Easter Sunday - Mary Magdalene, Our Exemplar

         The Sabbath was about to begin.  John's gospel reported that several women and the disciple “whom he loved” had been standing near the cross when Jesus died.  The women included his mother and Mary Magdalene.  But they had no time to care for his body properly. Joseph of Arimethea took possession of Jesus' body placed a mixture of myrrh and aloes brought by Nicodemus with the body and wrapped it in linen. Then they placed Jesus in the tomb and closed it with a stone.  Done. And then the sun set.

         What a sad time this Sabbath was!  Mary Magdalene probably felt numb and perhaps disoriented.  Her dear friend and teacher was gone.  She had been unable to say a proper good-bye to him.  She wanted to go and be near where he had been entombed, so “while it was still dark” she went to visit Jesus' grave.

         If she had slept at all, she would have woken with only one thought: “Jesus—I don't want believe what I saw with my own eyes—his execution that humiliated him and broke his body.”  She cared little about what hour it was.  The dark morning outside reflected her grief, her spiritual disorientation, and her emptiness inside.

         Was there a time you felt as Mary Magdalene must have felt that Sabbath day?  Most of us have.  And maybe in our grief we decided there was one thing we must do to pull ourselves together—if only for a moment.  The absence of one we love when death separates us causes such grief and pain we feel out of control.  To try deal with the void caused by Jesus' absence, Mary decided to visit his grave.

         What she encountered in the dark further disoriented her and caused her more anguish.  The stone closing Jesus' tomb was no longer in place.  John doesn't report that she entered the tomb then. But she appeared to think that someone had stolen Jesus' body, for she runs to Simon Peter and the beloved disciple to let them know what's wrong.

         Ignoring Mary, these two disciples race to the tomb—they may have even been competing to see who can get there first.  Finding the linen wrappings, but no body, they provide the first credible evidence.  Why credible?  Because they were two male witnesses needed for legally acceptable testimony of what they had seen—and what they had not seen.  The linen wrappings were there, but Jesus was not.  The reaction of the Beloved Disciple—who may have written this gospel—was to “believe,” but apparently not to completely understand what “resurrection” truly meant.  In any event, they left Mary weeping and went home.  To me their actions are inexplicable.  Weren't they concerned about Mary?  Apparently not.  Weren't they curious about what happened to Jesus?  Maybe they figured they work on that tomorrow.

         But Mary could not pull herself away from that tomb and the surrounding garden.  She didn't understand either, but she kept trying to discover what had happened to Jesus.  Clearly her relationship with Jesus had a different character than that of the disciples who had left the scene.  She needed to deal with his no longer being with her and his tomb being empty.  Her grief at his absence could not be consoled.

         She saw angelic messengers inside the tomb, something the other two had not seen.  Was her spiritual awareness heightened by the angels?   Not enough to recognize the risen Christ by sight.  Perhaps his resurrected appearance was too changed—or perhaps her grief still disoriented her.  Whatever the case, she persisted in asking where Jesus' body might be.  And then Christ spoke her name!  Her grief evaporated, and she knew for certain who was standing next to her.

         The risen Christ wanted her to do more than express her love for him.  He sent her out to spread the good news to his “brothers”—those who had gone home—that their teacher, their Lord was alive again.  She knew, because she had recognized his calling her name.

         Mary Magdalene's example of discipleship should inspire us this Easter morning, no matter whether we are women or men.  She actively sought to deal in a positive way with her grief and pain.  She persisted in seeking what she felt was important for her spiritual healing.  She responded to her risen Lord when he spoke her name.  She did exactly what Christ asked her to do, becoming an apostle to the “brother” apostles.

         None of what she did is easy.  And for us, it may be even less clear when Christ is calling our name and what Christ may be asking us to do.  But on this Easter Day we have in Mary Magdalene an exemplar of responding to a loving God with all of our being and never giving up on that love.  Should we start there?  I think we should.

         If we respond to God's love and never give up on God's love, I believe we will be guided to a new lives lived in the light of the resurrection, lives in which our relationship with the risen Christ serves as our strength for the journey that lies ahead.  And on that journey we can become our true God-inspired selves and, in the end, receive God's gift of eternal life.

Good Friday - A Meditative Homily

This was given at an ecumenical worship service at a Presbyterian church:

Two of the three most solemn days in our Christian liturgical year can be tucked away from sight.  If Palm Sunday is celebrated with the reading of one of the Passion narratives, worshippers do glimpse Good Friday.  If not, then worshippers go from Jesus’ joyful greeting by residents of Jerusalem waving palms to the women disciples and Peter discovering Christ’s resurrection on Easter morning.  What happened in between and what it means remains unexamined.

But here we are on the evening of Good Friday.  The first of the three days began yesterday, Thursday evening at sundown.  This evening at sundown we began the second day.  Jesus was crucified and died this past afternoon.  The good Jewish folk who took possession of Jesus’ body—especially Joseph of Arimathea who offered his unused tomb for Jesus’ burial—rushed to bury his body before the Sabbath began at sundown. 

Now it is Sabbath, a good time for reflection.  The Nicene Creed briefly gives us the reason for what happened to Jesus:  “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.”  For our sake!  This was the greater purpose in the choices Jesus made on Good Friday.

We also learn from the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus really died—since he was fully human, as well as fully divine—he died as anyone of us would have under the same circumstances:  “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  He descended to the dead.”  Dead, dead, dead!  No question about it.

Theologically we get the picture.  These two days of suffering and death prepare us to recognize the true miracle of Christ’s resurrection. But is there more than this for us to understand about these days?

Our creeds, our prayers written for use in public worship, Chapter 8 of the Westminster Confession entitled “Of Christ the Mediator”—all these can be used as tools to enhance our understanding of what was happening on Good Friday.  There is one more source, though, that we often use without giving it a second thought: our hymn texts.

One hymn appointed for use in Holy Week directly addresses what these days of Jesus’ suffering and death teach us.  According to this hymn text, Jesus’ choices and actions from the time he went to Gethsemane through his crucifixion teach us three things:  how to pray, how to bear the cross, and how to die.  Let me share each verse with you.  In the silence I leave after each of the three verses, please meditate on how the Holy Spirit may lead you to understand the words you have just heard.

“Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s power; your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with him one bitter hour; turn not from his griefs away, learn of Jesus Christ to pray.”  [Silence]

“Follow to the judgment hall; view the Lord of life arraigned; O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs his soul sustained! Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of him to bear the cross.”  [Silence]

“Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at his feet, mark the miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete; ‘It is finished,’ hear him cry; learn of Jesus Christ to die.”  [Silence]

None of us knows what lies ahead of us. Nor do we know what lies ahead for those we love.  What we do know is this: whatever difficulties, troubled times, or pain life throws at us or those we love, Jesus has shown us how to be steadfast.  Jesus has showed us how to reach out to God for the strength we need.  And at end we know we have a redeemer who has suffered as we suffer. We have a redeemer whose suffering, death and resurrection make it clear we have sure and certain hope in God’s grace.  And, yes, we have a redeemer who gives us the courage, even at the grave, to utter “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”

Palm Sunday - Forgive them, for they do not know . . .

         On Friday I was listening to the radio in my car and heard a review of a recently released movie named “Olympus Has Fallen.”  The plot concerns the fall of the White House and the kidnapping of the President by terrorists.  The reviewer talked about graphic, bloody depictions of violence both by the terrorists and by the Secret Service agent who gets into the White House without the terrorists realizing he is there—until, of course, too late.  Although the reviewer said he does enjoy some violent films, this one crossed the line for him.  He lamented the fact that the depiction of this type and level of violence sells movies in our culture.

         You may also remember seeing or hearing about the bloody, violent interpretation by Jesus' torture and crucifixion by Mel Gibson in his movie “The Passion of the Christ.”  Gibson's theology of atonement apparently needed for Christ to suffer bloody violence and excruciating death in front of us to convince us of the reality of his sacrifice.

         And senseless violence has marred and continues to mar our society, as well as societies  throughout the world—Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Congo, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, to name a few places.

         Which brings us to the account of Jesus' last hours before his crucifixion and his death in Luke's gospel we heard read this morning.  Does the violence draw us in, as it did Mel Gibson?  Or do we endure the depiction of violence done to Jesus, because these dreadful moments contain critical messages about how he lived and how he hopes that we will live.

Joseph Pagano, a priest at St. Anne’s Church in Annapolis, MD, notes in Luke’s account of the crucifixion, “The first words Jesus utters upon the cross are the prayer: ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ And with this prayer, everything changes.”

Everything?  Certainly not the hardness of the human heart and the evil that inspires it to engage in incredible violence.  What really changes?  What changes is how we are to respond to violence if we choose to follow Jesus' teaching and, even more important, his example.  Pagano explains, “With these words, with this prayer, Christ shatters the glamour of the violence that blinds us in this world, and sets in its place a vision of reconciliation and peace . . . What Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount [to love our enemies], he practiced on Mt. Calvary . . . Jesus reveals God's costly love for the world, mediating God's forgiveness and friendship even in the midst of our violent world.”

Benjamin Stewart, who teaches at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, asserts, “In the crucifixion narrative, all four Gospels encourage their hearers to perceive in the violent exercise of political power a hidden story of that power's great failure and eventual undoing . . . the merciful one is the mighty one . . . [t]he one without weapons holds the true power . . .”

So in the end, to transform Rob Bell's book title slightly, love will win. For as Christians we believe that, through  Christ, love will overcome hate, love will defeat violence, love will conquer death.  Love's winning comes much more slowly than we wish—and often at great cost—but it comes, it comes.  May we, exercising the forgiving and compassionate love of Christ as best we can, act as agents for Christ's coming reign.

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Joseph Pagano's sermon for Palm Sunday 2013 can be found on the website Sermons that Work.

Benjamin Stewart's commentary on the Lukan passion narrative can be found in Christian Century, March 20, 2013, p. 22.

The 5th Sunday of Lent - Mary of Bethany's Outrageous Love

         St. Paul sought righteousness that he believed came through faith in Jesus Christ.  “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing in his sufferings . . .because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”  What an amazing power the resurrected Jesus had to completely turn St. Paul's life upside down!  St. Paul had taken pride in his ethnic heritage, his biblical learning and his zeal to persecute heretics.

         Then he encountered the risen Christ on the Damascus Road.  He rejected everything about his former life and embraced the faith that Christ offered him:  “ . . . forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”  God's call was no longer to Pharisee Paul, but to Apostle Paul—whom God sent to found Christian communities: preaching, teaching, and, yes, suffering for the reign of God.

         Jesus had an amazing power to reach the hearts of those around him, pulling them to God in order that they might, through faith, grow to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.  And those who were drawn close to Jesus were not only the men we call “the Twelve,” the apostles. There were women as well who recognized something about Jesus was unique and wonderful, and they became his disciples.

         Mary of Bethany is such a person at the center of our Gospel story this morning. Her anointing Jesus attested to her love and her loyalty to him.  But this story in John is not the only one.  There are four gospel accounts of women coming to Jesus and anointing him.  It's possible that these four stories are really about the same incident, with each gospel writer telling it with his own slant.  All four follow this plot line:  a woman obtains some very expensive and very fragrant oil and anoints Jesus with it.  When someone objects, Jesus defends her action.

         The stories from Matthew and Mark are almost identical.  The incident took place in Bethany at the home of Simon the Leper.  It occurred directly before Jesus went into Jerusalem to face betrayal and crucifixion.  An unnamed women poured oil on Jesus' head and was criticized for using it this way, instead of selling it to get money for the poor.  He defended her and said this anointing was to prepare him for burial.  He also said that when the gospel is preached throughout the world, this story will be told “in memory of her.”

         Jesus had drawn this woman to him in faith and, in responding to him, she showed respect and honored him.  Kings were anointed with oil poured on their heads, for example.  Fragrant oil would also cover the stench of death.  Jesus honored her in return with the promise that her gesture would always be remembered.  Others may have considered her a female spendthrift, but Jesus identified this woman as a worthy person, worthy of his respect and ours.

         The stories of a woman anointing Jesus in Luke and John are somewhat different than the accounts in Matthew and Mark.  The Lukan account will be our gospel lesson in about two months, so we will leave it alone for now.  But the account in John which we heard this morning portrays a deeper, more intimate relationship between Jesus and the woman named Mary of Bethany than we saw in the accounts by Matthew and Mark.  Could it have been a different incident?  Yes, of course, but the anointing by Mary of Bethany also took place just before Jesus entered Jerusalem.  Would two different women have anointed him in such a short time? Possibly, but I think it's more likely that John understood what happened quite differently that Mark or Matthew.

         The nature of their intimacy can be seen in several ways.  First, the incident is set in the home of friends (Mary, Martha and Lazarus) who had invited Jesus to dinner.  And not only were they friends, but Jesus had revived Lazarus from the dead. Secondly, Mary wears her hair loose and uncovered, being less modest than might be expected in the company of males, not members of her family. And, finally, Mary anoints Jesus feet, not his head—in a gesture not so much of respect and honor, but one of humble servanthood and also one of great love.  Remember that in just a few days Jesus will wash the feet of his disciples, a gesture with very similar overtones.

         Professor Gail O'Day of Candler School of Theology at Emory University, puts it this way: “The power of the witness of Mary's discipleship in this story is she knows how to respond to Jesus without being told . . . In the anointing, she shows what it means to be one of Jesus' own.  She gives boldly of herself in love to Jesus . . . in Mary's anointing of Jesus, faithful discipleship is fully revealed.”  O'Day also notes that later in the Gospel of John, “[d]iscipleship is defined by acts of love and one's response to Jesus . . . [and i]t is important, therefore, . . . in the life of the church to acknowledge that the Fourth Evangelist names a woman as the first to embody the love that is commanded of all disciples.”

         Mary's intimate and rather outrageous gesture of anointing Jesus' feet with oil or perfume, costing about a year's wages for a laborer, and wiping them with her hair does not indicate she is a woman of weak moral character.  Rather it shows she has a deep love of Jesus Christ, and, like St. Paul, has found herself caught by Christ, who has made her his own.

         Jesus also makes it clear in his teaching many times that caring for the poor is important.   Her gesture of using expensive oil is not in opposition to caring for the poor.  Indeed one is expected to do both, because the chronic injustice and inhumanity caused by our sin will always result in poverty for some people.  If Jesus Christ has made us his own, we will love him, and we will work to heal whatever in human society is broken by sin.  So today we should ask ourselves this question , “Has Jesus Christ made me his own?”  When we are able to answer, “Yes,” we can then go out to love Jesus, outrageously, without reserve, while humbly and diligently serving the poor in His name.

O'Day, Gail R.  Commentary on John in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. IX, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, p. 703

The 4th Sunday of Lent - A Sinner, Yet an Ambassador for Christ

         How happy are you this morning?  On a scale of 1-6, with 6 being extremely happy, what's your number this morning?  Does that number go up when I remind you that the women's bathroom is functional again?  How does the sunshine today affect your number?  If you checked out the news this morning and were reminded of this problem or that problem in the world, what would that do to your number?

         The psalmist's words in Psalm 32 should inform our answers to my “how-happy-are-you” question.  The Common English Bible, published in 2011, translates the first two verses of the psalm this way:

         “The one whose wrongdoing is forgiven, whose sin is covered over, is truly happy. / The one the Lord doesn't consider guilty—in whose spirit there is no dishonesty—that one is truly happy!”

         So since our liturgical custom in Lent is to say the general confession at the beginning of the service and then sing the Kyrie—Lord, have mercy upon us—shouldn't our happiness be at 6??

         What I think I am getting at is the difference between a “life-is-good-and-I'm-so-cool” feeling of happiness and the conviction that God's forgiving love can act in our lives—personally and in the life of our community, too—to make us deeply content.  In our readings this morning, both Jesus and St. Paul talk about how this might happen—about how we might understand God's forgiving love.

         Of course, we can understand Jesus' teaching more easily than Paul's—since Paul uses fancy theological language, while Jesus speaks quite plainly with a story.  We all know the story of the Prodigal Son—or the story of the Generous Father—or the story of the God Who Runs. You can put yourself as any of the characters: the younger son who asks for the unthinkable and then squanders his good fortune by breaking every commandment possible, the father [you can change the gender to “mother” if that helps your imagination] who bestows gifts and love without reserve, the disgusted elder son who whines and complains about his treatment. Personally, I've always wanted to see the robe given the younger son, probably made out of a gorgeous, rich fabric, and the ring—gold with sapphires, perhaps.  Maybe I'd be the servant who brought those items and who had a chance to touch them, longingly, if only briefly.  Guess I might be missing the point of the parable—but with these images, speaking hopefully, I can better understand the father's forgiving love, expressed as unbelievable, unconditional generosity.

         What struck me as I prepared for today was not the story itself, but its context. Historically, Jesus was speaking to a group of insiders—the religious elite—to let them know that God's forgiving love would include lots of people—especially folks quite different from themselves.  And yet, God still loved them, too—even though they might complain about the wideness of God's love.  But that isn't the context I'm talking about.

         What struck me was the accusation they made against Jesus.  When the “undesirables”—the “tax collectors” and those who could not or would not keep the law, the “sinners”—drew near to hear Jesus teach, the elites made this accusation: “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  Oh my goodness, or OMG, might be our reaction if this had been a tweet by one of the Pharisees!  I reacted with OMG, because I realized that Jesus will welcome sinners and to eat with him this morning, right here in our midst, here at St. Nicholas'.  Yes, I am talking about our participating in Holy Communion:  “On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread . . . and said, 'Take eat . . '[; and] After supper, he took the cup of wine . . . and said, “Drink this, all of you . . .”   As the less than perfect disciples were invited by Jesus to dine with him, so Jesus invites each of us this morning.  Our Eucharistic celebration makes the past come into our present moment, and we become aware we are in the presence of Christ.

         Although we would not call each other, “You sinner,” each of us knows in our deepest place that we do miss the mark of following in the way of Jesus—loving God with all our being and loving our neighbors as ourselves—even to the point of praying for people we dislike or distrust, our enemies.  I have been brought up short more than once by Mary, my spiritual director.  I have been talking to her about a situation that I'm less than happy about.  She identifies the person who is involved in that situation and asks me, “Have you been praying for him (or her)?”  I have once again missed the mark!

         Yet, as St. Paul explained why God in Jesus came to live as one of us: “. . . in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them . . . For our sake he made him sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

         Indeed, our sins have been covered by Christ; and, indeed, that should make us happy.  But this is only one step in our Christian journey.  God hopes we will respond to God's forgiving love and take the next step.  St. Paul put it this way, “So we are ambassadors of Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; . . .” 

         One of my favorite prayers can be found in the Morning Prayer liturgy as one of three choices to pray for mission—a prayer for our work as ambassadors of Christ.  This prayer also echoes the embrace by the father of the prodigal son.  It can be found on page 101 of the prayerbook.  Will you join me in praying it?

        

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name.  Amen.

The 2nd Sunday of Lent - Believing Jesus

         Luke reported that Jesus was going through one town and village after another on his way to Jerusalem.  He wasn't winning over folks with preaching like this, “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrown out . . . Indeed some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

         And now these religious authorities warn Jesus that Herod, the ruler whose regime was propped up by the Romans and who had murdered John the Baptizer, was after him, too.  Were they truly concerned about Jesus—we do see a few Pharisees reaching out to Jesus in the gospels— or were they just trying to provoke anxiety in him?  Or, even in a more sinister way, were they interested in reporting what an angry Jesus might say to get himself into further trouble with Herod?

         Jesus did give them more ammunition, because he didn't run away; instead he doubled down.  Jesus' calling Herod “that fox” insulted Herod.  Jesus' saying that he had done his healing ministry—and would continue to minister—on his own terms threw Herod's threats back at his face.

         Jesus wasn't intimidated.  Jesus sought to care those to whom he had been sent just as a hen protects the brood entrusted to her: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”

         Not willing to trust Jesus was who he said he was.  Not willing give up destructive traditions and look for what God might be doing now in their own time.  Not willing to ponder the prophetic words spoken by Jesus. Not willing to put hope in God's promises and God's protection.

         We have heard the words of several who made a different choice in their relationship with the Holy One.  The writer of Genesis described visions Abram had in which he and God dialogued: Will you keep your promise to me?  . .  . Count the stars, if you can, for I shall keep my promise to you with such abundance as the stars in the heavens.  And the writer says, “And he [Abram] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”  Or as a contemporary translation puts it, “ . . . the Lord recognized Abram's high moral character.”

         We also heard these words from the psalmist:  “The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear? . . . What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  O tarry and wait for the Lord's pleasure; be strong and he shall comfort your heart; wait patiently for the Lord.”  Indeed, the psalmist trusted that God will be the source of strength and courage despite the difficulties of the present moment.  He trusted in hope that God will keep God's promises.

         And finally St. Paul, writing from prisons, told the Christian community in Philippi about his hope in Christ to return and restore a right relationship between God and humanity:  “But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He will transform the body of our humiliation [imprisonment, oppression by Rome] that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that enables him to make all things subject to himself.”  In other words, Jesus Christ will transform the difficulties and sufferings of our lives into a truly life-giving relationship with God.  Paul asks these Christians—and asks us—to “stand firm in the Lord.”  By this he meant to trust in hope as the basis of their faith in God.

         So Jesus' lament and the faith in God we have heard expressed in our readings this morning puts the question squarely in front of us:  Do we trust in hope of God's promise to us as Abram, the psalmist and St. Paul did?  The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ embodies God's promise to us that there is more than what we see, feel, and experience in the moment.  If we trust in hope, our faith will be strengthened by God who loves us and who wants to gather us under a protective wing.

         So this morning as we worship, let us ask ourselves these questions:

·      Are we willing to trust Jesus was who he said he was?

·      Are we ready to give up destructive traditions and look for what God might be doing now in their own time? 

·      Can we agree to ponder the prophetic words spoken by Jesus—even when they challenge us? 

·      Are we  willing to put our trust in God's promise to love us and God's protection as we face whatever threatens us?  

         And onward during this season of Lent, let us resolve to prepare for Easter by continuing to ask ourselves these questions.  [Repeat the questions.] Then our Easter celebration will indeed be a joyful “yes” to the life God in Jesus Christ has called us to live.