5 April 2012/Maundy Thursday - Exodus12: 1-14/1 Corinthians 11:23-32/John 13: 1-17, 31b-35
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek,Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
Do As I Have Done To You
This is a night of quite mixed traditions: Last Supper, foot washing, Agape meal, altar stripping, all night vigil. Then there are instructions for the first Passover - not a Passover celebration or Seder Meal, but a description of the opening acts of the Great Escape from Egypt itself. Then there is Paul’s take on the Last Supper, which is in fact the earliest account in the New Testament, preceding the Gospel accounts by at least a decade or more. Finally there is John’s take on the Last Supper. We tend to try and do them all. And no thanks to the lectionary, we lump them all together and tend to make some wrong assumptions.
For instance, although it is often assumed that the Last Supper was a Passover meal, even a Passover Seder, John’s account quite definitely places it “before the festival of Passover.” For John, it is not Passover, it is not a Seder meal, and it is not even a traditional Friday night Sabbath Meal. Point of fact: nothing like what today constitutes a Passover Seder even existed at the time of Jesus.
So we make the wrong inference from reading the Exodus account, which describes the Passover event itself (approx. 1300 bce), not a festival or meal to remember the Great Escape. Combined with John's account of things, however, what we do take away from our first reading is that for John, Jesus is the Paschal Lamb - he is the Lamb that was sacrificed the night before the Escape, the Lamb whose blood protected the Hebrew households as the Angel of Death swept over the land of Egypt taking the life of all the first born children of the Egyptians, "from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the first-born of the captive in the dungeon, and all the first-born of the cattle." Exodus 12:29
After all, it is John's Gospel, way back in chapter 1, who places these words in the mouth of John the Baptizer when he first sees Jesus, "Behold, the Lamb of God." So we say, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us!" For it is his body and blood that saves his people - which, as it turns out, is all people. As we hear in the Comfortable Words of Rite I, "...and he is the perfect sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." 1John 2:2
John devotes five whole chapters to the Last Supper. Yet, in all these chapters in John’s gospel that describe the Last Supper, there is no mention at all of bread or wine. None.
Instead, John offers the unique description of Jesus washing feet. It is Fellini meets the Word of God! He takes off his clothes, ties a towel around himself, pours water in a basin and begins to wash feet and wipe them with a towel the night before Good Friday. Perhaps we are meant to recall Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, anointing his feet with oil and wiping them with her hair the night before Palm Sunday. The night that those enemies of Jesus stood outside the house plotting just how to kill Jesus AND Lazarus! And perhaps we are meant to recall that foot washing was done by the lowliest of household slaves, usually a child.
What we are definitely meant to recall is that way back in Chapter 1, John identifies Jesus as The Word, the logos, and that in the time before all time, before the heavens and earth were created, the logos was not only with God, but that the logos, Jesus, is God. As we study our Christianity unit at St. Tim's, I have to put this on the whiteboard nearly every day: Word=Jesus=God.
So what John invites us to imagine is that God not only became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood (John 1:14), but that the night before The Day of Preparation for the Passover, Good Friday, God takes off his clothes, ties a towel around himself, gets down on his knees, and like a child-slave, begins washing feet.
It is an extreme posture and activity to assume. Not unlike overturning the tables in the Temple precincts to make a point. Not unlike withering fig trees to make a point. Not unlike accepting a drink of water from a Samaritan woman in public. Not unlike eating with prostitutes, tax collectors, blind, lame and leperous people. Jesus was not a moderate. He did not play it safe.
He picks up a towel like the one on our altar. This towel of ours holds the gospel book which contains the stories of Jesus and his extreme activities. It holds our offerings, our financial commitment to spreading His kingdom and continuing his work in the world. And as it remains on the altar all by itself at the end of the mass, it reminds us of this night before Good Friday and his washing the disciple’s feet - an action He says we are to do for one another
Jesus insists that this way of relating to one another is somehow emblematic of what it means to be a disciple of his: “A New Commandment I give to you that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35 This is the Maundy, the mandatum, the commandment of Maundy Thursday.
It has been said by some that Jesus’ entire life was a ministry of the towel. When he was born in a lowly stable, his mother wrapped him in something like a towel. He stanches the flow of blood in a hemorrhaging woman with something like a towel. He prepares and cleans up tables before and after meals with towels. He wipes feet with a towel. And when he dies on the cross, he is wrapped in something like a towel and placed in a new tomb.
So this towel on the altar can be said to summarize his entire life and ministry of service to others. All others. Especially those who were not and are not welcome anywhere else.
Maybe that is why Peter at first refuses to participate. Maybe that is why Peter pulls back from having his feet washed: he does not want to think of himself as being lumped in with all those others, all those unclean and sinful people Jesus insists on welcoming all the time.
Maybe Peter was the first to think, “There but by the grace of God go I.” Something a lot of well-meaning Christians like to think is what God’s grace is all about.
I used to help serve meals at Paul’s Place, our flagship Diocesan Feeding Program, and had a music and prayer ministry there. One day Bill Rich, a colleague and friend, turned to me and said, “There by the grace of God am I.” I have never forgotten it.
I believe that is at the heart of Jesus and the washing of feet. There we all are. We are the poor. We are the sick. We are the broken and brokenhearted. We are the slaves escaping from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke. We are the poor Iraqi child who has no mother or father tonight. We are the poor Afghan woman who struggles to get an education. We are the poor child born of a crack mother tonight. We are the men, women and children infected with HIV/AIDS. We are the hungry, the tired, and the unemployed. We are the mother, father, sister or brother who sits on Death Row. We are the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad waiting and wondering what tomorrow might bring.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word accepted a drink of water from a despised and broken Samaritan woman. A bleeding woman touched the hem of the Word's robe and was healed. The Word fed thousands of hungry people. And the Word picked up a towel, washed everyone’s feet and gave dignity to all of human kind. He made us one with himself and with all creation. He taught us how to love one another as he loves us. As God loves us. For He is God.
Washing feet, eating bread and drinking wine makes us his own. It is his table, not ours. He denies no one a seat at his table. He washes everyone’s feet.
He invites us to do to others as he has done for us. Welcome them to his table. Wash their feet. Wipe them with a towel. His towel. Tonight we can feel what it is like to live with him. Tonight he wants us to wash one another’s feet so we can say, “There by the grace of God am I.”
My sisters, my brothers -
Jesus calls you to follow him
so that you might do something beautiful with your life
and bear much fruit.
The World needs you.
The Church needs you.
Jesus needs you.
They need your power and your light.
Know that there is a hidden place in your heart
where Jesus lives.
This is a deep secret
you are called to live.
Let Jesus live in you.
Go forward with Him.
Let him wash your feet tonight.
Feel just how good it feels to be touched by Jesus.
For we are, sisters and brothers, the Body of Christ.
His broken body is our broken body upon which others feed.
His blood spilled is our blood shed to rejoice the hearts of all.
His tomb is ours, and in it others die to rise again.
Even now we are becoming him.
As you hold his body in your hand, it is to this we say Amen
before we receive what we have become.
Amen.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
What It Means To Be Human
Palm Sunday 2012- Year B § Philippians 2: 5-11/Mark 15:1-39
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
The Heart Of Faith
We have entered the very heart of Christianity. We are meditating on the mystery of God. And the mystery only deepens, which is as it should be.
Having just read this portion of an ancient Christian hymn in Paul’s letter to the Philippians and about to read Mark’s account of the passion, we pause for a moment to consider just what lies at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.
It is at once overpowering to the extent that when Jesus breathes his last, the curtain, which is meant to conceal the Holy of Holies in the Temple over half a mile away, is torn apart from top to bottom. A curtain meant to conceal and contain the presence of God opens the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to all. Torn apart like the heavens in chapter 1 at Jesus' baptism when a voice declares, "This is my Son, my beloved. With him I am well pleased!" The voice returns at the moment of Transfiguration, "This is my Son. Listen to him!" But this time there is no voice beyond that uttered on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." And then comes the voice of a Roman Centurion whose task is to oversee the state ordered execution. "Truly this man was the Son of God."
The ultimate reality about God is revealed in this final moment. What is revealed is both shattering and strengthening. For what is revealed is the human face of God. And the human face of God is nothing less than to assert that Jesus is God
It is shattering because it destroys all we have been taught to believe about God, all that we wish God to be: Almighty, all powerful, sitting on a heavenly throne, in charge of all that is, seen and unseen. Here Saint Mark invites us to see God in this despised, rejected, suffering figure. Like the disciples and no doubt many present at Calvary, we wish to turn our eyes away as if this is all some sort of bad dream. To do so would be to miss the whole meaning of incarnation and passion which is that God comes among us in weakness and humility to stand with us in the midst of the created order.
Such humility does not get portrayed in the literature of any time or place more dramatically than the picture of God willingly emptying of God’s self, limiting oneself, as the letter to the Philippians has it:
“…Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”
The key word at the heart of the mystery of God, at the heart of The Word made flesh, is “emptied.” In the New Testament Greek the word is kenosis: to empty oneself, to pour out oneself, to give one’s self in entirety on behalf of others.
In the story we are about to rehearse, our God is the God of kenosis. At the heart of God’s self-emptying humility is this: God willingly is wounded.
The mind of God, the mind of Christ is self-emptying. God willingly limits God’s power in order to become engaged in life on earth. And more: God is willing to limit God’s power to undergo the ultimate in powerlessness so that the power and the glory of God can enter the world. To effect this, Jesus gives up security, status, dominance and reputation, and power.
As our Palm Sunday begins, we read of his so-called “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. People spread garments and branches of palm along his way. They are jubilantly shouting, even singing, Hosanna, Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes, who comes in the name of the Lord! Jesus! Jesus! Blessed is he who comes! For years we have dressed it up to look truly exciting when in reality it was no doubt a small crowd acting out a rather pathetic demonstration of Love for the God who is Love. It is a kind of political morality play - not a welcome kind of scene for those Romans in charge of keeping the Passover Peace.
Are we so familiar with this story, so certain in our beliefs about God in Christ that we fail to see the isolation and seeming helplessness of Jesus that we forget that the mockery he suffers is ultimately the human mockery of God?
Of course he could no doubt get himself off the cross as many of his adversaries mockingly urge him to do. But that would run counter to his announced mission. It would run counter to all he has said and done up to this point, predicting three times that this would be the end of it. As religious leaders and Roman soldiers mock him as a king little do they understand that they unwittingly proclaim his truth. It is inconceivable to them that God as King of the Universe would allow this moment of crucifixion to be his enthronement. But, he does.
The great hymn of this in Philippians describes God’s unwillingness to be an arrogant God that humans often mistakenly think they require and even more often seek to reflect.
Have we not seen? Have we not heard? Do we not get it? Simon of Cyrene, father of Rufus and Alexander replaces that first Simon, now called Peter. Peter who has more than disappeared. He has denied having anything to do with Jesus. This new Simon, an African at that, appears to be a point of entry for all future disciples. The New Simon picks up the cross and carries it just as Jesus says we must. Simon is you. Simon is me.
Then comes the darkness. The threat of divine response and judgment comes upon the whole earth for three long hours. Can we recall that time before time itself, when out of the chaos of darkness this God on the cross summoned light and life and order and creatures, making us male and female, imago Dei, in the image of God? Does the darkness at noon portend a slipping backwards? Does the rejection of God's Beloved Son signal creation in reverse? Or, are we at the dawn and painful birth of a new creation?
Then, after three hours of darkness, the first utterance since his curt reply to Pilate, "You have said so," God speaks for the first time: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Word is unwilling to come down even now. Rejected by his people, abandoned by his friends and disciples, he now experiences the abandonment of God, the sense of divine absence that accompanies all human suffering. The darkness without is matched by a darkness within as one commentator puts it. He is still calling on God, but there shall be no answer from God until he has shared to the full what is the lot of all human beings in death.
But the response that comes is not expected. Nor does it come from any expected place or person. First, the curtain in the Temple is rent, torn apart from top to bottom. This corresponds to the rending of the heavens at his Baptism. In both cases, at the beginning and end of Mark's story, it signals a divine response to the obedient association of Jesus with sinful humankind - first with those who respond to John's call to repentance in the River Jordan, and now hanging between two criminals in fulfillment of the "deeper baptism" about which he spoke to his disciples.
The first rending is accompanied by the divine voice proclaiming, "This is my Beloved Son with whom I am well pleased," an assurance repeated for three of his disciples at his Transfiguration. At this final rending there is no such voice. The startling moment is when the confirmation that this is the Son of God comes not from God, but from a Gentile Centurion - "the stained human lips of the one who has supervised the execution!" [Brendan Byrne, A Costly Freedom - A Theological Reading of Mark's Gospel, Liturgical Press, Collegeville:2008]
The first rending of the heavens signaled the breakdown of the barrier between the divine and human world. This second rending of the Temple curtain signals the break out of the divine saving presence from the Jerusalem Temple to the world at large! If the Centurion can be the recipient of God's saving embrace, there is hope for us all!
If God can be present in such a way at Golgotha, a place so totally under the control of the demonic powers of Empire for which the world continues to lust, then there can be no corner of the globe so evil as to be immune to outreach of divine saving grace. The world at the foot of the cross may be immersed in a deathly darkness, but in his final loud cry from the cross, the light, that first light that starts creation, is already breaking forth the dawn of a new creation. If the supervisor of the Christ's execution and who no doubt participated in the mockery of God can see the light, there is no captivity to evil so great that cannot be brought to conversion and faith.
Mark brings us face to face with the mystery of God before which we have nothing to say. All of our theologizing, all of our attempts to put God into words dissolve at the foot of the cross. Where we tend to go wrong time after time is to bring our ideas of God with us from wherever we get them and try to fit Christ into those ideas. If we are to take our Lord's Passion at all seriously, as we must, we must be willing to let our understandings of God be corrected, revolutionized, changed, so that we too may be changed - changed into the likeness of God in Christ.
We are now invited to enter the mysteries of this story one more time. It is the story of what it means to be human. It is the story of what it means to be created in the image of God - imago Dei. It is the story of God, which in the end must be our only story.
[The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark …]
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
The Heart Of Faith
We have entered the very heart of Christianity. We are meditating on the mystery of God. And the mystery only deepens, which is as it should be.
Having just read this portion of an ancient Christian hymn in Paul’s letter to the Philippians and about to read Mark’s account of the passion, we pause for a moment to consider just what lies at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.
It is at once overpowering to the extent that when Jesus breathes his last, the curtain, which is meant to conceal the Holy of Holies in the Temple over half a mile away, is torn apart from top to bottom. A curtain meant to conceal and contain the presence of God opens the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to all. Torn apart like the heavens in chapter 1 at Jesus' baptism when a voice declares, "This is my Son, my beloved. With him I am well pleased!" The voice returns at the moment of Transfiguration, "This is my Son. Listen to him!" But this time there is no voice beyond that uttered on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." And then comes the voice of a Roman Centurion whose task is to oversee the state ordered execution. "Truly this man was the Son of God."
The ultimate reality about God is revealed in this final moment. What is revealed is both shattering and strengthening. For what is revealed is the human face of God. And the human face of God is nothing less than to assert that Jesus is God
It is shattering because it destroys all we have been taught to believe about God, all that we wish God to be: Almighty, all powerful, sitting on a heavenly throne, in charge of all that is, seen and unseen. Here Saint Mark invites us to see God in this despised, rejected, suffering figure. Like the disciples and no doubt many present at Calvary, we wish to turn our eyes away as if this is all some sort of bad dream. To do so would be to miss the whole meaning of incarnation and passion which is that God comes among us in weakness and humility to stand with us in the midst of the created order.
Such humility does not get portrayed in the literature of any time or place more dramatically than the picture of God willingly emptying of God’s self, limiting oneself, as the letter to the Philippians has it:
“…Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”
The key word at the heart of the mystery of God, at the heart of The Word made flesh, is “emptied.” In the New Testament Greek the word is kenosis: to empty oneself, to pour out oneself, to give one’s self in entirety on behalf of others.
In the story we are about to rehearse, our God is the God of kenosis. At the heart of God’s self-emptying humility is this: God willingly is wounded.
The mind of God, the mind of Christ is self-emptying. God willingly limits God’s power in order to become engaged in life on earth. And more: God is willing to limit God’s power to undergo the ultimate in powerlessness so that the power and the glory of God can enter the world. To effect this, Jesus gives up security, status, dominance and reputation, and power.
As our Palm Sunday begins, we read of his so-called “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. People spread garments and branches of palm along his way. They are jubilantly shouting, even singing, Hosanna, Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes, who comes in the name of the Lord! Jesus! Jesus! Blessed is he who comes! For years we have dressed it up to look truly exciting when in reality it was no doubt a small crowd acting out a rather pathetic demonstration of Love for the God who is Love. It is a kind of political morality play - not a welcome kind of scene for those Romans in charge of keeping the Passover Peace.
Are we so familiar with this story, so certain in our beliefs about God in Christ that we fail to see the isolation and seeming helplessness of Jesus that we forget that the mockery he suffers is ultimately the human mockery of God?
Of course he could no doubt get himself off the cross as many of his adversaries mockingly urge him to do. But that would run counter to his announced mission. It would run counter to all he has said and done up to this point, predicting three times that this would be the end of it. As religious leaders and Roman soldiers mock him as a king little do they understand that they unwittingly proclaim his truth. It is inconceivable to them that God as King of the Universe would allow this moment of crucifixion to be his enthronement. But, he does.
The great hymn of this in Philippians describes God’s unwillingness to be an arrogant God that humans often mistakenly think they require and even more often seek to reflect.
Have we not seen? Have we not heard? Do we not get it? Simon of Cyrene, father of Rufus and Alexander replaces that first Simon, now called Peter. Peter who has more than disappeared. He has denied having anything to do with Jesus. This new Simon, an African at that, appears to be a point of entry for all future disciples. The New Simon picks up the cross and carries it just as Jesus says we must. Simon is you. Simon is me.
Then comes the darkness. The threat of divine response and judgment comes upon the whole earth for three long hours. Can we recall that time before time itself, when out of the chaos of darkness this God on the cross summoned light and life and order and creatures, making us male and female, imago Dei, in the image of God? Does the darkness at noon portend a slipping backwards? Does the rejection of God's Beloved Son signal creation in reverse? Or, are we at the dawn and painful birth of a new creation?
Then, after three hours of darkness, the first utterance since his curt reply to Pilate, "You have said so," God speaks for the first time: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Word is unwilling to come down even now. Rejected by his people, abandoned by his friends and disciples, he now experiences the abandonment of God, the sense of divine absence that accompanies all human suffering. The darkness without is matched by a darkness within as one commentator puts it. He is still calling on God, but there shall be no answer from God until he has shared to the full what is the lot of all human beings in death.
But the response that comes is not expected. Nor does it come from any expected place or person. First, the curtain in the Temple is rent, torn apart from top to bottom. This corresponds to the rending of the heavens at his Baptism. In both cases, at the beginning and end of Mark's story, it signals a divine response to the obedient association of Jesus with sinful humankind - first with those who respond to John's call to repentance in the River Jordan, and now hanging between two criminals in fulfillment of the "deeper baptism" about which he spoke to his disciples.
The first rending is accompanied by the divine voice proclaiming, "This is my Beloved Son with whom I am well pleased," an assurance repeated for three of his disciples at his Transfiguration. At this final rending there is no such voice. The startling moment is when the confirmation that this is the Son of God comes not from God, but from a Gentile Centurion - "the stained human lips of the one who has supervised the execution!" [Brendan Byrne, A Costly Freedom - A Theological Reading of Mark's Gospel, Liturgical Press, Collegeville:2008]
The first rending of the heavens signaled the breakdown of the barrier between the divine and human world. This second rending of the Temple curtain signals the break out of the divine saving presence from the Jerusalem Temple to the world at large! If the Centurion can be the recipient of God's saving embrace, there is hope for us all!
If God can be present in such a way at Golgotha, a place so totally under the control of the demonic powers of Empire for which the world continues to lust, then there can be no corner of the globe so evil as to be immune to outreach of divine saving grace. The world at the foot of the cross may be immersed in a deathly darkness, but in his final loud cry from the cross, the light, that first light that starts creation, is already breaking forth the dawn of a new creation. If the supervisor of the Christ's execution and who no doubt participated in the mockery of God can see the light, there is no captivity to evil so great that cannot be brought to conversion and faith.
Mark brings us face to face with the mystery of God before which we have nothing to say. All of our theologizing, all of our attempts to put God into words dissolve at the foot of the cross. Where we tend to go wrong time after time is to bring our ideas of God with us from wherever we get them and try to fit Christ into those ideas. If we are to take our Lord's Passion at all seriously, as we must, we must be willing to let our understandings of God be corrected, revolutionized, changed, so that we too may be changed - changed into the likeness of God in Christ.
We are now invited to enter the mysteries of this story one more time. It is the story of what it means to be human. It is the story of what it means to be created in the image of God - imago Dei. It is the story of God, which in the end must be our only story.
[The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark …]
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Become Children of the Light
25 March 2012/Lent 5B – John 12:20-33 (34-36)
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
Become Children of Light
In the fall of 1983, having been ordained a deacon just few months, I was going to have lunch with a local Presbyterian minister in Winnetka, The Reverend Robert Hudnut. I met him at his church, and he left me to look around the sanctuary while he had to take one last phone call before we could leave. I wandered around until I was standing in the pulpit looking out at the rows of pews that sat empty as the “congregation” before me. As I glanced down at the reading table in the pulpit, my eyes fell on a verse from this morning’s gospel carved into the wood for every preacher who would ever stand there to see: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
It was like a blow to the solar plexus. It caught my breath. It was a moment of revelation as direct from the God of the great “I Am” as could possibly be. It was a reminder, early in my ministry, as to why I had been ordained in the first place – that for all the “Greeks” who might sit in front of me every time I undertake the task of proclamation there is only one task: to present Jesus to all those who come to see him. To find ways to make Jesus visible, palpable, available, able to be comprehended, known, alive, and present in all that we do and all that we say as a congregation of his people.
“The Greeks” in today’s story are stand-ins for us – for all of us. We come week in and week out wishing to see Jesus. Note, that in John’s narrative that although their request passes through the chain of command (from Philip to Andrew to Jesus), we never learn if their wish is granted. That is, I believe, because John means for us to be “the Greeks”. And this twelfth chapter lays it out in sequence quite clearly for “those who have eyes to see, and those who have ears to hear.”
You see the choice is ours. Will we be those who love our lives and lose them? Or, will we dare to live among those who “hate their life in this world” who “will keep it for eternal life”? Will we dare to be those who follow Jesus, that where he is, we are also? Are we at all ready to become those, who like Jesus, have a “troubled heart”? He is actually quoting Psalm 6 verse 3, which in the Hebrew means something more like, “My soul is struck with terror!”
And why not? For as he says, his hour had come to be lifted up high upon a cross – a crude, yet effective, means of state sponsored execution meant to be a deterrent for any and all who would challenge the status quo. Is this what “some Greeks” really have made the journey to Jerusalem to hear and see?
To get the full thrust we need to review chapter 12. It begins with the after miracle dinner in Bethany where Martha is serving the table, her sister Mary is anointing Jesus’ feet with a pound of costly perfume, Judas complains, all the while Jesus and the newly revived Lazarus enjoy a meal after a full day’s work. Outside the door those who are not willing to have the status quo rocked are plotting to kill Jesus AND Lazarus. The next scene is Palm Sunday, at which his adversaries, impressed with the crowd cheering Jesus on into the City of Peace, remark, “There is nothing to do about it, the entire world is coming to him.” Then our episode confirms that, yes indeed, the world has arrived in the guise of “some Greeks,” gentiles, outsiders, unclean, unfit and not entirely welcome for the Passover festival that is at hand. Had we read the whole scene, after Jesus announces his being lifted up, like Peter at Caesarea Philipi, the crowd asks, “But our understanding is that the Son of Man, that is the Messiah, the Christ, will last forever. How can this be?”
Like any good Rabbi Jesus does not answer their question but rather speaks about light. This is how John’s gospel begins – “What was coming into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (1:3b-4) Throughout the ages the translators have had a bit of a puzzle over that last bit, variously rendering it, “did not comprehend it,” “did not apprehend it,” “did not overcome it.”
The Greek word here can mean “to take to mind” (apprehend), or “to take under control” (overcome). That is, to be enlightened by it, or to put it out. Both meanings are true. The darkness neither is enlightened by it, nor does it put it out. The darkness in no sense received the light, and yet the light continues to shine undimmed. For Jesus, like the seed he discusses, may be dead and planted in the ground, but like the seed he sprouts anew to shine on another day – an eternal day at that! Jesus concludes it all with the challenge, “The light is with you a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light!” (John 12:35-36)
My guess is that the Greeks, if they were indeed present for all of this, got much more than they bargained for. To “see” Jesus is to be with Jesus. He says, “Where I am, there will my servant be also.” That is, the same darkness trying to take Jesus down will try to take us down as well.
The good news is that he has planted the seed of faith within us, and his light continues to shine. His seed of faith and his light makes it possible for us to be those people who promise that all that we do and all that we say will proclaim the good news of Jesus. Fortunately for us there are those who have gone before us who have reflected his light in all that they have said and done. Think of the disciples, of Laurence deacon of Rome, of Ghandi, Martin King, Mother Teresa - they have all withstood the darkness. They were not the light, but reflectors of the light because they themselves are turned toward the light. The light they reflect continues to shine, giving us examples, giving us hope, giving us power to become children of the Light.
Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Where I am, there will my servant be also. Are we there? Are you there? When people look at us do they see Jesus? And if not now, when? Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
Become Children of Light
In the fall of 1983, having been ordained a deacon just few months, I was going to have lunch with a local Presbyterian minister in Winnetka, The Reverend Robert Hudnut. I met him at his church, and he left me to look around the sanctuary while he had to take one last phone call before we could leave. I wandered around until I was standing in the pulpit looking out at the rows of pews that sat empty as the “congregation” before me. As I glanced down at the reading table in the pulpit, my eyes fell on a verse from this morning’s gospel carved into the wood for every preacher who would ever stand there to see: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
It was like a blow to the solar plexus. It caught my breath. It was a moment of revelation as direct from the God of the great “I Am” as could possibly be. It was a reminder, early in my ministry, as to why I had been ordained in the first place – that for all the “Greeks” who might sit in front of me every time I undertake the task of proclamation there is only one task: to present Jesus to all those who come to see him. To find ways to make Jesus visible, palpable, available, able to be comprehended, known, alive, and present in all that we do and all that we say as a congregation of his people.
“The Greeks” in today’s story are stand-ins for us – for all of us. We come week in and week out wishing to see Jesus. Note, that in John’s narrative that although their request passes through the chain of command (from Philip to Andrew to Jesus), we never learn if their wish is granted. That is, I believe, because John means for us to be “the Greeks”. And this twelfth chapter lays it out in sequence quite clearly for “those who have eyes to see, and those who have ears to hear.”
You see the choice is ours. Will we be those who love our lives and lose them? Or, will we dare to live among those who “hate their life in this world” who “will keep it for eternal life”? Will we dare to be those who follow Jesus, that where he is, we are also? Are we at all ready to become those, who like Jesus, have a “troubled heart”? He is actually quoting Psalm 6 verse 3, which in the Hebrew means something more like, “My soul is struck with terror!”
And why not? For as he says, his hour had come to be lifted up high upon a cross – a crude, yet effective, means of state sponsored execution meant to be a deterrent for any and all who would challenge the status quo. Is this what “some Greeks” really have made the journey to Jerusalem to hear and see?
To get the full thrust we need to review chapter 12. It begins with the after miracle dinner in Bethany where Martha is serving the table, her sister Mary is anointing Jesus’ feet with a pound of costly perfume, Judas complains, all the while Jesus and the newly revived Lazarus enjoy a meal after a full day’s work. Outside the door those who are not willing to have the status quo rocked are plotting to kill Jesus AND Lazarus. The next scene is Palm Sunday, at which his adversaries, impressed with the crowd cheering Jesus on into the City of Peace, remark, “There is nothing to do about it, the entire world is coming to him.” Then our episode confirms that, yes indeed, the world has arrived in the guise of “some Greeks,” gentiles, outsiders, unclean, unfit and not entirely welcome for the Passover festival that is at hand. Had we read the whole scene, after Jesus announces his being lifted up, like Peter at Caesarea Philipi, the crowd asks, “But our understanding is that the Son of Man, that is the Messiah, the Christ, will last forever. How can this be?”
Like any good Rabbi Jesus does not answer their question but rather speaks about light. This is how John’s gospel begins – “What was coming into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (1:3b-4) Throughout the ages the translators have had a bit of a puzzle over that last bit, variously rendering it, “did not comprehend it,” “did not apprehend it,” “did not overcome it.”
The Greek word here can mean “to take to mind” (apprehend), or “to take under control” (overcome). That is, to be enlightened by it, or to put it out. Both meanings are true. The darkness neither is enlightened by it, nor does it put it out. The darkness in no sense received the light, and yet the light continues to shine undimmed. For Jesus, like the seed he discusses, may be dead and planted in the ground, but like the seed he sprouts anew to shine on another day – an eternal day at that! Jesus concludes it all with the challenge, “The light is with you a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light!” (John 12:35-36)
My guess is that the Greeks, if they were indeed present for all of this, got much more than they bargained for. To “see” Jesus is to be with Jesus. He says, “Where I am, there will my servant be also.” That is, the same darkness trying to take Jesus down will try to take us down as well.
The good news is that he has planted the seed of faith within us, and his light continues to shine. His seed of faith and his light makes it possible for us to be those people who promise that all that we do and all that we say will proclaim the good news of Jesus. Fortunately for us there are those who have gone before us who have reflected his light in all that they have said and done. Think of the disciples, of Laurence deacon of Rome, of Ghandi, Martin King, Mother Teresa - they have all withstood the darkness. They were not the light, but reflectors of the light because they themselves are turned toward the light. The light they reflect continues to shine, giving us examples, giving us hope, giving us power to become children of the Light.
Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Where I am, there will my servant be also. Are we there? Are you there? When people look at us do they see Jesus? And if not now, when? Amen.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Can You See The Cross?
11 March 2012/Lent 3B - Exodus 20:1-17/1 Corinthians 1:18-25/John 2:13-22
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter's at Ellicott Mills
Can You See The Cross?
We currently have seven candidates preparing for Confirmation and Reception. From the earliest days of the Church, Lent has been the time for such preparation. In confirmation and reception one renews and reaffirms the promises made in Baptism – The Baptismal Covenant. At the Easter Vigil we will all renew our Baptismal Covenant. In a sense it is our job description as Christians – it sets out in no uncertain terms who we are and whose we are – we are the Lord’s, we belong to God in Christ. Or, as we say in Rite One during Lent, “That he may dwell in us and we in him.”
As a sign of our Oneness and covenant with God in Christ, each of our candidates was asked last Sunday to write down the 38th verse from the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It was suggested that when times are tough, or things seem uncertain, we ought to return to this verse, pray with it, and remember our covenant relationship with God in Christ.
These first three weeks of Lent our First Lessons have provided a history of covenant. Week One it was the covenant with Noah and “every living creature.” God had grown weary of our bad behavior and destroyed all but a boatload of people and creatures. As Noah builds an altar of stones at the end of the flood, God places a rainbow in the heavens as a sign that never again “shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” Showing our God to be merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.
Next was the covenant with Abraham, the foundation of monotheistic religion for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. God promises Abraham, if you will be my people, I will be your God. I will make you fruitful and multiply; I will give you a land; I will make you a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. To Sarah and Abraham is born a beloved son, Isaac, and the journey begins.
The descendants of Abraham, however, end up slaves in Egypt. God hears their cry. Moses leads the Passover/Exodus escape. On the other side of the sea, Miriam, Moses’ sister, breaks out the tambourines and leads the sisters in dancing and singing their freedom: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously! The horse and the rider he has thrown into the sea!”
Which brings us to today’s depiction of the covenant with Israel – beginning with the Ten Commandments. These Ten Commandments made Israel, “the fewest of all peoples,” God’s little demonstration community. They have become the foundation of all western civilization and give shape to what freedom really means! They are neatly given in two parts: Commandments 1-4 define our relationship with God – Commandments 5-10 define our relationships with one another. Love God and Love neighbor, says Jesus. We might note carefully that the first four take up the bulk of the text, with nearly a third of the whole text devoted to the importance of the Sabbath. It is ironic that we feel we are just too busy these days to take a whole day off – to value time more than our acquisition and consumption of things of space.
Our Baptismal Covenant, as we heard last week, re-shapes our relationships with God and neighbor in ways exampled by the life and actions of our Savior Jesus Christ - He who defined neighbor in the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Parable of the Last Judgment. As the African hymn has it, “all our neighbors to us and you.” All. Not some, not many, not a few, but all people are our neighbors, and we are to seek and serve Christ in ALL persons.
My first baptism as a priest was a little girl named Eleanor. Her mother Frances was baptized as well that day. Eleanor was about 4 years old. When I asked her, "Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?" She could answer for herself, "I will with God's help." "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons? Will you strive for justice and peace for all people? Will you respect the dignity of every human being?" "I will with God's help." Then I sprinkled her with water, traced the sign of the cross on her forehead, marking her as Christ's own forever.
Afterwards, we were at her house having brunch. I was talking with someone when there was a tug on my pants leg. It was Eleanor. "Can you still see the cross on my forehead?" she asked. There was a powerful sense of anticipation on her face seeking an answer to what would be a great question for all of us to consider every day. Eleanor could internalize what had just happened to her in ways most of us completely miss. I looked into her eyes and replied, "Yes, Eleanor, I can still see the cross on your forehead!" And off she skipped like the very happiest of all little girls everywhere! I thought for a moment what a great question that really was. Then I returned to eating quiche, drinking wine and talking with others about far less important things.
A week passed. I really had not thought about Eleanor's question at all. But fortunately for me the Lord was not finished with me yet! The next Sunday, as I was vesting, there was a tug on my alb. I turned to see that it was Eleanor again. "Can you still see the cross on my forehead?" she asked. It was at that moment that God broke me open. Just last Sunday we heard the scripture, "If you want to be a disciple of mine you must pick up your cross and follow me." I had always thought that meant the tough and difficult things in life – “He has had a great cross to bear,” we say. “She has had so many crosses to bear.” This usually means things like hardship, disease, loss, loneliness, alienation, bigotry and all those things that make life hard to bear.
It took a little girl to help me to see, this is the cross we are asked to carry – the cross traced with oil blessed by our bishop, sealing us and marking us as Christ’s own forever. A sign of promises made, promises meant to shape our lives together. People ought to see who we are and whose we are by all that we do and say; by the way we respect the dignity of every human being; by the ways in which we fellowship together; by the way we seek and serve Christ in one another, and in all others. Because Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, we like Miriam can dance and sing our freedom from sin and death! Because nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! Lent is a time to remember all of this and act accordingly- we are God’s little demonstration community! Lent is a time to ask ourselves, Can you see the cross on my forehead? Amen.
Eleanor’s Song
Can you see the cross
On my forehead
Sayin’ Jesus lives inside of me
Can you see the cross
On my forehead
There for all the world to see
To see how we are meant to love
To see how we are meant to live
To see how we are meant to share
To see how we are meant to give
refrain
That he is Lord of all that is
That he is mine and I am His
As I strive for justice, peace and dignity
I share in his every ministry
refrain
That I am God’s beloved child
That our God is well pleased with me
That we can laugh and dance and sing
Nothing can separate the love of Christ from me
refrain
Copyright Kirk Kubicek/Sounds Divine
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter's at Ellicott Mills
Can You See The Cross?
We currently have seven candidates preparing for Confirmation and Reception. From the earliest days of the Church, Lent has been the time for such preparation. In confirmation and reception one renews and reaffirms the promises made in Baptism – The Baptismal Covenant. At the Easter Vigil we will all renew our Baptismal Covenant. In a sense it is our job description as Christians – it sets out in no uncertain terms who we are and whose we are – we are the Lord’s, we belong to God in Christ. Or, as we say in Rite One during Lent, “That he may dwell in us and we in him.”
As a sign of our Oneness and covenant with God in Christ, each of our candidates was asked last Sunday to write down the 38th verse from the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It was suggested that when times are tough, or things seem uncertain, we ought to return to this verse, pray with it, and remember our covenant relationship with God in Christ.
These first three weeks of Lent our First Lessons have provided a history of covenant. Week One it was the covenant with Noah and “every living creature.” God had grown weary of our bad behavior and destroyed all but a boatload of people and creatures. As Noah builds an altar of stones at the end of the flood, God places a rainbow in the heavens as a sign that never again “shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” Showing our God to be merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.
Next was the covenant with Abraham, the foundation of monotheistic religion for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. God promises Abraham, if you will be my people, I will be your God. I will make you fruitful and multiply; I will give you a land; I will make you a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. To Sarah and Abraham is born a beloved son, Isaac, and the journey begins.
The descendants of Abraham, however, end up slaves in Egypt. God hears their cry. Moses leads the Passover/Exodus escape. On the other side of the sea, Miriam, Moses’ sister, breaks out the tambourines and leads the sisters in dancing and singing their freedom: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously! The horse and the rider he has thrown into the sea!”
Which brings us to today’s depiction of the covenant with Israel – beginning with the Ten Commandments. These Ten Commandments made Israel, “the fewest of all peoples,” God’s little demonstration community. They have become the foundation of all western civilization and give shape to what freedom really means! They are neatly given in two parts: Commandments 1-4 define our relationship with God – Commandments 5-10 define our relationships with one another. Love God and Love neighbor, says Jesus. We might note carefully that the first four take up the bulk of the text, with nearly a third of the whole text devoted to the importance of the Sabbath. It is ironic that we feel we are just too busy these days to take a whole day off – to value time more than our acquisition and consumption of things of space.
Our Baptismal Covenant, as we heard last week, re-shapes our relationships with God and neighbor in ways exampled by the life and actions of our Savior Jesus Christ - He who defined neighbor in the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Parable of the Last Judgment. As the African hymn has it, “all our neighbors to us and you.” All. Not some, not many, not a few, but all people are our neighbors, and we are to seek and serve Christ in ALL persons.
My first baptism as a priest was a little girl named Eleanor. Her mother Frances was baptized as well that day. Eleanor was about 4 years old. When I asked her, "Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?" She could answer for herself, "I will with God's help." "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons? Will you strive for justice and peace for all people? Will you respect the dignity of every human being?" "I will with God's help." Then I sprinkled her with water, traced the sign of the cross on her forehead, marking her as Christ's own forever.
Afterwards, we were at her house having brunch. I was talking with someone when there was a tug on my pants leg. It was Eleanor. "Can you still see the cross on my forehead?" she asked. There was a powerful sense of anticipation on her face seeking an answer to what would be a great question for all of us to consider every day. Eleanor could internalize what had just happened to her in ways most of us completely miss. I looked into her eyes and replied, "Yes, Eleanor, I can still see the cross on your forehead!" And off she skipped like the very happiest of all little girls everywhere! I thought for a moment what a great question that really was. Then I returned to eating quiche, drinking wine and talking with others about far less important things.
A week passed. I really had not thought about Eleanor's question at all. But fortunately for me the Lord was not finished with me yet! The next Sunday, as I was vesting, there was a tug on my alb. I turned to see that it was Eleanor again. "Can you still see the cross on my forehead?" she asked. It was at that moment that God broke me open. Just last Sunday we heard the scripture, "If you want to be a disciple of mine you must pick up your cross and follow me." I had always thought that meant the tough and difficult things in life – “He has had a great cross to bear,” we say. “She has had so many crosses to bear.” This usually means things like hardship, disease, loss, loneliness, alienation, bigotry and all those things that make life hard to bear.
It took a little girl to help me to see, this is the cross we are asked to carry – the cross traced with oil blessed by our bishop, sealing us and marking us as Christ’s own forever. A sign of promises made, promises meant to shape our lives together. People ought to see who we are and whose we are by all that we do and say; by the way we respect the dignity of every human being; by the ways in which we fellowship together; by the way we seek and serve Christ in one another, and in all others. Because Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, we like Miriam can dance and sing our freedom from sin and death! Because nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! Lent is a time to remember all of this and act accordingly- we are God’s little demonstration community! Lent is a time to ask ourselves, Can you see the cross on my forehead? Amen.
Eleanor’s Song
Can you see the cross
On my forehead
Sayin’ Jesus lives inside of me
Can you see the cross
On my forehead
There for all the world to see
To see how we are meant to love
To see how we are meant to live
To see how we are meant to share
To see how we are meant to give
refrain
That he is Lord of all that is
That he is mine and I am His
As I strive for justice, peace and dignity
I share in his every ministry
refrain
That I am God’s beloved child
That our God is well pleased with me
That we can laugh and dance and sing
Nothing can separate the love of Christ from me
refrain
Copyright Kirk Kubicek/Sounds Divine
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Testing, 1,2,3
26 February 2012/Lent 1B – Genesis 9:8-17/Mark 1: 9-15
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Are We God’s Beloved?
When times are difficult, really really bad, it seems as if there is a barrier shut between heaven, the household of God, and earth, the dwelling place of humankind, men and women created imago Dei, in the image of God. The barrier seems impenetrable, precipitating what seems like a drought of divine assistance, communication and intervention into whatever current crises we have wrought by our own hands and behavior. Where is their God? Where is our God? Human alienation from the divine sends us into the wilderness of our hearts and souls. Helplessness and despair describe our feelings in such times.
Mark is written against such a background. The Jerusalem Temple, Jerusalem itself, and most of Israel is in ashes, burnt to the ground by the Roman Legions crushing the attempted Jewish rebellion of 70ce. Just four years earlier the Emperor Nero had rounded up Christians, blaming them for the burning of Rome, and condemned them to the beasts, throwing them into the Roman arenas to be devoured by wild animals in 64ce. Out of these recent “current events” Mark offers this rather terse account of Jesus’ baptism and forty days in the wilderness “with the wild beasts,” and angels “waiting on him.”
Just a few verses before, John the baptizer is holding a revival meeting down by the river, urging people to be cleansed from sin, urging people to repent, literally to turn or return to the ways of God. Surely, John preaches, it is our chosen departure from The Way of God as handed down to us from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah and the Prophets, that has resulted in our being under military occupation. Surely, our lack of Love for God and Neighbor has alienated us from God, from each other, and ultimately from our own selves. Be submerged in the waters of baptism, wake up, renew a right spirit within yourself, go and sin no more.
Jesus, already identified by Mark as the Christ (Anointed), the Son of God, makes his first appearance in Mark not as a child in a manger, but rather as an adult in full solidarity with the thousands of others from Jerusalem, all of Judea and all the surrounding countryside, undergoing John’s rite of repentance and renewal. Jesus, God made flesh, aligns himself with that part of humanity seeking to realign themselves with the God of the Exodus, the God of Israel, the God and Father of all.
As he comes up out of the water, the seemingly impenetrable barrier is breached –"torn open" are the words chosen to describe the moment when the drought of divine assistance, communication and intervention comes to an end! The plea issued by the prophet Isaiah 600 years earlier, “O, that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” is answered (Isaiah 64:1). God’s ruach, God’s Spirit, God’s very essence, descends “like a dove.” The same Spirit-Breath of God that hovers over creation returns to anoint the newly washed Jesus the new Adam of a new creation, a re-creation of God’s kingdom. Like the dove that confirms the end of the 40 days destruction of mankind by flood – wherein God, in our portion from Genesis, announces a covenant with every living creature never to solve the problems of sin and alienation again with such destructive fury - placing the rainbow in the sky to connect God to man, man to God. How ever did we allow such an elegant and beautiful gesture of covenant promise and connection to the divine to be cheapened into our hope to find a pot of gold at our end of the rainbow?
Then there is the announcement – “You are my Son, my Beloved – with you I am well pleased.” Do we recall that earlier beloved son, Isaac, who was nearly sacrificed by his own father Abraham? What God, in the end, did not require of Abraham, God will require of God’s self, the sacrifice of God’s own beloved Son to rescue us from ourselves. God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all!
The phrase, “with whom I am well pleased” recalls Isaiah’s servant songs (Isaiah 42: 1-9, 52: 13-53:12), a further suggestion that the “way” of this beloved Son of God will entail suffering on behalf of all humankind, joining in Israel's repeated periods of vicarious suffering on behalf of all mankind, while at the same time expressing God’s pleasure that his Son has aligned himself with sinful humanity as they undertake John's serious program of repentance and redirection for their own lives and responsibilities as stewards of God’s creation.
This rending of the heavens will not be reversed, as we saw last Sunday in our Lord’s moment of Transfiguration while he converses with the Law and the Prophets, Moses and Elijah. In these scenes of divine revelation we witness Father, Son and Holy Spirit on the stage all at one time in One Person seeking to liberate human lives from the grip of that which is demonic and evil. Indeed, from one end of Mark’s gospel to another, Jesus is portrayed in constant battle against demons and human devised evil. Lest we think such a world view is primitive, let those with eyes see and those who have ears hear.
Then comes the test – a far better translation of the Greek peirazein, which can be test or tempt. Note the absence of Satan and a series of three temptations in Mark's account. Mark only allows that Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness with wild beasts on the one hand, and angels on the other. Forty years the Israelites were tested in the wilderness. Abraham was tested on the “Mount of the Lord.” God tests God’s chosen vessels for God’s mission to God’s creation. Such testing places one in an extreme situation where in the absence of the usual human resources the strength of one’s adherence to God’s calling may be assessed and refined. Deuteronomy describes the testing of God’s son, or child, Israel, in the wilderness through the image of a father’s disciplinary testing or training of a son (Deut 8:5, 32:10).
Then just the spare details that Jesus is with “wild beasts” and “angels” – demons and God’s own messengers. The sense of danger is expressed on the one hand, with Jesus devoid of any and all human resources, and yet attended and sustained by angelic protection on the other. This sense of disciplinary testing is one way that Biblical thought interprets the experiences of suffering visited upon those who are otherwise devoted to God’s cause. One can well imagine that those Christians and Jews who themselves had just been tested by Nero and the Roman legions' scorched earth policies of submission most certainly would have found comfort in Mark’s portrayal of this testing. We too are meant to take comfort not only in the meaning that can be found in vicarious suffering, but even more so in the divine disclosure that we are God’s beloved and that God is well pleased with those who live in solidarity with God’s Son.
Jesus receives this divine proclamation on behalf of all humankind. For it is Jesus, God made flesh and blood, who chooses to enter into our divine rite of repentance and renewal – God in Christ chooses to join with us. Those who unite themselves with him through faith and baptism share in the divine address he receives. “You are my beloved Son, You are my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased.” We have forty days to accept this divine address – forty days to internalize just what it means to be God’s beloved – forty days to see that the doctrine of the Trinity, for all its mystery, is not about the remoteness of God. In this Trinitarian inauguration of Jesus’ ministry we see the heavens indeed torn open, God's Spirit coming down, and the Trinity opening its arms to gather humanity into the divine communion that is the essence of God’s kingdom – gathering us into the household of God’s divine Love. May the things we do this day and this Lent enable us to know this in ways that will release us from the grip of suffering, alienation and evil, and make us to become his apostles sent to bring divine comfort to an anxious and alienated world of human suffering and sin. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Are We God’s Beloved?
When times are difficult, really really bad, it seems as if there is a barrier shut between heaven, the household of God, and earth, the dwelling place of humankind, men and women created imago Dei, in the image of God. The barrier seems impenetrable, precipitating what seems like a drought of divine assistance, communication and intervention into whatever current crises we have wrought by our own hands and behavior. Where is their God? Where is our God? Human alienation from the divine sends us into the wilderness of our hearts and souls. Helplessness and despair describe our feelings in such times.
Mark is written against such a background. The Jerusalem Temple, Jerusalem itself, and most of Israel is in ashes, burnt to the ground by the Roman Legions crushing the attempted Jewish rebellion of 70ce. Just four years earlier the Emperor Nero had rounded up Christians, blaming them for the burning of Rome, and condemned them to the beasts, throwing them into the Roman arenas to be devoured by wild animals in 64ce. Out of these recent “current events” Mark offers this rather terse account of Jesus’ baptism and forty days in the wilderness “with the wild beasts,” and angels “waiting on him.”
Just a few verses before, John the baptizer is holding a revival meeting down by the river, urging people to be cleansed from sin, urging people to repent, literally to turn or return to the ways of God. Surely, John preaches, it is our chosen departure from The Way of God as handed down to us from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah and the Prophets, that has resulted in our being under military occupation. Surely, our lack of Love for God and Neighbor has alienated us from God, from each other, and ultimately from our own selves. Be submerged in the waters of baptism, wake up, renew a right spirit within yourself, go and sin no more.
Jesus, already identified by Mark as the Christ (Anointed), the Son of God, makes his first appearance in Mark not as a child in a manger, but rather as an adult in full solidarity with the thousands of others from Jerusalem, all of Judea and all the surrounding countryside, undergoing John’s rite of repentance and renewal. Jesus, God made flesh, aligns himself with that part of humanity seeking to realign themselves with the God of the Exodus, the God of Israel, the God and Father of all.
As he comes up out of the water, the seemingly impenetrable barrier is breached –"torn open" are the words chosen to describe the moment when the drought of divine assistance, communication and intervention comes to an end! The plea issued by the prophet Isaiah 600 years earlier, “O, that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” is answered (Isaiah 64:1). God’s ruach, God’s Spirit, God’s very essence, descends “like a dove.” The same Spirit-Breath of God that hovers over creation returns to anoint the newly washed Jesus the new Adam of a new creation, a re-creation of God’s kingdom. Like the dove that confirms the end of the 40 days destruction of mankind by flood – wherein God, in our portion from Genesis, announces a covenant with every living creature never to solve the problems of sin and alienation again with such destructive fury - placing the rainbow in the sky to connect God to man, man to God. How ever did we allow such an elegant and beautiful gesture of covenant promise and connection to the divine to be cheapened into our hope to find a pot of gold at our end of the rainbow?
Then there is the announcement – “You are my Son, my Beloved – with you I am well pleased.” Do we recall that earlier beloved son, Isaac, who was nearly sacrificed by his own father Abraham? What God, in the end, did not require of Abraham, God will require of God’s self, the sacrifice of God’s own beloved Son to rescue us from ourselves. God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all!
The phrase, “with whom I am well pleased” recalls Isaiah’s servant songs (Isaiah 42: 1-9, 52: 13-53:12), a further suggestion that the “way” of this beloved Son of God will entail suffering on behalf of all humankind, joining in Israel's repeated periods of vicarious suffering on behalf of all mankind, while at the same time expressing God’s pleasure that his Son has aligned himself with sinful humanity as they undertake John's serious program of repentance and redirection for their own lives and responsibilities as stewards of God’s creation.
This rending of the heavens will not be reversed, as we saw last Sunday in our Lord’s moment of Transfiguration while he converses with the Law and the Prophets, Moses and Elijah. In these scenes of divine revelation we witness Father, Son and Holy Spirit on the stage all at one time in One Person seeking to liberate human lives from the grip of that which is demonic and evil. Indeed, from one end of Mark’s gospel to another, Jesus is portrayed in constant battle against demons and human devised evil. Lest we think such a world view is primitive, let those with eyes see and those who have ears hear.
Then comes the test – a far better translation of the Greek peirazein, which can be test or tempt. Note the absence of Satan and a series of three temptations in Mark's account. Mark only allows that Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness with wild beasts on the one hand, and angels on the other. Forty years the Israelites were tested in the wilderness. Abraham was tested on the “Mount of the Lord.” God tests God’s chosen vessels for God’s mission to God’s creation. Such testing places one in an extreme situation where in the absence of the usual human resources the strength of one’s adherence to God’s calling may be assessed and refined. Deuteronomy describes the testing of God’s son, or child, Israel, in the wilderness through the image of a father’s disciplinary testing or training of a son (Deut 8:5, 32:10).
Then just the spare details that Jesus is with “wild beasts” and “angels” – demons and God’s own messengers. The sense of danger is expressed on the one hand, with Jesus devoid of any and all human resources, and yet attended and sustained by angelic protection on the other. This sense of disciplinary testing is one way that Biblical thought interprets the experiences of suffering visited upon those who are otherwise devoted to God’s cause. One can well imagine that those Christians and Jews who themselves had just been tested by Nero and the Roman legions' scorched earth policies of submission most certainly would have found comfort in Mark’s portrayal of this testing. We too are meant to take comfort not only in the meaning that can be found in vicarious suffering, but even more so in the divine disclosure that we are God’s beloved and that God is well pleased with those who live in solidarity with God’s Son.
Jesus receives this divine proclamation on behalf of all humankind. For it is Jesus, God made flesh and blood, who chooses to enter into our divine rite of repentance and renewal – God in Christ chooses to join with us. Those who unite themselves with him through faith and baptism share in the divine address he receives. “You are my beloved Son, You are my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased.” We have forty days to accept this divine address – forty days to internalize just what it means to be God’s beloved – forty days to see that the doctrine of the Trinity, for all its mystery, is not about the remoteness of God. In this Trinitarian inauguration of Jesus’ ministry we see the heavens indeed torn open, God's Spirit coming down, and the Trinity opening its arms to gather humanity into the divine communion that is the essence of God’s kingdom – gathering us into the household of God’s divine Love. May the things we do this day and this Lent enable us to know this in ways that will release us from the grip of suffering, alienation and evil, and make us to become his apostles sent to bring divine comfort to an anxious and alienated world of human suffering and sin. Amen.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
In Memoriam
In Memoriam
Jane Catherine Peddicord
1925-2012
Revelation 21:2-7/John11:21-27
Martha and Mary were sisters. Their brother Lazarus had been sick. They had called for their dear friend Jesus, knowing that He was of God. The text is clear, it says “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” He delays going, and when he does his disciples try to talk him out of going because the region around Bethany was too dangerous with people trying to stone him and others already conspiring to have him arrested. As further sign of his deep love, Jesus replies, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”
Meanwhile, Martha and Mary are at home sitting shiva, the Jewish custom of mourning. Friends and neighbors surround them, much as we come to be with Craig and one another as we seek comfort and consolation at having lost “our friend,” Jane. Word comes to the sisters that Jesus has approached the outskirts of Bethany. Always the practical one, always the one seeing to it that others needs are met, always the housekeeper, Martha goes to meet Jesus before he gets to the house. She has some business with him that is better kept at a distance from the house and those who are comforting the family – she seems to want to spare them hearing what she has to say.
And what she has to say is what we all want to say at a time like this: Lord, if you had been here, Lord if you had heard our prayers, Lord if you had done something, come sooner, our sister Jane would not have had to die! Martha is not a shy one. She may appear so tending to things in the kitchen or in the garden out back, but when the times demanded it she could stand up to anyone, including Jesus.
Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again. Martha, believing he is talking about some hypothetical future end of days when all the dead shall rise again says in effect, “Sure, sure, we all know that, but I am talking about now.” Jesus responds, “I am now. I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Martha immediately knows he is right. Martha immediately sees Jesus as if for the first time – He is of God, He is resurrection, He is life. And speaking on behalf of all of us here this morning, and for all people who mourn at all times and in all places, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, the text continues, she went and told Mary who got up and left the house to go see Jesus, and everyone in the house followed. Jesus saw Mary and everyone with her weeping and was “deeply moved.” They go to the tomb, Jesus calls Lazarus out, and orders everyone, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
This is the hard part. This is the hard part for all of us: letting go. We are here because we love Jane and all that she was, is and continues to be – a loving wife, mother, friend, and especially a friend of Jesus. She grew up and married her beloved Bud (Elmer) at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Carey Street, Baltimore., where she could remember Fr. Schwinn running down the street after thieves trying to make off with the gold candlesticks and other altar ware! Once they settled here at St. Peter’s she was for a time in the late 1960’s the Parish Secretary under The Reverend Raymond Atlee. She was a faithful member of our chapter of the Daughters of the King, and I can remember her passing around the velvet bag into which members who had failed to wear their DOK cross to the meeting would place their penalty “dues.” She and Nelva Ackman were regulars at our Stations of the Cross Friday nights during Lent, and they would often travel around the diocese sampling oyster and ham dinners at various other parishes. No matter what issues may have been rocking the Episcopal Church in general, or St. Peter’s specifically, Jane was in church nearly every Sunday, even after her stroke in 2003. Sunday after Sunday we would stand at the side door on her way out where she would ask me about news around the diocese of Maryland – particularly about St. Luke’s, Mount Calvary and others of our inner city parishes. Jane loved her Lord, and she was loyal to the Episcopal Church in ways one seldom sees any more. Jane was very much a Martha – practical, strong, always asking about and caring for others, often without comment on her own needs, and now, like Martha, she goes before us to be reunited with her Lord and Savior.
For like Martha in our story from John’s gospel, Jane knows – we come from Love, we return to Love and Love is all around. As promised, Jesus has returned to bring her home to the household of Love – eternal life with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How fitting that the church is decorated for Easter in white and told– The Feast of the Resurrection. The Paschal Candle, first lit on Easter Eve in the darkness shines brightly - the light that shines in the Darkness, the light of Christ. The Light that John says the Darkness has not and cannot overcome. It stands near the Baptismal Font, marking that place where we enter into the fellowship of Christ’s Body, the Church, our entry point into eternal life.
Note how that other John, John of the Revelation, describes the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, what we rather casually refer to as heaven, not as a place to which we go, but rather it comes down to meet us, to gather us, to take us up into the eternal dwelling place at the throne of God! It is God in Christ who comes for His people, gathers them up, wipes away every tear from their eyes and announces that “death shall be no more…behold I make all things new!” Jane is fully a part of this newness. “Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more for the former things have passed away.”
Jane knows this to be true. No longer must she be separated from her beloved Bud, no more must she manage pain, no more must she be a brave and courageous icon of faith in the Living God of Jesus. Yes, she was thirsty. She was thirsty for God. But now she is drinking freely from the Fountain of the Water of Life! She has been unbound. She is set free. She now joins with Martha and all those who throughout the ages proclaim, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
So we come to mourn. We come to comfort one another. We come to remember and celebrate and give thanks for a life faithfully lived and more faithfully set free. And we come to affirm our faith, Jane’s faith, the faith of the Church.
Henri Nouwen, priest, monk, teacher and author, observed on the death of his mother: In those confusing weeks after my mother’s death I said to myself, “This is a time of waiting for the Spirit of truth to come, and woe unto me, if by forgetting her, I prevent her from doing God’s work in me.” I sensed that something much more than a filial act of remembering was at stake, much more than an honoring of my dead mother, much more than holding on to her beautiful example. Very specifically, what was at stake was the life of the Spirit in me. To remember her does not mean telling her story over and over again to my friends, nor does it mean pictures on the wall or a stone at her grave; it does not even mean constantly thinking about her. No. It means making her an active participant of God’s ongoing work of redemption by allowing her to dispel in me a little more of my darkness and lead me a little closer to the light. In these weeks of mourning she died in me more and more every day, making it impossible for me to cling to her as my mother. Yet by letting her go I did not lose her. Rather, I found that she is closer to me than ever. In and through the Spirit of Christ, she indeed, is becoming a part of my very being. [In Memoriam, p. 60]
Jane already knew this. She stood in this church week after week and affirmed such a faith. Let us join with Jane and stand, turning to page 496 in the Red Book of Common Prayer, and In the assurance of eternal life given at Baptism, let us proclaim our faith:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead and buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated on the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Jane Catherine Peddicord
1925-2012
Revelation 21:2-7/John11:21-27
Martha and Mary were sisters. Their brother Lazarus had been sick. They had called for their dear friend Jesus, knowing that He was of God. The text is clear, it says “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” He delays going, and when he does his disciples try to talk him out of going because the region around Bethany was too dangerous with people trying to stone him and others already conspiring to have him arrested. As further sign of his deep love, Jesus replies, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”
Meanwhile, Martha and Mary are at home sitting shiva, the Jewish custom of mourning. Friends and neighbors surround them, much as we come to be with Craig and one another as we seek comfort and consolation at having lost “our friend,” Jane. Word comes to the sisters that Jesus has approached the outskirts of Bethany. Always the practical one, always the one seeing to it that others needs are met, always the housekeeper, Martha goes to meet Jesus before he gets to the house. She has some business with him that is better kept at a distance from the house and those who are comforting the family – she seems to want to spare them hearing what she has to say.
And what she has to say is what we all want to say at a time like this: Lord, if you had been here, Lord if you had heard our prayers, Lord if you had done something, come sooner, our sister Jane would not have had to die! Martha is not a shy one. She may appear so tending to things in the kitchen or in the garden out back, but when the times demanded it she could stand up to anyone, including Jesus.
Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again. Martha, believing he is talking about some hypothetical future end of days when all the dead shall rise again says in effect, “Sure, sure, we all know that, but I am talking about now.” Jesus responds, “I am now. I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Martha immediately knows he is right. Martha immediately sees Jesus as if for the first time – He is of God, He is resurrection, He is life. And speaking on behalf of all of us here this morning, and for all people who mourn at all times and in all places, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, the text continues, she went and told Mary who got up and left the house to go see Jesus, and everyone in the house followed. Jesus saw Mary and everyone with her weeping and was “deeply moved.” They go to the tomb, Jesus calls Lazarus out, and orders everyone, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
This is the hard part. This is the hard part for all of us: letting go. We are here because we love Jane and all that she was, is and continues to be – a loving wife, mother, friend, and especially a friend of Jesus. She grew up and married her beloved Bud (Elmer) at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Carey Street, Baltimore., where she could remember Fr. Schwinn running down the street after thieves trying to make off with the gold candlesticks and other altar ware! Once they settled here at St. Peter’s she was for a time in the late 1960’s the Parish Secretary under The Reverend Raymond Atlee. She was a faithful member of our chapter of the Daughters of the King, and I can remember her passing around the velvet bag into which members who had failed to wear their DOK cross to the meeting would place their penalty “dues.” She and Nelva Ackman were regulars at our Stations of the Cross Friday nights during Lent, and they would often travel around the diocese sampling oyster and ham dinners at various other parishes. No matter what issues may have been rocking the Episcopal Church in general, or St. Peter’s specifically, Jane was in church nearly every Sunday, even after her stroke in 2003. Sunday after Sunday we would stand at the side door on her way out where she would ask me about news around the diocese of Maryland – particularly about St. Luke’s, Mount Calvary and others of our inner city parishes. Jane loved her Lord, and she was loyal to the Episcopal Church in ways one seldom sees any more. Jane was very much a Martha – practical, strong, always asking about and caring for others, often without comment on her own needs, and now, like Martha, she goes before us to be reunited with her Lord and Savior.
For like Martha in our story from John’s gospel, Jane knows – we come from Love, we return to Love and Love is all around. As promised, Jesus has returned to bring her home to the household of Love – eternal life with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How fitting that the church is decorated for Easter in white and told– The Feast of the Resurrection. The Paschal Candle, first lit on Easter Eve in the darkness shines brightly - the light that shines in the Darkness, the light of Christ. The Light that John says the Darkness has not and cannot overcome. It stands near the Baptismal Font, marking that place where we enter into the fellowship of Christ’s Body, the Church, our entry point into eternal life.
Note how that other John, John of the Revelation, describes the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, what we rather casually refer to as heaven, not as a place to which we go, but rather it comes down to meet us, to gather us, to take us up into the eternal dwelling place at the throne of God! It is God in Christ who comes for His people, gathers them up, wipes away every tear from their eyes and announces that “death shall be no more…behold I make all things new!” Jane is fully a part of this newness. “Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more for the former things have passed away.”
Jane knows this to be true. No longer must she be separated from her beloved Bud, no more must she manage pain, no more must she be a brave and courageous icon of faith in the Living God of Jesus. Yes, she was thirsty. She was thirsty for God. But now she is drinking freely from the Fountain of the Water of Life! She has been unbound. She is set free. She now joins with Martha and all those who throughout the ages proclaim, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
So we come to mourn. We come to comfort one another. We come to remember and celebrate and give thanks for a life faithfully lived and more faithfully set free. And we come to affirm our faith, Jane’s faith, the faith of the Church.
Henri Nouwen, priest, monk, teacher and author, observed on the death of his mother: In those confusing weeks after my mother’s death I said to myself, “This is a time of waiting for the Spirit of truth to come, and woe unto me, if by forgetting her, I prevent her from doing God’s work in me.” I sensed that something much more than a filial act of remembering was at stake, much more than an honoring of my dead mother, much more than holding on to her beautiful example. Very specifically, what was at stake was the life of the Spirit in me. To remember her does not mean telling her story over and over again to my friends, nor does it mean pictures on the wall or a stone at her grave; it does not even mean constantly thinking about her. No. It means making her an active participant of God’s ongoing work of redemption by allowing her to dispel in me a little more of my darkness and lead me a little closer to the light. In these weeks of mourning she died in me more and more every day, making it impossible for me to cling to her as my mother. Yet by letting her go I did not lose her. Rather, I found that she is closer to me than ever. In and through the Spirit of Christ, she indeed, is becoming a part of my very being. [In Memoriam, p. 60]
Jane already knew this. She stood in this church week after week and affirmed such a faith. Let us join with Jane and stand, turning to page 496 in the Red Book of Common Prayer, and In the assurance of eternal life given at Baptism, let us proclaim our faith:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead and buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated on the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
The Choice Is Ours
12 February 2012/Epiphany 6B – Mark 1:40-45
The Reverend Kirk A Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
The Choice Is Ours
It is told that when a certain Hasidic Rebbe was jailed in Russia, the Chief Jailer came to visit him. Indeed, the Rebbe was so deep in meditation and prayer he did not even notice the Chief had entered his cell. The Chief Jailer had questions to ask about the Bible, and finally asked, “If God is all knowing, why is it that in the Garden God asks of Adam, ‘Where are you?’” The Rebbe replied, “Do you not believe that all scripture is true for all persons, in all places at all times?” The Chief acknowledged that yes, this is true. “Then rather than asking why God asks Adam, ‘Where are you?’ isn’t the question really ‘Where are you? Where are you in your life? After 46 years, how far along are you in your life?’” The Chief was shaken. How did his holy man know he was 46 years old? He thanked the Rebbe and left the cell pondering the Rebbe’s question.
This episode of Jesus with the “leper,” and all of Mark’s Gospel really, means to function much the same way demanding of all of us who will listen, “Where are you?”
At one dimension it is about a man who has by virtue of some non-specific skin disease (leprosy or Hansen’s disease was unknown in the middle east of the Bible) has been separated from the life of the community. According to the law of Moses recorded in Leviticus 13:45-46, “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. He shall live outside the camp.” Isolated from family and friends, excluded from public worship and thereby isolated from God, the “leper” is alone in the most radical social sense just because of a rash or flakey skin. Lest we think this is primitive stuff, it is not long ago that TV ads warned us of the “heartbreak of psoriasis.”
We are struck by Jesus reaching out and touching one of the untouchables. And we might mistake the story as one more demonstration of God’s power to heal and cast out demons. Our attention may be drawn, however, to the man’s plea: “If you choose, you can make me clean.” He does not ask to be healed per se – he wants to be made ritually clean again. That is, he wants to be restored to the life of the community – he seeks to be made socially acceptable once again.
At one time or another we all feel alone, isolated, separated from others, set adrift from the community of faith, on our own. Sometimes it is by our own choice – either a desire to be alone, or something we do or say causes a rift. Often times others write us off without so much as a word or an explanation. The most deeply rooted truth of Judeo-Christian religion is the fact that we are irreducibly social creatures. Such alienation eats away at the very core of who we are and who God has created us and wants us to be.
So it is that God sets forth, as Mark proclaims at the outset of chapter 1, “The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God….” At the core of the good news, and the focus of nearly the entire first chapter of Mark’s gospel, is God’s intention to end such human alienation; to end social isolation; to restore those who have been set “outside the camp,” the Bible’s metaphor for the all too human tendency to banish those not just like ourselves. This is the essence of being “made clean” – we are restored to unity with God, with others, and ultimately with our own selves.
The man’s opening words to Jesus, however, offer perhaps our most important insight – “If you choose….” If the Kotzker Rebbe is correct, and there can be no doubt about that, and all scripture is true for all persons, in all places and in all times, then these words are aimed at us: If you choose. Do we, like Jesus, choose to reach out and touch those we fear the most? Do we choose to work on behalf of healing relationships, healing lives, healing brokenness in the community, healing creation?
Because that is just what God in Christ chooses to do. Jesus chooses to break with all tradition, set aside all fear of contracting whatever skin condition the man has, and touches him. Can we see, that it is the act of touching the man that makes him clean again? Which act of touching is a metaphor for acceptance - acceptance of those not just like us, of those we fear, of those we do not particularly like, of those who interrupt us when, like Jesus, we are trying to get away from it all.
The text in Greek, by the way, does not say that Jesus was, "Moved by pity," but rather that he responds out of anger! The translators just cannot bear it. Why is Jesus angry? Because Jesus knows getting involved with this man is going to cost him - it is going to make it even more difficult for him to get away on his own, and it is going to bring him into conflict with the authorities who have a monopoly on the health care delivery systems - those who are "authorized" to declare people "clean." Our text makes clear that he could "no longer go into a town freely, but stayed out in the country." Another euphemism - the Greek says he remains in "the wilderness places." Ironically, as the man is restored to life in the community, Jesus is driven to remain "outside the camp," the dwelling place of all those consigned to cry out, "Unclean! Unclean!"
Yet, Mark's is a story that begins in the wilderness with John baptizing, continues with Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness sorting out what it means to be God's beloved, and now already in chapter one has Jesus having to retreat to the wilderness to avoid the crowds.
"Wilderness" in the Bible is also a metaphor - 40 years in the wilderness God taught the people how to be God's people, what it means to love your neighbor, what it means to welcome resident aliens, what it means to be wholly and fully dependent upon the God of the Exodus, the God of Creation, the God who provides daily bread, the only God who can release you from whatever binds you to sin.
On page 855 in our Book of Common Prayer, in our Catechism, it states that the ministry we all share as lay persons is to "continue Christ's work of reconciliation in the world." This work begins with answering the question God puts to Adam in the Garden: Where are you? Where are you in your life? Where are you when it comes continuing Christ's work of reconciliation? And it continues with our response to the invitation the man with leprosy shouts out, "If you choose...."
Do we choose to reconcile and build up the community of faith, or not? Do we wish to participate in God's work of repairing a broken world, or not? The bold truth of the Garden is that God gives us the power to choose. We know how Jesus responds even when it does not suit him to do so. How we choose will make all the difference in the world. Just ask the man in our story today! Are we, like him, ready to "spread the word" freely wherever we are? Amen.
The Reverend Kirk A Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
The Choice Is Ours
It is told that when a certain Hasidic Rebbe was jailed in Russia, the Chief Jailer came to visit him. Indeed, the Rebbe was so deep in meditation and prayer he did not even notice the Chief had entered his cell. The Chief Jailer had questions to ask about the Bible, and finally asked, “If God is all knowing, why is it that in the Garden God asks of Adam, ‘Where are you?’” The Rebbe replied, “Do you not believe that all scripture is true for all persons, in all places at all times?” The Chief acknowledged that yes, this is true. “Then rather than asking why God asks Adam, ‘Where are you?’ isn’t the question really ‘Where are you? Where are you in your life? After 46 years, how far along are you in your life?’” The Chief was shaken. How did his holy man know he was 46 years old? He thanked the Rebbe and left the cell pondering the Rebbe’s question.
This episode of Jesus with the “leper,” and all of Mark’s Gospel really, means to function much the same way demanding of all of us who will listen, “Where are you?”
At one dimension it is about a man who has by virtue of some non-specific skin disease (leprosy or Hansen’s disease was unknown in the middle east of the Bible) has been separated from the life of the community. According to the law of Moses recorded in Leviticus 13:45-46, “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. He shall live outside the camp.” Isolated from family and friends, excluded from public worship and thereby isolated from God, the “leper” is alone in the most radical social sense just because of a rash or flakey skin. Lest we think this is primitive stuff, it is not long ago that TV ads warned us of the “heartbreak of psoriasis.”
We are struck by Jesus reaching out and touching one of the untouchables. And we might mistake the story as one more demonstration of God’s power to heal and cast out demons. Our attention may be drawn, however, to the man’s plea: “If you choose, you can make me clean.” He does not ask to be healed per se – he wants to be made ritually clean again. That is, he wants to be restored to the life of the community – he seeks to be made socially acceptable once again.
At one time or another we all feel alone, isolated, separated from others, set adrift from the community of faith, on our own. Sometimes it is by our own choice – either a desire to be alone, or something we do or say causes a rift. Often times others write us off without so much as a word or an explanation. The most deeply rooted truth of Judeo-Christian religion is the fact that we are irreducibly social creatures. Such alienation eats away at the very core of who we are and who God has created us and wants us to be.
So it is that God sets forth, as Mark proclaims at the outset of chapter 1, “The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God….” At the core of the good news, and the focus of nearly the entire first chapter of Mark’s gospel, is God’s intention to end such human alienation; to end social isolation; to restore those who have been set “outside the camp,” the Bible’s metaphor for the all too human tendency to banish those not just like ourselves. This is the essence of being “made clean” – we are restored to unity with God, with others, and ultimately with our own selves.
The man’s opening words to Jesus, however, offer perhaps our most important insight – “If you choose….” If the Kotzker Rebbe is correct, and there can be no doubt about that, and all scripture is true for all persons, in all places and in all times, then these words are aimed at us: If you choose. Do we, like Jesus, choose to reach out and touch those we fear the most? Do we choose to work on behalf of healing relationships, healing lives, healing brokenness in the community, healing creation?
Because that is just what God in Christ chooses to do. Jesus chooses to break with all tradition, set aside all fear of contracting whatever skin condition the man has, and touches him. Can we see, that it is the act of touching the man that makes him clean again? Which act of touching is a metaphor for acceptance - acceptance of those not just like us, of those we fear, of those we do not particularly like, of those who interrupt us when, like Jesus, we are trying to get away from it all.
The text in Greek, by the way, does not say that Jesus was, "Moved by pity," but rather that he responds out of anger! The translators just cannot bear it. Why is Jesus angry? Because Jesus knows getting involved with this man is going to cost him - it is going to make it even more difficult for him to get away on his own, and it is going to bring him into conflict with the authorities who have a monopoly on the health care delivery systems - those who are "authorized" to declare people "clean." Our text makes clear that he could "no longer go into a town freely, but stayed out in the country." Another euphemism - the Greek says he remains in "the wilderness places." Ironically, as the man is restored to life in the community, Jesus is driven to remain "outside the camp," the dwelling place of all those consigned to cry out, "Unclean! Unclean!"
Yet, Mark's is a story that begins in the wilderness with John baptizing, continues with Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness sorting out what it means to be God's beloved, and now already in chapter one has Jesus having to retreat to the wilderness to avoid the crowds.
"Wilderness" in the Bible is also a metaphor - 40 years in the wilderness God taught the people how to be God's people, what it means to love your neighbor, what it means to welcome resident aliens, what it means to be wholly and fully dependent upon the God of the Exodus, the God of Creation, the God who provides daily bread, the only God who can release you from whatever binds you to sin.
On page 855 in our Book of Common Prayer, in our Catechism, it states that the ministry we all share as lay persons is to "continue Christ's work of reconciliation in the world." This work begins with answering the question God puts to Adam in the Garden: Where are you? Where are you in your life? Where are you when it comes continuing Christ's work of reconciliation? And it continues with our response to the invitation the man with leprosy shouts out, "If you choose...."
Do we choose to reconcile and build up the community of faith, or not? Do we wish to participate in God's work of repairing a broken world, or not? The bold truth of the Garden is that God gives us the power to choose. We know how Jesus responds even when it does not suit him to do so. How we choose will make all the difference in the world. Just ask the man in our story today! Are we, like him, ready to "spread the word" freely wherever we are? Amen.
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