Transformed and Transforming: Sermon for Easter 2 (John and Act)

Look at the change in the Christian community between our two texts this morning!  Look at the transformation that takes place between our story in the Gospel of John and the description in the Book of Acts!  In just a few short years, Jesus’s disciples have been completely transformed, from a frightened and uncertain group hiding from public view into a thriving community of worship and mission.  They experience the Risen Christ, and look where he takes them!      

Let’s look more closely at what our stories have to tell us, beginning with the gospel narrative in which Jesus appears to the disciples a week after his resurrection. And what are the disciples up to?  They’re hiding out!  Frightened, terrified actually, that they will be associated with the man who has been crucified for insurrection against the government.  Lost and bewildered: what are they to do without the leader they have come to depend upon?  Inside, behind locked doors – this does not look like a group with a lot of promise insofar as spreading the word of the resurrection is concerned.

And on their own – they are not.  Of course not. 

But Jesus appears in their midst—twice, as it turns out – and two things happen.  Two encounters, two conversations, in which they are transformed by his resurrected presence.

In the first encounter with Jesus, the disciples rejoice.  Of course they rejoice! Wouldn’t we, too, rejoice in the re-appearance of someone whom we deeply love who has died?  Rejoicing  would be the order of the day.  But there’s more to it than their own rejoicing, because Jesus has a commission for them:

“As the Father has sent me,” he says, “so I send you.

Send.  Pay attention that word, send.  It’s one of the most important words in the Bible.  Jesus sends.

The word in Greek, in the language in which this book was first written, is pempwo; it means to send, to insist that something – in this case, the good news of the resurrection and the unfolding kingdom of God – be carried or sent to others.  In Latin, the language into which it was first translated by the church,  the word is missio – mission, in English.  We might think that a mission is a plan, an idea for getting something done – but at its root, a mission is a sending.

Jesus sends.  Jesus does not say, “Oh, this is excellent  -- stay here, locked up by yourselves inside, and be afraid.  Don’t even try to go anywhere, because it’s too scary and challenging out there.”

No – Jesus does not say that at all.  Jesus says, “I send you!”  Get going.  Be bold! There is a whole world out there waiting for good news – I am sending you out to share it!

But there’s more.  More to these encounters, and more to what we are called to do, and to be. 

You may recall that one of this disciples is absent from this incredible, tremendous meeting.  And you may recall that when he returns and hears what has happened, Thomas says. “I don’t believe it.”  We get that, too, don’t we?  If I walked in here and told you that this morning I had seen someone who had recently died, seen them in the flesh and talked with them, you would not believe me.  “Show me,” says Thomas.  "I'm not going to believe this until I see Jesus for myself, and touch his wounds with my own hands.”

And so Jesus, who never leaves anyone behind – Jesus, who is always gathering people to himself – Jesus, who understands us, and understands our skepticism and our grief and our anger, because he is one of us – Jesus comes back for Thomas.  Jesus makes sure that Thomas has the experience of proof that he needs.

And Thomas?  Thomas’s response is, “My Lord and my God!”  “My Lord and My God!” What sort of response is that?  That’s a worshipful response.  That’s a response of praise and adoration and wonder and awe and humility.   That’s worship.

In this one short story, we have the essence of Christian life in community.  Worship, and mission.

When I was in seminary, we had to take a course called Missiology – the study of mission.  Who knew there was such a thing? (Not me!)  Now, I was not looking forward to this required course.  To me, the word mission was about something like missionaries – about sending people out to the far corners of the world to proclaim the news of Jesus Christ.  And that was not something that held any appeal for me.  As a former world history teacher, I knew a lot about the damage that had been done to cultures across the globe by Christian missionaries who so often though they knew best.  I didn’t think that I wanted to study missiology.

But, to my surprise, I loved that course.  I practically inhaled everything I learned in that course.  Because, as it turns out, mission does not mean setting yourself up as the expert and running roughshod over others in the process.  Mission means being sent – and in Christianity, it means being sent with the good news of the kingdom of God among us.

Our professor had a thesis for his course – a main idea.  And what he told us was this: That the church does a lot of things.  We do education, and spiritual formation, and we care for each other and we feed and clothe the needy, and we visit the sick, and sometimes we remember that we do those things in the name of Jesus and sometimes we don’t.  But his conclusion, his main idea, he told us, was that everything we do – everything – comes down to two main projects: Worship, and Mission. 

We worship, God, and God sends us into the world with the good news.  That’s what all of church -- all of who we are and who we are called to be --  that’s what it all comes down to: Worship, and Mission.  If we aren’t doing worship and mission, then we aren’t church.  If we aren’t transformed, if we don’t hear Jesus saying “I am sending you” and if we don’t follow Thomas in saying, “My Lord and my God!” – then we are not church.  If we are not, like those very first disciples, transformed by the Risen Christ from a huddle of frightened people clinging to one another into a community sent into the world, then we are not church. 

So how do we do this?  We are two little churches gathered here on this fine second Sunday of Easter – and how do we do this?  We are scared, aren’t we? – we are small in numbers, and low on funds, and we might close and we might disperse – we are in a tough spot, and where are we?  We’re inside, talking to each other!  How do we open ourselves up to become people transformed by the Risen Christ among us?  How do we open ourselves up to become transforming people, a community sent to transform our world? 

We start, I think by looking at what happened in the earliest church communities.  In our second reading today, from the Book of Acts, we are offered a glimpse of one of the first of these communities, a flourishing community in which – guess what? – people have been transformed themselves by the Risen Christ and are completely engaged in the transformation of their world.  They share, they care for the needy, and they proclaim the resurrected Christ.   Hiding out in upper rooms has come to an end.  The time for hanging out with only one another for company is long past.  Sharing the good news – witnessing to the resurrection in word and deed – that’s what the first churches are up to.

Now this early community – it sounds a little extreme  to us, doesn’t it? These folks own everything in common – no private property – and they sell their homes and use the proceeds to care for the needy.  A different world!  But let’s not let ourselves be stopped by the radical nature of their particular approach.  Let’s ask, instead, how can we adapt what we learn from them to our own circumstances? 

How can we, like the first churches, become people “of one heart and soul?” 

How can we, with this bold example before us, how can we ourselves, perhaps even as one congregation, become a community of worship and mission with “one heart and soul?”  How can we open our hearts during this sacred time, this time of Easter, of resurrection, of hope, of new life, of new possibilities – how can we open our hearts to the Jesus who walks among us?  How can we be transformed by his risen presence into a transforming people, a people who gather to worship and then welcome the invitation to be sent, to care not only for one another, but to practice kindness and to pursue justice in that big wide world out there?

This, my friends, is an important day for us all.  Today is a time to gather, to talk, to question, and to wonder, together.  It’s a day to pause, inside, to worship, to say in unison, “My Lord and my God,” an to take stock and allow our hearts to be cracked open by the Jesus who is here, stopping with us as we consider the future. 

But it’s also a day to recognize, with great joy, that as followers of the risen Christ, we are sent.    We are people who have been invited to the greatest of missions, the mission Dei, the mission of God.  The mission in which children are encouraged and the hungry are fed and the imprisoned are visited and the sick are attended to. 

Worship, and mission. They’re both right there in Scripture.  Their potential lies among people who are unsure and hesitant, but who recognize Jesus when he walks through the door. Their fulfillment lies among people who respond to the calling to be church, proclaiming the good news and serving the world.

That’s us, my friends: B and B Churches. Called to worship and to mission.  Called to be both transformed and transforming. 

Amen.

The Unblogger

I haven't blogged regularly in soooooo long.

 

Most of my life seems to fall into unbloggable categories these days.  The stories belong to other people, or are too sensitive, or simply constitute more than I want to say.   

 

Consequently, I am out of practice.  And I don't want my writing gears to rust into scrap metal.

 

I'm going to work on this. As of last month, I've been blogging for ten or eleven years.  That's a long portion of life recorded in bits and pieces of writing published for other people to read. 

 

I think I might want to hang onto the next decade as well.

There was a garden . . . (Maundy Thursday Meditation)

We humans, we beloved creatures of God, created in God’s own image, began our lives in a garden.  I want you to imagine that garden for a moment: A lush, verdant garden, filled with waterfalls and ponds and lakes, bursting with color and song, a setting for the artistry of God.  Palm trees and maple trees, hummingbirds and sheep, lions and lambs . . .  and human beings.  It all began in a garden.

And then things went terribly wrong.  Things went terribly wrong as humans grasped for something more, as humans reached beyond themselves and sought to become gods.  The one thing not given to us, that was the one thing for which we reached.

And so gardens became something different.  Death entered our world, and our gardens reflect that, because they, too, die.  Plants bloom and grow for only a season, and then they wither and die.

But not forever.  Gardens may be places of decay and death, but they are also places of resurrection.  Places of NEW life.  Places of hope.

Tonight, we first begin not in a garden but indoors, in a room.  We begin in a safe, cozy, inside place, in a gathering of Jesus and his closest friends. Probably they have gathered for a Passover meal, for that meal celebrating the great liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt.  That celebration would explain their presence in Jerusalem.  And who is there, at such a meal?  The Twelve, surely.  And perhaps others unmentioned – Jesus’s mother, Mary Magdalene, perhaps others of his followers.  All gathered safely inside for a meal . . .

A meal which takes a couple of unexpected turns.  It begins with a foot-washing, a frequent occurrence for those who wandered dusty roads all day, but surprising in that Jesus, the Lord and leader of those present, insisted upon washing THEIR feet.  And then a meal – again, a usual occurrence, but this time altered by Jesus’s declaration that the food to be eaten and the drink to be consumed were his way of offering his very self to his followers, of becoming food and drink, of becoming nourishment for them. 

When we partake of the same meal in a few minutes, let us remember who was present for the first one.  Those who followed Jesus, yes.  And those who struggled, like Peter, soon to deny him three times.  And those who questioned, like Thomas, soon to doubt his resurrected presence.  And those who turned away, like Judas, soon to betray him.*  All there.  All present.  Just as we, with traces of each of them in our DNA, are all present.

And then . . . and then “there was a garden.”  Listen tonight for our first reading during our Tenebrae service, our service of shadows, for there will be a garden.  The Garden of Gethsemane, to which Jesus and his disciples repair after their meal.  How astonishing, that the story of human life begins in a garden, and the story of human liberation from sin and brokenness begins in a garden.  A place which to us is synonymous with sorrow and loss – a place which is synonymous with death – is a garden, a place of death in which the possibility of life yet lurks.

And then . . .  and then “there was a garden.” Listen for those words again in our final reading tonight.  Almost all of the candles will be out, and we will be sitting in silence and shadow, and we will hear that “there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.” Joseph of Arimathea, who asks permission to take Jesus’s body from the cross, will lay it in a tomb in a garden.  A tomb – a house for the dead.  A garden – a home for of abundant hope.  A hope which will be realized in only three days.

What is going on here?  Human life begins, and then falters, in a garden.  Jesus begins his journey to the cross in a garden.  Jesus’s body is laid to rest in a garden.  And . . . in the end, as promised to us in Revelation, the final book of the Bible . . . there will be a garden, a garden in the city to which we are all invited.

But for tonight . . . tonight we pause in the darkness, in the quiet room for a meal, and then in the silent garden, silence of a garden in which violence and death loom ahead.  We cannot know Sunday until we know Thursday and Friday.  We cannot know the joyous abundance of the blooming garden until we know the hard, cold ground of the garden of winter.

Listen carefully and remember . . . there is always a garden.  Let it speak to you, of what has been, and of what we wish were not, and of what can be.  There is always a garden.  Amen

Unwavering Mercy - A Palm Sunday Sermon

The Swiss Alps are a place of incomparable beauty.  This past week, they have also become a symbol of human tragedy and incomparable loss.

The contrast is stark and inescapable. Those astonishing peaks, covered with snow and rising to tremendous heights against the sky, challenging hikers and skiers and enthralling all of us with their magnificence.  And now – the backdrop to a most horrible event, an act in which 150 people were crashed into a mountainside and killed, and perhaps also a  consequence of terrible, incomprehensible, illness.  The contrast between beauty and horror stuns us all.

So it is with Palm Sunday.

Today: people filled with excitement, branches waving - a parade

By Friday: the crowds turned,  the shouts turned to jeers - a crucifixion.

Our lives, our world, are filled with such juxtapositions.   Beauty and horror, goodness and brokenness, the surging of hopes and the destruction of death, pressed against one another, operating in the same theatre of life.

But always, always undergirded by the steadfast love of God. The chesed of God.  The unwavering mercy of god.

Our Psalm today, Psalm 118, refers to the chesed of God, in our translation the steadfast love of God.  God’s steadfast love endures forever.   Chesed is sometimes translated as the loving-kindness of God or, as I have done in our sermon title, the unwavering mercy of God.  What does that mean?  A love that persists, a love that is unfailingly generous, a love that invokes mercy – forgiveness in the face of all transgressions.  A love that prevails, no matter what.

Today's psalm, with chesed as its center, is a favorite, is a well-known and beloved song of the Hebrew people.  It is possibly the most quoted of the Psalms. It was Martin Luther’s favorite psalm, which makes sense, given that early German reformer’s immersion in a profound sense of the love of God.

·         The psalm reminds us of

·         God’s abundant love – The abundant love of the God who saved the people of Israel.

·         Impervious love – The love of a God whose goodness never ceases.

·         Extravagant love – The love of a God who fills the universe with light.

·         Reversing love – The love of a God who holds up what we reject, who transforms the discarded                 cornerstone into the chief cornerstone.

·         Unwavering love – The love of a God who is steadfast in the face of all trials.

Psalm 118 is an articulation, an expression in word and song, of this extravagant love of God.

And our gospel story, the story of what we call Palm Sunday, is the enactment of that love --

                A love reflected by Jesus

·         Deliberate love – Look at all the planning  that goes into this Palm Sunday event.  Commentators                 tell us that over half of the story is devoted to the procurement of the donkey.[1]  This donkey                 acquisition is not haphazard event; Jesus knows exactly what he wants and proceeds carefully –           all of his actions are signs of a deliberate love.

·         And a humble love – it is, after all, a donkey that Jesus chooses.  There’s nothing wrong with a donkey – people often rode donkeys – but a donkey doesn’t present the same image that a prancing white stallion does.  Surely a king – a secular king, at least, a Roman king, a warrior king – would produce a horse to match his status.  Only a humble love would deem a donkey an appropriate mode of transportation.

·         And Jesus’ love is a courageous love.  By this point in his journey, he knows that a violent death awaits him.  And yet he straddles that donkey and rides into the city in which trial and    crucifixion loom head.  A courageous, steadfast love indeed.

·         And an all-encompassing love.  Jesus knows by now to expect betrayal; he knows that he is going to serve a meal in which he will give of himself to one who will betray him, and give of his life of behalf of others who will do the same.   But his love is so broad, his mercy so unwavering,  that he looks beyond those realities to the greater one, the one in which death will be no more.

This week is a reminder that we, made in the image of God, do not always mirror that sort of love

Like the crowds, our waving of palm branches does not signify an unwavering love.

·         When love is inconvenient or difficult for us, we back off.  I think of the day when it was so very cold and we cancelled our community meal – not my finest moment in ministry – although salvaged by the leadership of Doris and Sandy and all the rest of you who showed up anyway to prepare bags of food, it was still a day on which I was reminded that, in my case, at least, love is not always steadfast.

·         When our standards are challenged – I heard a radio show this past week in which the guests talked about the deserving and undeserving poor – and that’s a distinction we sometimes make, isn’t it?  We know that we are called to serve the poor – but if they don’t “measure up,” we may find that our love is a bit on the shaky side.

·         When subversive action is required - we shy away.  When we are asked to go public with our faith convictions, we often stop cold.  Maybe our love is not as strong as we had thought.

·         And when the lure of the many push us this away and pull us that, we succumb, don’t we?  That inner teen-aged voice which cries out, “But everyone else is doing it . . .” or “But no one else has to do this!” – that one stays with is, doesn’t it?

Like the crowds, we put down our branches and we turn away.

·         But Jesus rides on - the rejected cornerstone. 

·         Jesus rides on - the embodiment of complete, self-sacrificing, self-realized, enduring love.

·         The starkness of his courageous self-giving against the backdrop of greed, corruption, and resistance that will kill him is not yet apparent.

·         The boundlessness of his love is not yet clear.

·         The power of his very being -- to destroy and to conquer death itself -- awaits another Sunday.

We embark upon this week with a parade. A festival week in Jerusalem - a celebration of Passover, of liberation, of freedom.

But we know from our vantage point that it is to be a week of contrasts

A week not unlike this last one, in which a plane filled with jubilant travelers was crashed into the mountains.

By the end of this Palm Sunday week in Jerusalem, the laughter will have turned to taunts, the celebration to accusations, and the donkey will have given way to a cross.

Today, we celebrate -- we wave palms -which we will then put down -- in honor of the one upon whose steadfast love we depend.

Today we celebrate - and then we pause.

Our text gives us space to pause.   Have you ever paid attention to the final scene in temple. The parade is over, the crowds have gone home and, the Bible tells us:

“Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. After he looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he returned to Bethany with the Twelve.”

He is alone, a solitary figure whom the crowds have deserted.

Evening has fallen - the light of day has been quenched.

This is no ordinary ruler taking command of the city.

This is the figure of steadfast love, of unwavering mercy, of undeterred self-donation --- the ultimate sign of grace and courage in a world sorely in need of both.

When you put your palm down today, do so gently.  When you put your palm down, remember that it is a symbol - not merely an object to be waved and discarded -- but a symbol of that which is unwavering: the love of God and the gift of Jesus, the one born not to conquer a city, but to claim victory for life over death.  Amen.

---

[1] Thomas G. Long, “Donkey Fetchers.” Christian Century ( April 4,2006).  http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3389

Friday Five: Saints be praised!

Today's RevGals Friday Five takes advantage of the upcoming March 17 to focus on saints!  From 3dogmom:

Saint Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, which got me thinking about how the “official” saints of the church touch our individual and collective worlds. A woman I met recently was born on St. Patrick’s Day, and her parents honored the occasion by naming her for this saint whose feast day is the cause for much celebration. So for today’s Friday Five, please share with us a little something about the saints that are a part of your life in one way or another.


1) Do you have a “favorite” saint? Tell us about him or her!

I have at least two! St. Brigid ~ healer, artist, abbess ~ and St. Ignatius, whom I consider a friend, mentor, and teacher, even if he did live 450 years ago.

2) Some of us share names with a saint. If that is the case, has that saint, or his or her feast day, held any meaning for you?

My first name is Mary, so perhaps I should give some consideration to Mary Magdalene.

3) Is there a saint whose life or story intrigues you (other than number 1)?

Who comes to mind?  Some "official Catholic saints" and some who are important to me in various ways regardless of official status: Syncletica, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Sienna, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Jesuit Peter Favre, founder of my Catholic boarding school Julia Chatfield (pictured above with my dear friend and sculptor Sister Agatha Fitzgerald).  We are doing a Bible Study on Exodus at church, and so this morning the midwives Shiprah and Puah come to mind as I think about life stories I would like to know.

4) Do you pray with, or to, a saint (or saints)?

Not "to," but I definitely talk things over with Ignatius, and I pray with many other saints in the sense of praying their words and considering their circumstances and challenges.

5) Many saints are designated patrons of occupations, needs or occasions (like traveling). Is there such a saint that factors into your life professional, or avocationally?

That would be Brigid, for ministry in general, and Ignatius and Peter Favre, for the ministry of spiritual direction.

Bonus: please share a picture of one (or more) of the saints named above.

Imaginative Prayer Walks

Although long walks are one of my favorite parts of life, they haven't been among its features this year, and most especially not this past week. With temperatures hovering around zero every day, I haven't even been to church or to the university for two days.  So, as part of my Lenten plan to revitalize my prayer life, I have begin to take imaginary walks, looking for God in the places and among the people I have spent time with.  A few days ago, I prayed through a list of many of the institutions of my life ~ churches and schools, for starters ~  and now I am "walking" though their neighborhoods.

 

This morning's "walk" through the area surrounding my home church included the neighborhood, around which a friend and I frequently walked while our children were in their Montessori preschool there, and a trip across the street to the huge park.  That park has been home to our children's play when they were in preschool, to later soccer and softball practices and games, and to long walks with a good friend.  I recalled one walk  across the park to the Great Meadow and beyond a couple of summers ago,  with a woman whose father and extended family I had accompanied through his death when no one from my home church was available. 

 

I found myself praying for many people I hadn't thought of in years; and for my home church pastor, whom I know often goes running there; and even in gratitude for the Rockefeller family, whose vision and money established an unusual neighborhood and its expansive park!

 

I am finding that I walk so much that I know several places in intimate detail, and they are associated with people from all times of my life.  It's an excellent way to pray when the ice and cold have forced me to hibernate. 

Star Children (Ash Wednesday Sermon)

Tonight we are invited into what is for many the most moving season in the Christian calendar.  Advent is filled with joyful anticipation, Christmas with the astonishing discovery that God chooses life as one of us, and Easter with the radical fulfillment of our highest hopes: death is no more. 

But Lent – Lent is that season in which we come face-to-face with the great mystery of each of our lives: We are born, and we die.  We are born, quite literally, as star children, for we all bear within ourselves stardust: elements which were once bits and parts of the heavenly bodies above.  (Yes, this is true – almost everything on earth was at one time part of a star, now scattered across the universe.)  And when we die, we turn to dust once again, to earthly dust, to the ground – itself stardust --from which Adam, whose name means “made of the earth,” was created. 

And in between – in between we live lives worthy of both stars and earth.  Lives in which we aspire to the skies, to great deeds and expansive love.  And lives in which we are often grounded by sorrows and suffering.  This night, this season, pull us back to our groundedness, to the reminder of our mortality so necessary to our understanding of the dazzling magnificence of resurrection.  But it also turns us toward the stars, as we prepare to receive the ashes, the dust, which remind us of who we are: creatures of stardust. Creatures of light as well as of earth.  Creatures of life as well as of death.

On the first Sunday of Epiphany, back in January, many of you received star-words, words which I hoped you would put in conspicuous places and would ponder from time to time. To what, I asked, might your word be inviting you this year?  How might it expand your life, ground you, challenge you, encourage you?

Tonight I ask you to consider you star word once again.  How might you live out the Lenten season, how might you journey toward Easter, in light of your star word?  How might it guide you into a deeper experience of this season?

Our text tonight, from Matthew, awakens us to the three church practices of Lent: generosity, prayer, and fasting.  And in this passage, Jesus admonishes us to do these things in private.  How confusing!  So often we rejoice, as a church, in community, in the doing and understanding of things together.  We give together – our weekly offerings are pubic events, and much of the good work we do – the meals, the thrift shop – are done in community.  We pray together every week, in worship and at Bible study.  And when we give up food – we like to let people know, don’t we?  In fact, we ask others to be our support system when we try to relinquish our hold on something really important – like chocolate!

But sometimes, sometimes, it behooves us to practice our faith in private, or silently, or without drawing attention to ourselves.  We give something without anyone knowing about it.  We pray quietly and alone in our own homes.  We sacrifice something, whether chocolate or some other desirable food or activity, without fanfare.  Sometimes we are called to journey deeply into the deserts of our lives, into those places in which it seems that suffering and sorrow reign, into those lands in which confusion and bewilderment hold court, and to do so quietly, seeking the companionship of God alone.  The silent land, author Martin Laird calls it – that place without distraction, without the clamor of community, without the burden of the expectations or hopes of others – that place in which we might find a new clarity, a new discovery, a new recognition, of who we are and of who God is.

What might your star word convey to you, how might your word lead you, into the silence and toward this renewed openness toward God?  When you receive ash on your forehead or on the palm of your hand tonight, you might ask: What does my word suggest needs to die in my life?  What do I need to release? What attachment is holding me back from the fullness of life?  And when you consider your star, and the stardust from which you are make, you might ask:  What does this word invite me to? What is longing to be born in my life?  What am I called to embrace?

In a few moments, the sign of the cross will be marked in ash upon your face or hands.  The cross – a symbol of death, and life.  The ashes – from earth, and from sky.  This is the season in which we remember that we are creatures, not gods, but creatures of both: of death and of life, and of earth and of sky. And that we are called to turn to our God in wonder and in awe, recalling our mortality and awaiting new creation.