15 April 2012 - Yom HaShoah - John 20:19-23
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek
This is my seventeenth Yom HaShoah service at St. Peter’s. I have been asked, since the beginning, Why do we interrupt our regular service schedule? Why do we interrupt Easter Season, to hold an observance that remembers the Holocaust? My answer has always been simple: The Holocaust itself was a major interruption of Western Civilization, an interruption that could not have happened without a long history anti-Semitism supported by the Church.
I grew up in a pluralistic suburb of Chicago in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. My father had spent time after World War II rounding up Nazi war criminals. I can remember seeing pictures of the concentrations camps, pogroms, Nazi rallies and so forth in paperback books as early as elementary school. Many of my friends growing up were Jewish, and I attended several bar and bat mitzvah parties. The most memorable took place at the local YMCA. I won a dance contest at that party, and the prize was a then popular record by the Singing Nun. Talk about religious pluralism! Although the Holocaust as such was never discussed in those days, I can remember knowing at a young age that the magnitude of suffering was greater than anything I could possibly imagine.
When I went away to college I decided I wanted to know more about Jesus. I chose what was to be an important path for seeking that knowledge. I figured that Jesus was Jewish, so it made the most sense to register for the Introduction to Judaism course being taught at our college by a local Rabbi, Stanley Kessler.
The first assignment for Rabbi Kessler was to read Elie Wiesel’s slim personal account of life in the concentration camps, Night. It should be observed that it took Wiesel eleven years after Auschwitz to even begin to write this book. He wrote over 800 pages of manuscript and distilled it to 124 pages. It is now standard reading in High Schools across the country. In the fall of 1968 few people had heard of this book, in fact few of our Religion Department faculty had even heard of Wiesel, and even fewer had read it.
To say that it changed my life is not enough. To say that it changed my faith is only the beginning. It caused me to reexamine from the ground up how Christianity had allowed itself to stray so far from the humble origins of its founder, a young Israeli Jew, and to have fostered in the name of Christ an anti-Semitism that transformed a Christian and highly cultured country like Germany into a seething caldron of hate, violence and destruction against the very people to whom, as Paul says, we gentiles have been grafted.
The anonymous author(s) of John, however, write from a much later date when both Jews and Christians are under persecution by Rome. It was an atmosphere of fear in which this gospel was written. As such, Jews and Christians in first century Israel were in hiding for their lives. We had a shared history at the point in time. Our memory of that, however, is lacking. This has caused problems.
A second thing we might notice is that the text is usually translated “for fear of the Jews.” Now on the surface of it this should cause us to wonder. For all the followers in that room were Jews. What the Greek text of the New Testament says is “for fear of the Judeans.”
It is up to the reader to remember that all the Jews in the room behind locked doors were Galileans, not Judeans. Galileans were considered somewhat like country bumpkins – not sophisticated, socially inferior, from the wrong side of the tracks. Way back in chapter 1 of John, Nathaniel asks Philip who is telling him about Jesus, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” which is in Galilee? It was just as true back in the first century as it is today, not all Jews are alike, come from the same background, or think the same things.
The third thing, and the most tragic thing, is that it is all too easy to see how a text like this could be used to support anti-Semitism. “Well, if the disciples feared the Jews, how much more should we fear the Jews?” the argument might go. Whereas if you are talking about Judeans, a pluralistic culture even way back in the time of Jesus, one would be strained to make a similar argument.
We are called to be witnesses of these things. There are those in the world who deny that the
Holocaust ever happened. There are those who make it out to be a hoax, a plot, an effort to curry world opinion, a public relations stunt. Even worse, there are racist and anti-Semitic video games on the market including one called Ethnic Cleansing. On its website it states with pride, “The most politically incorrect video game ever made. Run through the ghetto blasting away various blacks and spics in an attempt to gain entrance to the subway system, where the jews have hidden to avoid the carnage. Then, if YOU'RE lucky.... you can blow away jews as they scream "Oy Vey!", on your way to their command center.” Since this game’s release in 2003, several others have hit the market, marketed by White Supremacy groups. We can never forget that such groups have only grown stronger and become better organized since the dawn of the internet.
We must also never forget that for years in the 1930’s and 40’s thousands of European Jews attempting to escape the coming Holocaust were refused entry into the United States, giving Hitler the propaganda boost of being able to say in all truth, “See, even the United States does not want the Jews.” This was in part due to immigration quotas, but also in part due to State Department policies that were in fact anti-Semitic.
Years of treacherous teachings by the church contributed to making all of this possible. Years of teachings by the church obscured the fact that the cornerstone of my faith was a young Israeli Jew. Reading Night, studying alongside my Jewish classmates for three years in college, made me aware of all this, and eventually brought me closer to Jesus than I had been before studying Judaism.
I went on in college to read every book he had written, and to write my Religion Department thesis on the work and witness of Elie Wiesel. I concluded my paper, “Wiesel’s tale is also important for people today. Wake up, people, see what you have done, see what you can do. The civilization that created Mozart, Voltaire, Beethoven – this is the same civilization that also created Dachau, Auschwitz and Hiroshima. It is our turn to choose between beauty and ugliness. Wiesel’s tale is important for religion – be it Christian or Jew. Wiesel has said on several occasions, ‘For either God is God, and I do not do enough to serve God, or God is not God, and it is my fault. We must not think it is our fault. It is our privilege.’” [Elie Wiesel, from a Lecture in Worcester, MA – 1972]
It is a difficult task, Yom HaShoah. It is an interruption. We must face into the truth of our past and at the same time lift up the lives of those who shined with the Paschal Light of Christ in humanity’s darkest hour. We must be witnesses of these things. Christians and Jews must come together to shine God’s light into the dark corners of the world today - the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus. Amen.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
See For Yourself!
Easter Vigil 2012 – Mark 16:1-8
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
We Awaken In Christ’s Body
The text of the Hebrew Exodus has been read and the words of the mystery have been explained. How the Sheep was sacrificed for the salvation of the people.
Now grasp this, dearly beloved: How it is new and old, eternal and transient, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal, the mystery of the Pasch.
It is old according to the law, but new according to the Logos/The Word. It is transient in terms of figure, but eternal in terms of grace. It is corruptible because of the death of the sheep, but incorruptible because of the life of the Lord. It is mortal because of the burial in the earth, but immortal because of the resurrection from the dead.
The law is old, the Logos new. The figure is transient, grace is eternal. The sheep is corruptible, the Lord is incorruptible, who was immolated as a lamb, but resurrected as God!
For as a sheep he was led to the slaughter, but a sheep he was not; and as a mute lamb, but a lamb he was not. The figure is past and the truth has been revealed: in place of a lamb it is God who has come, and in place of a sheep, man. And in man, Christ, who contains all.
Thus the immolation of the sheep, and the rite of the Pasch, and the letter of the law are accomplished in Christ Jesus. For the law has become logos, and the old has become new, coming from Zion and Jerusalem. The commandment has become grace, and type has become reality, and the lamb the son, and the sheep, man, and man, God.
For born son-like, and led forth lamb-like, and slaughtered sheep-like, and buried man-like, he has risen God-Like, being by nature God and Man.
He is all things: inasmuch as he judges, Law; inasmuch as he teaches, Word; inasmuch as he saves, Grace; inasmuch as he begats, Father; inasmuch as he is begotten, Son; inasmuch as he suffers, sheep; inasmuch as he is buried, Man; inasmuch as he has risen, God.
This is Jesus Christ to whom be Glory for ever and ever. Amen!
So there! So it was that in the city of Sardis, in Asia Minor, around the year 165, on such a night as this and before such a cloud of witnesses as this, Melito the Eunuch began to proclaim the Paschal Mystery. Few texts that I know sum up as richly and as succinctly the many layers of jubilation, the many waves of glory which in this feast wash over us and overwhelm us like the waters of Baptism. For this is the Passover, the feast of our Redemption, of our deliverance from slavery, from darkness, from sin, and from death, into the liberty, light and life of the Risen Lord.
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Then there is Mark. An open tomb, a “young man dressed in a white robe,” and frightened women who "say nothing to anyone": this is where Mark leaves things for us to sort out.
The additional text in your bulletin was added by people in the church a century or two later who were disturbed, offended, confused: if the women said nothing to anyone, how did we get here?
Long assumed to be the oldest Gospel, Mark is clear and succinct: there is a large stone rolled aside by a mysterious force, a therefore open tomb, or as we tend to say “an empty tomb,” but there is a someone inside - a young messenger robed in white. The Biblical word for messenger is “angel” – the root word of the opening verse of Mark’s gospel, “evangel” or “Good News – Good Message. Have any of us noticed that this is the only appearance of an angel in all of Mark’s account?
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
So Mark, arguably the oldest of the four gospels, begins with the Good News, the Evangel if you will, and concludes with Good News delivered by an angel dressed in white, seated, calmly explaining to three frightened women, “Do not be alarmed,” (always the opening line of every Good Angel), “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified (that is who He is forever and ever). He has been Raised (as he promised!); he is not here (pretty obvious, but comforting to know our eyes do not deceive us). Look, there is the place they laid him (just an empty space and silence). But go (we have a job to do, no time to linger and wonder just how this all came about), tell his disciples (who abandoned him long ago and are nowhere to be seen at the cross or the tomb!) and Peter (first called, first named of all the disciples) that he is going ahead of you to Galilee (That Jesus! Always one step or even two ahead of us!); there you will see him (We want to see him, we need to see him, we just plain need him to be alive!), just as he told you (His Word is good, the Good Angel assures us!).”
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Or, would it be more accurate to say, “Alleluia, Christ has been Raised!”? Note the passive voice, "has been raised." Jesus is the object of the action done by another. This other has seriously disrupted the normal patterns of life and death. The women know exactly the identity of the unnamed subject of the passive verb. Fear and trembling is a time honored reaction of those in the Biblical narrative who come face to face with a revelation of the God who creates life and death in the first place. Surely God has the authority to disrupt and change things. Leaving the question for those of us reading and hearing this Word of God's: Are we willing to accept the ways in which God seeks to disrupt and change the rules of our life and world?
Alleluia Christ has been raised! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” End of story. End of Mark. Nothing to anyone. Nothing to anyone. So, how do we know about all of this? How do we, or how does anyone for that matter, know that Christ has been raised? How do we know the Dead One is on the loose? How can we know if they said “nothing to anyone”?
Mark of all the evangelists is perhaps the shrewdest storyteller of all. Perhaps of all time! Do we see how ending it all right there with no appearance stories, no road to Emmaus, no eating fish with the disciples, no walking through closed doors, no breathing on them, no invitation to touch his hands and his side, do we see how this engages us at the deepest dimension of our being? Mark makes us, forces us, to want to know the Risen Lord for ourselves. Mark does not leave it to chance. Mark does not leave it to hearsay. Mark does not make it easy. Because, really, go back and read the entire Gospel of Mark. Does anything come easy in his telling of the tale? Mark’s Gospel tells of a costly discipleship, a costly freedom, a freedom bought with crucifixion and carrying our own crosses.
Does it not stand to reason that if Mark’s Jesus demands that the cost of discipleship, the cost of being a Christian, is to carry a cross, that anyone who picks up that cross will do so only if they experience the Risen Christ for themselves? With the last verse of the gospel, Mark seems to say, “Don’t take my word for it. Don’t take the angel’s word for it. See for yourself. Look deep within that open tomb and see for yourself – for unless you do, you will never pick up your cross and follow Him!
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Besides, consider for just one moment – how does one put something like The Resurrection into mere words? How is one to describe such a thing, such a one-off, one-time, reversal of all that we think we know about life and death? Sure, go ahead and read Matthew, Luke and John. Or, read the earliest account of an appearance of our Risen Lord Jesus in Paul’s letter to the Galatians - “For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed to me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ!” Gal 1.11-12
The Gospel proclaimed to me is not of human origin! Mark got that! Mark understood what Paul was saying! Paul who goes on to write in his Second Letter to the Corinthians: “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed away, Behold the new has come! All this is from God who through Christ reconciles us to himself and gives us the ministry of Reconciliation.” 2 Cor 5.17-18
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Are any of us here willing to raise his or her hand and honestly proclaim that you are in Christ? That you have accepted the “ministry of reconciliation” he gives us and live that out every day in all that we say and all that we do? Seriously my friends, would the church look like it does if we took this ministry of reconciliation at all seriously? Would the world look like it does if we were exercising this ministry of reconciliation seriously?
If you ever thought the cost of discipleship was steep, just ask Paul, the New Testament’s earliest witness - Paul who willingly did ‘hard time’ in jail repeatedly for exercising ‘the ministry of reconciliation.” Paul was a repeat offender in exercising the ministry of reconciliation. Paul was in Christ. Paul was a new creation. Paul was of the new creation Jesus came and launched in our midst!
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
The Gospel, the Good News, is not and cannot be from human origin! Mark knows this better than anyone, so the women say nothing to anyone. It is up to us to see for ourselves, which means we had better get serious about seeing. We better get serious about looking. We better get serious about allowing ourselves to be made new – from the ground up, totally, completely new. We need to look into the open tomb and wake up. What Mark knows, what Paul knows, what countless Christians have known – by which I mean experienced in the deepest dimension and reaches of their being, not some mere intellectual understanding of the thing – is that once we experience the Gospel that is not of human origin, once we encounter the Risen Lord for ourselves,we will wake up! We will wake up and find ourselves having been raised – not by anything we think or do for ourselves, but like Mark and like Paul and like Jesus, we will be awakened, raised up, and find ourselves in Christ’s body.
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
Saint Symeon the Theologian, a 10th century monastic in Byzantium puts it like this:
We awaken in Christ's body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).
I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? -- Then
open your heart to Him
and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ's body
where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,
and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed
and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
May we listen to these ancient voices: Paul, Mark, Melito the Eunuch and Saint Symeon. They have known Christ in the flesh. They bear witness to life lived with the Beloved awakened "in every part of our body." They invite us to look into the open tomb ourselves. Look inside and see – the tomb is open, not empty. No it is very full – full of the real presence of the Risen Christ in the lives of those who have seen him, picked up their crosses and followed him. Look – see where they laid him?
Know, my sisters and brothers, little by little,
It takes time
Jesus will reveal to you just how much
He watches over you and loves you.
He 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 love and your light.
Let Jesus live in you
Go forward with him!
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
And so are we, and so are we! Amen!
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills
We Awaken In Christ’s Body
The text of the Hebrew Exodus has been read and the words of the mystery have been explained. How the Sheep was sacrificed for the salvation of the people.
Now grasp this, dearly beloved: How it is new and old, eternal and transient, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal, the mystery of the Pasch.
It is old according to the law, but new according to the Logos/The Word. It is transient in terms of figure, but eternal in terms of grace. It is corruptible because of the death of the sheep, but incorruptible because of the life of the Lord. It is mortal because of the burial in the earth, but immortal because of the resurrection from the dead.
The law is old, the Logos new. The figure is transient, grace is eternal. The sheep is corruptible, the Lord is incorruptible, who was immolated as a lamb, but resurrected as God!
For as a sheep he was led to the slaughter, but a sheep he was not; and as a mute lamb, but a lamb he was not. The figure is past and the truth has been revealed: in place of a lamb it is God who has come, and in place of a sheep, man. And in man, Christ, who contains all.
Thus the immolation of the sheep, and the rite of the Pasch, and the letter of the law are accomplished in Christ Jesus. For the law has become logos, and the old has become new, coming from Zion and Jerusalem. The commandment has become grace, and type has become reality, and the lamb the son, and the sheep, man, and man, God.
For born son-like, and led forth lamb-like, and slaughtered sheep-like, and buried man-like, he has risen God-Like, being by nature God and Man.
He is all things: inasmuch as he judges, Law; inasmuch as he teaches, Word; inasmuch as he saves, Grace; inasmuch as he begats, Father; inasmuch as he is begotten, Son; inasmuch as he suffers, sheep; inasmuch as he is buried, Man; inasmuch as he has risen, God.
This is Jesus Christ to whom be Glory for ever and ever. Amen!
So there! So it was that in the city of Sardis, in Asia Minor, around the year 165, on such a night as this and before such a cloud of witnesses as this, Melito the Eunuch began to proclaim the Paschal Mystery. Few texts that I know sum up as richly and as succinctly the many layers of jubilation, the many waves of glory which in this feast wash over us and overwhelm us like the waters of Baptism. For this is the Passover, the feast of our Redemption, of our deliverance from slavery, from darkness, from sin, and from death, into the liberty, light and life of the Risen Lord.
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Then there is Mark. An open tomb, a “young man dressed in a white robe,” and frightened women who "say nothing to anyone": this is where Mark leaves things for us to sort out.
The additional text in your bulletin was added by people in the church a century or two later who were disturbed, offended, confused: if the women said nothing to anyone, how did we get here?
Long assumed to be the oldest Gospel, Mark is clear and succinct: there is a large stone rolled aside by a mysterious force, a therefore open tomb, or as we tend to say “an empty tomb,” but there is a someone inside - a young messenger robed in white. The Biblical word for messenger is “angel” – the root word of the opening verse of Mark’s gospel, “evangel” or “Good News – Good Message. Have any of us noticed that this is the only appearance of an angel in all of Mark’s account?
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
So Mark, arguably the oldest of the four gospels, begins with the Good News, the Evangel if you will, and concludes with Good News delivered by an angel dressed in white, seated, calmly explaining to three frightened women, “Do not be alarmed,” (always the opening line of every Good Angel), “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified (that is who He is forever and ever). He has been Raised (as he promised!); he is not here (pretty obvious, but comforting to know our eyes do not deceive us). Look, there is the place they laid him (just an empty space and silence). But go (we have a job to do, no time to linger and wonder just how this all came about), tell his disciples (who abandoned him long ago and are nowhere to be seen at the cross or the tomb!) and Peter (first called, first named of all the disciples) that he is going ahead of you to Galilee (That Jesus! Always one step or even two ahead of us!); there you will see him (We want to see him, we need to see him, we just plain need him to be alive!), just as he told you (His Word is good, the Good Angel assures us!).”
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Or, would it be more accurate to say, “Alleluia, Christ has been Raised!”? Note the passive voice, "has been raised." Jesus is the object of the action done by another. This other has seriously disrupted the normal patterns of life and death. The women know exactly the identity of the unnamed subject of the passive verb. Fear and trembling is a time honored reaction of those in the Biblical narrative who come face to face with a revelation of the God who creates life and death in the first place. Surely God has the authority to disrupt and change things. Leaving the question for those of us reading and hearing this Word of God's: Are we willing to accept the ways in which God seeks to disrupt and change the rules of our life and world?
Alleluia Christ has been raised! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” End of story. End of Mark. Nothing to anyone. Nothing to anyone. So, how do we know about all of this? How do we, or how does anyone for that matter, know that Christ has been raised? How do we know the Dead One is on the loose? How can we know if they said “nothing to anyone”?
Mark of all the evangelists is perhaps the shrewdest storyteller of all. Perhaps of all time! Do we see how ending it all right there with no appearance stories, no road to Emmaus, no eating fish with the disciples, no walking through closed doors, no breathing on them, no invitation to touch his hands and his side, do we see how this engages us at the deepest dimension of our being? Mark makes us, forces us, to want to know the Risen Lord for ourselves. Mark does not leave it to chance. Mark does not leave it to hearsay. Mark does not make it easy. Because, really, go back and read the entire Gospel of Mark. Does anything come easy in his telling of the tale? Mark’s Gospel tells of a costly discipleship, a costly freedom, a freedom bought with crucifixion and carrying our own crosses.
Does it not stand to reason that if Mark’s Jesus demands that the cost of discipleship, the cost of being a Christian, is to carry a cross, that anyone who picks up that cross will do so only if they experience the Risen Christ for themselves? With the last verse of the gospel, Mark seems to say, “Don’t take my word for it. Don’t take the angel’s word for it. See for yourself. Look deep within that open tomb and see for yourself – for unless you do, you will never pick up your cross and follow Him!
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Besides, consider for just one moment – how does one put something like The Resurrection into mere words? How is one to describe such a thing, such a one-off, one-time, reversal of all that we think we know about life and death? Sure, go ahead and read Matthew, Luke and John. Or, read the earliest account of an appearance of our Risen Lord Jesus in Paul’s letter to the Galatians - “For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed to me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ!” Gal 1.11-12
The Gospel proclaimed to me is not of human origin! Mark got that! Mark understood what Paul was saying! Paul who goes on to write in his Second Letter to the Corinthians: “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed away, Behold the new has come! All this is from God who through Christ reconciles us to himself and gives us the ministry of Reconciliation.” 2 Cor 5.17-18
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Are any of us here willing to raise his or her hand and honestly proclaim that you are in Christ? That you have accepted the “ministry of reconciliation” he gives us and live that out every day in all that we say and all that we do? Seriously my friends, would the church look like it does if we took this ministry of reconciliation at all seriously? Would the world look like it does if we were exercising this ministry of reconciliation seriously?
If you ever thought the cost of discipleship was steep, just ask Paul, the New Testament’s earliest witness - Paul who willingly did ‘hard time’ in jail repeatedly for exercising ‘the ministry of reconciliation.” Paul was a repeat offender in exercising the ministry of reconciliation. Paul was in Christ. Paul was a new creation. Paul was of the new creation Jesus came and launched in our midst!
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
The Gospel, the Good News, is not and cannot be from human origin! Mark knows this better than anyone, so the women say nothing to anyone. It is up to us to see for ourselves, which means we had better get serious about seeing. We better get serious about looking. We better get serious about allowing ourselves to be made new – from the ground up, totally, completely new. We need to look into the open tomb and wake up. What Mark knows, what Paul knows, what countless Christians have known – by which I mean experienced in the deepest dimension and reaches of their being, not some mere intellectual understanding of the thing – is that once we experience the Gospel that is not of human origin, once we encounter the Risen Lord for ourselves,we will wake up! We will wake up and find ourselves having been raised – not by anything we think or do for ourselves, but like Mark and like Paul and like Jesus, we will be awakened, raised up, and find ourselves in Christ’s body.
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
Saint Symeon the Theologian, a 10th century monastic in Byzantium puts it like this:
We awaken in Christ's body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).
I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? -- Then
open your heart to Him
and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ's body
where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,
and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed
and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
May we listen to these ancient voices: Paul, Mark, Melito the Eunuch and Saint Symeon. They have known Christ in the flesh. They bear witness to life lived with the Beloved awakened "in every part of our body." They invite us to look into the open tomb ourselves. Look inside and see – the tomb is open, not empty. No it is very full – full of the real presence of the Risen Christ in the lives of those who have seen him, picked up their crosses and followed him. Look – see where they laid him?
Know, my sisters and brothers, little by little,
It takes time
Jesus will reveal to you just how much
He watches over you and loves you.
He 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 love and your light.
Let Jesus live in you
Go forward with him!
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
Alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed. Alleluia!
And so are we, and so are we! Amen!
Friday, April 6, 2012
Good Friday
Good Friday 2012 - John 18:1-19:42 -
God's Passion/Our Passion
Each year, year after year after year, Christians gather on Good Friday to rehearse this story - what we call the Passion Narrative. On Palm Sunday we read versions from Matthew, Mark and Luke. On Good Friday it has always been from John. Each gospel offers a slightly different view of what happened that day nearly 2000 years ago. It is like looking at a diamond from different angles - one sees different facets, different sparkles, different ways the light plays off the gem stone.
For John Jesus is Light - and His Light is the Life of the world. We call it Good Friday, even though it looks as if the light is extinguished. But for people of faith we know that is just not the case. We know the rest of the story. We know that the darkness has not overcome the light.
But we do know a few things about darkness in today's world. We see it from far off, we see it up close and personal. From the tragedy at the World Trade Towers, the tragedies of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a close and dear friend of mine, Frances, who is battling brain cancer. As we sit in this magnificent chapel, even now she is in the hospital for a radiation treatment.
There is darkness for those who have lost their jobs, for the child born of a mother addicted to crack cocaine, for the homeless, the hungry, the destitute and those without jobs here and around the world. For those who live under oppressive military dictatorships, for those mother, father, sister or brother sits on death row, for those who live with HIV/AIDS. We know something about darkness.
Darkness for John is evil - specifically the evil of living under the military yoke of Rome. And even more so, the memory of Jesus standing up to the Imperial powers and the ruling religious authorities to say that a lot of people, most people, are not getting the kind of care and support they need to survive.
At my parish, St. Peter's, Wednesday evening we celebrated the life and death of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the church we observe the date of a martyr's death, not their birthday like the rest of the country does in January. The night before he was assassinated, he had been in Memphis, TN, to support the sanitation workers, garbage men, who were striking for a living wage. Some years before that, Dr. King was incarcerated in the Birmingham, AL jail, from which he wrote a series of letters urging white Christians to join his movement to end racial discrimination - segregation, what amounted to apartheid in America.
Our preacher, my friend and colleague The Reverend Gerald Collins, reminded us of one of these letters in which King quotes one of the 20th century's most renowned theologians, Reinhold Neibuhr. Quoting from Neibuhr's book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Dr. King reminded the white clergy of Birmingham that "groups are more immoral than individuals.". King made this astonishing observation which I believe continues to this day. It was observed that more often than not individuals rarely act immorally, or practice bad ethics on their own. Such behavior patterns usually emerge in the actions and attitudes of a group - however large or small. It is the group mentality, or to quote the sociologist Erik Fromm, the "herd mentality" that drives teh greater hatred than the individual. Think of the Holocaust, the Ku Klux Klan, Rawanda, Pol Pot, The Inquisition and similar movements throughout history.
I would approach this theory by suggesting, "evil always needs help." "Evil needs companions!" Evil, the Devil, does not and cannot act on its own in order to achieve its intended goal. By comparison, "Goodness" or "Godliness" can always stand and act on its own merits.
This is what is going on in this story about Jesus. Evil had just enough companions to crucify him on that Friday, the Day of Preparation for the Passover, which that year was to be on the Sabbath. The collusion and collaboration between the Roman soldiers and politicians, religious authorities already on the payroll of Rome, and the usual crowd of "rubberneckers" always looking for a gory site to behold was just enough to put him on a cross and let him hang there for several hours before he gave up his spirit.
It is that giving up that always gets me. In Hebrew and in Greek there is just one word that means spirit, breath and wind. All three are understood to come from God. God's breath is our breath, God's spirit is what gives us life. Here in his final act of charity toward humankind, Jesus gives up his spirit.
He does not give in to the herd mentality. He does not give in to group evil. He remains steadfast in speaking truth to power, just like Dr. King, just like Gandhi, just like so many individuals throughout human history who have made a difference.
This story we just read together is drenched with meaning. Today I want us just to focus on the fact that the choice is ours. The choice is always ours. Evil is always looking for companions. Evil is always looking for help. And the choice to side with Evil is often attractive. There always appears to be something in it for me, even if it is just the cheap thrill of watching someone else suffer.
The other choice, of course, is to stand up to Evil. To stand your ground. Not to give in to the group. To speak truth to power. Or, to simply walk away and say I will not participate in this.
The world is still a dangerous place. There is no end, however, as to how much Goodness and Godliness just one person can give to the world.
If there is one moment to remember from this Passion Narrative of John's, it is that final moment when Jesus bows his head and gives up his spirit - that moment when God's Passion becomes our Passion!
He is giving it to us. The man who healed people, helped people, fed people, gave outsiders dignity, and welcomed all to sit at his table and share a meal, gives his spirit to us.
The world needs His spirit. The world needs your spirit. You can take His spirit which he gives away, which is given for the world, not just for Christians, not just for believers, but for the whole world, and you can do something beautiful with your life and bear much fruit. The World needs you. God needs you. We all need one another. Our choice needs to be to accept that spirit of Goodness and Godliness and make it your own. When you do, what looks like a tragic story becomes good. A very good story!
Which is why we call it Good Friday.
Amen.
God's Passion/Our Passion
Each year, year after year after year, Christians gather on Good Friday to rehearse this story - what we call the Passion Narrative. On Palm Sunday we read versions from Matthew, Mark and Luke. On Good Friday it has always been from John. Each gospel offers a slightly different view of what happened that day nearly 2000 years ago. It is like looking at a diamond from different angles - one sees different facets, different sparkles, different ways the light plays off the gem stone.
For John Jesus is Light - and His Light is the Life of the world. We call it Good Friday, even though it looks as if the light is extinguished. But for people of faith we know that is just not the case. We know the rest of the story. We know that the darkness has not overcome the light.
But we do know a few things about darkness in today's world. We see it from far off, we see it up close and personal. From the tragedy at the World Trade Towers, the tragedies of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a close and dear friend of mine, Frances, who is battling brain cancer. As we sit in this magnificent chapel, even now she is in the hospital for a radiation treatment.
There is darkness for those who have lost their jobs, for the child born of a mother addicted to crack cocaine, for the homeless, the hungry, the destitute and those without jobs here and around the world. For those who live under oppressive military dictatorships, for those mother, father, sister or brother sits on death row, for those who live with HIV/AIDS. We know something about darkness.
Darkness for John is evil - specifically the evil of living under the military yoke of Rome. And even more so, the memory of Jesus standing up to the Imperial powers and the ruling religious authorities to say that a lot of people, most people, are not getting the kind of care and support they need to survive.
At my parish, St. Peter's, Wednesday evening we celebrated the life and death of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the church we observe the date of a martyr's death, not their birthday like the rest of the country does in January. The night before he was assassinated, he had been in Memphis, TN, to support the sanitation workers, garbage men, who were striking for a living wage. Some years before that, Dr. King was incarcerated in the Birmingham, AL jail, from which he wrote a series of letters urging white Christians to join his movement to end racial discrimination - segregation, what amounted to apartheid in America.
Our preacher, my friend and colleague The Reverend Gerald Collins, reminded us of one of these letters in which King quotes one of the 20th century's most renowned theologians, Reinhold Neibuhr. Quoting from Neibuhr's book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Dr. King reminded the white clergy of Birmingham that "groups are more immoral than individuals.". King made this astonishing observation which I believe continues to this day. It was observed that more often than not individuals rarely act immorally, or practice bad ethics on their own. Such behavior patterns usually emerge in the actions and attitudes of a group - however large or small. It is the group mentality, or to quote the sociologist Erik Fromm, the "herd mentality" that drives teh greater hatred than the individual. Think of the Holocaust, the Ku Klux Klan, Rawanda, Pol Pot, The Inquisition and similar movements throughout history.
I would approach this theory by suggesting, "evil always needs help." "Evil needs companions!" Evil, the Devil, does not and cannot act on its own in order to achieve its intended goal. By comparison, "Goodness" or "Godliness" can always stand and act on its own merits.
This is what is going on in this story about Jesus. Evil had just enough companions to crucify him on that Friday, the Day of Preparation for the Passover, which that year was to be on the Sabbath. The collusion and collaboration between the Roman soldiers and politicians, religious authorities already on the payroll of Rome, and the usual crowd of "rubberneckers" always looking for a gory site to behold was just enough to put him on a cross and let him hang there for several hours before he gave up his spirit.
It is that giving up that always gets me. In Hebrew and in Greek there is just one word that means spirit, breath and wind. All three are understood to come from God. God's breath is our breath, God's spirit is what gives us life. Here in his final act of charity toward humankind, Jesus gives up his spirit.
He does not give in to the herd mentality. He does not give in to group evil. He remains steadfast in speaking truth to power, just like Dr. King, just like Gandhi, just like so many individuals throughout human history who have made a difference.
This story we just read together is drenched with meaning. Today I want us just to focus on the fact that the choice is ours. The choice is always ours. Evil is always looking for companions. Evil is always looking for help. And the choice to side with Evil is often attractive. There always appears to be something in it for me, even if it is just the cheap thrill of watching someone else suffer.
The other choice, of course, is to stand up to Evil. To stand your ground. Not to give in to the group. To speak truth to power. Or, to simply walk away and say I will not participate in this.
The world is still a dangerous place. There is no end, however, as to how much Goodness and Godliness just one person can give to the world.
If there is one moment to remember from this Passion Narrative of John's, it is that final moment when Jesus bows his head and gives up his spirit - that moment when God's Passion becomes our Passion!
He is giving it to us. The man who healed people, helped people, fed people, gave outsiders dignity, and welcomed all to sit at his table and share a meal, gives his spirit to us.
The world needs His spirit. The world needs your spirit. You can take His spirit which he gives away, which is given for the world, not just for Christians, not just for believers, but for the whole world, and you can do something beautiful with your life and bear much fruit. The World needs you. God needs you. We all need one another. Our choice needs to be to accept that spirit of Goodness and Godliness and make it your own. When you do, what looks like a tragic story becomes good. A very good story!
Which is why we call it Good Friday.
Amen.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Maundy Thursday
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.
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.
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
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