We Work From Home! Ascension 2024

 

We Work From Home   Ascension 2024 

The Feast of the Ascension –forty-days after Easter, when we celebrate, as some wag put it, “the day Jesus began work from home.” As true as that may be, it would also seem to miss the main point of Ascension as a Church Celebration. As we might note, storyteller Luke gives us two versions of the story, one at the end of the gospel, and the other as the opening of volume two, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. He does this, no doubt, so that we, you, me, any and all of us who are listening closely may notice that the story does not really have much if anything to do with Jesus’s departure from this fragile Earth our island home. It’s about those first disciples becoming apostles – those who are sent - to be witnesses as friends of Jesus. 

That is, they are to be witnesses to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and to be those friends of Jesus who continue to do the things he does, “and greater things than these”! So it is, that the end of Luke’s Gospel account begins with him reminding them “that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” He then proceeds to remind them what that means in practical terms: to love God, to love our neighbor as we love God, as God loves us and forgives us, and as we love ourselves. And oh yes! To love our enemies and those who don’t like us. Finally, they are to remain in the city, that is Jerusalem. 

“While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” [Luke 24:44-53] That is, they did what he asked them to do, while awaiting a further anointing by the Holy Spirit ten days later on the Israelite festival of Pentecost. 

Then comes volume two. The title of that book tells us all we need to know: The Book of the Acts of the Apostles. It is a book filled with stories of just how they were baptized by the Holy Spirit, and the many things they did as witnesses and apostles. In Acts, storyteller Luke goes on to say that Jesus told them to fan out across the ancient world: “be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." [Acts 1:1-11] It’s important to remember that the Samaritans firmly believed their region of the land, their temple, and their understanding of what God asks of us to be the way, the truth and the life. Surely those early apostles were hesitant to go to Samaria. There was no love shared by Samaritans and Israelites. 

No doubt, it ought to strike us as challenging as well, to hear we are expected to reach out to those most unlike ourselves. That is, Jesus calls for a vast expansion of just who these neighbors we are meant to love as God loves us is to include. This remains our greatest challenge as Christ’s Body, the Church: to leave our comfort zone on Sunday mornings to fulfill what it means to follow Christ rarely fits into our daily to-do list. To often we have other interests, other priorities. 

The same was true on that day of Ascension as the disciples quickly change the topic: are you now going to restore the kingdom of Israel? No longer interested in what they are called to do, what can you do for us, they say. I don’t think we can begin to fully understand just how disappointing this would be for Jesus to hear. He is all about the kingdom of God his Father wants to be our future, and instead we want to go back to the way things used to be. Jesus shows great restraint and patience. Rather than chastise them for not getting just what he has been preparing them to do, he simply reminds them of their mission, blesses them, as he ascends out of their sight on a cloud. 

As they stand gazing up into the heavens there can be no doubt that like their companions James and John had demanded, they would rather go with Jesus to sit at his right-hand and his left-hand in God’s household of steadfast love and forgiveness. Why can’t we just get away from it all and go with him they think? In all fairness, most of us, if not all of us, feel that way from time to time. How great would it be to get away from it all! As Woody Guthrie famously sang during the Dust Bowl years, sometimes we feel like “I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.” The world as we once knew it, or at least how we think it had been, has simply moved on without us. Like the disciples, we stand gazing up at the heavens, yearning to return to the past. In truth, those days were never as good as we would like to think. At least nowhere near anything like the kingdom of God Jesus calls not only to embrace, but to actively bring to others – especially to those utterly unlike ourselves. 

Enter stage right, two men in white robes who are suddenly standing beside us asking the pivotal question in Luke’s story of Ascension: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” Followers of Jesus, his Body, the Church, why are you standing around gazing up into the heavens? Wish you were somewhere else? Wish you could just leave this place and be carried away and disappear among the clouds? Do you want to go back to the days of old? Why, indeed! 

At the end of the day, the story Luke tells is all about us. Like the disciples, we are meant to stay where we are in our Jerusalem. God’s kingdom is not somewhere else. It is meant to be planted, unfold, and grow right here and right now. If this world no longer feels like home, Jesus calls us to follow him to make the world new in the image of God’s kingdom. To make it the home that God has intended all along – a friendly place, with friendly folks, beneath a friendly sky. 

A friend once said, “All sickness is homesickness.” The African bishop, the Blessed Augustine, wrote in his confessions, “Our hearts are restless until we find our home in Thee.” This is where the kingdom of God’s steadfast love is meant to take hold and grow into our real home: in our hearts. Our true home. Christians are fond of saying that Pentecost is the birthday of the Church – the Church that is meant to be the first outpost of God’s kingdom for which Jesus gave his all. But the true birth of the Church is on that fortieth day after the resurrection as he leaves us on our own to continue the work he does, and greater things than these. Everything necessary for the birth of God’s kingdom has been given to us in Christ. As he leaves to work from home, he trusts us to continue to remake this world into a new kind of kingdom, a new kind of home for all. 

Christ says, “I came to serve others, not to be served.” His true home is in our hearts and in the things we do and say. Our acts as apostles. The real truth is that he never really leaves us. We simply forget he is here. “I am with you always, to the end of the age,” he says. [Matthew 28:20] He does not leave us altogether, but he does entrust us to continue the work of taking his Father’s kingdom to the ends of the earth, serving others as he served all others. Serving the Christ that is in all creation from the beginning: Christ in every person, every creature, every rock, river, tree, flower, and ocean. When our home is in Christ, wherever we are, we work from home. Just like he does! Amen.

Filled With the Joy of God's Love Easter 6B

 

Filled With the Joy of God’s Love  Easter 6B

We hear echoes of Maundy Thursday with John’s focus on foot-washing and an astonishing new commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved us. We also hear echoes of Pentecost, with the depiction of an equally astonishing and unexpected outburst of the Holy Spirit amongst Gentiles, who were, up until that moment, considered the quintessential outsiders. As Jesus said one night to Nicodemus, like the wind, the spirit comes from we know not where, and goes we know not where – and it astonishes us right where we are when it comes! 

We are still at the Last Supper in John. After washing everyone’s feet, Jesus commissions the disciples saying, “You are no longer servants, rather you are my friends.” It is possible to mistake this as admission to an exclusive club with new rights and privileges. We are friends of Jesus, too, we might say. Look at us and be jealous, we might think – if not aloud, at least to ourselves. Yet, to do so misses the two-edged sword that is the Word of God – the Word that was with God, the Word that was God, the Word at the beginning. 

This friendship with Jesus means to fold us into the Body of Christ, the Christ who comes to dwell among us as one who serves, not one to be served. To serve others with God’s steadfast love for all humanity. To seek and serve Christ in all others. We are to serve all, not some, not many, surely not a few, but all others, loving our neighbor as ourselves – as we would like to be served. 

It ought to strike us, if it has not already, the astonishing irony of John’s story of the Last Supper. Jesus commissions us to be his friends so that his “joy may be in [us], and so [our] joy may be complete,” overflowing from our lives into the lives of others – all others. Jesus is filled with joy despite the fact John tells us, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). And yet he remains filled with joy, commissioning those who wish to follow him to go into the world as those who wish to serve others, not be served by others. Such love for one another, such seeking to serve Christ in all persons, is the source of the same joy that fills the Risen Christ; this is an astonishing assertion as he steadfastly walks out of that supper, one step at a time, to carry his cross to Calvary, Golgotha, the Place of the Skull. 

It’s as if, in those final moments with those who are now to be his friends, Jesus has embodied the Psalmist’s call: “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things…. Shout with joy to the Lord, all you lands; lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing…. Let the sea make a noise and all that is in it, the lands and those who dwell therein. Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord, when he comes to judge the earth.” Jesus imagines a new world unfolding from the events that are to follow that Last Supper. Jesus imagines his friends will now continue in the midst of God’s work: not only the judgment of the world, with all its foibles, problems, and troubles but also the renewal and repair of a broken world, as we become the Body of Christ, bringing his joy of service to others as a new reality for all people! Sing to the Lord a new song, indeed! 

If this strikes us as astonishing beyond all knowing and all possibility, today’s Word means to remind us that these first friends of Jesus were astonished as well. We hear about Peter, who, prior to the events of today’s reading, has had a perplexing vision of what singing to the Lord a new song was to be about. As he is praying, he is hungry. The Lord shows him a vision of all manner of creatures to eat that are not Kosher and says, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” Peter says three times, “No, I have never eaten such things.” We are meant to remember that this is Peter, who had denied even knowing Jesus three times. Peter, whom Jesus asks three times, “Do you love me?” Peter who says, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Peter, to whom Jesus says, “Tend my sheep, feed my flock, seek and serve me in all people!” 

As Peter emerges from this vision, Cornelius, a centurion, sends men to bring him to his home, where Peter is faced with a house filled with Gentiles, those quintessential outsiders, who want to hear about the Word that had come to dwell among us, with God’s steadfast love for all creation. They want to hear of the God to whom even the hills and the rivers and the seas and the lands and all who dwell therein want to sing a new song, a joy-filled song! They long to hear and join the song that declares a renewed world that fears the Lord and desires to enter into his new command to love one another, even as Jesus did, marching toward pain. 

Peter begins to speak, and lo and behold! The same spirit that had come upon the disciples in an upper room on Pentecost, that same spirit that turned them into evangelists who could speak about God’s steadfast love in Christ Jesus in ways that people from all corners of the earth could understand, that same spirit showed up! Peter begins, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.” 

And then it happens. The Holy Spirit comes upon these quintessential outsiders, and suddenly they, too, are extolling God in ways that anyone could understand! Peter and his Jewish, Christ-following friends of Jesus stare in disbelief. So that’s what the vision was all about, he must have been thinking. These are not just words I am speaking. God really, truly does not show any partiality whatsoever! And so, what could they do, but baptize this house filled with Gentiles? They would spend the next few days together, filled with the joy of Jesus, with God’s steadfast love for all persons: male and female, Jew and Roman, slave and free. All divisions would need to cease because the repair of the broken world had begun! 

God’s Word on this day means to ask us: Do we accept Jesus’ invitation to become his friends? Do we wish to be served, like the people of this age? Or do we wish to serve? Do we wish to serve even those who are most unlike us, as Peter and the friends of Jesus do? Are we ready to be as astonished as they were that day in the centurion’s house to discover that God loves even those most unlike us in every single way? Do we wish to be filled to overflowing with the joy of Jesus, a joy that seeks and serves the Christ in others, all others, no matter what? 

Of course, we do! We are those people, like the writer of the First Letter of John, who know the pervasive reality of God’s love in Christ Jesus, who, though he was leaving this world to return to the household of God’s steadfast love, has made us his friends. We have been made new. We are those people who seek to sing a new song to the Lord our God. We seek to join the chorus of all creation who joyfully sing of the transforming love of God in Christ Jesus. We are those people who have seen and believed the transforming love of God in the death and resurrection of his Son. Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

To Abide in Christ Easter 5B

 To Abide in Christ

The Catalan artist Joan Miro once said, “I work like a gardener…leaves must be cut so the fruit can grow. At the right moment, I must prune.” According to Jesus, God also works like a gardener – pruning so that we might bear good fruit, and much fruit. Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit… Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” [i] 

This is the last of the “I am” sayings of Jesus in John. Each time is meant to recall that moment Moses stood on Holy Ground in front of a bush that burned with the power of the Spirit, and when he asks the voice from the bush for its name, the answer is, “I am who I am.” The issue now is bearing fruit. Those of us who follow Jesus will, he says elsewhere in John, “also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” [ii] All because the Master Gardener will do some pruning amongst us so that we might bear more and more fruit of the kingdom of God’s Shalom, God’s Peaceable Kingdom, where everyone gets enough, no one gets too much, and if you try to horde the fruits of God’s Shalom, it rots. It goes bad. Thus, the importance that we, as individuals, but even more so as a community of God’s Love and Shalom, must abide in Christ. 

The word ‘abide’, meno in Greek, can mean: abide, or rest, but also to continue, to remain, to dwell in the Lord as the Lord comes to dwell within and among us. Abide is used 40 times in John’s gospel, of which the current chapter 15 accounts for eleven of these uses! It can also mean to endure courageously even when the going gets tough. Under the iron rod of Rome and with the coming demise of the Temple, things got very tough for those early followers of Christ. A major branch had been removed by Rome. The center of worship life for Jews and Christians was and is no longer. The pruning this time had been most severe. What is everyone to do now? 

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles offers vignettes of what it means to persevere and bear fruit. Here we find Philip, that disciple who had recently asked Jesus how we might find “the way” to the Father, now instructed by an Angel of the Lord to head south to the wilderness road from Jerusalem to Gaza. There he comes across an Ethiopian Eunuch, an official in charge of the treasury for the Candace, Queen of the Kushites in what is now Sudan or southern Egypt. He was heading home to Africa by way of Gaza, and passing the time in his chariot reading the prophet Isaiah, chapter 53 about the Suffering Servant: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.” The Spirit urges Philip to join him and Philip asks if he understands what he is reading. [iii] 

The eunuch replies, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Scholars are not sure if the prophet spoke of himself, or a messiah, or the community of God’s people, Israel. Beginning with Isaiah, Philip proclaims to him the good news about Jesus and the community of God’s Love and Shalom. Then as they come upon “some water,” the Eunuch asks Philip to baptize him. That is, to be incorporated into the community of God’s people of Love and Shalom. Philip, without hesitation, baptizes the eunuch. When they come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatches Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. Philip found himself at Azotus, some 30 miles up the road. As he was passing through the region, Philip continued to proclaim the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea, the provincial capital of Rome. He takes the good news into the heart of the oppressor empire. 

Philip was a productive branch of the vine, and judging from his work after baptizing the Ethiopian Eunuch, he continues gather the community of Christ’s Love. We might note, he accepts without hesitation a foreigner, an alien traveling through the land, a black man, a sexually ambiguous man, an officer for a woman, the Queen of the foreign nation of Kush, and perhaps a proselyte preparing to become a Jew, studying the prophetic poetry of Isaiah. It’s possible Philip was thinking of the 56^th chapter of Isaiah where it is written: “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”   

That is, despite being black, a foreigner, a eunuch, and one who works for a woman, it turns out it is not what you are but what you do that counts for being accepted into the covenant of the God of Israel. As Paul would put it in Galatians, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; all are One in Christ Jesus!” [iv]Jesus practices a ministry of Reconciliation – bringing people together rather than causing division. It is one of the Sins of his Body, the Church, that long after Resurrection and Pentecost we became a cause for division through so many tragic episodes like the Crusades, the treatment of women, anti-Semitism, and the enmity between denominations not allowing those from other traditions to share in Holy Communion – the Sacrament that is meant to unite us. In another of the “I am” sayings, Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” [v] Not just for the life of his Body, the Church, but for the life of the world.

 In John 15 Jesus goes on to say, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love… I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” [vi] What does it mean to abide in Jesus’s love? What does it mean to love neighbor and self equally, just as we love God? Just as God loves us and forgives us? The way Philip sought is not an easy road to walk. It is hard, but it is necessary if we are to abide with Jesus and bear much fruit – the fruit of his peace, his Shalom, his turning the world right-side-up again, a world in which we rare to recognize that we all are One with one another and One with God. 

Let us all consider what extraordinary courage it took to abide, to remain in the Jesus Movement, for someone like Philip. And how extraordinary it was for him to reach out to a foreigner, a person of color, a eunuch, an official in a foreign Queen’s empire. May we see that it took over 500 years from Isaiah chapter 56 to that moment when Philip made the vision of the prophet-poet real by taking the Ethiopian down to the waters of baptism and saying, “Yes, you are one of us. You always have been. Join us in spreading the Good News!” Think of the pruning of our tradition it has taken from Isaiah to Jesus to Philip to today to accept foreigners, people of color, women, and LGBTQ people into full membership in the Body of Christ, so that we can truly be the community of love and peace God imagines and dreams we can be. Amen. It is truth. It is so.

---

[i] John 15:1-8

[ii] John 14:12

[iii] Acts 8:26-40

[iv] Galatians 3:8

[v] John 6:51

[vi] John 15: 10-11

Plastic Jesus Earth Day 2024

 Plastic Jesus    Earth Day 2024

Weltanschauung. One of the first words I learned when studying religion in college. It translates as ‘worldview,’ and is used to describe how we view the phenomena of human existence, the world, and the cosmos where we find ourselves. We are learning the hard way that perception and perspective shape our worldview and the way we understand where we are, who we are, and what we ought to be doing. For instance, for some time it has been accepted that Christopher Columbus discovered America. From the point of view of those indigenous peoples who already lived on this continent for thousands of years, it is just as true to say that they discovered ship-loads of strangers suddenly arrive on their shores. Without trying to sound too woke, how we look at that moment in history, how we let it inform our worldview, makes all the difference. 

A quotation from Dahr Jamail, a journalist, war correspondent, and advocate for the life of planet Earth, is making the rounds on Facebook: “The single biggest thing I learned was from an indigenous elder of Cherokee descent, who reminded me of the difference between a Western mindset of ‘I have rights,’ and an indigenous mindset of ‘I have obligations.’ Instead of thinking that I am born with rights, I choose to think that I am born with obligations to serve the past, present and future generations, and the planet herself.” [i] The difference of a “mindset,” or a worldview, one’s weltanschauung, makes all the difference. How we look at our life together on planet earth and on this continent deserves a careful examination of how we have arrived at this moment of climate crisis that threatens the very life of the planet. 

Dahr Jamail has written a book, The End of Ice, subtitled, Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. In it he describes a moment of critical insight when, speaking with an Inuit elder in his nineties while at the northernmost town in the US in Alaska. When this elder was a kid, “the Arctic Sea ice was visible ten to fifteen miles offshore in the late summer. Now the ice is 180 and 250 miles offshore. In one lifetime that’s how much has been lost. Hearing this, I felt a sense of overwhelm and dread. I also felt deep sadness for the Inuit who had spent their whole lives relying on that ice for their hunting and their culture.” [ii] Perception and perspective make the difference in how we look at the world and our place in it. 

Many of us may remember this song: “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, as long as I got my plastic Jesus, sitting on the dashboard of my car. Going 90, it ain't scary cause I got the Virgin Mary sittin' on the dashboard of my car.” Written in1957, the song made us laugh! It was funny. Now we might hear this as a perfect theological metaphor for the climate crisis facing us. Despite the commandment against idols, graven images, we have Plastic Jesus. Made from the same substance that fuels the car to go 90 miles per hour, which we now know burns more fuel than going 50 miles per hour, spewing pollution and threatening the ozone that protects our fragile island home from too much Sun. Like the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll’s book, we always feel as if “It’s late.” Life speeds up. We accelerate our use of fuel, and to make our smile whiter and brighter when we get where we are going, microplastic particles are used as ingredients in personal care products such as face washes, shower gels and toothpastes, and form one of the main sources of microplastic pollution, especially in the marine environment. The fish we eat are filled with these particles. 

We have ignored, at our peril, the all too subtle prophetic warning in the movie, The Graduate, when Mr. McGuire whispers in Benjamin Braddocks’s ear the single word, “Plastics.” In the film, “plastics” is understood to mean a cheap, sterile, ugly, and meaningless way of life, boring almost by definition—the embodiment of everything about the values of the older generation that seems repugnant to young Benjamin. Plastics! What a joke! How uncool! [iii] It turns out to be more than simply uncool. Plastics, and the act of extracting oil from below the surface of the Earth, are two of the most destructive threats to the health of the planet. It does not take much reflection to see that we have long made an idol out of plastics, and an idol of Jesus at the same time. Even more so, we have made an idol out the money and wealth that can be produced and consolidated from the production of plastics and all goods made from petrochemicals. Plastics represent one dimension of the Golden Calves we create, and to which we bow down before the raging Bull of Wall street that stands on Broadway in New York City’s Financial District. 

All this, despite the Bible’s prohibition of idols. And its suspicion of all things made by human hands. The story we read of building the Tower of Babel, brick by brick up to the sky, an attempt to reach the God of Creation himself. The Tower stands as another metaphor of human hubris – our all too human exaggerated pride and self-confidence. This hubris drives the myth of “the self-made man,” and the “rugged individual” who “pulls himself up by his or her own bootstraps.” We have lost all notions of our interdependence upon one another, and all others. Especially those who have gone before. Those who make it possible for us to continue to be the stewards of the earth God creates us to be. Even more so, we seem to have given up on following in the way of the Good Shepherd, resulting in fewer green pastures, and fewer and polluted “still waters” by which we might get off the treadmill of “it’s late,” and lie down for some well deserved and necessary Sabbath time. The Good Shepherd who says, “I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them.” [iv] 

In fact, we  have not only listened to the thieves and robbers; we have bowed down to their desire to profit from the wanton destruction of the planet. So, we place Plastic Jesus on the dashboard of our metaphorical cars wanting to believe he will somehow return to save us from ourselves and our seeming bottomless desire for all things plastic. The song, it turns out, is not funny at all. It is ironic at best. We forget his invitation to follow him, and follow the Golden Calves instead. 

Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The operant word is “they.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his forward to The Green Bible, reminds us that the Bible is not concerned with individuals with individual rights, but rather for our interdependence upon one another. We are created for togetherness, for living and working together in community, because we are meant to learn from one another. We are complimentary in the sense that I have gifts that you don’t have, and you have gifts that I don’t have. We need one another. This is the fundamental worldview of the Bible, and things go horribly wrong when we flout this law, this worldview, this Dream of God. 

In Genesis, after God created birds, fish, and animals, God created humans to be the stewards of creation and caretakers of one another – to act compassionately and gently toward all forms of life. The future of this beautiful planet is in our hands. Jesus, described as the source and shepherd of our Peace, our Shalom, says of his ascent to the Cross, “And I, when lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” [v]

In this cosmic embrace, Jesus wishes to enfold all that God creates, the entire universe, all things seen and unseen, into unity. He seeks to draw us closer to one another, closer to God, and closer to our true selves as stewards of God’s creation. These are holy obligations, more reflective of the indigenous mindset of obligations, rather than a mindset that declares we have rights. Our obligations are to one another, to God, to ourselves and to our planet. 

Archbishop Tutu concludes, “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 to realize my dream.” [vi]  We are those people invited to follow Jesus, not to make him into a plastic idol. For those of us who desire to follow the Good Shepherd, who desire to be united in his cosmic embrace, this needs to be our worldview. It must be our obligation. For every place we stand is Holy Ground. Holy Ground that depends upon our stewardship and care for creation, and one another. All others.  Amen. 

PS Dahr Jamail was once asked:  For people who want to know more about climate disruption, where do you recommend, they start? 

"Go spend time on the planet. That’s the first and most important thing any of us can do. We need to be moved to action from a deep place of love for the earth, instead of a place of fear and concern. I’m watching what’s happening to the planet and I’m being present with it. I love this place, and from that love stems my motivation." [vii]

---

[i] Jamail, Dahr, in an interview on Lion’s Roar https://www.lionsroar.com/the-end-of-ice/

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Seabrook, John, Plastics, in the September 13, 2010 New Yorker magazine

[iv] John 10:7-10

[v] John 12:32

[vi] Tutu, Archbishop Desmond, Forward to The Green Bible (Harper Collins, New York: 2008) p. I-14

[vii] Ibid, Jamail

Anti-Semitism and the Texts Easter 3B

 

Anti-Semitism and the Texts    Easter 3B

The day I was ordained a priest in The Episcopal Church (TEC), I received a telegram from Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel that read, “May this day mark the beginning of a mission that will bring many many people closer to each other, closer to God, and closer to themselves. You will be very much in my thoughts today.” (12/16/1983) My Senior Thesis was on Wiesel and his witness to the world through his books and essays, and lack of response by our nation and others while six million died. Thanks to my supervisor on my thesis, Bernice Saltzman, I had been privileged to meet Wiesel, listen to him lecture in person, and had several personal conversations about the paper I wrote on the Holocaust and the dangers of Anti-Semitism. I have spent many of my 40+ years of active ministry involved in Christian-Jewish Dialogue, leading Holocaust Memorial Services, and being mentored by local rabbis I have known through the years. One reason I sought ordination was the hope to play a small role in ridding the world of anti-Semitism. Bringing people closer together, closer to God, and closer to themselves. 

When I received that telegram, I never imagined that this week I would read a study of dozens of universities that says on-campus anti-Semitism is on the rise. The schools were graded for their efforts to curb anti-Semitism, and a dozen schools received failing grades, including: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, University of Chicago, Princeton, University of Virginia, Tufts, Michigan State University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, SUNY Purchase, SUNY Rockland, and Swarthmore. Only two schools received an A: Brandeis and Elon.  [i] 

Against this backdrop, this week’s lesson from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles deserves our special attention. Enter Peter. Peter, who had recently denied even knowing Jesus three times the night Jesus was arrested. Now, some time after the Jewish Festival of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, Peter is suddenly a powerful public witness to the power of Jesus’s name. He and John were walking to the Temple to pray. They met a man who had been lame since birth who was asking for alms. Peter says, “Silver and Gold I have none. But what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And the man arose and went walking and leaping and praising God as Peter and John continued to the Temple. A crowd gathers at Solomon’s Portico. The man clutches to Peter and John. Peter addresses the crowd.

“You, Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. 

“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” [ii] 

It is easy to hear this as Peter condemning the Israelites for choosing to have Pilate release the murderer Barabbas instead of Jesus. Before hearing it this way, we may as well admit that when making similar choices we too often choose the wrong person. We often have great hopes in those we choose to lead us, only to learn we have chosen poorly. It’s not that long ago that the German people chose Adolf Hitler who promised to make Germany great again to lead their country. It is easy to see how politicians and pastors might have appealed to a passage like Peter’s speech to justify scapegoating Jewish people living in diaspora since the year 70 CE for all the problems facing post-WWI Germany. The consequences were tragic. 

When in fact, the author of Luke-Acts depicts Peter speaking a kind of biblical code, addressing the crowd not as Judeans, nor as Jews, both names often used pejoratively, but rather as their preferred collective title, “Israelites.” Peter is speaking as an Israelite to other Israelites, people who, as he immediately points out, share a common ancestry through the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob. Again, Peter speaks in code: for this description of God not only refers all the way back to Moses at the Burning Bush, who, when asking for God’s name, is told, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. “ [iii] But this is likely how Peter and John will begin their prayers when they get to the Temple: “Blessed be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob It’s called the Amidah. The Israelites listening will recognize this and know that Peter is one of them. The Amidah often continues, “Your lovingkindness sustains the living, your great mercies give life to the dead.” Seems right that Peter and John might pray the Amidah after their experience of the Risen Lord. 

Further, Peter turns the disaster that was Good Friday into an opportunity for a new beginning. Because Jesus, as depicted in Luke 24:36-48, had been raised, and stood before Peter and John and all the others, not as a ghost, or an apparition, but as flesh and blood asking for a piece of fish. Ghosts don’t eat fish. God, in Christ Jesus, gave Peter, John and these Israelites not only a chance to be forgiven for their bad choices on Good Friday. He commissions them to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to “all the nations…You are witnesses of these things.” I extended the reading from Acts which, as provided to us in the lectionary, ends in mid-sentence. It’s the continuation that is the Good News: “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” This is good news for us all. 

Context is everything when reading these sacred texts. For just a few verses later, as the community prays together, the text reads, “For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” [iv] That is, these Israelites were not alone in making bad choices that lead to crucifixion. Many others made bad choices as well. The text means to remind us that we are all responsible for making bad choices; we are all in need of repentance;  and can always begin again.. For resurrection means there is always a chance for starting over. 

And we are all called, like those standing before Peter, to be witnesses of these things, and speak out against injustice, and seek ways to repair the damage done. For instance, as anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout these United States over the past eight years, and especially since the Hamas attack on Israel last October 7th, amidst an awkward silence and inaction on the part of many, the Finance Ministry of Germany has just agreed to send a one-time payment of $236 to each of Israel’s 113,000 holocaust survivors to help them cope with trauma of the attack – That’s $27 million dollars. It’s not the amount that is important, however, it’s the gesture that counts. A sign that Germany wants to repent and start over. A gesture that says we understand and we care.[v] 

In a country where it seems the majority of institutions of higher education are afraid to speak out against anti-Semitism, it would seem a careful listening to Peter’s speech at the Portico of Solomon might be in order for us all. I know even the smallest gesture on our parts would mean the world to all the Israelites in diaspora in the US. Speaking out against the sin of anti-Semitism is one way of bearing witness “to these things.” And, who knows, we may even make better choices in future. Always we can begin again. Because Christ Jesus has been raised from the dead, every day has the potential to be a new day. And perhaps my dream of a world without anti-Semitism may still become a reality. May we all seek to draw closer to others, closer to God, and closer to our true selves. For we are all made in the image of the God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for all. And all means all!

---

[i] https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4587901-harvard-tufts-mit-failing-grades-adl-campus-antisemitism/

[ii] Acts 3: 12-21

[iii] Exodus 3:6

[iv] Acts 4:27

[v] https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/12/europe/israeli-holocaust-germany-payout-october-7-intl/index.html

God's Shalom Easter 2B

 God’s Shalom for All!

“Now the doors of the house where the disciples had met - all of whom were Jews! - were locked...for fear of...the Jews.” [i]  The Jews were hiding, for fear of the Jews. Let us all ponder that statement for a moment.   Silence.   Nearly two thousand years of anti-Semitism began with our misreading this and other passages in John, that sound like accusations. So, we substitute “Judeans.” Why? Because that literally is what is in the Greek text, rather than perpetuate the poor translation choices of those who were under pressure to produce a Bible for King James. 

We read this the Sunday after Easter every year. So, this needs to be addressed. Judea was a pluralistic and diverse population, which at the time of Jesus had been overrun by Romans: Roman Soldiers, Roman Bureaucrats, and Roman Overseers. It was as if after some thirteen hundred years of living on the land, interrupted for some who spent time in the Babylonian Exile, had suddenly morphed back the Empire of Egypt. Empires are like this. For the record, the Romans are now lumped in with the rest of the Judeans who come from all over the ancient world. For fear of these Roman Judeans? Who wouldn’t be fearful of them? 

Someone on Facebook who has read the Bible every day for over fifty years wrote the other day that all of Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and the New Testament can be summed up like this: We are meant to see that everyone’s needs are met, and to protect the small folks from the big folks. The big folks are represented in the Bible as empire and monarchy. What today we might call authoritarian regimes.   

It had been a long day. Mary Magdelene had found the tomb to be empty. She went back and told the disciples, who were hiding behind closed doors, because of fear – fear that their association with Jesus who had been crucified could result in the same for them; fear of Roman Centurions searching the streets for anyone associated with the man from Galilee; and just fearful and confused about what to do next. They had always followed Jesus. What now? They were not inclined to believe her. This gathering behind closed doors is more than just the twelve, and at least one of the twelve, Thomas, for whatever reason, was not present when it happened. If Mary Magdelene was right, and the tomb is empty, all the more reason to be fearful. Now it was night time, and a new reason to be fearful appeared – appeared to come right through the locked doors. 

The apparition greets them, “Shalom! Peace be with you.” He shows them his hands and his side which had been pierced to make sure he was dead. Suddenly, they rejoice! It’s him! Again, he says, “Shalom! Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Then he breathes on them. As the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had done with that first handful of dust and water to create the first human – breath means life. Breath is what makes the difference between the living and the dead. Breath is what Jesus must have received to return from being dead and breathless. This is resurrection breath. New life breath. The gathered room full of followers are receiving new breath, new life, a new spirit, and a new vocation – they are the ones being sent to bring the good news to a broken world. News that there is new breath, new life, new spirit, if only we will receive it. If only we will breathe it in and allow Jesus and his Father make us whole again. Alive again. Without fear again. To be sent to repair a broken world that seems to be running out of breath. They are to bring this new life and new breath to all the world. 

Then along comes Thomas, who hears Jesus had been risen and says he will not believe them unless he sees “the marks on his hands and the mark on his side.” Thomas remembers what had happened to their Jesus. He remembers the torture. He remembers the physical violence. He remembers the soldiers mocking Jesus. Thomas has long been a man of integrity among the disciples. It is good that he remembers. He says he will not remain faithful until he sees for himself. He is right to say so, for any talk of resurrection, and recovery that moves forward will have no integrity if it forgets the past. Any moving forward that forgets the past violence, mocking and torture will be ill prepared to deal with the very ongoing reality of people who are tortured, mocked, abused and violated every day. To forget the past makes it impossible to repair the breach. Makes it impossible to bring good news of new life and new breath to the world. 

Eight days later, Jesus returns to stand among them, the doors are still shut. He says, “Shalom! Peace be with you.” Then turning to Thomas he says, “Do not be unfaithful. Touch my hands, put your hand in my side and know, this is me, Jesus, to whom you have been faithful for all our time together.” Thomas then makes the single most bold declaration in all of the New Testament. He says, “My Lord, and my God!” Then Jesus says, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." It may as well be addressed directly to us. To all of us. Those of us who are here and those of us who are not here. All who are as faithful as Thomas are blessed. And those who are blessed are to be those who are sent to be a blessing to others. To attend to their needs and protect them from the violence of empires. 

By the way, in its original Greek there is no discussion of doubt. The word doubt is not in the text. The word in the text is faithfulness. Thomas was no doubter. Jesus knew that. He emerges as possibly the most faithful of disciples. When the other disciples were fearful to go with Jesus to Jerusalem, it was Thomas who had declared he would go with Jesus, even if it meant dying alongside Jesus. Let the reader be sure to understand, Thomas is the very model of a faithful disciple of Jesus. Thomas was not hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Judeans. Thomas shows no fear. Thomas asks to see the marks on his hands and side. Thomas remembers the violence of the empire. Thomas is faithful. A repairer of the breach. A bearer of the good news. 

Jesus says, “Shalom!” three times. Shalom, which means more than peace. It is a peace that sees to it that the needs of all people are met, and that the small folks are protected from the big folks. Protected from the violence of empires. God’s Shalom is the Good News. 

Storyteller John concludes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

That is, the story is told for our sake. Not for John’s sake. Not for Jesus’s sake. But for our sake. So that like Thomas we might be without fear. So that like Thomas, might be faithful to the one who promises to be with us to the end of the age. So that we, like Thomas, may without fear declare, “My Lord and my God!” So that we, like Thomas, might be those people who remember the violence, mocking, torture and abuse of empires has no place in God’s kingdom of Shalom. So that we might become repairers of the breach; that we might let ourselves be those people who repair the world rather than tear it apart; that we might become bearers of Good News, and forgiveness, and God’s Peace, God’s Shalom, for all the people in all the world.  Amen.

---

[i] John 20:19-31

Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Easter 2024

 Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer        Easter 2024 

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

Yes, that’s what the young man said. He was dressed in white sitting in an empty tomb, like some lost refugee from a casting call for Saturday Night Fever, “He has been raised,” he said. Then, as if needing to state the obvious he adds, “He’s not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.” The three of us looked, and sure enough he was not there. But then, who is this young man in white? Is he the same young man who ran away from the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested? But he ran away naked – leaving his white robe behind. Who is this guy anyway? There we stood, three Marys: Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Mary Salome. We saw Joseph take him away. Place him in the burial chamber. Roll a large stone across the entrance. And now this. Someone had rolled away the stone. The chamber is empty except for this young man. Where is he, we wondered? Where did he go? Jesus!

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

Some call us Les saintes-maries-de-la-mer: The Three Maries of the Sea. We were the first witnesses of the resurrection. But just what did we see? Just an empty tomb. That’s it. The end of the story, according to Mark. But what does he know. He wasn’t there. We were, the three of us. The young man gave us a message to tell the disciples, and quote, “and Peter.” And Peter? Isn’t he one of the twelve? What does “and Peter” mean? Who was that young man dressed in white? Where have they put my Jesus? Our Jesus? We followed him all the way from Galilee. Pilate and the Romans had him killed. Afraid he would spark an insurrection. We went to do the customary ritual with the ointments. But he was missing. Gone? End of story? 

Or, was it? Looking back at it, that morning after Shabbat was just the beginning. We were scared, despite the usual angel’s assurance, “Do not be afraid!” Easy for you to say, whoever you are. And where did you get that new white outfit? The three of us were uncertain what to do next, what with the Roman Centurions and their orders to round up the rest of Jesus’s Community of God's love and shalom. God's Shalom of Justice and Peace and Healing for a broken world. Tikkun Olam, he would say. Repair the World! As usual, at the beginning of the troubles, the men ran off and hid. The three of us stayed to watch. To make sure. To know just where they would put him so no one would steal the body and say he never existed. And we wanted to perform the ritual anointing. But now this. An empty tomb. What next?

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

Why do you all keep saying that? The young man said, “It’s ‘He has been raised,’” not “he is risen.” It makes a difference. We knew that. There is only one way that he could have been raised, and that was up on that Roman Cross at the Place of the Skull. The three of us were there as well. But once we saw that ‘he has been raised,’ we ran for our lives. And Mark is right. We told no one. How the word got around, we don’t know. We kept our mouths shut for fear of the Roman soldiers who were everywhere that Passover. Pilate had ordered extra troops from Rome fearing an insurrection was about to take place. Which was absurd. That’s not what Jesus taught us to do. Put down your swords, he would say. Turn them into ploughshares, he would say. He was always quoting Isaiah. Believe us when we tell you now, though. The tomb was empty.

When our uncle Joseph found out, he too was scared for his part in all of this. He hustled two of us onto his boat, and Mary Salome got the Zebedee’s boat, and we sailed away to a sleepy little resort town on the coast of France to get some rest and safety. We were all from fishing families. And now we were to fish for people to join Jesus’s Community of God’s Love and Shalom. We stayed there and began inviting people to join us in his Community of God’s Love. We fished for people on the coast of France.

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

Jesus had told us it would be like this. That after three days dead he would be raised from the dead. What he didn’t tell us is that everything would be different. That things would not look or be the same. We would only recognize him in the breaking of the bread. And it’s true. It’s as if he is more present to us now than he was before the Cross and the tomb. He tried to explain what had happened when he had been raised from the dead:

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! 

Now he is with us again! He had been raised! He is still with us to this day. Which means we have been raised with him. We just did not know it at first. It surprised us as much as it surprised him. Even more so since he had been expecting it would end this way all along. But, as I said, it was not the end at all. It was just the beginning. He had told us all along that we would do the things that he had done, “and greater things than these,” if we would only believe. Believe in him. And believe in ourselves. After all, it was the three of us and all the other women from Galilee who took care of him and the others until that morning we found the empty tomb. Then we knew it was time for us to take care of ourselves – and to reach out and take care of others whenever we can. Just as he had always done. None of us ever forgot that night he had washed our feet. Peter thought he was daft! But Peter finally got the message and helped us all to understand. We were to love one another, as had loved us. 

Did you ever wonder just where the wind comes from? Or, the spirit? Or, the colors of the sky when the sun rises and sets? He had taught us what his friend and rabbi Hillel had taught him: If we did not take care of ourselves, who would look out for us? And if we looked out only for ourselves, who are we? And if not now, when?

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

I often remember the first time I met him at the well in the middle of the day. It was the first day of the rest of my life. I ran and told everyone that I had found someone who really knew me! And it’s funny, to have known him, and be known by him, makes every day like that day all over again. The tomb is still empty. You can keep looking for Jesus all you want. After a while, however, you will see the tomb is empty because he is always with you, wherever you go. Because he knows his work is never done. He will never be done with any of us. He will lead us to take a first step into his Father’s Kingdom – a kingdom not like any in this world! A kingdom where he will be with us, and we will be with one another forever. And ever. We, Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer have seen and experienced all of this, and we know that our testimony is true. He has been risen, and has been with us ever since. We have written all of this so that you too might come to know Jesus the way we know Jesus. He is alive! He is beside you here and now! Like us, become a part of his ongoing Community of God’s Love and Shalom for all! 

Know, my sisters and brothers, there is a place in your heart where Jesus lives and calls you to do something beautiful in this world. Go forth with Christ, go into the world with Love. With Peace. With God’s Shalom! A Peace that passes all understanding! And you will discover what the three of us did that morning – the tomb is not empty once you take that first step in as we did. Step in with your whole self and you will know he is always at hand. Reach out and he will take your hand and lead you into a new day, a new world, a new way of being you. A new way of loving others. All others, as together we usher in His world of Love and Shalom! Shalom, my friends, shalom, my friends, shalom, shalom! Shalom my friends, shalom my friends, shalom, shalom! 

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! 

 

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

As one can see, this poem is by yet another Marie. Marie Howe’s work is extraordinary, and much of it reflects on the life of faith.

MI CRISTO VIVE!

 MI CRISTO VIVE!          Good Friday 2024

In the early morning nearly every day, I go running or walking around a parking lot. Every now and then, on the back row nearest the road, some vehicles are parked by men and women who work for Retro Environmental. Many of them are from Latin America. And one little Tacoma pick-em-up truck is sometimes there. The gentleman is from Honduras, and when he makes enough money here, he goes back to Honduras to build churches. In the back window of the truck in all-caps are the word, “MI CRISTO VIVE.” My Christ Lives! As I ran by this morning, I said to myself, “That is why Good Friday is good: because it was not the end of the story. In fact, it was only the beginning. MI CRISTO VIVE! 

Wednesday was the morning after the Key Bridge collapsed and eight men, also from Latin America, were plunged into the icy waters of the Patapsco River from a height of 185 feet. So far in the rescue and recovery effort, only two survived, and one of them is in critical care. I happen to know one of the men of Retro Environmental commutes from Dundalk every morning. I asked him if the bridge collapse had changed his commute. He said no, but that he lives only five minutes from the bridge, and that it woke him and his family in the middle of the night. He said it sounded as if a bomb had gone off. He was clearly shaken. And Thursday morning he told me that Wednesday night they took a service road down into the Port area and just sat on the shore, not far from the water, and looked at the wreckage. “It’s unbelievable,” he said. “It just all collapsed at once.” 

It was raining when we spoke. It rained pretty much all day the morning after the Key Bridge collapsed. For the last year or so, as I run my laps around the parking lot, I suddenly find a line of five syllables come to mind, and I stop and write a haiku, a Japanese style of poem: three lines, five syllables, seven, and then five. I jotted down, “The sky is weeping/After tragedy destroys/Bridge and many lives.” I later revised it to say, “Our God is weeping/After tragedy destroys/Bridge and many lives.” 

How mysterious for this to happen in Holy Week. A few days earlier I was doing a walking meditation after my exercise. As I walked westward there were piles upon piles upon layers of dark clouds, recalling those dark hours for Christ on the Cross. I was listening to John Adams’s music and taped sounds, On The Transmigration of Souls, itself a meditation on the day of 9/11 and the aftermath. More than one person has said the disappearance of the Key Bridge bears an errie resemblance to the disappearance of the Twin Towers from the New York City skyline. 

As I walked into the darkness, I hear the words “missing” and “remember” intoned over and over again over the music and sounds of voices on the street that morning in New York City. And words from posters people posted near the St. Paul’s Chapel on Broadway near Trintiy Episcopal Church: “She had the voice like an angel…and she shared it with everyone…in good times and in bad…” I used to do Stations of the Cross with children on Good Friday morning. They would draw a picture of Jesus before Pilate, or, Jesus carries his Cross. One little girl drew Jesus holding the cross in one hand as if the cross was only five or six inches high. I remember saying, “Jesus makes the cross look so small!” And that’s so true! That’s what Good Friday really is all about. The Roman Cross, a symbol of capital punishment. A symbol of the very idea of state-sanctioned execution. A desperate symbol of Power and Punishment for any and all who dare to challenge the authority of the Empire in one corner wearing the dark trunks. In the other corner, wearing the white trunks, Jesus, an itinerant teacher and ambassador for God’s love of all people no matter what. Jesus, who as much as tells Pilate, representative of the Empire’s utter brutality, “Go ahead. Give me your best shot. It will be nothing over against the power and love of God, my Father.” Jesus really does make the cross look so small. MI CRISTO VIVE! 

Turning back eastward on my walking meditation, the sky is lighting up with pinks, reds, purples and yellows of Easter sunrise. I’m thinking of my days at the New York Foundling Hospital under the supervision of Sister Anne Flood, Sisters of Charity. For my “job interview” to do field work there as a chaplain to group homes and in the main hospital, she introduces me to a young girl, fourteen and pregnant, and leaves the two of us to get to know one another. And after been tossed into the deep end of the pool Sister Anne takes me up to the top floor where there is a girl who has been born with just a brain stem, no brain, unable to communicate with us, but through her eyes we know she knows we are there with her as the Foundling keeps her safe and secure. Or, being asked to teach a group of young boys the Lord’s Prayer, which begins, “Our Father…” They look at me with so many questions because most of their fathers are absent, or incarcerated, and why would anyone pray in the name of someone we have never ever known? 

At first, I think, so many people, so many children, live their lives on the cross with Jesus every day. And I keep going back to be with these young people, and the girl on the top floor, and those in group homes because both parents are either missing, dangerous, or incarcerated, and I learn that no, that’s not it. Jesus came back to spend lifetimes with all of them. And with those missing since 9/11. And with those who just plunged into the Patapsco River on a cold night on the Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. And with all ofus.Jesus, who makes the cross look so small, returns to be with all of us who mourn, all of those who are lost, and all of those who yearn for just one person, one someone, to share with them the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

As we listen to John’s story of the Crucifixion, we might notice that the actual crucifixion is mentioned only in passing. “There they crucified him…” That’s it. Only four words. Mark writes, “It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.” Luke says, “When they came to the place of The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals…” And Matthew gives it barely a backwards glance, “And when they had crucified him…” That’s it. That’s all the four gospels give us. No hammers. No nails. For all we know they tied his hands and feet to the cross as was often done, and which induced more suffering,  slowly suffocating with no blood lost. Why, I wonder, walking back westward into the darkness, do we fixate on the actual act itself when not one of the four evangelists gives us even one single detail about the crucifixion itself? We make dramatic movies about nailing his hands and feet to the cross. We reproduce millions of crucifixes with nails prominently displayed. I think to myself, why do we slow down to get a better look at an accident on the highway? Why did great crowds of people go to a town center to watch a black man be publicly lynched? Why did crowds gather around a guillotine during the French revolution to see the supposed bad guys get their so-called ‘just desserts’? What is it about we humans that we need to watch someone suffer by hanging, or by firing squad, or by lethal injection? We know that none of these methods of execution bring any sort of true justice or closure. We know that Jesus is there with those being executed; that he is being executed over and over again; but that in the end Jesus lives, and is living still, and makes the cross look so small. So powerless. I pass the pick-em-up truck. I see the words, MI CRISTO VIVE! 

We sing about Christ bursting his three days prison. But heading back into the lightening sky I think: from Friday at 3:00 PM to Sunday morning at, what, 4:00 AM, or 5:00 AM, marks the shortest three days in history. Something closer to 42 hours than 72 hours. Evidently, Jesus could not wait to come back to be with us! Welcome happy morning age to age shall say! 

The Passion according to John has one moment that has always given me a strange combination of hope mixed with uncertainty. It’s when Jesus, looking down from the cross, sees his mother, with her sister, and Mary Magdalene, the three of them standing there. John tells us, “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.” Where does this disciple some from? Is it one of the three women? Is it one of the Twelve? This “disciple whom he loved” is mentioned also at the Last Supper in John. But never identified. Some insist it is the evangelist John himself. But that has always seemed a bit sketchy. Someone has suggested it was the Samaritan woman at the well. Others suggest that we are the disciple Jesus loves. 

When the end is about to come, the text tells us, “Jesus says, ‘I am thirsty.’ And they give him some sour wine.” When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bows his head and hands over his spirit. His ruach! His breath. The very breath God first breathed into a handful of dust and water to give life to the first man. At that final moment, Jesus gives back that breath. The spirit God had put in him. The same ruach of God that hovers over the chaotic waters of creation is handed over. Returned. Given back for, as he says, for the life of the world. 

Perhaps he hands his spirit over to the disciple whom he loves. Perhaps that disciple whom Jesus loves is us. Each one of us. All of us together. He hands over his spirit, his breath, the Holy Breath of God, to each of us and all of us so we might still the chaotic waters of this life of ours. To still the waters stirred up by so many Roman crosses throughout all of Israel on that day like the three erected at The Place of the Skull. His was just one of many. He knew that. His last gift to all those whose lives are on the cross at one time or another. Or, all the time. Because once he hands over his spirit, we are made into his community of God’s steadfast love. 

MI CRISTO VIVE! I pass the pick-em-up truck one last time. As we contemplate the waters that once flowed beneath the Key Bridge, as we contemplate the chaotic waters of this world, as we see just how small Jesus makes the cross look, may we know that Jesus not only lives, but he wants to live in us. He wants us to know the steadfast love of God his Father who rescued him from the tomb, and means to rescue us all from the tombs we make for God’s Son, and the tombs we make for ourselves. And to know that Good Friday is good because it is not the end of the story, but only the beginning. And the sun is already rising on new day, a new life, a new world, if only we will receive with open hearts his one final gift to us all – the gift of His Spirit. The spirit of truth, the spirit of justice, the spirit of the Father’s Love for all that has been created, seen and unseen. Good Friday is not the end of the story. He invites us to become the rest of the story. MI CRISTO VIVE! Good Day! 

A Peculiar Dinner Guest Maundy Thursday 2024

 A Peculiar Dinner Guest   Maundy Thursday 2024

“This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” [i] These are the earliest instructions for the Passover Feast. These days, someone, usually the youngest person present, asks, “Why is this night not like any other night?” Which is one way of passing on the festival to successive generations. 

Jesus and his companions from Galilee, more than just the twelve, but a cohort of men and women who join him in going to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival – that day of remembrance when a disparate group of slaves in Pharaoh’s Egypt escaped to freedom from working 24/7, every day of every year. It is the day before the Day of Preparation for the Passover. We are told that Jesus knows before long he will return to his Father, the God of steadfast Love. He comes from Love. He is returning to Love. And on this particular night, Jesus establishes a community of Love. Which, like the instruction to remember the Passover as a perpetual ordinance, this community of Love he commissions is to become the means by which the steadfast Love of God is all around all the time. Forever. And ever. That is, God’s Love is eternal. As agents of God’s Love, we are promised eternal life. [ii] 

Whereas Paul, and Mark, Matthew and Luke, recall a ritual meal of bread and wine as the commissioning of this community of Love, storyteller John sees it differently. Where the other three storytellers devote a few sentences to the Last Supper, and stage it as if it were a Passover meal, John goes out of his way to be clear it was “before the festival of the Passover.” And John devotes five chapters to that night and meal, in which there is no mention of the bread and wine. 

John alone talks about how deeply and eternally Jesus loves his companions. He loves them, we are told, “to the end.” And the end is near. In fact, five chapters later, he will be betrayed by one of this cohort of men and women, and arrested by a group of Roman soldiers and some local Judean police. But first, he makes clear just how deep his love is for them.  

It must have been astonishing to see this itinerant teacher some called “rabbi,” the one who had turned water into wine and raised Lazarus from his four days in a tomb, get up from the table, disrobe, tie a towel around himself, fill a basin with water, and begin to wash everyone’s feet. A task which in those days commonly was the task of the youngest household slave – to greet visitors who had walked a long distance on dusty and rocky roads to relieve their aching feet. 

Just a few evenings earlier, while at the home of Lazarus, and the sisters Martha and Mary, Mary had taken a jar of costly nard, a rare and fragrant ointment, and had anointed his feet after walking all the way from Galilee to suburbs of Jerusalem. We can be certain that this had felt good. Really, really good, as she then wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of it all! Try to imagine how good that might feel about right now at the end of a long day. We can picture Jesus enjoying this, when suddenly Judas, sounding more pious than the Pope, complains that the ointment ought to have been sold and the money given to the poor. Storyteller John makes sure we know that Judas is a thief, does not care about the poor, and used to be in charge of the common purse and steal what was in it. 

Note, this cohort of men and women did not carry individual purses of their own money. All money was held in a “common purse,” to be used by the community as any had need. Very much like the Manna in the wilderness days after that first Passover: every day everyone could gather enough Manna, no one could take too much, and if you tried to hoard a little, or even a lot, it would go sour and become useless. Refusing to spoil the mood of how great his feet felt, Jesus says, “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.” [iii]  Snap! One can imagine that Judas the Traitor and Thief did not take kindly to being reprimanded in front of the others. 

It's possible that Jesus’s feet felt so good a few nights earlier, that now, before his return to love, that he wants everyone to feel the Love. Suddenly, it’s Peter feeling more pious than a flock of Pharisees who complains, suggesting that if anything, he should be washing Jesus’s feet. Jesus says you just don’t understand. Peter persists in complaining. Jesus then says, Let me wash your feet or you will have nothing to do with my community of Love! Snap! Peter replies, then wash me all over, my head, my hands and my feet. Cue an audible, “Sighhhh” as Jesus washes his feet. 

If you have ever had your feet washed or massaged, you know how good it feels. But many, if not most of us, would no doubt react as Peter does. For all kinds of reasons which need not be enumerated here. We, however, get so caught up in this little drama that we miss a central detail of the story. John tells us, “After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table…” He knew one of them would betray him. He knew it was Judas the Pious One. He no doubt knew Judas was a thief and was messing with money that could help others. Yet, he washed Judas’s feet along with Peter’s and all the other men and women who were there. As we were told all the way back in chapter 3, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.” [iv] 

Then comes the Maundy part of the Thursday – for maundy comes from the Latin mandatum, or commandment: This community meal and foot washing is to forever be a sign of my love for you. Therefore, a new commandment I give you: you are to love one another as I have loved you. This means love everyone. Including this thief here, and the poor who you will always have among you. I am in the poor. The poor are in me. I am in you. You are in me. This love is my Father’s love. Love one another. And in your spare time, love everyone else as well. Even if they are a grumpy-thieves like Judas here. They need our love the most because in all likelihood, they have never felt loved before. Love is more than feelings, more than liking, more than compassion-from-a-distance. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” To which we might add, all others. 

Or, something like that. Perhaps I just made some of that up as I try to understand just what he was doing that night in suburban Jerusalem, stripping down to a towel and washing everyone’s feet. As in every single one. Maybe even John embellishes the story a little bit. In any event, it seems easy to see that being the community of love has not exactly been tried in the whole sense in which Jesus is as wholly inclusive as one could ever possibly be. What we do know for sure is that that night was not like any other night that had ever been experienced in suburban Jerusalem or even at the feast of the Passover. And so, we tell this story to this day to remember who we are, whose we are, and who we ought to be loving – everybody, no exceptions! Yes, even Judases! Amen.

---

[i] Exodus 12:14

[ii] John 13:1-35

[iii] John 12:1-8

[iv] John 3:17