THE 2nd SUNDAY OF EASTER - AS MANY TIMES AS WE NEED

The liturgical season of Easter has begun. Lilies and tulips placed around the altar make it beautiful, but soon they will fade and be replaced by the green plants we usually see up here. And although the colors of our plants return to green, our liturgical color remains white—the color of Easter. Our burse and veil on the altar and my vestments continue to be white for this Sunday and for five more Sundays—during the 50 days of the Easter season. The 50th day will be Pentecost Sunday when the liturgical color becomes red symbolizing the coming of the Holy Spirit after Christ's return to God. 


Except for the season after Pentecost, the Easter season lasts for more Sundays than the others. It represents the time Christ appeared to the people who had followed Jesus to prepare them for what God wanted them to do. First, they needed to understand what Christ's resurrection meant. Then, they had to be empowered to go out to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ to everyone who would listen. Our readings for the season of Easter follow this pattern as well. The meaning of resurrection is explored. The Risen Christ's interactions with his disciples are recounted. Jesus's teaches his disciples about his relationship with them and with those who will come after, receiving faith in Jesus Christ from those who knew Jesus.


Fred Borsch, formerly Bishop of Los Angeles, and now a seminary professor, writes about the meaning of Jesus post-resurrection appearances: “These are, indeed, wondrous and challenging stories in which Jesus is at first often not recognized. But there must have been something in the timbre of his voice. They see his scars. They know him in the breaking of the bread—in the sharing of bread and wine. The Spirit of Jesus is alive among them! God's love overcomes even the mighty power of death. . . [Jesus] not only spoke the words of God to them, he himself is God's Word of new life to all people.”


So today we heard an account from the Gospel of John telling of the Risen Christ's appearance to some of Jesus' disciples—and especially to Thomas. This account must be one of the most famous of these post resurrection appearances—so famous, in fact, that any of us could preach on this passage without much preparation. Our theme might be the nature of doubt—or Thomas as an “everyman,” a typical person—or the nature of faith: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Another theme might be the coming of the Holy Spirit to them through the breath of Jesus, and Jesus' sending the disciples out, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”—a sort of precursor of the coming of the Holy Spirit after Jesus' return to God in that very familiar account in the book of Acts we will hear this year and every single Pentecost Sunday. In fact, part of the gospel reading today will be the gospel reading for Pentecost Sunday two years from now.


And then there is that statement from Jesus about the forgiving or retaining of sins. Another theme then could be how we understand our responsibility as a Christian community to exercise the power in Christ's name to forgive sins. I understand our corporate confession of sin and the priest proclaiming God's forgiveness or absolution of sins in the midst of the assembly on most Sundays (but not in Easter) as flowing from this statement of the Risen Christ.


But of all the amazing themes that a preacher—or any one of us—can pull from this passage, a very powerful theme for these disciples and for us is the theme of our God coming twice—and if you take all the post-resurrection accounts in the New Testament—the theme of our God coming to the disciples as many times as they needed God to come until they understood and were ready to be sent out to spread the Good News. But not only to proclaim the victory of Jesus over sin and death, but also to agree, as Peter was asked by Jesus later in John's gospel, to feed and tend his sheep. Thomas did not understand and was not ready. Jesus came back to provide what Thomas needed—affirmation of his right to question what he had been told by his fellow disciples. For some reason Thomas did not trust them enough to believe they had seen the resurrected Jesus. Jesus came back—but not just for Thomas.


Had the disciples been empowered enough to lose their fear and go out to spread the Good News? The fact that they were back at the house where they had been hiding out implies that the other disciples needed more encouragement. John reported that Jesus continued to do signs in the presence of his disciples that John did not record. For John the signs that he chose to report, beginning with changing water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana, revealed who Jesus truly was—the Messiah of God, although fully human, as well. As John wrote in the prologue to his gospel: “And the Word became flesh . . ."


Jesus didn't get angry with Thomas or the other disciples, because they needed to continue to learn from him. He stayed with them until he knew they were ready to become apostles—no longer students, but people ready to be sent out to preach, teach and heal. I find comfort in Jesus' readiness to reach out again and again to those less than perfect disciples—for I am so much like they were—I also have felt unready and anxious at times about what God may be calling me to do. But as an observer of how our Lord treated Thomas, I can worry less, knowing that God will reveal God's self to me as God knows I have need of such a revelation. Each of us can ask God for the assurance we need—as Thomas did—confident there will be revelation in a way we can understand, so “that through believing [in Jesus, we] may have life in his name.” And for this we can say, “Thanks be to God.”


Frederick Borsch, Introducing the Lessons of the Church Year 3rd Edition, New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2009, pp. 107-108.

Easter Day - God has acted!!

Psalm 118: 22-24:

“The same stone which the builders rejected * has become the chief cornerstone.

This is the Lord’s doing; * and it is marvelous in our eyes.

On this day that the Lord has acted; * let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

In the 12^th chapter of his gospel Mark puts verses 22 & 23 from Psalm 118 in Jesus' telling of the Parable of the Wicked Tenants to the members of the religious establishment who were questioning his authority.  You know the tale:  A landlord plants a vineyard, leaves for another country, and leases it to tenants.  When he is ready to collect his portion of the profits, he sends several servants who are murdered by the tenants so they can keep the profits.  Finally the landlord sends his son, thinking that surely he will be treated with respect.  But the son is murdered as well. Jesus then says the landlord will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.  Jesus cites this passage from Psalm 118 as proof of God's intentions.  Needless to say, the religious authorities became quite angry when they realized Jesus intended this parable to describe them!  They were angry enough to think about arresting him.

Mark saw Jesus as the rejected stone who had been set as the cornerstone for the new work of God, beginning with Jesus' resurrection. Traditionally cornerstones are important, because it's the first stone set on the foundation in the construction of a masonry building.  All other stones will be set in reference to the cornerstone, thus determining the position and soundness of the entire structure.

Of course, once a good cornerstone is set on the foundation, the builder needs more stones.  Evidence in the gospels tells us that among human beings there was little for God to work with.   During the days before Jesus' crucifixion the crowds abandoned Jesus.  The religious authorities delivered him to the Romans as a serious trouble-maker. One of those with him for the supper on Thursday evening betrayed him to the authorities. One had denied him publicly. Other followers appear to have scattered, hiding out in fear. Yes, some women stayed with him through the crucifixion, but on morning of the first day of the week they were bringing spices to anoint his dead body.  It's clear they did not expect resurrection. And the cornerstone itself seemed pretty much smashed, while the “living stones” God needed to begin building were useless or missing.

The final line of the gospel reading today illustrates an profound absence in understanding God's plan of salvation in Jesus: “So [the women] went out and fled from the tomb; for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.”  Isn't there more to this gospel?  Most scholars believe additional verses were added to Mark's gospel, because of early Christians' discomfort with ending the gospel on a note of fear.  But if Mark wanted to lengthen his story he could have done so.   But the earliest and most reliable manuscripts of Mark stop just where we stopped today.

Although, as a practical matter, the community for whom Mark’s gospel was written—decades after the events of Easter morning—knew and believed the story of the empty tomb and Jesus' resurrection, I'd like to stay for a bit with the empty tomb and the frightened fleeing women.  Evidence of his resurrection was clear: stone rolled away, tomb empty and a young man in white announcing, “He has been raised, he is not here.” But no one was prepared to understand the evidence.  This moment of is characterized by emptiness—absence of Jesus at that moment and absence of the folks who understand the Good News:  Jesus' sacrificed himself out of love for us to defeat the power of evil and death. And he triumphed!

We sometimes talk about how we must be God's hands and feet in the world to do the work needed to bring reconciliation and peace.  The Great Commission from the Gospel of Matthew says, “. . .go and make disciples of all nations . . .baptizing. . .teaching . . .”   At the end of the gospel of Luke, Jesus says for the disciples to wait until they have received “power from on high,” but he also told them that “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.”  But at the end of Mark there seems to be just emptiness and absence and fear.

Yet, the way Mark's gospel ends highlights the power of God to transform even the most desperate of situations. Perhaps we have experienced times when we felt empty and fearful.  We can empathize with the women who fled, being overwhelmed and not being able to receive whatever might help us—most of us have been there, too. 

But then we will have Easter moments--just as the women eventually did (although Mark doesn't tell us about them)!  Our Easter moments have been—and will continue to be—times when our distress and emptiness and fear are filled and transformed by the presence of God.  The “cornerstone” of our lives has been set in place—Jesus Christ lives!  We are now ready to respond as “living stones,” allowing God to place us in proper orientation around our cornerstone, Jesus.  Having experienced the filling of our emptiness, the calming of our distress and replacement of our fear with peace—for the moment at least—we can hear and respond to God's call to live righteous lives, fit for God's kingdom, and to bear witness to his love among all people.

So on this Easter Day let us declare with the psalmist:

“The same stone which the builders rejected * has become the chief cornerstone.

This is the Lord’s doing; * and it is marvelous in our eyes.

On this day that the Lord has acted; * let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Good Friday - Following Jesus' Example

One gospel hymn has us loudly and rhythmically singing, “ I have decided to follow Jesus; I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus; no turning back, no turning back.”  Well, if there is any day of Jesus' life that we might choose to turn back from, the Friday we call “good” would be it.  Following a man about to be crucified appears to be the height of foolishness.  Following a man whose followers mostly have disappeared from the scene and are hiding out for fear of their lives seems to be unwise.  Yet now, because we know Jesus' crucifixion on Friday was not the end, we do sing loudly about following him.

But what does “following Jesus” mean?  When we follow, we can learn from his example.  One of our Holy Week hymns addresses what we can learn from Jesus.  Using the verses of this hymn, let's reflect on what Jesus' example during his final days teaches us.

“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.”

What does temptation mean in a time of darkness?   Give into the darkness or escape it?  Perhaps both—maybe one, then the other.  To rage in anger at what life has dealt. To scream that this intolerable situation must change now!!  But Jesus' conflict had a different quality. His words suggested a conversation with the Divine from whom he had come:  “If it is possible—could there be any other way out—could sin, evil and death be conquered some other way? “ And then hearing none, he prayed as his mother, Mary, had prayed at the Annunciation—your will, O Divine One, be done.

What are our dark Gethsemanes?  What must we do before we are gathered in God's sustaining presence where we become one with God, encompassed in divine love?  Watch, stay present with God, ask to be given insight into the divine will for your life: “learn from Jesus Christ to pray.”

 “See him at the judgment hall, beaten, bound, reviled, arraigned; O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs his soul sustained! Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of Christ to bear the cross.”

 Is there any pain like my pain?  Is there any suffering like my suffering?  Probably yes; and probably greater even than yours.  These are not pastoral words of comfort.  Indeed, false comfort makes suffering worse. Should suffering be escaped whenever possible?  Oh, yes! Do not seek martyrdom.  Should we relieve pain whenever we have the capability to do so?  Most certainly! Yet our bodies are mortal; they decay; and pain comes.  Our spirits can endure only so much, and they may fail us as well. Unmerited suffering, an attack by someone we called a friend or loved one, loss of what has given our life meaning—many times these place themselves in our path and the path looks too narrow to avoid them.  We may try to fight the unfairness, the betrayal and the shame, but if we lose—and in this life, often we may lose—what is left for us to do?  We can curse God, or we can call on God to stand with us in our suffering: “learn of Christ to bear the cross.”

“Calvary's mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at his feet, mark that miracle of time, God's own sacrifice complete. 'It is finished!' hear him cry; learn of Jesus Christ to die.”

Not all the disciples of Jesus fled and hid in fear.  John's gospel tells us at the foot of Jesus' cross were “his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”  Here I must take issue with the writer of this hymn text—I don't believe these women felt 'adoration.'  The sacrifice of Jesus' life on the cross to the power of evil, sin and death could only be described as horrific. And yet, and yet . . . will we, recognizing the transforming power of God to turn this horror into blessing, falling on our knees in adoration?  When Jesus said, 'It is finished,' he offered all that he was and all that he had suffered to the transforming power of divine love.  When we place our faith in God's power, in the end, finally to turn whatever has caused our suffering and pain into eternal glory and eternal joy in the divine presence, we can do no more: “learn of Jesus Christ to die.”

May God comfort you in your praying; may God strengthen you for the crosses you must bear and, finally, may God redeem and transform your dying as God did for God's self in Jesus Christ, our Savior.  Amen.

Palm Sunday - Jesus' passion shows us love

“Jesus' passion teaches us what love looks like.”  I put a check mark next to this sentence in the commentary I was reading.  I did this to indicate how important the sentence is for understanding the last days of Jesus' life prior to his death and resurrection.

The word “passion” used to describe Jesus' condition at the end of his life calls attention to his suffering.  This word has so many different shades of meaning in English.  But its Greek root,”pathos,” means suffering.

So how can suffering teach us what love looks like?  What does Jesus' suffering mean for us?  Perhaps we should begin by saying what it does not mean.

Jesus' suffering does not mean that God made him a scapegoat on our behalf.  That point of view suggests that God only could forgive our sins if someone who was much better than we are—without sin—agreed to die in our place. Our sins should have condemned us to eternal suffering. Yet, God's anger at our sinfulness could be placated by Jesus' suffering and dying in our place.   This is NOT why Jesus chose to suffer!

But how should we understand his suffering?  First, his suffering grew out of his Incarnation.  Jesus took our human nature upon himself.  As the church had believed since very early times, Jesus was fully divine AND fully human, although without sin.  He chose this path out of love for us, so he could fully understand what being human really means.  Theologians call this human finitude: Jesus lived in solidarity with us, especially with our limitations, including our suffering.  That why we pray when we—or someone we love—is suffering for Jesus to be with them, to strengthen, to comfort, and to sustain them.

Also, Jesus' manner of suffering showed us how to face the fear of what evil and sin might do to us.  In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus spoke to God from whom he had come:  “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.”  To finish what he had come to do—to defeat the power of death, to give us the possibility of eternal life—Jesus had to continue on the path to his arrest and crucifixion. To his sleeping disciples, who could not stay awake to pray with him, he said, “The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

Perhaps when our times of challenge come, we would rather follow Peter and, out of fear, deny who we truly are—who God has called us to be.  On the other hand Jesus' example can lead us resist injustice without resorting to violence and to become advocates for people in need—the least among us in our society's eyes.  April 4, Wednesday of this week, is the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.  He worked to confront racism and to overturn the laws and practices in our country that kept African-Americans from full participation in our society. This is the sort of love that Jesus' passion teaches us.

And finally, Jesus' passion showed how God's love can break through the wall of our separation from God. Feeling abandoned, as we often do in our suffering, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God's answer to that cry was to reveal God's self.  As Jesus cried out and breathed his last, the curtain of the Temple, which closed off the holiest space in the Temple, was torn from top to bottom.  As Jesus' passion came to an end, God's love reached across the chasm of our sinfulness and through the curtain of our attempts to deny God's love for us—our attempts to shut God away.  Reconciliation—God's reaching out to us with divine grace as we suffer the effects of our sin and that of others—that's what love looks like in the end!

Yes, Jesus' passion teaches us what love looks like.  Love looks like standing in solidarity with those who suffer.  Love looks like standing up to injustice, despite the fear one might feel, and never resorting to violence.  Love looks like reaching out in forgiveness to offer reconciliation.  And yes, the love Jesus' passion teaches us can come at a steep cost.  It cost him his life.  Are we able to bear such a cost?  Are we able to bear our cross?