment…grabs a water basin and a towel and starts to wash the disciples’ feet.

The friends are now all looking around at each other.

“What’s he doing?”

I mean, Jesus’ timing is all wrong.

Foot washing was supposed to happen when everyone arrived at the house… not in the middle of dinner.

Peter is totally baffled.

Here he’d been joining in the revelry about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem…he was all about Jesus showing Pilate and Rome who was the real king around here….

But a king wouldn’t be washing feet?

We can get that sense that Peter’s protest is a little like…
“C’mon dude! Stop it! Don’t do this lowly stuff!”

This isn’t the vision of a Messiah…a King…that Peter had fashioned in his own head and heart.

Again…that’s not much different than our own tendency to want to bend and twist Jesus into a tiny pocket-sized God that we can carry with us or put away when Jesus demands too much of us.

There’s a line at the start of tonight’s Gospel reading that let’s us know that Jesus was sensing the walls were closing in on him.

“Now before the festival of the Passover Jesus knew his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.” (13:1a)

One of the things I’ve noticed when ministering to people who are dying is that they know that they’re beginning to die.

And when they’ve reached that point in this life…they have a need to share some of their most profound insights...and their experiences of what it means to have lived…as their body is preparing them for death.

Jesus is no different.

He’s keenly aware that trouble is brewing and that he’s going to pay the ultimate price because there are just too many committed to burying themselves alive in the Empire…instead of freeing themselves to live into the love and liberty he’s been preaching.

He knows that the next step in his earthly mission is going to be deadly.

And so he gives a concluding soliloquy to his friends…for the next five chapters in the Gospel of John.  

It’s known as his Farewell Discourse.

His message isn’t complicated: he wants his disciples…those with him then and now…to love one another.

Be willing to do as he has done and taught.

Know that there will be resistance to his brand of non-violent and non-judgmental love.

Love anyways.

Love the ones who are your kin.

Love the Marys who weep.

Love the Peters the who don’t live up to their promises.

Love even the Judas Iscariots…even when you know they aren’t gonna love you back.

Remember that this love is one that is not an emotion; it’s an action and an attitude.

And it is the countercultural response to those who peddle in fear…division…and dominance.

By washing their feet…Jesus was baptizing his friends into walking in his way…living into God’s commandment to love…by being true leaders.

Leading by serving people.

In a few moments…we’ll be setting up a station to wash each other’s feet.

As we do it…think about this idea that Jesus was modeling a new type of leadership…a different way of walking in the world.

No one is compelled to come up here and participate in this activity.

I know for some this is too hard…physically…to do this. But as I said on Sunday…there is power in witnessing this act.

What is it like to watch this type of servant leadership at work?

And then pray for a time when servant leadership isn’t seen as so weird…but would become more of the norm in the world.

That one day those who stand as leaders learn that true power comes in emptying themselves of their greed and their need to control.

And to lean more fully and completely into Love.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.  

The Power of Witness

I have a beef to pick with The Episcopal Church. 

I really do not like the way we diminish the Palm Sunday service...and the Liturgy of the Palms when Jesus enters Jerusalem triumphantly... by insisting that we also have the reading of the Passion Gospel narrative. 

We celebrate Jesus and sing Hosanna outside the church....keeping up the joy all the way inside...and then about 15 minutes later...we are arresting and killing him. 

I was told the reason the church does it that way is because they don't believe that people will come back on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, or Holy Saturday for the Easter Vigil. 

Well, by killing Jesus on Palm Sunday, they pretty much have guaranteed that people won't come back!

And I don't think that's true. Not at St. Barnabas. If people don't come back on Thursday, it's because they're terrified of the footwashing ritual. 

Anyway...if ever I get to draft a resolution for General Convention to change the liturgy we've been practicing now for nearly half a century...I'll let you know. 

In the meantime...some conversations and observations I've been having about our current state of the union helped me have an "A-ha" moment in reading through the very long Luke version of the crucifixion. 

I had been prepared to talk about the line where we hear that Pilate and Herod became friends after having been enemies because they both saw a problem with Jesus. Of course Luke, like the other evangelists, romanticizes Pilate and makes him sound more benevolent than he actually was according to the historians. 

But instead....I found myself drawn to talking about the witnesses....and especially noting that a Roman Centurion also exclaimed, "Certainly this man was God's son." To me...that sounds like some of the people who are waking up to the reality that the man they thought was going to protect their interests and only punish "the libs" is doing things that cause them harm, too. It's a much bigger deal than we might realize that a Roman Army official is having this moment. And this is the confirmation that Jesus' death on the cross was doing the work it needed to do. Allel---oops! It's not Easter. Yet. 

See what you think. 

Text: Luke 22:14-23:56

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I want us all to take a moment.

Take a collective breath in and breathe it out.

I think that’s an essential exercise for any day.

And I think it will be important one as we take in the experiences of Holy Week.

Because…we are just like the women…the disciples…Joseph of Arimathea and the Centurion.

We are witnesses to things that are brutal.

Things that are unjust.

And things that can leave us feeling powerless to do anything.

I think we’ve all been like Peter at some point in time.

Or even Thomas.

We don’t hear about Thomas in this Gospel…but just like Peter… Thomas thought that he’d be courageous and stalwart…he’d be right there with Jesus…confronting the Jerusalem status quo…only to end up standing as far away as possible at the time of the crucifixion.

As brave as they wanted to be…what Jesus was doing was too scary, too challenging.  He took on a power structure that was into dominance and control.

And those powers were going to keep control at any cost.

The Roman Empire had endured many Jewish revolutionaries…many of whom claimed to be the Messiah.

The Jewish religious powers had suffered greatly under Rome and wanted to keep what little control they had and didn’t need some upstart telling them they were missing the mark.

That old saying of “the more things change…the more they stay the same” seems to apply.

Different times… different characters…but the human condition continues to suffer because greed and the desire for supremacy on the part of the powerful is still at work in the world.

But then… so is the quiet influence of being a witness and the way witnessing the wrongs can lead to actively seeking to make things right.  

I hadn’t really thought much about the Centurion in this scene…but he represents the Empire…the government that  executed Jesus.

He’s a military man…a commander of a unit of the Roman Army…one of Caesar’s henchmen.

And yet…as he witnesses Jesus take his last breath at the hands of his own kind…he says out loud:

“Certainly this man was innocent.”

A Roman Army official is having second thoughts about the rightness of this action.

The reconciling work of Jesus has begun from the cross.

This was Jesus’s mission….one which was to draw the world…the whole world…Jews and Gentiles…back to God…back to that radical idea of “Love”.

His efforts bear fruit…as one by one…those who open their eyes and stand witness and start to say, “Yes.”

“Yes” I believe that Love is stronger than Hate.

“Yes” I believe that every person should be treated with dignity and respect.

“Yes” I will do my part to rescue this world from the nightmare of these systems which seek to demean and destroy people.

“Yes” I will work toward living into God’s dream that is liberating and life-giving and do my part to make that the reality.

It is through the witnesses of Jesus’ crucifixion that the Centurion begins to break with idea that Caesar is God…and recognizes God in Jesus.

His devout followers…even as they stood far away…nonetheless bore witness to his death. 

And they will begin to have their own awakening…and finally understand in body…mind…and soul all those parables…all those healing miracles.

Sometimes it takes us witnessing something that disturbs us so much that we’re finally moved to stand up for others.

Sometimes the unfairness has to happen to us or our loved ones before it becomes so real that we cannot ignore it.

Jesus confronted the hypocrisy and the corruption that was rampant in the Roman Empire at that time.

His death shined an even brighter light on all that was wrong with the system.

And his resurrection was that proof…that important confirmation… that Love does not stop.

Those witnesses made sure of that.

Their witness to his death…and later his resurrection…gave them the courage to live into Love…and carry on with Jesus’ mission.

Now we…who stand before the cross…and are bearing witness to what’s happening around us…we’re being challenged to do the same.

We are being called to pay attention…and bring that same confidence in Love to address what is happening in the communities around us:

Migrant farm workers are too scared to go to work.

Their children are afraid to go to school.

The farmers who normally employ migrants are having to cut back on their planting and production because they don’t have enough laborers…and they don’t want to put their workers at risk.

(This is what is happening in Gadsden County, Florida).

Fear and uncertainty and distrust are growing.

If ever there was a time for the followers of Jesus to be brave in our witness…to show up…stand up…and speak out on behalf of those who are nervous and afraid…now is the time.

It will be costly…but it’s not a wasted effort.

I encourage you to take the inserts home.

Please don’t just leave them behind.

Read through them slowly and carefully.

Take part in our services on Thursday and Friday…and take all that we’ve experienced this morning in smaller bites.

Spend time this week contemplating the way of Jesus…his prayerful and thoughtful and counter-cultural response to violence and fear.

Jesus is still calling to us…through our roles as witnesses…to come together…be a little more merciful…a little more courageous and take action to spread love into the world.

In the name of our one Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

Courageous Love

Spikenard plant

This was some week in the United States of America. 

New Jersey U.S. Senator Cory Booker took to the floor of the Senate Monday night at 7pm and didn't stop speaking until after 8pm on Tuesday. He spoke with passion and pleading. And with an enormous amount of heart. 

And he spoke for many of us out here in the wilderness wondering, "How long, O Lord? How long must we suffer and endure this moment of fascism?"

A fascism that has resulted in the firing of hundreds of thousands of federal workers in Washington, DC, and across the country. 

People who keep up our national parks, test medicines, research cures to diseases, handle the phone calls from military veterans on suicide hotlines, staff the VA hospitals, map weather systems and warn of potentially dangeous storms, guide our airlines to safely land and take off from airports, administers Head Start programs....the list goes on and on. 

 In response to that...and the yo-yoing of the tariff wars...millions...including more than 1000 people in Tallahassee... poured into the streets on Saturday to join our voices to Cory Booker in crying out to God and all that is good...to please stop the madness.

What does this have to do with courageous love?

Everything!

Because the act of Mary using an abundance of nard oil to wash Jesus's feet was an act of courage given the criticism she received. 

And even more courageous if we think about her act being an embodiment of the type of love all of us are supposed to be practicing every day. 

At least that's my take. 

See what you think. 

Text: John 12: 1-8 

 

“Do you love me?”

That’s the question the milkman Tevye poses to his wife Golde in the musical, “Fiddler on the Roof.”

And if you’re familiar with that particular song, Golde’s answer to “Do you love me?” is listing out all the things she’s done: bore him three daughters…milked his cow…cooked…cleaned.

That’s all fine and good.

But what Tevye wanted to know is not all the things Golde does for him…but what does she feel for him after twenty-five years in an arranged marriage.

And by the end of the song…we understand that for Golde…what she does for him is her own way of saying, “Yes, I suppose I do love you.”

In our Gospel…we have Mary doing something that signifies her love for Jesus. He’s come to Bethany…to the home of Martha…Mary…and Lazarus.

In the chapter before this one…we have the story of Jesus’ sixth miracle in the Gospel of John when he raises Lazarus from the dead.

Martha is serving.

Lazarus is at the table.

And Mary enters with a pound of nard oil…which in today’s measurements comes to about twelve ounces.

Then…as is the case now…nard oil is not cheap.

It’s from a plant grown in remote parts of the Himalayas…so just a small amount of it is almost 30 dollars.

So…if you’re doing the math…yeah…in today’s money…that’s a really expensive footbath!

She’s using all of this oil…filling the whole house with the aroma…one that is a little woodsy…and earthy.

Not quite like being around someone who has washed themselves in patchouli…but the same idea of an aroma that is both sweet and strong.

Besides having a healing calming property…this is the same oil that was used to prepare a body for burial.

Is it any wonder then that Judas is angry.

Maybe he’s one of those people with a sensitivity to odors. He’s calculating the expense of this oil being poured freely on Jesus’ feet and this is just too much for him.

I’m going to sidestep the comment in John’s Gospel about Judas being a thief…and I have a good reason to be skeptical of that accusation.

Our evangelist John…and his community that he was writing for back in the 100 CE period…were in a fierce and bitter internal struggle.

You’re going to hear this from me a lot in these next couple of weeks…but I want us to always remember that all the characters…unless otherwise identified in the Gospels…are Jews.

And the Evangelist John was the leader of a community of Jews…as well as Gentiles…and even Samaritans… who had come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

This put them in tension with their fellow Jews who did not believe the Messiah had come…and were getting angry and fearful that John’s faction was going to draw unwanted attention to them from the Roman Empire which had just destroyed the Jerusalem Temple for a second time.

This is an intra-family struggle.

A battle between parent and child.

And so John is making the claim that Judas is a crook.

For John…Judas becomes a stand in for this group of non-believers.

Judas is one of “those people.”  

In fact…this same story of a woman anointing Jesus happens in the other three Gospels.

But none of them place this woman at the house of Lazarus.

And in none of those accounts did the evangelists name Judas as the lone naysayer.

So, John has an agenda with his particular depiction of Judas.

Still…I think we can look at what’s happening here…and see both a glimpse of ourselves…as well as the amazing extravagant and irrepressible love of God.

We know Judas gets angry about what Mary is doing.

Why?

Was it simply because…as John has stated…that this was really expensive perfume and she was slathering it everywhere and it could have been sold to collect a handsome sum for the poor?

Was it because she was a woman who was doing something scandalous and out of line?

I mean, washing feet was one thing…but with nard oil?

And a woman washing and touching the feet of a man?!

Especially with her hair.

Or was it that Judas felt convicted because this Mary of Bethany… saw something in Jesus…knew something intuitively about his fate…even if she didn’t know exactly what was going to happen to him…and was so moved by her love and appreciation that she did something courageous and so over the top to demonstrate her love and devotion to him?

Did her unfettered love for Jesus make Judas uncomfortable about his own reservations about this rabbi he was following?

Throughout our various Gospels we have a picture that emerges of Judas.

He’s a revolutionary.

He was a zealot who wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire.

And he was ready for Jesus to be the Messiah of his own making.

The same way we can be guilty of wanting a God made in our own image.

Judas was looking for the guy to lead an insurrection…just like so many others had been doing in those days.

But Jesus was not that sort of warrior.

He’s not one who believed that using brute force and weapons to fight would make the lives of those oppressed by the tyrannical leadership of the Empire any better.

Jesus was leading a movement…the Jesus movement…to get everyone back on board the Love train to God.

And this is what Mary has figured out.

Her act of taking this expensive and highly aromatic oil and using it like water to wash Jesus’s feet is her way of demonstrating her love.

Think about this for a moment:

Our feet take a real beating having to support our whole body.

And in the First Century…where one had to walk for miles and miles in sandals…the feet were definitely in need of some tenderness and love.

What an incredible act of generosity and kindness for Mary to care for Jesus’s feet in this way.

What insight she must have had…living under the thumb of the Empire…and knowing that Jesus was taking a huge risk in challenging people to refuse to give in to despair and to lean into that source of Love…and resist the power structure in a non-violent way.

She must have sensed the danger and the very real possibility that violence was on the horizon. Especially since Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead on the Sabbath…in that way that Jesus kept always doing miraculous things on the Sabbath…and offending the status quo.

Mary’s act of taking something of such high monetary value…and so much of it…and simply spilling it all over Jesus’s feet is the same wreckless and wasteful behavior of a Father who throws a massive party for his ne’er do well son.

Or that sower who throws seeds everywhere…no matter where they land…instead of carefully tilling the ground and planting them.

Mary is showing us how to love as God would have us love: with extravagance.

Unbounded.

And without checking for credentials…straight A’s in school…or how much money is in the bank account.

God doesn’t care whether we check every box that we have going in our own heads that we think would make us worthy.

God’s love is freely offered to everyone.

Which is the sad state of Judas….and why the poor will always be with us.

Because too many who have abundance to give…refuse to let go…share their wealth.

Or they’ll give a small amount…while those with next to nothing contribute what they have…sometimes to their own detriment.

The poor will always be with us because greed is an ever-present reality…whether it’s financial greed…or the greed that makes us turn against one another in a manufactured culture war designed to dehumanize certain segments of the population…and divide up the Body of Christ.

As we approach this final week of Lent…I think there’s a question that’s laid before us:

If we say we love God…and if we call ourselves “followers of Jesus”…do we do it with a love that is joyous and without reservation…courageous like Mary…or is there a piece of ourselves that we hold back out of fear or out of greed…or out of a sense that we can’t or shouldn’t let go of too much?

In the Name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.