Seeing with Easter Eyes: A Sermon for Easter Sunday

 

If my sermon for the Easter Vigil encountered a hiccup because of the shorter ending of Mark, at least my sermon for the 11am Easter service was the well-worn story from John's Gospel. Trying to figure out a different approach into the story...just like trying to preach a meaningful and not sappy sermon at Christmas Eve...is always a challenge. This is the day churches are likely to have people other than their usual attendees present, some of whom might be coming to church out of a family obligation. It's not that I change my preaching style for these occasions; it's just that I feel a little extra need to be mindful that there are going to be people there who may only hear this one sermon. And so, I pray. Even more. Help me, God, to make this crazy tale accsessible even to the most skeptical and cynical person who might be out there this morning.

Text: John 20:1-18

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About nine years ago…there was this huge controversy that erupted in popular culture.

It was all over social media…about the colors of a dress.

Some people saw this photograph of the dress worn by the mother of the bride at a wedding in Scotland and insisted that the color scheme was white and gold.

Others saw it and determined it was black and blue.

And very quickly…something as innocuous and

fairly trivial… became a raging argument.

As the New York Times said…it became the dress that melted the internet as people feuded over what color is this dress.

Fashion bloggers…celebrities…your next-door neighbor…everyone had an opinion about this dress.

And scientists became cool…noting that what people saw in the color of the dress said more about the neuro-receptors in their eyes than the fashion decision of some British dressmaker.

Apparently…we have certain cones in our eyes that read the color blue.

If a person saw the dress and thought, ‘that’s gold,’ it meant they had fewer of these blue receptor cones in their eyes.

Because the dress was…in fact and in truth…black and blue.

Fascinating…this thing about what we perceive and how we respond to the things that we see.

And living in our world where people can manipulate images…we all have to be careful with those random photos that get shared across the internet.

Back in the world of the First Century…in the days prior to all our super-connectedness through our phones and watches…this idea of “seeing is believing” was all they had.

And when things were more than just a little “off”…it must’ve caused quite a stir.

Nobody was there to take a photograph of that empty tomb, the wadded up linen wrappings.

And we can only imagine how freakish this must have been for Mary Magdalene to show up at the tomb…and find it unsealed and Jesus’ body gone.

She did what anyone of us might have done:

She ran.

She probably ran faster than she’d ever run before.

She had to tell somebody…someone who she trusted to see what she’d seen.

She finds Peter and one of the other disciples.

All her words come spilling out of her mouth…

And of course they ran!

Like Mary….Peter and this nameless disciple… still processing their fear and disillusionment at knowing their friend and teacher Jesus had been killed by the state…are now full of adrenaline…sprinting to the tomb.

And when they get there…what do they see?

First…they see that Mary was right: the stone had been removed so they could go into the tomb.

There’s the linen wrapping that was on his body.

Over there…that’s the cloth that had been on his head…in that corner…

What in the world??

Oh, no…not in the world…no this is something other-wordly.

So…Peter and Disciple No-Name…their minds now blown wide open…decide they better go home….give this new information some thought.

Meanwhile…Mary is weeping outside the tomb.

Was it not enough that one of his twelve friends had betrayed Jesus?

Had the Roman Empire…and their fawning collaborators…had they not made their point by crucifying this innocent loving Jewish man?!

She dares to peak inside.

But unlike Peter and Ol’ No-name…Mary perceives something different.

Instead of noticing a discarded linen wrapping and such…she sees two angels.

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

“They’ve taken him!” she bawls, “I don’t know where they’ve taken him!”

She is beside herself with grief and fear and maybe even some rage.

From behind…she hears a kind voice.

That voice repeats…

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

Ah-hah! A human! A gardener.

Was this culprit who stole Jesus’ body?!

We can imagine that in her own adrenaline rush…in her own shock and fear and horror at the possibility that something terrible has happened to Jesus’ body, we can hear her desperate demand:

“Sir, if you have carried him away….tell me…tell me now…I want him back!”

“Mary!”

A pause.

Another shift in her perspective.

Is this? Could this really be?

She gasps, “Rabbouni!”

How could she have not recognized him?

How did she not know this was Jesus?

And what about Peter and the other disciple?

Could it be that in their haste to get home…they ran right past Jesus and never noticed that he was there the whole time that they were looking around inside the tomb?

Could they only perceive the linen wrapping and the head covering and not get a sense that God could bend the rules of nature… and perhaps a new reality is taking a dramatic Godward shift…where Love claims victory over death?

She remembers what Jesus once said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

And now…here he is.

And her perception…through tears…and sense of reality has shifted.

As she processes this incredible event…Jesus tells her to go tell the others…let them know that he’s not ascended to heaven but is ready to meet them…and reassure them…that all those things he had done and all those words he had spoken…they’re for real.

We tell this wild and fantastic story every year.

And we tell it in the face of things in the world that feel not right…not loving…not life-giving or liberating.

Our lives are punctuated by things that hurt…and losses on the personal and the global level that can make us doubt the reality that God is love and desires for us to experience goodness and love every day.

We still face challenges from forces that seem determined to keep crucifying God’s creatures…both through destruction and degradation of the planet…and the people.

There are those who seem to wish to use power and privilege to keep others from being able to pursue their own happiness in this world.

And I think that’s why we need to keep hearing this Easter story every year.

Because this is a story of God bearing witness to the absolute worst of humanity…and with greater force and confidence…saying a big ol’ “Nope, not today Satan!”

This is a story of God showing us that we can overcome those obstacles thrown in our path…we can survive hardships…and we can…with love in our hearts…ascend to greater heights…and—yes—we can make a difference.

With Easter eyes…perhaps we can see each other as God’s beloved children…treat the people we meet with the dignity and respect they deserve.

However we take the message of Easter out of this building today…may our vision be clear…our hearts be full…and may we have the courage to live and pursue that Love revolution that God has been dreaming for us to experience.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

Getting Comfortable with the Unknown: A Sermon for the Easter Vigil, Year B

 

Sometimes, it helps to double check the Gospel before you write your sermon. I was surprised as I listened to the Deacon telling us the story of the empty tomb in Mark to hear her continue past the ending of the women fleeing the tomb and saying nothing to anyone because they were afraid. This was the point on which I had planned this whole sermon. 

But the crafters of our Gospel book saw fit to add "The Shorter Ending of Mark," one which says that the women "told briefly" the news to Peter and the others and all lived happily ever after because Jesus sent them out to proclaim eternal salvation. The end. 

OK...that's some embellisment on my part. But that "shorter ending" which is at least a little better than the expanded "other" ending of Mark was something the church tacked on about the time of the 4th Century. Because.....they needed something better than where Mark left the story?? 

Anyway...I preached the sermon I had prepared. And I will continue to teach people to pay attention to a message of uncertainty...trepedation...and awe-struck fear that comes with those last words of Mark's Gospel. Because it helps to keep Mark's version a very real and relatable story of Jesus and those who were brave enough to follow his path. They had to go back to Galilee. They had to be reminded of Jesus' declaration that he made coming back from his time in the wilderness. They needed to change in order to move the story of Love forward.

Text: Mark 16:1-8

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I don’t watch a lot of T-V…or Netflix…or Hulu.

But one show that is my “junk food” of television is “The Equalizer” starring the hip hop artist and actress Queen Latifah.

Like every good cop show ever put on American T-V…the plots are pretty simple to follow:

Something bad has happened to someone.

The criminal is not readily apparent.

The injured party turns to the good guy…or gal in this case…Queen Latifah….to get to the bottom of the case and right the wrong done.

And after some plot twists and turns…a few commercial breaks to help pay the bills…the bad actors are caught…the victim has received justice…and everything is made right in the world…all in 52 minutes time.

No loose threads…unless they intend for you to come back next week for a part two.

We like things tidy…and unambiguous.

Which is why the ending of Mark’s Gospel…his story of the resurrection…is so unsettling.

Because there is NO resurrection:

We don’t see Jesus.

He’s gone.

Some young man…an angel we suppose…tells Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and Salome…that Jesus has been raised. Go tell the others, especially Peter…Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee… the fulfillment of a promise he’d made right before all the chaos and trouble began at that critical hour of his arrest and crucifixion.

They hear this news.

But instead of rejoicing and running off to tell the disciples that Jesus has been raised from the dead…they flee the tomb.

They’re in awe. They’re terrified.

And they said nothing because they were afraid.

Not exactly the ending we want to hear.

No! This isn’t how it’s supposed to end!

These women are brave.

They go tell the men…

“He’s risen! Hallelujah!”

Isn’t that the end we prefer?

But Mark’s a realist.

And we need a dose of reality, too.

Because if this were us…wouldn’t we be terrified and amazed too?

They saw the death of Jesus.

These women watched Joseph put his dead body in the tomb.

They hadn’t been there to see the unnamed woman show up before the Last Supper to wash Jesus’ body with expensive nard from her alabaster jar…so they assumed somebody needed to bring spices and do the proper burial procedure.

Now something beyond their ability to understand has happened.

Jesus has been raised from the dead.

Say what?!

Lots of Biblical scholars have put their minds to why Mark ends his Gospel in this way…so abruptly and without the nice tight happy ending we want.

Some speculate that this is reflective of the mood in Mark’s community…the Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus.

This… the earliest of the Gospels…is from the time when the Roman Empire destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem for a second time…leaving us today with only the remnant of the Western wall.

Perhaps these women represent the trauma of that period.

A time of trembling and fear of the Roman Empire.

Others think the purpose of this ending is to get us to remember that command to go back to Galilee.

Go back to the beginning of the story…to that first chapter of Mark’s Gospel…where it all began, and finally take in that one sentence sermon of Jesus’:

“The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe in the Good News.” (1:15)

Suddenly…that line…in light of a missing and reportedly resurrected Jesus…might make a little more sense.

Repent is such a loaded word… especially for anyone whose been told the lie that they aren’t good enough for God.

But what “repent” really means here is to change your focus.

Because love has won, has beaten death.

See the world through new eyes…with a new heart.

Earlier…we heard the history of God’s people…and the many ways in which God has always been there from the start.

God was there…through escaping oppression in Egypt…all the way to escaping a tomb in the outskirts of Jerusalem…God has shown up over and over.

Look and see.

Even crazier? God is there often when we least expect it.

And maybe that’s the message of this peculiar…not-made-for-TV ending to this story.

While we go about doing those things…making those preparations…carefully putting together those plans for how to finish the multiple storylines flowing through our lives…God is working God’s purpose out in ways that are completely unseen…unknown… unexpected and will blow us away…when we finally pay attention.

God’s work is happening in ways and through people that we can’t comprehend.

Because…honestly…we don’t always see God’s incredible handiwork and can’t know how God has been molding and shaping someone until it smacks us in the face.

And then…once we’re done saying, “Ow!”…we have to just smile, and think, “Wow!”

This is why the words that are in the Letter to the Hebrews are so important to remember.

 “We must keep mutual love flowing and to show hospitality to strangers because we may be entertaining angels without knowing it.”

And angels come in all shapes, sizes, genders—binary or non-binary, immigrants, and natives.

Now we know that the women didn’t stay silent forever.

The story of the resurrection did get shared…when they were ready to share it.

Once that initial shock of the moment wore off and they were able to accept this profound change to their reality: they could say…Jesus had fulfilled the mission…and Love has burst out in technicolor.

And now…through these women…through us who believe…we can live and love freely in full color, too.

We have the ending we need…the one which brings us back to that beginning:

Open the eyes….see and treat those whom you meet with loving-kindness…and know and believe….

Hallelujah! Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed! Hallelujah!

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

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.

 

 

 

Palm Sunday: Jesus' Jerusalem Counter-demonstration

This one doesn't require an introduction. But I bid your prayers for me and all clergy and lay leaders during this week, which is a liturgical marathon. 

Text: Mark 11: 1-11

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Palm Sunday is always a little strange for me.

We start outside with the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

And then…almost 15 minutes later…we’re killing him and laying him in a tomb.

I know that this is the Year of Mark’s Gospel….and I know that Mark is all about Jesus being on the go. Mark wants the story to keep moving…

But this is a little extreme!

And it’s born…in part…out of a concern that we experience the entirety of Holy Week…because the church fears that people simply won’t come back for the other services that take place during this week.

It’s not an unfounded fear.

But I think it comes at a cost to what we gain from experiencing Holy Week if we take the time to breathe in…and breathe out…and make a conscious commitment to take this journey with Jesus.

So let me just say a few brief words about what I’ll call “Today with Jesus.”

As we heard in the Gospel we read outside…Jesus sends a couple of his disciples on a mission to find this colt that has never been ridden.

They go and—voila—they find one!

They untie it…assure everyone that the Lord needs to borrow this one... but he will bring it back.

This is one of those details that can be easily forgotten as we barrel along toward a circus-like trial…and public execution of Jesus on Palm Sunday.

But this detail is not frivolous.

Because what Jesus has planned…and it’s very intentional… is a figurative poke in the eye of the pomp and circumstance of the very proud Pontius Pilate and the army of the Roman Empire.

Pontius and the Roman Army will be arriving in Jerusalem at the same time as Jesus.

Their reason for being in town during the time of the Passover is not to honor the holiday.

They don’t care about Jewish customs.

Their sole reason for showing up is to be intimidators.

There was a lot of unrest among the Jews of Jerusalem.

They didn’t like being occupied.

And since the Passover celebrates Jewish liberation from their oppression under Pharoah in Egypt….Rome didn’t want any of the Jews to get some wild idea about rebelling against the Empire.

And so the Roman Empire would use the holiday as a time to parade into Jerusalem…showing off their might and the war horses…and getting the fawning admiration…or at least passive complacent presence…of the people.

An enthusiastic “Hail Caesar!” from those who were benefitting from this unjust system.

Maybe some required applause from those wishing to just get by.

Meanwhile…to mock this demonstration of temporal power…Jesus enters Jerusalem on the same day… through an opposite gate...at about the same time…on a donkey.

The Jews understood this.

The oppressed population recognized this as harkening back to the words of the prophecy from Zechariah:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zech 9:9)

They knew what Jesus’ demonstration meant…and responded by treating him like their king…throwing their cloaks on the road.

They saw this counterprotest to Rome… and responded with shouts of “Hosanna!” which means “Save us, we pray!”

Save us, God. Please: save us!

It’s a cry that I imagine all of us have uttered at one time or another.

Jesus knew what he was doing.

The people were thrilled by his actions.

And we can bet that Rome…and their collaborators noticed…and were not amused.

This is how Holy Week begins.

The people who have felt themselves with their backs against the wall are cheering for the one they believe has come to their rescue.

Not with a violent demonstration.

But with Jesus comes with a conviction and confidence of the rightness of Love.

Because drawing on that source…that power…is the only way to stand up to those who want to intimidate and bully the people into silence and submission.

This is the beginning of a long week and walk with Jesus.

This is our time to remember that God has seen the worst of humanity…and still loves us beyond measure.

That God has felt both convicted and confident…alone and betrayed…afraid and troubled…and yet remained grounded in love. And God wins!

May this week be a time for contemplation and recommitment to the basic tenets of Jesus’ teachings.

Not for our sake’s only. But for the sake of the world.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.