Your Image of God Creates You Easter 3C 2022

 

Your Image of God Creates You Easter 3C 2022

Your image of God creates you. Richard Rohr wrote this. It is surely a provocative assertion. I have written this on a post-it note, posted on the window in front of me as I Live Stream Noonday Prayer Monday thru Friday. Along comes the story of this fishing expedition in John 21:1-19, with the bonus story of Peter’s rehabilitation after denying Christ three times during his trial and execution. This story illustrates my image of God: Jesus sitting on a beach with a charcoal fire, grilling some fish and bread, saying, “Come and have breakfast,” and then distributing bread and fish to each of them, including Peter. For in the end, it’s all about Love.

 

Peter decides to go fishing at night, and some others come along. They revert right back to what they were doing before Jesus called them saying, “Follow me.” Despite several appearances of the Risen Christ, the events in Jerusalem seemed make clear that proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ is going to be dangerous work.

 

Notice that Jesus knows just where to find them – fishing right where he had found them in the beginning. He also knows they have been fishing all night, and their net is empty. The fishermen see an unfamiliar figure on the beach calling out to them, “You have no fish, have you?” It would be natural for them to think, who does this guy think he is? We’re fishermen. We know what we’re doing. But alas, they reply, “No.” This stranger tells them to throw the net on the other side of the boat - to reverse what they are doing. Repent means to turn back, reverse course, and walk in the way of God.

 

Suddenly, the net is filled with very many fishes! There are 153 large fish! The boat is foundering under the weight of the net. One of the fishermen, known only as “the one Jesus loved,” cries out, “It is the Lord!” Peter is so excited, working all night with no clothes on, dresses himself and then jumps into the water fully clothed to go ashore while the other labor to drag the net full of fishes to the shore.

 

There on the shore is the stranger sitting by a charcoal fire, grilling some bread and fish. He calls out to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." Demonstrating the same kind of humility that has characterized him throughout the gospels. He might have said, “Bring the fish I helped you to catch,” but he doesn’t. Humility is at the heart of the Christ imaged life.

 

At the heart of the story, he distributes Bread, and then Fish. It is a sacramental meal. It is Eucharistic. He is giving it all away as he did in Jerusalem on the Cross. They recognize him in the breaking of the bread. Then he asks Peter, the denier, three times, “Do you love me?” Peter says yes three times, redeeming himself. Jesus says to tend my sheep and feed my lambs. And come, follow me. Love is giving it all away as I have, Peter. It’s dangerous work, but it’s what we are here to do: love one another, love our neighbors, and even love our enemies.

 

Part of the Ordination Process in the Diocese of Rhode Island, where I first perceived the call to follow Jesus, was a series of Canonical Exams. Twice a year for three years we would troop back to Rhode Island for these exams. It was usually an hour written exam followed by a group oral exam with the Commission on Ministry. At one of my last exams, New Testament, I figured someone on the Commission would ask us each to share our favorite New Testament verse. I was prepared. Sure enough, they asked. When my turn came, I said, “Come and have breakfast.” There was an awkward silence. A priest on the Commission who had been very tough on us every year asked, in a somewhat disbelieving tone of voice, “Where is THAT in the New Testament?” I paused. All eyes were on me and him as he sought to trip me up. “Why, it’s in the 21^st chapter of John, the third resurrection appearance of Jesus to the disciples who were fishing all night with no success.” I paused again. “And, it happens to be the Gospel for this Sunday, the Third Sunday in Easter, Year C.” The room was silent. My student colleagues were fighting the impulse to grin.

 

This is the image of God I have treasured since that day in Rhode Island. One like us, tending a fire on the beach, grilling bread and fish, and despite whatever failures and disappointment the disciples exhibited that night on Lake Tiberias – a reminder that the Empire still surrounded them on all sides – Jesus empties himself, taking the form of a servant, not considering equality with God something to be grasped, but rather is to be given away, because as he had recently experienced, we are all going to give it all away one day. Such a God, inviting us to breakfast, still reaches out to us and asks, “Do you love me? If so tend and feed my sheep. And follow me. Wherever I go, you go; wherever you go, I’ll be there. And we know where he goes. To the lost, the rejected, the broken-hearted, and all those with physical, mental and spiritual dis-ease.

 

The Scotsman and Franciscan, John Duns Scotus famously believed that sin is not the reason the Christ comes to us, Love is. Before the moon, the sun and the stars were born out of the energy of whatever Big first Banged, the Christ and Christ’s love were hidden in the heart of God. Whether or not sin had come into the world, and there is ample evidence all around us that it has, Christ would have come. Christ is the first in God’s intention to create and to love.[i]

 

Your image of God creates you. Pray with this image of Christ on the beach inviting us to “Come and have breakfast!” Let him give you his bread as a sign of his eternal forgiveness and love. We can be grateful for John to have included this episode of Christ tending and feeding his friends when they were lost and needed a shepherd.   

 

Sit for some time with the God who says, “Come and have breakfast. Who gives you his bread. Who trusts you to accept his never ending Love so you might give it away to others. All others. Amen.

---

[i] Delio, Ilia, The Primacy of Love, (Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2022) p.34.

Earth Day 2022 Faithfulness: Easter 2C

Earth Day 2022 Faithfulness: Easter 2C

There is no doubt! No, really. When English Bibles since the King James Version have Jesus saying to Thomas, “Do not doubt but believe,” it’s not there in the Greek text. It does not say doubt.[i] The Greek is pistos, an adjective meaning faithful or trustworthy. Richard Swanson translates this as, “Do not become unfaithful, but faithful.”[ii] Which is just what Thomas has been up to this moment throughout the Gospel of John: faithful and trustworthy to a “t”!

It was Thomas, after all, who when word came to Jesus that Lazarus was ill, and Jesus says, “Let’s go to him,” all the disciples but one say, “No, there are people around Jerusalem and Bethany who want to kill you!” Only Thomas, faithful and trustworthy, says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”[iii] Thomas is faithful and trustworthy. Jesus knows this. There’s no doubt about it. We need to dispense with anything to do with “Doubting Thomas.” Let there be no doubt about that! For Thomas is alone among this room full of disciples to declare, “My Lord and my God,” “My Kurios and my Theos!” Kurios in the Bible is the God of Mercy, and Theos is the God of Justice.

Thomas recognize Jesus as the God of Justice and Mercy. Those first reading or hearing John’s story of Jesus would have recognized that the moment Jesus breathes on them he bestows upon them the gift of God’s ruach, God's Spirit. They would recognize it as the same Spirit-Breath that broods over the chaotic waters of Creation in Genesis1 verse 2. The same Spirit-Breath that God breathes into a handful of dust and water to form the first man in Genesis 2:7. The same Spirit-Breath of which God says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.  Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”[iv]

 As he breathes on them Jesus says, “Shalom, Peace be with you.” If there is a single word that summarizes the controlling vision of world history in the Bible, it is Shalom. Shalom says that all of creation is one, every creature in community with every other, living in harmony, justice and security toward joy and well-being for all, for every creature under heaven, and for every living thing - the very earth itself. The community of God’s faithful are to understand themselves as members of a single tribe, heirs of a single hope, and bearers of a single destiny: the care and management of all God’s creation.[v]

Thus, “Do not become unfaithful, but faithful,” is Jesus’s invitation to Thomas and all who are present to live into God’s dream of Shalom, and to share in the management of all God’s creation. It is this dream of God’s Shalom that resists all our tendencies to division, hostility, fear, drivenness and misery.”[vi] By saying, “Shalom,” and breathing upon them, Jesus reminds all who would be faithful to him and the God of Shalom of our calling, our responsibility, to the care and management of all of God’s creation: every person, every creature, every plant, every body of water, every molecule of breathable air. We might say with some degree of confidence, that this moment among followers of Jesus that evening the day of resurrection was in fact the very first Earth Day. It just took until April 22, 1970 for us to institute an annual reminder of this: our central task as humans interdependent on one another, all creatures and the environment itself. Our lives depend on the lives of the whole environment. This suggests the importance of Earth Day which will be observed later this week.

It would not be until 2008 for Harper One to publish The Green Bible in which all passages concerned with environmental stewardship are printed in Green – it’s a “Green Letter Bible”! The Foreword to The Green Bible was written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu who says, in part,

“I would not know how to be a human being, how to think as a human being, how to walk as a human being, how to talk or how to eat as a human being except by learning from other human beings…We’re made for community, we’re made for togetherness, we’re made for friendship…to live in a delicate network of interdependence, for we are made for complementarity. I have gifts you don’t have. And you have gifts I don’t have. Thus, we are made different so that we can know the need of one another. And this is a fundamental law of our being.

“All kinds of things go horribly wrong when we flout this law – when we don’t ensure that God’s children everywhere have a supply of clean water, a safe environment, a decent home, a full stomach. We could do that if we remembered that we are created members of one family, the human family, God’s family.

“We must act now and wake up to our moral obligations. The poor and vulnerable are members of God’s family and are the most severely affected by droughts, high temperatures, the flooding of coastal cities, and more severe and unpredictable weather events resulting from climate change. We, who should have been responsible stewards preserving our vulnerable, fragile planet home, have been wantonly wasteful through our reckless consumerism, devouring irreplaceable natural resources. We need to be accountable to God’s family. Once we start living in a way that is people-friendly to all of God’s family, we will also be environment-friendly.

“As you read The Green Bible starting in Genesis, you will see that after God created birds, fish and animals he created humans to…act compassionately and gently toward all forms of life. The future of our fragile, beautiful planet home is in our hands…It is possible to have a new kind of world, a world where there will be more compassion, more gentleness, more caring, more laughter, more joy for all of God’s creation, because that is God’s dream. And God says, “Help me, help me, help me realize my dream”[vii] 

When Jesus says, “Shalom. Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you”; when Jesus breathes on them; when Jesus says to Thomas, “Do not become unfaithful, but faithful,” he is speaking to us - all of us who would be disciples of his. Jesus says to us, “Help me realize my dream - my Father's Dream of Shalom for all creation.” This Second Sunday of Easter ask us, whe will we embrace The Dream of God's Shalom? When will we accept the gift of the Holy Spirit? When will we let the Love of God be poured into our hearts? When will we, like Thomas, proclaim in all that we say and all that we do, My Lord and my God? Let there be Justice and Mercy for all. There is no doubt that all the children of God, all the creatures of the Earth, and the Earth itself, await our faithful and trustworthy commitment to live in a way that is people-friendly to all of God’s family, and thus environmentally friendly as well.  Amen.

 

[i] John 20:27

[ii] Swanson, Richard, Provoking the Gospel of John (The Pilgrim Press, Cleveland: 2010) p.444.

[iii] John 11: 15-16

[iv] Ezekiel 37: 4-5

[v] Brueggemann, Walter, Living Toward A Vision (United Church Press, NY, NY: 1976) p.15-16.

[vi] Ibid, Brueggemann, p.16.

[vii] Tutu, Archbishop Desmond, The Green Bible (Harper One, NY, NY: 2008) p. I13-14. 

Easter 2022 The Primacy of Love Part 3

Easter 2022    The Primacy of Love Part 3

 

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Since Maundy Thursday evening, we have been on a journey of Love. We come from Love. We belong to Love. We return to Love. Love is all around. We rise from the waters of Baptism, and the first words we hear, just as Jesus did that day in the River Jordan: You are God’s Beloved!

God is well pleased with you!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Mary Magdalene, her associate Joanna, and Mary the mother of James are perplexed. What has happened to our Lord? They run off to tell The Eleven that the tomb is empty. Two men in dazzling clothes reminded us he had said he would rise again!  After joining the others in dismissing the women’s witness as an idle tale, Peter runs out to see for himself. Indeed, the tomb is empty! He goes home to sort it out. How could this have happened?

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Only the poets among us can imagine what has happened and how it has happened. Marie Howe dares to describe what was going on in the tomb before the women arrived:

Easter

Two of the fingers on his right hand

had been broken

so when he poured back into that hand it surprised

him – it hurt him at first.

And the whole body was too small. Imagine

the sky trying to fit into a tunnel carved into a hill.

He came into it two ways:

From the outside, as we step into a pair of pants.

And from the center – suddenly all at once.

Then he felt himself awake in the dark alone.[i]

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Sounds about right. The Love of God in Christ is like that. No small tunnel of a tomb carved into stone can contain it. It must have been surprising, amazing and astonishing, even to him! He who had repeatedly said it would happen. But even he who, as evangelist John points out is the source of all creation, even he cannot possibly know exactly how love’s attraction really works all of the time. To awaken in the dark, all alone. Alone after all that crowd that had followed him into the City of Peace, which had become in no time at all the City of Brutality and the Violence of those who somehow believed Love could be hammered to death. Violins. Violence. Silence.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Imagine, just for a moment that we are there – as evangelist Luke means to take us there in the here and now. The last few days have been a whirlwind, and danger was lurking behind every stone of the city’s historic walls. What do we bring to the tomb? What do we expect to see? Are we capable of being amazed like Peter? Or, are we perplexed, like the women? What do we bring to the tomb of the crucified One?

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

We bring…Easter Baskets! Filled with candies and toys, and money, and whatever we can put into our baskets. Our Easter Baskets. My dear friend and poet, Pamela Pruitt sees through it all:

 

 

Easter Baskets

Each year

We try

To bring

Our Easter Baskets

To God

With all

Accomplishments,

Inside.

 

But,

They are

always

Empty

Because

One cannot Measure

Love

In a

a

Box.

 

God smiles

At us

Anyway.

Filling our baskets

Instead

With

the

Forgiving breath

That continues

To inspire

All our efforts.[ii]

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

One cannot measure love in a box! One cannot measure the love, and breath, and mercy, and forgiveness of God at all! There is a Wideness to God’s Mercy! By the inspiration – the breathing in – of the Holy Spirit, all is gift. The gift is Love. Love that cannot be measured. It is love that reawakens us anew, renewed, restored, always to begin again, and again, and again! All that we have, all that we are, is gift, freely given to us by a God of gracious Love![iii]

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

This is the heart of Resurrection Life – Like Christ, always we begin again! We are God’s Beloved. God is well pleased with us. We come from love, created in the image of God’s gracious, immeasurable Love. We return to love. And we are created to be the love that is all around. This is the deep secret of all life throughout all the created universe.

 

Jesus departs from his lonely and empty tomb to be with us and to call us to follow him so that we might do something beautiful with our lives and bear much fruit.

 

Easter says: The world needs you, the church needs you, Jesus needs you.

They need your light and your love.

 

Know, my sisters and brothers, there is a hidden place in your heart where Jesus lives!

Let Jesus live in you. Go forward with Him.

 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

 

And so are we! And so are we!

Amen!

---

[i] Howe, Marie, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W.W.Norton, New York:2008) p. 24

[ii] Pamela Pruitt, Dec.15, 2021

[iii] Delio, Ilya, The Primacy of Love (Fortress Press, Minneapolis:2022) p.55 

Good Friday 2022 The Primacy of Love Part 2

Good Friday 2022 – The Primacy of Love Part 2

Lord, our God. You are the clear demonstration of yourself.

You are Joyful Love. You are Boundless Good.

You see the union between yourself and that external existence which

Owes you the highest love, even if there were nothing created that has

Betrayed your Love. You see the Christ who comes as the One

Who is Pure Love, who suffers and redeems your people.  Amen.

 

This is a prayer of John Duns Scotus, that thirteenth century Franciscan Friar and theologian who, as we listen to his prayer, asserts that Sin is not the reason for Christ, Love is. “For all eternity God has willed to love a creature to grace and glory. Before the stars were born, Christ was in the heart of God, ‘hidden since the foundation of the world’ (Colossians 1:26). Whether or not Sin ever entered into history, Christ would have come; Christ is first in God’s intention to love and to create.”[i]

 

Perhaps I have always sensed what Duns Scotus says is true. Perhaps that is why I have never found walking the Stations of the Cross all that helpful for me personally. Especially since a number of the 14 stations are not scenes from the four Evangelists description of The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Chalk that up to the Protestant in me!

 

Years ago, I used to have children draw the six “biblical” stations, and then walk around the church or outdoors and look at and pray with each drawing. I shall never forget one little girl drew “Jesus takes up the cross.” There in her drawing was Jesus who looked very tall and mighty, holding a tiny cross in one hand! I thought, “Jesus makes the cross looks so small!” And this is one of the fundamental truths of Good Friday, and what makes it so Good: Jesus, the Love of God in Jesus the Christ, makes the Cross, and the Roman Empire which nailed him to the Cross, and all human Power Structures which try to contain and limit Love, look so very very small.

 

Several days a week I have been spending time at the Shrine of St. Anthony, a Franciscan Friary. I’ve tried to walk the outdoor Stations of the Cross, but what speaks to my heart in the language of Duns Scotus is a statue of Saint Maximillian Kolbe, that Polish Franciscan priest who while interned at Auschwitz, witnessed 10 men who were chosen to be starved to death in retribution for one who had tried to escape. One of the 10 cried out, “My wife! My children!” Kolbe volunteered to take his place, thus saving his life.

 

According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection. He died on 14 August 1941. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary.

 

I often sit or stand in front of the life-size statue of Saint Maximillian Kolbe, praying for Ukraine, praying for all who suffer. And as I look into his face, I think, “He sure makes the Cross look small.” Father Kolbe looks more like the Love of God incarnate than the stations of the cross that surround his little shrine.

 

In the chapel at the Friary, there is a statue of a woman, holding a cross. The cross is really a cross shaped mirror with a wooden frame around it, and the face of Christ is at the center of the cross pieces. As I stand before it, my face is reflected in the mirror just below the face of Christ – the face of Love Incarnate. I used to think the woman was his mother, Mary of Nazareth, until I learned that Saint Claire of Assisi, Francis’s sister, was known as “The Mirror Saint” because she “drew her spiritual insights from her deep reflection on the cross of Jesus Christ. She wrote to her friend, Agnes of Prague that the cross reflects our true image. ‘Gaze on this cross every day,’ she admonished Agnes, ‘and study your face within it, so that you may be adorned with virtues within and without … when our face expresses what fills the heart, then we image Christ, the image of love incarnate – God’s unconditional agape love.”[ii]

 

What were they thinking when they nailed Jesus to the cross? Did they think they could somehow kill Love? That Love would die on a Roman Cross? That that would be the end of Love?

 

When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished." Then he bowed his head and handed over his spirit. We who gaze upon the cross year in and year out on Good Friday, we who are to study our faces within it, so that we may be adorned with virtues within and without: we are the recipients of his Spirit. When our faces express what fills the heart of the Christ who was nailed to the cross as his final act of God’s Love for us all, it is then that we image Christ in all that we do and all that we say. It is then that we can truly seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourself. It is then that we can strive for Justice and Peace for all persons, respecting the dignity of every human being.

 

It is then that our lives become Good News for the whole world, and everything therein. It is this transfiguration of our hearts that makes Good Friday so Good.

 

Lord, our God. You are the clear demonstration of yourself.

You are Joyful Love. You are Boundless Good.

You see the union between yourself and that external existence which

Owes you the highest love, even if there were nothing created that has

Betrayed your Love. You see the Christ who comes as the One

Who is Pure Love, who suffers and redeems your people. 

Sin is not the reason for Christ – Love is.   Amen.

 

 

---

[i] Delio, Ilya, The Primacy of Love, (Fortress, Minneapolis:2022) p.34

[ii] Ibid, p.50. 

The Primacy of Love Maundy Thursday 2002

The Primacy of Love - John 13:1-17, 31b-35

In her little book, The Primacy of Love, Ilia Delio, a Franciscan Sister, writes that if we understand love to consist of attraction, irresistibility and union, then, as numerous scientists such as the Jesuit Priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, have concluded, Love is the passionate and unitive source and energy of the entire universe, from the tiniest of particles to the most passionate human beings.[i] Arguably, Jesus is among the most passionate of human beings, and yet, according to this evening’s  Evangelist John, Jesus, the Logos, the Word, is also the passionate Divine presence that is the source of all creation, a Divine presence that is Love Incarnate.

 

We shall let theologians sort out just how this can be – but suffice it to say, “It is!” It is the attraction of love that holds particles together as atoms; atoms together as matter; matter attracted to matter becomes the creative force that results in creatures like us, humans, persons created to love one another.

 

Or, as Jesus says on the night before he is to be betrayed, tortured and die upon a Roman cross, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”[ii]

 

Thanks to some like Leonardo da Vinci, we live with the misconception that there were only twelve men sitting at table with Jesus when he did that singular, and what must have been the most astonishing thing he had ever done: As that earliest witness, Paul, tells it, Jesus takes bread, breaks it, blesses it and says, “This is my body!” Again, after supper, he takes a cup of wine, blesses it, and says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

 

Yet, in the greater narrative we call John, as chapter twelve ends, Jesus is addressing a great crowd – a crowd of men, women, Jews and Gentiles, believers and those curious as to what the Passover feast is all about. And before this, a great crowd of people came with him from Galilee, and an even greater crowd gathered at Bethany after Lazarus walked out of his four days in a tomb! It is safe to assume that there are others in the room when Jesus offers his body and his blood to anyone and everyone who will eat and drink at table with him. For he who is Love knows no boundaries.

 

And this mixed crowd, representative of the diversity of humankind, which in turn represents the diversity of all of creation throughout our entire 13.4-billion-year-old universe, witnessed something even more astonishing than bread and wine becoming body and blood. Love, the Divine Presence, the Logos, the Word from whom all that is created, visible and invisible, is created, takes off his outer garment, wraps a towel around his waist, gets down on his knees and washes feet.

 

Make no mistake about it. He washed a lot of feet that night before Friday, the Day of Preparation for the Passover Feast. He washed brown feet, black feet, white feet, dusty feet, blistered and torn feet, of men, of women, of Gentiles, of Jews, of believers and unbelievers alike. I don’t know if we can even begin to picture the scene – but, we must. Because this is what Love looks like – indiscriminate attraction and union with any and all persons. Jesus recognizes the love and the dignity and the Divine presence in every person, in every creature, in every thing in the created order.

 

One Sunday morning, I was singing a communion hymn in the choir of Grace Episcopal Church, Providence, Rhode Island. Our choir director kept us basses in the front row to keep an eye on us! We were in the chancel, and everyone coming up for communion walked right past us. All I saw of each person was their feet, or more specifically, their shoes. Some polished, some worn, some new, some old, heels worn down on the outside, heels worn down on the inside – and suddenly I had a vision of all the millions of people throughout the ages who come to that communion rail and return to walk out the door to love the world as Jesus loves the world. I was lost in this vision for I know not how long. All I could think about was all those feet coming to be washed, touched, fed and refreshed by Jesus. All those feet…

 

Maundy. From the Latin, mandatum – a command. A simple commandment that evening. It can be summed up in one word. Love. Love God. Love neighbor. Love one another. Love all others.

 

Sister Delio summarizes her exploration of Love like this: “…love is the source and energy of the universe. Given the primacy of love, if we have only one choice to make today, let us choose love, let us seek love in all aspects of our lives. If love really is the truth of our existence and truth of God, then may we not aim to meet the minimum requirements of love; rather, let us love to the point of tears. Let us breathe in the pain of the world and breathe out the goodness of love, letting go in love, from the simplest act of gratitude, to caring for another or perhaps risking our lives for a stranger – or better yet – loving our enemy. For every act of love is a personalization of God, and when God is born through our lives, heaven unfolds on earth. All that we long for and anticipate becomes a reality in this moment, in the here and now, in every particular act of love.”[iii]

 

When the Bread of Life, the Bread of Love, is placed in our hands, may we remember, if we have only one choice to make today and tomorrow, let us choose love. Love asks us, no, commands us, to do no less. Here, now, and everywhere. Then let our feet walk us out of here, back into the world, to love the world as Jesus loves the world. Amen.

---

[i] Delio, Ilia, The Primacy of Love (Fortress Press,Minneapolis:2022) p.17.

[ii] John 13:35

[iii] Ibid, Delio, p.82.

The Man of Sorrows - Palm Sunday 2022

The Man of Sorrows­_­

Palm Sunday (C): Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 23:1-49

by Katrina Whitley

There are times when the enormity of the Passion Story, in all its stark simplicity, pushes us to our knees and breaks our hearts anew. Yes, we do read portions of this drama whenever we celebrate the Holy Eucharist, but hearing it whole, from the somber moments of the Last Supper to the burial, becomes almost unbearable. This is a retelling that uses no adjectives and only a scarce number of adverbs; it doesn’t need them. The unfolding of the story of God’s tragic love revealed in the Son needs no embellishments. This is a story of inclusion and abandonment, of trust and rejection. Listen to the power of the verbs:

 

They brought Jesus before Pilate…

 

Pilate sent Jesus to Herod…

 

He questioned him…

 

They mocked him…

 

They blindfolded him…

 

They kept heaping insults on him…

 

The Lord of the Universe allows himself to be moved from place to place, to be questioned by corrupt politicians, to be mocked by a fickle mob. Just a few days ago, they were praising him as he entered Jerusalem. How quickly praise turns into abuse and celebration into tragedy when human beings regard as valid only the triumph of the military and the victory of armies instead of the truth of God. Now the mob, urged on by lies, spit on him and slap him on the face. Isaiah’s words find their painful realization: “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.” We are horrified. “Why did God allow this?” we cry from the distance of the 21st century as we have done through the ages.

 

And then we remember Paul’s words to the Philippians: “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” Paul has understood the promise and the tragedy in the heart of creation. He writes of Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death– even death on a cross.”

 

We now watch as the evangelist continues his stark description of Jesus who is not responding to the mockery, not calling on his followers to defend him, but allowing the evildoers to continue their gruesome march as they push him to the cross. Up to the point of his arrest, he has been in charge of the drama; now he relinquishes his power. We watch the abandonment, the utter loneliness of the Lord of life as he is being led to his death. Throughout the long, terrible night of Thursday, we feel his profound love for his friends at their last supper together, we weep at the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and hear his painful question at his arrest: “Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a bandit? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!” We too enter with him into the darkness that seems to triumph throughout the night and the day that follows. All hope has departed from those who loved him best and from us. The power of darkness has engulfed us.

 

And so, we enter Holy Week, as participants, not observers. Let us watch and let us listen. We too are feeling the weight of darkness in a world torn by strife and hatred. We wait. We hear his words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But we also hear the words of utter faith as he dies: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

 

In November 1940, Coventry Cathedral in England was bombed to destruction. The city has allowed the bombed frame to remain as it was found on the days that followed, while the new cathedral stands next to it, rebuilt. After the bombing, the faithful found two charred beams of wood as they had fallen in the shape of the cross. They tied them together and the cross stands today at the altar. Behind it, these words are engraved, words that stand unto eternity as a testimony to the events of the Passion:

 

“Father, forgive.”

 

Katerina Katsarka Whitley lives and writes in Boone, NC. An author and speaker, she loves to lead retreats on many and varied themes. Her books deal with the thoughts and actions of biblical characters; among them is a novel on St. Paul, the first century, and the role of women in the early church. She is also the author of a Greek cookbook and a memoir of Nazi occupation. Her website is www.katerinawhitley.net.

The Calm Before the Storm Lent 5C

 

The Calm Before the Storm

This dinner party in Bethany in John chapter 12 stands between the Raising of Lazarus from the Dead and Jesus’s own Death and Resurrection in Jerusalem. Just before this, when in Jerusalem for a previous festival, some Judean collaborators with Pilate and Herod attempt to arrest and/or stone him.[i] He has to leave the city for someplace “across the Jordan” to let things cool off.

 

Then word comes to Jesus that his friend Lazarus, “whom he loves,” is ill. Lazarus’s sisters Martha and Mary send word for Jesus to come to Bethany, a nearby suburb of Jerusalem. The disciples try to talk him out of going because of the danger that lurks in Judea. He hesitates, but eventually goes to Bethany only to find Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. He weeps. He prays. He calls Lazarus to come out! Lazarus emerges from the tomb, alive and bound with swaddling-cloths to preserve the ointments and herbs with which he was buried.

 

Judeans of every neighborhood, gender and station in society flock to see Lazarus, who is suddenly the man of the hour, not Jesus. The authorities collaborating with the Roman occupation now declare that Lazarus and Jesus both need to be arrested and killed to calm things down lest Pilate slaughter all who will come to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover – the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of the Exodus from Captivity – an annual gathering from all over the ancient world to recall the power of the God of Israel to overthrow any and all powers of authoritarian-totalitarian Regimes like Egypt and Rome!

 

It's been a long day for Jesus and his friends. An even longer four days for Lazarus, who sits at the table with Jesus but seemingly remains speechless. Kurt Vonnegut, preaching on Palm Sunday at St. Clement’s Church, suggests that it is a mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead given that those in the crowd gathering outside his Bethany household who already want to return him to the tomb![ii]

 

In the midst of it all, the very heart of the story, the two sisters, Martha and Mary demonstrate what it means to follow Jesus in serving others: Martha, as we have come to expect, is preparing and serving the supper. Mary, gets down on her hands and knees with a jar of expensive oil from the spikenard plant – a rare flowering plant in the honeysuckle family that grows in the Himalayas, used as perfume, incense and herbal medicine. She uses the nard to anoint Jesus’s feet, then wipes them with her hair. This is an extravagant gesture of gratitude and love in thanks for what Jesus has done for her brother and her family. We are told the “house is filled” with the fragrance of this remarkably valuable perfume. It is a moment of calm before the storm that will soon take place in Jerusalem. Try to imagine Jesus sitting, eyes closed, enjoying a rare moment of relaxation.

 

The late Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, reflecting on Mary’s gesture of gratitude reminds us, “It is more important to thank God for blessings received than to pray for them beforehand. For that forward-looking prayer, though right as an expression of dependence on God, is still self-centered in part, at least of its interest; there is something we hope to gain by our prayer. But the backward-looking act of thanksgiving is quite free from this. In itself it is quite selfless. Thus, it is akin to love. All our love to God is in response to God’s love for us. It never starts on our side. ‘We love because God first loved us! (1 John 4:19)’” [iii]

 

Poor Judas only sees the value of the oil, not the value of gratitude, love and the servanthood of the two sisters. John tells us that Judas is blinded by the love of money, not love of God, not love of neighbor. Judas deigns to chide our Lord Jesus for not urging Mary to sell the oil and give the money to the poor. Storyteller John tells us, however, “Judas said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. He had the money case. He used to steal what was thrown in!”[iv]

 

Jesus famously replies, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." Focusing only on the last part has caused much mischief as Vonnegut suggests that many people hear verse 8 more like, “The poor are hopeless. We’ll always be stuck with them.” This leads to characterizations of the poor being hopeless because they are so lazy, or so dumb, or that they drink too much and take drugs, have too many children and even worse. [v]

 

Which misses the point that Jesus chides Judas for his hypocrisy. Vonnegut translates it as, “Judas, do not worry! There will be plenty of poor people left long after I am gone.” This suggests that this is “a divine black joke, well suited to the occasion. It says everything about hypocrisy and nothing about the poor. It is a Christian joke, which allows Jesus to remain civil to Judas, but to chide him about his hypocrisy all the same.”[vi]

 

John recounts this story to remind us: Hypocrites you always have with you; faithful servants like Martha and Mary are rare! Indeed, the next chapter begins with The Last Supper where Jesus, perhaps taking a cue from Mary, gets on his hands and knees to wash his disciple’s feet – an occasion so startling and yet important to John’s account, that in the five chapters the storyteller devotes to The Last Supper, there is not one mention of bread and wine – only this account of washing feet as an example of what it means to “love one another as I have loved you, and as Mary and Martha have loved me.”

 

Thus, the tale of Spikenard Saturday, the night before Palm Sunday and Jesus’s entrance to Jerusalem. It is a story of Servanthood, Gratitude and Love. Hypocrites you will always have with you. Servants of God’s love who give thanks to God like Martha and Mary are those who truly follow Jesus! This is the calm before the storm. Jerusalem is tomorrow. Amen.

---

[i]  John 10:22-42

[ii] Kurt Vonnegut, Hypocrites You Will Always Have With You, The Nation, April 19, 1980, p. 470

[iii] William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd, London: 1945/1952) p.190

[iv] John 12:6

[v] Ibid, Vonnegut, p. 469

[vi] Ibid, Vonnegut, p. 470