Feeling the Absence of God: A Good Friday Sermon

 Maybe it's the difficulty of the times we're living in and just the constant sense of doom and gloom that hangs over the nation that I found myself really struggling to write a sermon for Good Friday. 

I mean, it's a day that commemorates the brutal killing of Jesus by the state. And we've witnessed in this country repeated killings...both through numerous executions carried out in Florida...and the extrajudicial taking of lives by ICE in major U.S. cities. Maybe it just all felt too raw and real for me to think through the Gospel of John's telling of the Passion to want to preach about it.

And so I turned to the Psalm...number 22..."My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?"

Because that's where I am at on so many days right now.

Text: Psalm 22, John 18:1-19:42

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“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

Those must be some of the loneliest words in all of Scripture.

Psalm 22 captures the lament of those who have been on the receiving end of human cruelty.

Each verse describing that sense of what it feels like to be innocent…and yet treated with disrespect and derision.

In other Gospel passages about the crucifixion….that first verse of the psalm are the only words we hear Jesus utter from the cross.

And we can imagine why this particular psalm…believed to be written by King David…would have been on Jesus’ mind at that moment.

Because…at that hour… the crucified Jesus was truly powerless.

He was vulnerable.

And he was scared.

He’s just like us.

It would be nice to think that…as Christians and people who believe in God… we pray all the time…and regularly stay in conversation with the Holy One.

But…at least it’s been in my experience…the times when we are the most likely to turn to God in prayer is when we’re in trouble.

We might put up those prayers like Anne Lamott: a very simple Help! Help! Help!

Get me out of this situation!

And when we’re in that place…of deep worry and fear…the worst feeling is to call out our prayer…and only hear crickets in return.

It’s one thing to feel abandoned by friends…and another when it’s your family.

But to feel the absence of God….that’s harsh.

The psalmist captures that depth of the hurt we feel when it seems God is silent:

“I am poured out like water;

All my bones are out of joint;

My heart within my breast is melting wax”? (14)

While John’s Gospel doesn’t have Jesus repeating that opening line of the psalm while he’s on the cross…the evangelist does reference it when talking about those who are gloating…and taking pleasure in his pain.

The indifference and lack of empathy from those inflicting the torture makes the point about the inhumanity that the psalmist observes.

All this tracks with the way that tyrants and bullies have always behaved…especially when challenged.

And certainly Jesus posed a threat to the Roman Empire.

He has been flipping over tables in the marketplace of the Temple and exposing the whole system as corrupt and oppressive.

He’s been chastised for healing sick people…giving them the agency to walk…and to see…and leading them toward the God of Love.

He conversed with a Samaritan woman…and treated her with the dignity denied to her by others…breaking down the rift between cultures.

And when Pontius Pilate…an agent of the state known for his ruthlessness… demanded to know “What is truth?” Jesus didn’t dignify the question of his bully with an answer.

Because Jesus wouldn’t obey…because he refused to bend the knee…and kept encouraging others to see in themselves their worth in the eyes of God…he was put to death.

This pattern has been repeated throughout history.

In our own country…the black Christian theologian James Cone has challenged us to see in the cross the lynching tree…and to accept that Jesus was the first victim of such brutal hatred.

Cone sees in Jesus the body of victims of racism…the people killed for simply existing in black skin and having the audacity to think that they could live their lives in peace alongside white people.

Cone extends this out to all those who are the marginalized “others” mocked…scorned…and dehumanized by the dominant culture.

And there’s been plenty of that going around lately.

Neighbors turning on neighbors….and arrests of innocent people for the crime of being black or brown and speaking another language.

The memes passed around on social media laughing at the idea of sending people to the swampy Everglades to be alligator food.

There’s no escaping the truth of what Good Friday and the cross stood for then…and now.

It is a collision between those who choose force as a means to threaten and dominate others…acting as “the packs of dogs” who encircle those they see as “weak”…and the ones who choose power with others…non-violence… and don’t provide answers to empty questions.

Which is why it makes sense that some of our Gospel writers have Jesus turning to Psalm 22 in this critical moment at the end of his earthly life.

And we can imagine Jesus praying through the whole thing as he is dying.

Because while the psalm captures all that is wrong with what is happening in the moment…and expresses lament for the inhumanity of the situation he’s in…it also has language that provides a source of comfort and hope…that God will hear his cry and will meet him in this hour of need.

This is why when people ask me what book of the Bible I would recommend they read…I always cite the Book of Psalms.

Psalm 22 not only expresses the grief and the fear of the abyss…it’s also a life ring of promise in what is a hopeless situation…and trusts in a God who will respond to the brokenhearted.  Hear these words:

“Praise the Lord, you that fear him”

“I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him”

I can even think that Jesus clung to the psalmist echoing the sentiments that his mother declared to Elizabeth during her pregnancy:

“God does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty,…but when they cry to him, he hears them. The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek the Lord shall praise him.”

The psalmist names our pains…and doubts…and yet keeps turning back to God…believing that despite it all…God is hearing our pleas.

Did God abandon Jesus on the cross?

No…

God was there throughout…in the same way that God is with us…in us…and around us in our moments of distress as well as our joys.

Through Jesus…God has moved closer to our existence…and our struggles against the most powerful forces that try to keep us down.

Through our faith and trust in God…we can survive and weather the storms that come at us…even in these most trying times.

One day…we too…like the psalmist…will be able to speak confidently to the saving deeds that God has done.

And we will be able to declare that our times of distress are finished.

In the name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

"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.

 

Finish the Job: A Sermon for Good Friday

 

“It is finished.”

The last words of Jesus according to John.

We had an interesting discussion recently about this line among the people who were preparing to give voice to the Passion Gospel for our Palm Sunday reading.

Now…last Sunday…it was the Passion as described by Mark.

In Mark…Jesus cries out with the opening verse of Psalm 22:

“My God, my God: why have you forsaken me?”

But John wants us to hear Jesus say,

“It is finished.”

The phrase sounds like a poignant period to such a brutal and excruciating death as crucifixion.

But don’t let the English fool you.

The word in the Greek—tetelestai (pronounced tet-uh-LESS-tie)—is the perfect tense of the verb teleo.

Teleo can loosely translate to mean “to accomplish something.”

Using tetlestai…implies a task accomplished in the present as well as the past…and even into the future.

When Jesus says…”It is finished”…we could translate it to mean:

“Mission accomplished.”

So what is accomplished?

The dawning of a new way, a new path.

Those gathered there at the foot of the cross are evidence of the mission that he has accomplished.

His beloved disciple will now take in his mother.

Take care of her…and treat her as if she were his own mother.

He has drawn to himself Mary Magdalene…that Tower of a woman…who remained faithful to the end…and she will be the one who first meets the risen Christ.

She will be the apostle to the apostles.

Jesus has taught that one should refrain from brutal violence.

When Simon Peter drew his sword to protect his friend and teacher from the authorities…Jesus told him to put his weapon away.

It recalls the words of Isaiah that we find in one of our canticles from Morning Prayer:

“Violence will no more be heard in your land,

Ruin or destruction within your borders.”

Jesus’ mission was entirely built upon a radical idea that love is stronger than hate, faith overcomes fear, and that the truth is found not in Empires, and bullies, and tyrants…but in trusting in that divine Source of Life and Light.

What Jesus has accomplished is to lay down the tracks for his disciples…both then and now…to follow Love…stay grounded in Love…and remain steadfast in Love.

His earthly life completed…his suffering finished…he has drawn people together…while highlighting the hypocrisy and cynicism of the religious collaborators…and the brutality of Roman Empire.

That mission is accomplished.

The world is free to live in love…all we have to do is open our eyes…and believe in our hearts that it is true…that love is the truth…and live it.

Jesus…through the workings of the Holy Spirit….through the stirrings in our hearts that yearn for a connection to God…that draws us to the cross on a Friday night… now places us in this moment to consider those things that remain unfinished.

There are still those clinging to the need to “other” people…that perpetuate suffering in the world.

We are still looking for the day when we can say definitively that racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, war, and poverty are no more. .

Some two-thousand plus years later…the work of Jesus…that mission of Love…needs constant and conscious revisiting.

It needs regular recommitting…repenting…and returning.

It needs us.

In the same way that Jesus passed on the work of living and loving to his disciples…the cross stands as the reminder that we are called to that same mission to live and love as he did.

Jesus didn’t fail in his mission.

He did what he had to do…through the power and grace of God within him.

And we…who claim that mantle of Christ for ourselves…must stand for the Love Jesus shared with us…and won for us and the world.

Now is the time to give thanks to the God in Christ who taught us to love one another…so that we might lead others to do the same.

That we might rise up and meet the world’s challenges in Love.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

The Strength to Love: A Maundy Thursday Sermon

 

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

This simple phrase is really the bedrock of our Christian faith.

If we live in love and have love for one another…care about each other…listen to each other’s stories…celebrate each other’s successes…mourn each other’s losses…we are actually moving in the direction of being the people God so desires us to be.

A people in relationship with each other…rising and falling and rising again with each other.

So…it made me sad when I heard an interview with a preacher from the more evangelical…non-denominational tradition…say that when he preached on the Beatitudes…Jesus’ opening to the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew…and emphasized the “love” of Jesus… the response from his congregation was anger and rejection.

They told him in no uncertain terms that to love as Jesus did is “weak.”

And they weren’t about to be weaklings.

I hardly think that Jesus is a weakling.

In fact…he takes a lot more guts and grit to follow the path that he took.

To dare to stand up to the oppressive occupying force of Rome and call out the corruption of religious collaborators…remaining steadfast in his trust in God and never lifting a weapon to do it…. that’s powerful.

To love as Jesus did also means to step down…in fact…stoop down…to wash the feet of his disciples.

They don’t understand this at first.

We hear Peter asking Jesus to not just wash his feet but every part of his body.

And while he doesn’t say this, we can get the sense that Jesus was looking at his dear beloved disciple and with a sweet smile telling him, “This isn’t about hygiene, friend, I trust you did shower today.”

This foot-washing ritual is an act of purification…recalling the sacrament of baptim that we have inherited.

Interestingly…on this night…we also have the reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinithians where he recalls for the bickering church of Corinth…the institution of the Eucharist…when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper.

This meal…central to our own celebrations…is a type of agape meal…a love feast. At the table…Jesus transformed the traditional blessings offered over the bread and wine…and made them a tangible…physical…covenant…binding his life to his disciples…declaring that they represented his body and his blood.

And all of them ate the bread. They all drank from the cup of wine.

All of them.

Even Judas Iscariot.

Judas also presumably had his feet washed in John’s telling of the story.

All of those who were Jesus’ friends…and even the one who turned on him…were bound together through baptism and this new covenant of bread and wine.

Jesus knew trouble was brewing.

He knew that he was on a deadly path.

He knew he was going to be betrayed…in one way or another…either through an act of commission…or in acts of omission and fear by those who denied him and ran away.

And yet he loved them… all of them…to the end.

Because…in the end…Love will prevail.

This is what Jesus has passed down to us through his word and example…through the grace and forgiveness extended to those whom he loved even though they let their fears get the better of them.

This is what Jesus is calling us to remember…as we wash each other’s feet…as we gather to enjoy the Eucharist tonight: no matter who we are…what we think of ourselves…whatever labels the world slaps on us to define us…we are…at the very core of it all…God’s beloveds.

And through these acts of water…wine…and bread…Jesus is reminding us that our first duty in this life is to love one another.

This doesn’t mean we won’t have disagreements.

Or even disappointments…or disillusionments with each other’s blindness.

And Jesus reminds us to always first look for that log in our own eye before we stick our fingers in someone else’s eye to pluck out that speck.

By loving one another enough to stay in relationship…we are loving the Christ in each other.

And when we do that…we are loving the God who carried Jesus through this long night into the dawning of Easter.

As we pray the words of Psalm 22 this evening…and gaze upon an empty altar…remember that Jesus commanded us to love one another.

And it takes real strength to do that.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.