Sermon, Fourth Sunday in Easter, April 26 2015

The Gospel for this week is always Jesus talking about being the good shepherd.  That makes me the sheep.  Every year I think about what kind of sheep I am, how I look to God.  I think about Jesus loving me and caring for me.
Rarely do I listen carefully to the Epistle.  But this year I heard it.  I am not just the sheep.  I’m supposed to be a shepherd too - not because I’m a priest, but because I’m a Christian.  I’m baptized into the company of shepherds.  And Jesus is not only my shepherd - he’s the model for how I’m supposed to be a shepherd.
Now, I’m better at being a sheep than a shepherd.  Sheep wander, they complain, they butt heads.  I can do that.  But shepherds - that’s harder.  What does it mean to be a shepherd?
Our Epistle selection gives us a clue.
John is writing to a congregation that is apparently struggling with questions that might be familiar to us.
What is it to live Christian life, to follow Jesus?
How do we know what matters?
How do we decide who belongs and who is outside?
How do we deal with sin and strife within the community?
In short, how are we to be disciples?
These questions aren’t peculiar to John’s community.  They arise in all communities that try to follow Jesus.
There have been two main answers to the question of how to be a disciple.  The first says that we must believe in Jesus, that faith is what matters most.  Now, belief isn’t just a matter of agreeing with ideas or a creed; it is active reliance on God working in Christ.  We believe when we rely on Jesus to be the good shepherd, to provide for us and guide us.
The second answer to the question of discipleship is action, what another writer calls works.  The letter of James says that “faith without works is dead.”  Some people carry that to focus solely on works as proof of their faith.  They feed the hungry and care for the sick, and for many that is their real prayer life.
From the beginning, the Church has been divided between the faith camp and the works camp.  Lots of judging goes on on both sides.  In our time it sometimes shows up as the line between more conservative denominations or churches and those aimed at social justice.
But John cuts right through this division.
“And this is God’s commandment, that we should believe in the name of God’s son Jesus Christ and love one another” (3:23).
And.  The magic word.
In fact, the connection between faith and works is closer than “and” can say.  Faith and works are inseparable.
Real faith, real belief, real reliance on God lead us to know God’s love in us.  This love leads us to lay down our lives for one another.  This doesn’t mean that we have to prove our love by one grand gesture.  John is referring to all the little ways we lay down our lives.

We share our food and clothing and time.  We make choices mindful of the impact on others.  We honor God rather than our own desires.  This is the daily substance of laying down our lives for one another.  And we only do it out of love and faith.
Now, this can sound like a test.   Such a commandment can easily lead to guilt and self-condemnation.  And I think many of us were raised in traditions that encouraged that.  Week after week we might hear the words in church that remind us that we aren’t enough.
But John offers encouragement more than judgment.  We do have to act, if we want the life promised to us.  But God will help if we ask.  God knows us and wills our wholeness and joy.  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, loves us even as we wander and butt heads with one another.
Here’s the thing: as long as our good works are motivated by fear and guilt, we are missing not only the promise of God - we’re missing the commandment.
The commandment stresses believing in God, in the God who raised Jesus, and letting God’s love fill our hearts.  Love cannot sink into a heart filled with guilt.  Guilt is another way to be self-centered.  Love comes from fullness and empties out toward others.  It is not duty; it is delight.
Jesus gives us the model of self-giving love when he lays down his life.  And just as he is raised, just as he takes up his life again, we find that when we lay down our lives for one another we are raised in turn.
We find new life in loving others.  We find talents and strength we didn’t know we had.  We find companions on the journey.  We find new joy and gratitude in our hearts.  In fact, the life we take up is infinitely better than the life we laid down, richer, fuller.
Parents know this.  People who serve others know this.  Every summer some people will go on mission trips.  They give their time, a little bit of their lives, for their neighbors.  Everyone I know who goes on a mission trip comes home feeling like they were the ones who received a gift.
But we don’t do this on our own.  We do this through the Holy Spirit working in us.  God is the main actor here.  We are the sheep.  We are the recipients of this amazing grace.  Jesus goes before us to show us the way, to show us that the way is trustworthy even when it looks dangerous.  Our job is to listen for his voice, to follow, to believe and to act.
Good sheep, good shepherds.  Walk in love.

Third Sunday in Easter, April 19, 2015

Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:30b-48

First I have to get this off my chest.  

The anointing of Peter continues.  In the reading from Luke we hear that Jesus asks the disciples, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?”  Then he “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.”  In Acts, Peter asks the crowd “why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us” after they heal a man; then he tells them the Jesus story, and seemingly “opens their minds.”  Both Jesus and Peter announce a call for repentance and forgiveness.  So just in case you’re wondering, Peter is the heir.  Not Mary, not Thomas, not John or James.  Peter.  And on this rock, and no other, etc.  

Tell that to the people who read other Gospels, other writings; who listened to women preach, who heard a different Jesus message.  They’re still out there, whispering.  Call them heretics, call them Gnostics, whatever - that Holy Spirit landed on a lot of people.  There’s enough for all of us.

OK, enough picking on Peter.  What I love in this Gospel passage is this: “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”  You mean I can disbelieve and wonder and also feel joy?  You mean that “belief” is not one cloth, and “doubt” is another?  Yes!

At our Coffee Table Communion conversation and Friday we talked about how our Sunday Schools never introduced us to the disorienting experience of Jesus or God.  They taught us words, they might have opened our intellects, but they rarely touched that place where joy and wonder live.  Now, as adults, we choose to start with the experience and seek understanding after.  Understanding doesn’t eliminate questions or even doubts.  It gives us a place to start from to address those questions, and it gives us practices to hold onto while we doubt.  We worship and pray even as we sometimes disbelieve.  And then, after sharing food with us, Jesus opens our minds.  That comes later.

Following Jesus doesn’t mean certainty.  It means sticking close through all the surprises and disappointments and miracles of our lives.  it means joy even in times of fear.  And yes, it means repenting and forgiving.  

May you be graced with the crazy experience of the risen Christ this day, this week.  May you know yourself to be God’s child, loved and loving.  Go, be a blessing!

April 15, 2015

Easter is the season of Mary Magdalene for us, as Advent is the season for Mother Mary.  I’m observing this season by reading more intensively on Mary the Apostle.  Right now I’m reading two books by Jane Schaberg: The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene is the scholarly version, and the more accessible, shorter version is Mary Magdalene Understood, written with Melanie Johnson-Debaufre (my first professor of Christian Scriptures at Drew).  In both books, they follow the path of MM from contemporary issues back through the legends about her, to the “apocryphal” writings, to the canonical Scriptures.  The path is enlightening and disturbing, as we witness the erasure of women’s authority in the Church.

Schaberg begins at the archaeological site of Migdal in Galilee.  No real work has been done in decades, but signs forbid entry and barbed wire and watchdogs enforce the warning.  The site has been allowed to disintegrate - perhaps even forced to disintegrate.  Schaberg compares this to the huge project of excavating, building and preserving at Capernaum, where Peter’s mother’s house, the synagogue, and other sites are available for our inspection.  I’ve been there.  A big, modern church encloses the area.  The message is clear: Peter is the leader.

Schaberg wonders, and I wonder now: what is being covered up in this push to propel Peter to the front?  As we read the Book of the Acts of the (male) Apostles each day at Eucharist, I hear again of how Peter is becoming the next Rabbi, the one whose shadow can heal, whose word can galvanize and convert.  Mary Magdalene?  Mary the Mother?  Invisible.

We can, we must, hear the words of Scripture with reverence.  There is a story there that is life-giving.  But there are other stories of Jesus’ transforming power that were cut out, fenced off.  It is not unfaithful to question the official story.  It might be unfaithful, even heresy, to refuse to look outside the box.  Jesus certainly crossed outside.  Asking questions, looking for the rejected, got him in trouble, but it also brought life to the world.  

Let yourself wonder this season.  Where are the women?  What is served by erasing them?  What would be set free by telling their stories?

Shout out to Ukraine!

I get to see the countries from which people are reading, and I have been so struck by the cluster of page views from the Ukraine lately.  I want you to know two things:

First, I'm immensely gratified that you found this blog and are following it.  It means a lot to me that we are connected from this distance.

Secondly, I am praying, we are praying, for peace and freedom in your country.  Part of why your readership is so important is because I have a glimmer of what you face.  During the UN meetings on women I met and heard women talking about the situation there.  I honor your struggle and grieve the violence you encounter.  

Thank you for your faith and perseverance.  And thank you for reading!

Blessings,

Shane

Wednesday in Easter Week

Acts 3:1-10; Psalm 118:19-24; Luke 24:13-35

If you thought transformation ended with Jesus’ resurrection, think again!  We will be hearing throughout Easter season about the adventures of the disciples, those with Jesus and those who came later.  Today’s reading from Acts really brings home to me just how much transformation is unleashed by the Spirit.

But first we have to back up a bit.  In Luke’s Gospel, and the book of Acts written by the same author, we are led to understand that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples fifty days after the Resurrection.  In Luke, Jesus leaves them the same day he rises; in Acts, he spends forty days teaching them.  But there’s a definite delay between Jesus’ resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit onto the disciples that very first Easter day (John 20:22).  No waiting!  So it’s fitting that we start hearing stories of transformed disciples during Easter, not waiting for Pentecost.

But i digress.

The timing of these metamorphoses isn’t the point.  The point is that they happen.

In today’s reading we find the miraculous healing of the lame man.  That’s powerful, and disturbing.  He didn’t ask for healing.  He has just lost his livelihood.  But he seems OK with it, walking and leaping and praising God.  His whole life has just been transformed, and he now faces totally unexpected challenges - challenges that he will be able to face, with the same God who healed him.

But the healing, the miracle that hit me today was Peter.  When did Peter get the gift of healing?  How did he know he could do that?  What made him risk it the first time?  What the **** has happened to Peter?  I am indeed “filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him” (Acts 3:10) - but the other “him”!

This story reminds me that we are often transformed when we aren’t noticing, or looking for it for ourselves.  At some point Peter felt called to use the gift of healing, as children try out new muscles.  As we grow in our journey with Christ, we sometimes feel called to try something new as well.  Desires that we didn’t know we had suddenly move to the forefront.  Abilities we neglected become needed for the good of others.  Courage or love that we didn’t know we possessed move us to try new things.  We are transformed.  We are miracles.

Peter is still Peter.  He will still bumble and protest and stick his foot into things.  But he is Peter touched by the Holy Spirit.  He is recognizable, but new and different at the same time.

Walking our daily roads we may not notice our own transformation.  We may notice that others seem different.  Often, that’s because we have changed.  When I became a Christian, people started being nicer to me.  Funny.

Look around you.  Be amazed.

The Sunday of the Resurrection

Romans 6:3-11; Psalm 114; Mark 16:1-8

I love Mark’s Gospel because it keeps things real.  Later an ending was added, to tie up loose ends and make the point, but this is where Mark’s gospel originally ended.  The three women come to the tomb.  The stone is rolled back, and a young man in a white robe is sitting there.  He tells them Jesus has been raised.  He says, “Do not be alarmed or amazed.”  Uh huh!  Sure!  OK!  They do the only sensible thing - they run.

What would you do?  What would you do if you came to this tomb?

I’m not ready for the Resurrection.  I don’t think we can ever be ready for such a thing.

Today, as you celebrate an event for which you’ve been planning for days or weeks, an event we knew would come when we started, remember: the liturgies and the words are not the event.  The meals, Eucharistic and otherwise, are not the event.  We cannot schedule the Resurrection.

When we know, really know, that Christ is risen, it shakes us to our souls.  And we can’t plan this knowledge.  We can’t plan our own rebirth, or that of the world.  We can till the soil of our hearts, we can bring oils and spices and dedicate ourselves to God, but the timing of the fulfillment is not up to us.

The 50 days of Easter are just beginning.  Perhaps, on one of them, you will be surprised to find the risen Christ beside you, within you, among you.  May you have the grace to wait for the real thing and not settle for anyone else’s schedule.  May you look for what you do not know, and may you recognize Christ when s/he appears.

Today I finish my commitment to write every day.  This writing has certainly enriched me, and I hope it has you.  As we go forward, I commit to write about each Sunday’s readings, likely posted by Friday noon Eastern US time.  I hope to write at other times, at feasts or when I’m moved, but I can’t say yet.  Thank you for your messages of support.  May your journey be blessed as it continues to unfold.  God be with you!

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  (Or so the women tell me . . . )

Holy Saturday

Lamentations 3:1-9,19-24; Psalm 31:1-4,15-16; 1 Peter 4:1-8; Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  (Book of Common Prayer)

This is my favorite day of Holy Week.  Joseph’s love, Nicodemus coming out of the closet to be a follower, the women preparing spices.  So much tender love.

On that first day after the crucifixion observant Jews would be doing only the minimum, but I imagine that Jesus’ disciples were not so rigorous.  Discussions had to be held and decisions made: where do we go?  what do we do?  And grieving hung around them.  They were busy.

But Jesus is resting.  Maybe.

What happened during that day?  Some have said that Jesus went to hell and freed the captives that day, including Judas, Adam and Eve, and the whole world.  But really, we don’t know.  From outside the tomb, it looks like the end of the story.

If we first saw a cocoon hanging on a branch and had never learned about moths and butterflies, we would think this bag is just a growth.  We might want to pull it open.  If we do, we’re likely to find a mass of goo without form.  We might think that’s all it is.  But if we knew enough to wait, the cocoon becomes a birthplace for the transformed caterpillar.  What comes out looks nothing like what went in, or what we would see in the middle stages.

If we open an egg before it’s ready to hatch, we behold a yolk surrounded by goo.  We would never know that a chicken, or duck, or peacock was there.  We have to wait for it to show us in its time.

During this Lent we have followed a path of transformation.  But transformation into what?

For those who will be baptized tonight or tomorrow, the path has involved classes and reflection to prepare to be marked as Christ’s own forever.  But for the rest of us, the path may not have been so clear.

Spend some time on this busy day of waiting to reflect.  What has your journey been?  Where were you at the beginning, and where are you now?  Who are you now?  Has anything opened up or closed down or shifted in your life?  Are you ready to hatch, or are you still in the cocoon?

Pray that the crazy goo and muck of our world will take new form this Easter season, that we will be able to see the signs of new life in ourselves and one another.  God is with us.  The steadfast love of God never ceases.  

Coda: Why did Jesus Have to Die?

(Warning: possible heresies follow.  Possible implications for public life.  Do not read if such ideas offend you or disturb your private devotions.)

As I walk the grounds of the monastery this morning and stand at the foot of the crucifix outside beyond the chapel, I ask him again: why did you have to die?  I hear two answers.  Neither of them has to do with an angry God who tallies up debts and kills his Son to pay for them.  That was not the theology of the early Church, and thank God (I mean that) it’s no longer the only answer we hear.  But we hear it a lot.

That theology, popularly known as atonement, developed the Biblical idea that Jesus “gave his life a ransom for many.”  Through the writings of Anselm of Canterbury, it became widely articulated and officially sanctioned.  But what if that’s not what the ransom is about?

I think Jesus had to die, first, because we have to.  He came to show us how to be human children of God, the loving God he called Abba.  He couldn’t do that without undergoing everything we undergo.  He underwent the worst sort of death so that all our deaths, no matter how horrible or how unjust, might be transformed into moments of God’s life in us.

But the other reason Jesus had to die, and die in this way, is more troubling.  In Matthew 25 he tells us that we will be judged by how we treated “the least of these.”  He names the sick, the hungry, the prisoners.  He says that whatever we do to them, we do to him.

What if he died to try to stop us from killing?  As the victim of an unjust system, a system in which all the rules were properly followed and order was maintained, Jesus held up a mirror.

Are we really going to be judged on whether we fed our neighbors, but not on whether we kill them?  By any pretext, any rule, any law - really, would Jesus want that?  Not the Jesus I know.

Jesus gave his life a ransom for many, so that many would not have to endure senseless death at the hands of other people.  He offered himself as the face of the oppressed, the body of the prisoners.  We do not fully grieve his passion today unless we also grieve all the other children of God who will die in our name by our governments, in hidden prisons or in arenas or strapped to a table or beheaded or placed before a firing squad.  

I’m not saying his death is meaningless if we don’t stop.  I am saying we are not listening.  

Let yourself be saved today.  Repent what is done in our name.  Pray.  Tell others.  No more killing.  Let his death be enough.

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1-19:42

Oh, Jesus.  What can I say?  What can I do?  Here in this chaos, this nightmare of casual public killing?  I stand at your feet, but I know that I cannot share your pain.  Even my weeping must come to you from far away, as you encounter the mysterious final boundary that we all must face.  I watch you slipping away from me, and even knowing the dying will end the pain doesn’t comfort me.  I don’t want you to go.  But I know you have to do this.

But then I look around.

Jesus was not alone that day.  On either side, another man hung in pain.  Below him, female disciples gathered with his mother and one brave man.  He was not alone, even as his agony separated him from them.

On either side of him, a man hung in pain.  These men had no one that we hear of.  Who stood with them?  Who loved them enough to be there?  Who was the presence of God for them?  Did the disciples speak to them, comfort them?

As we relentlessly divide the world into “innocent victims” and “those deserving of punishment,” we forget the men on either side of Jesus.  We forget the years of neglect and abuse and desperation that go into making criminals.  Jesus had a moral compass and the comfort of doing God’s will.  What did these men have?  What do those who are executed in prisons have?  What do those who execute others have?  No comfort, no real peace.

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

Lament Jesus today.  But pray for those who have no one to lament them.  Pray for the men on either side of him, and for all those who live and die and kill alone.  Let this one death, this saving loving death of Jesus, be the death that leads us into the light of compassion.

Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14; Psalm 116: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

“Walk while you have the light.” “Become children of light.”  Jesus speaks these words even as the darkness gathers around him.  This week, light and dark play together in the dance of mystery.  As the darkness grows, the light and its source become clearer and stronger.  And as the light shines more strongly, the darkness strives harder to extinguish it.

But there are other lights and other darknesses in this week.  There is the softer, gentler light of a Passover meal taken in a private room.  There is the gentle light of one who washes feet and teaches love.  And there is the softer darkness in which Jesus is safe to spend some last quiet minutes with his friends, and with the God he names as Father.  

Tonight many of us will gather to share a meal and hear these words told again.  We will wash and be washed.  We will gather in the semi-darkness of corner chapels or in stripped churches and sit in vigil.  We will dwell in the space between light and dark.

In that space, perhaps you will know the peace that comes in the twilight.  Jesus shows us how to dwell in that twilight place.  He doesn’t force anything, he neither runs nor provokes.  He keeps on loving in whatever way he can, and he teaches us to do the same.  

Being a child of light this week can’t mean pretending that all is well.  It can’t mean denying evil or injustice or pain in the world.  But it also can’t mean simply rejecting, denying the “darkness” in ourselves.  When we do, the welcoming darkness becomes the dangerous darkness.  It overcomes us precisely when we are most sure we are “children of light.”

Spend some time today welcoming the gathering darkness.  Befriend that part of you that would betray Jesus, or that part that would refuse to be washed or show your need.  Ask your soul what you need to face in yourself to stand with Jesus tomorrow.  Let your soul be washed, knowing that God’s love is greater than our sins or failures.  Let yourself be fed.  Let yourself sink into the story of gathering darkness.  Darkness is where new seeds begin.

“Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike” (Psalm 139:11).

Wednesday in Holy Week

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 70; Hebrews 12:1-3; John 13:21-32

The mystery of Judas.  What was he thinking?  I don’t believe John’s answer, that he was a thief and a lowlife.  I don’t believe that he did it just for money, as Luke and Mark imply.  He may have received money, but that would not be enough motive to betray someone he’s been so close to.  And John, who calls Judas a thief who stole from the common purse, does not say it exactly.   The fact that Judas was in charge of the common purse suggests rather that he was found to be trustworthy and faithful.  No, he didn’t do it for money.

The Gospel of Judas suggests that he did it for love, to play his part in the necessary drama of crucifixion.  But I’m not persuaded by that either.  It makes Jesus’ passion and death into a plot rather than the inevitable result of his path.  That fits with later theologies of atonement, theologies that are still popular, but I don’t believe them.  I don’t believe that God “the Father” sacrificed Jesus to pay a debt.  I don’t believe that Jesus aimed at his death.  i believe he came to enter into our humanity, all the way, without flinching.  But that means that he was not orchestrating everything.  He knew, he realized, that he would be betrayed, but he didn’t plan it.

Perhaps Judas just couldn’t stand facing that Jesus was not the Messiah he hoped for.  Maybe he thought the arrest would spark a rebellion.  Maybe he thought he could force Jesus to lead a holy war, or to flee and save his life.  I don’t know.

But I know that Jesus knew, at a certain point.  He was “troubled in spirit” by this awareness, but he didn’t flee - from his fate or from Judas.  He did not accuse Judas to the others to punish Judas.  He knew the mystery of Judas, knew why he had to do it, and he let him be who he was.

I’m so tempted to line up the world between good ones and bad ones, and to vilify and push away the bad ones.  I think I’m not alone in this.  But Jesus takes it all in, takes us all in.  Jesus does not protect himself from me, or from those I hate.  He reminds me that he does not need my protection or vengeance.  He needs me to play my part in the salvation story - all of it, faithful and betraying, denying and proclaiming, ignoring and embracing.

Yesterday Jesus told us to walk while we have the light.  Today we read that it was - it is - night.  May the darkness within you and around you not overtake you.  Love.