Independence Day

Although today is, throughout the Church, the Third Sunday after Pentecost, in Bristol today we used the propers for Independence Day. In those readings, the Old Testament reading comes from the tenth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy. 

I love the Book of Deuteronomy. Have I told you this before? In fact, it’s one of my favorite books in the Bible. The narrative premise in Deuteronomy is fairly straightforward: we are meant to imagine Moses and the Israelites on the brink of the Promised Land. They have just spent forty years wandering around the Sinai Peninsula (actually, to be more precise, thirty-nine years and eleven months and three weeks!) Their journey began way back in the fourteenth chapter of Exodus, with Pharaoh’s army in hot pursuit as they miraculously crossed the Sea of Reeds. That journey from slavery toward freedom has continued to unfold through the remaining chapters of Exodus and then into Leviticus and Numbers, and then ultimately into Deuteronomy. Now they find themselves at the end of that long journey, dreaming about owning their own little plot of land flowing with milk and honey, and tending to their own vineyards and fig trees and owning their own little homes and having their own retirement accounts.  

Before they leave Sinai behind them, however, Moses gathers the people one last time to preach one last (and very long) sermon. He reminds them that people who have nothing but the shirts on their backs know they are utterly reliant on God and on each other. In the desert, they learned to trust God for daily bread and water. The past four decades have not been easy, but they learned that faith can only be lived one day at a time. In the desert the most basic things (like bread and water) are received as gifts. The most primal faith response to receiving such gifts is gratitude.

There isn’t really any narrative action in Deuteronomy; they don’t go anywhere. Unlike Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, they now finally stand on the brink of this Promised Land. It's in sight! And the whole premise of Moses’ sermon (which is basically what the Book of Deuteronomy is) hinges on this concern that Moses has about what affluence will do to this people: if they are not careful, affluence will lead to amnesia. They will forget to worship the Lord their God.

Moses is worried that faithfulness to God’s covenant will actually be harder in a land flowing with milk and honey than it was in the desert. He is worried that an attitude of gratitude will give way to greed and fear, as people become more focused on protecting what they perceive to be their own rather than on sharing with those in need. They will start to think more about “me” and less about “us” and when that happens the neighborhood will be in serious jeopardy.

You can pick up the Book of Deuteronomy and pretty much pick any random chapter and that is basically the message you will find there: love of God and love of neighbor are at home in the wilderness. Difficult times make community not only possible, but necessary. And conversely, living on easy street can make you cold hearted.

So there is a paradox here: they stand on the verge of an answered prayer, about to enter a land of hopes and dreams. They will never have to eat manna again, because there will be bakeries on every corner with warm crusty breads and soft pitas. That is a very appealing thought to people sick and tired of manna. But Moses sees that there is a shadow side to prosperity. His understanding of human nature is that it won’t take very long before the bread will be in the hands of a few and the strong will have more than their fair share of the good bread—more than they can even eat before it goes stale and goes to the birds. Meanwhile the more vulnerable members of the community ("the widows and the orphans") will be hungry. Moses is worried that words like self-reliant, self-made, self-centered will start to dominate the conversation and when that happens, the neighborhood will be in trouble.

Moses is not saying that faith is impossible in the Promised Land. He’s simply saying that one shouldn’t be deceived into thinking it will be easy or automatic. I see Moses as a pragmatist, not a pessimist, who simply wants to be as clear and honest as possible about the challenges that lie ahead. The temptation is to think that the hard days are behind them because survival in the wilderness was so difficult. But what Moses is saying is that all of our stuff can actually get in the way of loving God and neighbor. It can make one forgetful about the fact that we need God and we need our neighbors.  The key to being faithful in the Promised Land will be memory. It is a word that comes up again and again throughout Moses’ sermon: remember that you are only ever one generation removed from being slaves in a foreign land.

Freedom, as it is understood in the Book of Deuteronomy, is therefore about something much greater than gaining one’s own liberty or independence. If you flee Egypt and “make it” in the Promised Land, but then promptly turn around and enslave the weakest members of this new society, then all you’ve done is swapped roles from oppressed to oppressor. So that is what Deuteronomy is all about, wrestling with these rather large questions about faith and the economy and politics and the human psyche.  And that is what today’s reading from the tenth chapter of Deuteronomy is about as well. Theologically, the God of Deuteronomy is mighty and awesome. But because God is also good, God isn’t the least bit interested in accumulating more power. God isn’t interested in bribes. God isn’t interested in helping the rich get richer. Rather, God considers it a good day when slaves are liberated and the hungry are fed and the poor are treated with dignity and respect. God “executes justice for the widow and orphan.”

And God loves the stranger. God loves the stranger because God isn’t afraid of what is other—of what is different—of hearing different languages or trying different foods. Since you were yourselves strangers in Egypt not that long ago, Moses argues (on God’s behalf), it would make a mockery of the Exodus if you now turn around and treat the strangers in your midst the way you were treated in Pharaoh’s Egypt. That may be the way the world works. But it’s not the way God’s plan works. It's not how God's people are to behave.  

I realize this is all pretty serious stuff for the lead in to the Fourth of July here in a town where the Fourth of July is a pretty big deal.  But the readings the lectionary gives us for Independence Day invite us to reflect on this ancient Torah text in the context of our own Fourth of July celebrations. So let me ask you this: what kind of nation are we becoming? I’ll leave that as a rhetorical question right now. But I don’t think it’s a partisan question, nor is it out of bounds for a preacher. I think it’s fair to say that we are in trouble and right now we are a long way from great. God is not a Democrat or a Republican nor even an Independent. But can we Democrats and Republicans and Independents all agree that we are living in precarious times, difficult days that test the premise of e pluribus unum – out of the many, one. And if that’s the case then what is the message we, St. Michael’s, have for this community of Bristol and the surrounding towns about what faith looks like in such dangerous times?

We have work to do. As Christians, do we dare to ask whether it is possible for such times to shape and form a more compassionate people by reminding us who our neighbors are? We might step back and reflect on what an immigration policy might look like in a nation that loves the stranger as God does, rather than fearing them. We might step back and wonder what our tax code would look like if it reflected a genuine concern for widows and orphans? We can argue about the details, to be sure. We will have political differences. But the core values come to us from Jesus, not our political parties and not even from the founding fathers.

There is grace in simply asking such questions and maybe it is what we as Christians are intended to contribute to the marketplace of ideas right now. We do well to remember together that true freedom does not come easily and is never finished. Perhaps we can even help to re-frame economic precariousness and see it not as something that instills more fear and selfishness, but as a gift that opens us up to one another in new ways. If we are a people who are at least asking such questions, we stand a far better chance of discovering a healthier form of patriotism rather than falling into the trap of xenophobic nationalism. After all, there is no place in the Bible that says “God bless America!” What it does say is that God so loved the world.

I am fully aware of my own privilege and the knowledge that most days I live in the Promised Land rather than in the Sinai Desert. I am far more familiar with feeling secure and self-reliant and independent. Although I have had my own share of precariousness over the years, I’m deeply aware that it’s not nearly as much as many experience. And let me be clear: I don’t wake up in the morning asking God for more precariousness in my life. I enjoy stability and predictability and living in a nice home.

Yet it does seem to me that those times of precariousness (which even the most privileged among us do face from time to time) are a gift when it comes to our faith. Those times when we find ourselves in the wilderness are also the times when we stand the best chance of experiencing God’s healing presence and the Spirit’s transformative power. Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me…

It is in the wilderness times that we discover (and re-discover) that God is present. It is there that we learn to live life one day at a time and to see all of life as sheer gift. It is in our need that we are able both to give and to receive, and that changes our worldview. It opens us up to become a people with more grateful and generous hearts. When that happens to us, our spirituality can no longer be disconnected from the decisions and choices we make with our lives. How can we learn and re-learn to share this wisdom in the neighborhood not so much by what we say but as to how we live? How do we remember, daily, that it’s all gift and gift and gift and to those to whom much is given, much is expected?

Summertime gives us a chance to slow down and step back. Whether we are out sailing or camping or walking along the beach or hiking up a mountain, it can put us in a place somewhere between the wilderness and the Promised Land, in a place where we can remember that a well-lived life is one that is lived simply, so that others may simply live. We remember what matters (and what doesn’t) and by God's grace we give thanks to the One who is with us through it all. The One who keeps calling on us to remember the whole of Torah in four words: Love God. Love Neighbor.

May we find ourselves, this weekend and always, ready to help this nation to “mend every flaw” until there is justice for all. 

Elijah the Tishbite

A sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost on I Kings 19:1-15a, preached at St. Michael's, Bristol

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow." Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." [Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat." He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you."] He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."

He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." Then the Lord said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus." 

 +    +    +

The Book of Kings begins with King Solomon on the throne and then plows along under his varied successors until you get to chapter sixteen. That’s where it begins to get really interesting. That is when Omri (up to that point dubbed as “worst king ever”) dies. He is succeeded by his son, Ahab, who will reign for twenty-two years. (16:25) This comment from the narrator pretty much sums up what Ahab’s two-decade reign was like:

Ahab, son of Omri, did what was displeasing to the Lord, more than all who preceded him. Not content to follow the sins of Jereboam, son of Nebat, he took as his wife, Jezebel, daughter of King Ethbaal of the Phoenicians and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. (16:30-31)

 You should know that Baal is a god of fresh water, a rain god. So in chapter seventeen, on the heels of this information about Baal, we are introduced to Elijah the Tishbite, who issues a challenge: “As the Lord lives, the God of Israel whom I serve, there will be no dew or rain except at my bidding.”  Elijah is throwing down the gauntlet: Ahab has built an altar to Baal because he wants rain. But Elijah’s response is that it will only rain when YHWH says it will rain!

The problem with droughts is that they affect everybody, not just the bad people. Even Elijah will suffer the consequences of this drought. At one point in the narrative, he shows up at the home of a widow in Sidon who is down to her last little bit of flour and oil and preparing to die. Yet when the prophet invites himself for dinner, she welcomes him to her table. She chooses hospitality and generosity over fear and xenophobia and shares the little bit she has, which as it miraculously turns out, is enough. (A prequel to Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fishes…)

By the time we get to chapter eighteen of First Kings, three years have passed and the famine brought on by this drought is much, much worse. Elijah approaches the people and puts it bluntly, the way prophets are prone to do: How long will you keep limping along between two opinions? If YHWH is God, follow God! If Baal, then follow Baal. But make up your minds already! (18:21)

It is at this point that Elijah takes on 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. They get a bull and cut it in half for a sacrifice and set up two wood piles. No matches allowed; just prayer. Elijah allows the prophets of Baal to go first and to pick their wood pile and bull. From morning until noon they shout: “O Baal, answer us!” Nothing. So then they performed what one translation calls a “hopping dance.” We get to see here that Elijah is a bit of a trash-talker because when nothing happens he chimes in: why don’t you shout louder! Maybe Baal is sleeping and you need to wake him up! Maybe he’s deep in conversation with some other god, or maybe he’s away on vacation. Nada.

Then it’s Elijah’s turn. He decides to make it interesting, filling four jars with water and soaking the whole thing. And then he says: do it a second time. Actually you know what—do it a third time until water is running even around the trench of the altar! Until the whole thing is sopping wet.. And then he prays:

O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel! Let it be known today that you are God in Israel, and I am your servant, and that I have done these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people might know who is God…

And then? Woosh. Fire! An all-consuming fire that devours the bull, the wood, the stones, the earth, the water—everything! And everybody falls down on their faces and says, “Wow! The Lord alone is God. The Lord alone is God.” (18:39)

What happens in the next verse, however, is very troubling. Elijah can’t just let it be. He turns the impressed crowd into a mob and tells them to seize the prophets of Baal and “let not a single one of them get away.” So they seized them, and Elijah took them down to the Wadi Kishon and there he slaughtered every last one. (18:40) It is texts like that which make people say they don’t like the Old Testament. And as much as I do totally love the Old Testament, I totally get that.

This brings us to today’s reading and gives us a much better context to hear what was read a few minutes ago. Ahab has reported to his wife, Jezebel, what happened on Mount Carmel and at the Wadi Kishon. She responds by sending a message to Elijah: "So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow."  She is issuing his death warrant, saying that he will not get away with what he has done. So Elijah does what most of us would probably do; he runs away. As we heard, he came to Beer-sheba, where he leaves his servant to go on another day’s journey into the wilderness. To say that Elijah is tired and scared is probably an understatement. He wants to die. He asks God to let him die. But an angel comes to him in a dream and tells him to get up and eat, and a little cake and some water are provided. He eats and drinks and falls asleep again and the angel returns and tells him for a second time:

Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you. He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Elijah is at a mountain that the narrator calls Horeb, but that earlier generations called Sinai. He’s back, in other words, at the very same place where the story of God’s people began, back where Moses got the Ten Commandments and encountered God in the midst of thunder and lightning. Elijah declares how lonely he feels – I alone am left and Jezebel wants to kill me. (As if the God who created all the pyrotechnics doesn’t know this already.) And then the wind, so strong it was splitting mountains. But God was not in the wind. And an earthquake and a fire but God is not there either. And then “a sound of sheer silence.”

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." Then the LORD said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus."

Now Episcopalians (including me) love that “sound of sheer silence” (or as the older translations put it, the “still small voice of God.”) We tend to like our worship and our prayer and our spirituality on the quiet side, tending more toward meditation than speaking in tongues or doing any hopping dances around altars. Fair enough. But the reason I’ve taken the time to tell the larger story on this day is that I’ve heard too many sermons on that “still small voice” that forget this larger socio-political context. The point of the story is not to encourage us to pray daily and include quiet times in our lives, although clearly those are very good and important practices. I’m all for those! Rather, the more important point of the story is that being faithful in dangerous times is risky. And sometimes, it can get you into good trouble with the powers-that-be. I think of St. Paul and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela all sitting in prison cells. As discouraging and isolating as that must have felt for them, perhaps they took some solace in remembering Elijah. And perhaps, they, too, in the sounds of sheer silence, were comforted by an awareness of God’s presence, so that they could carry on.

I think of those beloved of God in Tehran this morning, and in Gaza, and in Jerusalem, and in Ukraine - and all war zones across the world. I think of those who have been picked up and deported without any due process in our own country, right now. I think of what others have gone through (or perhaps even now are going through) what the mystics have called “the dark night of the soul”—when we feel like we are in a cave, lost somewhere in the wilderness, and feeling very afraid. And perhaps we, too, are ministered to by angels in those times. God may not be in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. But in the sound of sheer silence we know that we are not alone.

This is the larger point of the story and even when there are parts of it that may trouble us or feel unrelatable (or very “Old Testament”) this much holds true across many centuries. Being faithful to the living God can get us into trouble with the law. It got Jesus, and many others who have followed him through the centuries, killed. Sometimes we will feel very alone. Yet, in the silence, Elijah comes to realize that he is not alone. He knows—not in his head only, but in his heart and in his bones - that God is with him. And that gives him the strength and the courage and the hope to go on. The Word of the Lord that comes to him in that sound of sheer silence reminds him that there is work to be done, and he needs to go back and face that. He realizes anew that what God gives us is strength and courage to do the work God has given him to do; not a get-out-of-ministry-free card. His call is to speak truth to power - which will always make clear that there are costs to discipleship. 

And then, just like that, Elijah disappears. In the final chapter of the Elijah story, we hear about how in a whirlwind he passes into the heavenly realms on a chariot of fire, after passing the baton to his disciple, Elisha. The work will continue. He will vanish from our sight, at least until three years from now when we return to this cycle of readings again.

But who knows; maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of him from time-to-time before then? Every year at Passover, our Jewish friends set a place at their Seder tables for Elijah, even as they pray for peace “next year in Jerusalem.” Who knows when he might show up at their table? Or perhaps even at ours?

And as Christians, we catch a glimpse of Elijah every Advent season when John the Baptist suddenly appears in the wilderness, looking and sounding a lot like our friend as he proclaims that message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Like Elijah, John points beyond himself to insist that the future belongs to not to the King Ahabs or King Herods of this world,   but to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords: the One who comes to bring peace on earth and good will to all and teaches us to pray, “thy Kingdom come, on earth as in heaven…” May each of us hear, in the midst of our own journeys (and in particular when the road is difficult) that sound of sheer silence: God’s unique call to each of us to find a little more courage, and a little more hope to keep on keeping on, and to not lose heart.

 

Come, Holy Spirit!

This sermon was preached on June 8 at St. Michael's Church in Bristol, RI

We gather today to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. As in the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit is the star of the show.

You will recall that Jesus promised to send the Spirit to comfort us, to lead us into all truth, and sometimes to goad us and prod us out of our comfort zones. The Church remembers that promise today. In so doing, we are reminded that the Church is something more than a club or a place of learning or a place to find people to care for us or a social service agency. In and through Holy Baptism, we have been claimed as members of the Body of Christ, as the Episcopal branch of the Jesus’ Movement.

From time to time I am asked “why does the Church matter?” It’s a fair question to ask a priest. Why do we baptize and confirm and teach and send people out in mission?” One could argue, fairly, that over the centuries, the Church has caused as much harm as good. All kinds of atrocities have been done by “Christian” people in the name of God and one doesn’t have to be a historian or social critic to know that.

Certainly God is bigger than the Church, and I think it’s good theology to admit that. The Spirit of God is like the wind, blowing where She will. Nevertheless, the Church claims that through this same Holy Spirit the baptized are called into covenant with God, to bear witness to what God has done in Jesus Christ, and to be agents of healing and reconciliation in the world. It seems to me that when we fall short it’s because we aren’t paying enough attention to the Spirit. That doesn’t make the Church “null and void.” It just means we can and must be intentional about remembering who we are and continue to listen for the Spirit that is trying to lead us into all Truth.

Today is an invitation to imagine what that might look like, if and when the Church is being what God intends it to be.

In the reading from the second chapter of Acts, Luke insists that we find this Spirit when we encounter “the other.” People who speak different languages are all in Jerusalem. But this story isn’t just about people who speak German or Norwegian or French. People can speak the same “mother tongue” and still speak different languages. Sometimes that’s because we come from different generations. Other times it’s because we’re shaped by urban or suburban or rural values. Increasingly it's because we get our news from very different sources, so what we know (or think we know) keeps us far apart. Far too often we talk past each other.

Communication is hard work! Most of us—even when raised in the Church—aren’t accustomed to seeing “the other” as a gift who can lead us into truth. We see them as a stumbling block and so we're tempted to build walls, not bridges. We are tempted to see them as a barrier to our getting what we want or think we need. When that happens we begin to allow fear to influence our words and our tones and our body language, and that blocks our willingness (as well as our ability) to listen. On both sides, conflict potentially escalates and authentic communication is hindered.

The story of that first Pentecost isn’t just about what happened one day a long time ago in Jerusalem. It’s a story about how the Spirit works: about how by the grace of God sometimes people do listen to and even hear one another. Nelle Morton, a twentieth-century Christian educator who taught at my seminary, liked to use the phrase, “hearing one another to speech.” That is to say, when we listen for the Spirit alive in “the other," we are not being passive. Rather, we actively empower “the other” to speak their truth. Where that happens, whether in first-century Jerusalem or twenty-first century Bristol, the Holy Spirit is at work, and all are enriched and amazed in the process.

The Church matters more than ever in a pluralistic society precisely because this story reminds us of what is possible when the Holy Spirit “shows up”—when people do “hear one another to speech” that leads to healing and to mission

Truth—the whole truth and nothing but the truth—is never something that any one of us can possess on our own. It requires community and intentionality. It requires plurality not singularity. “In Christ,” St. Paul insisted, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female.” On the great questions, one side never possesses the whole truth; and I believe it is the Spirit that pushes us into acknowledging that hard reality. Until we are able to hear, “each in his or her own native tongue.”

The Church is called to be an icon of what is possible—that is, an image of abundant life animated by God’s Holy Spirit. That is at the heart of what Pentecost is really all about: the Church learning to be the Church and then showing the world what is possible when the Spirit of God is trusted for guidance, and wisdom, and comfort.

That doesn’t mean there will be no conflict, and in fact the rest of Acts is filled with brutal honesty about just how difficult it is to be the Church. That keeps us from falling into the trap of a false kind of idealism that any of this is easy. But Pentecost insists that our agendas do not get the last word and that always the Church is meant to be a place where the simple question is asked: “what does God desire here?”  Where is the Spirit blowing? 

That doesn’t ensure that we will always get it right. But it does mean that we develop the practice of looking beyond ourselves for guidance. It doesn’t mean that everyone will speak the same language. But it does mean that we are intentionally becoming multilingual, that we are intentional about being a listening community, where we “hear one another to speech.”

Over the past couple of weeks I have been focused in my preaching on the next steps here at St. Michael’s in finding a new rector. I’ve said that this focus isn’t because I’m eager to leave you all – and I hope you know I’m having a lot of fun. I’m grateful for the time that we’ve shared and that we will continue to share. But it is towards an end goal. All of us involved seek to be instruments of God’s peace: the Bishop, the Canon to the Ordinary, me as your interim, the wardens and vestry, the members of the profile and search committees and every person who has participated along the way in the CAT, or showed up at a listening event. The work of finding the next rector includes many – but all of it is empowered by the Spirit. Our work is to be prayerful and open to that guidance – which challenges all of our assumptions.

As we move into summer mode here things will slow down. That’s good, it gives us the space we need. Next week we celebrate Trinity Sunday and Rev. Liz will be here to tackle that with you, as I attend my goddaughter’s wedding in Pennsylvania. It’ll be the choir’s last Sunday until the fall, and since I won’t be here next week to thank them I want to do that now.

The week after next we’ll move to one service on Sunday morning at 9 am, and this summer we’ll stay put here and hope for cool summer breezes. Things will pick up again in the fall, I’m sure.

But in the meantime we pray without ceasing for God to show us the way forward. The poets may be our best guides in this endeavor. So I close with the text of Timothy Rees’ hymn, found in the Hymnal 82 on page 511.  If you’d like to turn there now, I’ll read it as a prayer and you can follow along.

                  Holy Spirit, ever living as the Church’s very life;
                  Holy Spirit, ever striving through her in a ceaseless strife;
                  Holy Spirit, ever forming in the Church the mind of Christ:
                  thee we praise with endless worship for thy fruits and gifts unpriced.

                  Holy Spirit, ever working through the Church’s ministry;
                  quickening, strengthening, absolving, setting captive sinners free 
                 Holy Spirit, ever binding age to age, and soul to soul
                 in a fellowship unending: thee we worship and extol.

Come, Holy Spirit! Fall afresh on us. Come and work through us, so that we might be your faithful people.

 

A Sermon for Good Shepherd Sunday

 

Imagine a world where there is incredible uncertainty about the future. Yet, even in the midst of all that uncertainty, there is also tremendous denial. Not just personal denial, but corporate, social, religious, political and economic denial. It feels as if even the so-called experts will not see what is before their very eyes or heed the voices of common sense.

 Imagine a once-great nation where democratic ideals first took hold, but that now seems adrift, lacking visionaries and prophets and dreamers. All that remains is a desperate attempt to hold onto power and control. The problems go deeper than politics or the economy. The moral fabric of this society is coming apart at the seams. It feels like there is no longer any sense of  “right” and “wrong.” Injustice seems to be the norm, and violence is so much a part of daily life that it goes virtually unnoticed.

Imagine a Church in this society comprised mostly of good folks, well-intentioned people: but without a clear sense of purpose or mission. While they are to be commended for their “patient endurance” and for acts of charity, they have abandoned their commitment to love boldly in the name of Jesus. Honestly, they  are having a hard time loving even each other, not to mention their neighbors and their enemies. They have become complacent, asleep, and lukewarm; unsure about what if anything they can do to make a difference even locally. They feel powerless and trapped.

While there are some exceptions, most Christians in this context are not being persecuted for their faith. In fact the problem is that their conformity to the world around them is so complete that there is very little to distinguish them from their neighbors and therefore little to vilify and persecute. On those occasions when someone does take a stand for what they believe that’s counter to the conventional wisdom, they are more apt to be harassed or ridiculed for failing to conform to social norms and expectations than they are to be persecuted.

The society I’m describing, of course, as you’ve all figured out by now, is the Roman Empire at the turn of the first century. (Any other resemblances to any other time in history are purely coincidental. 😉) It was globally a time of tremendous social upheaval and dramatic changes were unfolding. Under Emperor Domitian, the Roman Empire was a mere shadow of the glory days of the Republic; the old days of the Senate, and the engineering genius of all those acquiducts. Thinkers like Cicero and Virgil were but distant memories of a long ago past.

The Church I’m describing is located in one of the provinces of the empire, Asia Minor (what we would call Turkey today.) We know something of their struggles by reading one of the most difficult books in all the Bible to interpret: the Greek name of which is the Apocalypse or “Revelation.” Specifically, the congregations in Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea are described collectively as I’ve mentioned: well-intentioned and patiently enduring tough times but lacking a clear sense of purpose and passion. Their vocation is supposed to be to make disciples but they aren’t doing that.  

This Revelation of John is a wake-up call that paints a picture of what genuine fidelity might look like in the context of a dying empire.

Partly because of the political context, and partly because of the genre of literature it is, the Book of Revelation is heavily laden with metaphorical language and symbols, a kind of “code language.” Cracking the code, though, isn’t like translating from Morse code as some have supposed. The challenge isn’t about finding what the number “666” means, or the word “Babylon” means as if those had one-to-one correlations in a distant future. Seeing and hearing this message has more to do with where we stand. I talked last week about improving our vision. John’s Revelation is about getting ourselves into the right place so that we can see what John saw.

In fact, there is much talk in this book about “seeing” and “hearing” and at least in this way it very much echoes the ministry of Jesus. Those who wish to understand it need “eyes to see” and “ears to hear.” What is really required is discernment. I think of that unforgettable scene in “The Dead Poet’s Society” when the teacher played by Robin Williams has his students standing on desks, challenging their perspective and inviting and cajoling them to take notice of the world from another angle.

None other than the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer exhorted the Church in his day to “be communities able to hear the Apocalypse.” He suggested that the way to do that is to stand with those who suffer violence and injustice. The problem is that in spite of Jesus’ ministry to the poor and outcast, the Church throughout its history has been prone to forget that part of the gospel. I’m not talking about acts of charity; but rather of trying to see the world from the downside up.

Visionaries almost always stand on the edges, at the peripheries. Particularly when we risk standing with those who suffer violence and injustice, we begin to see and hear things we would otherwise not be able to see or hear from our normal places of privilege and comfort. I think about Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the gulags of the former Soviet Union. I think about Rosa Parks sitting in the back of all those buses for all those years until finally one day she said “enough is enough.”

The seer who writes the Apocalypse stands in such a place, at the periphery of society on a tiny little island in the Aegean Sea called Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor. He writes as a Christian who dreams of a Church where Easter faith is practiced on a daily basis, a Church where people dream again, and hope again, and work for justice and peace again. He imagines a Church that knows what it means to take up their crosses and follow Jesus.

He speaks with strange images, images made even stranger in the intervening 2000 years since they were first written down.But what he sees and then describes for his readers in the seventh chapter of this Apocalypse remains fresh even to this day, and I believe it still has power to heal and to transform and to invigorate the Church for mission. If we dare to look, and to listen, we too might be prodded and jarred from complacency.

When John looks he sees a great multitude, which no one could count. That in itself is a word of hope to beleagured congregations in every age, congregations which may feel burned out and worn out and perhaps isolated. Where are the young families? In that “great multitude” of disciples, that no one could count!—there is much to ponder, for it is a reminder that we are not alone, that we are a part of something here and now that is much bigger than we realize.  

Moreover they don’t all look the same: they come from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and speak many languages. It is the Lamb at the center that defines who they are, not their nation-states or their flags, not their creeds or denominations, not socio-economic class or skin-color. It is this Lamb who unites this multicultural community into One Body, singing one song: “Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb!” It is He who matters—above all else—the One whom these saints worship day and night.

The promise remembered is the promise foretold. And it still has the power to enliven the Church for mission. Juxtaposed with this image where there is no more hunger, no more thirst, no more scorching heat and no more tears are the images of our world: of starving children, of unsafe drinking water, of famine and war. The juxtaposition of these images calls the Church to work toward that latter day not only with acts of charity, but with a commitment to do justice. With our eyes on “this Lamb” (who is also “the good shepherd”) we see One who promises to guide us to springs of the water of life, who “wipes away every tear from our eyes.” We listen for His voice, and we follow where He leads as we are each called by name.  

This fourth Sunday of Easter is sometimes called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” That’s the theme for the day:

•  this collect that reminded us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who calls us each by name;
• this 23^rd Psalm which is almost certainly the most widely known of all the psalms even among those who know little else from the Bible—describing a shepherd whom we can rely on;
• this gospel reading from the fourth gospel that reiterates how the sheep hear their shepherd’s voice, calling them by name.

But it’s this strange text from this even stranger Apocalypse that draws me into the meaning of this day more than all the rest and captures my imagination. Maybe it’s preaching in this space with this window of another image from John’s Apocalypse, the Archangel Michael doing battle against Satan, the one who seeks to destroy the creatures of God. It stands as a bold reminder to the Church in every age that no matter how tired or weak or confused we may feel in a world that seems as if it’s gone stark raving mad some days, we must never lose hope.

That hope is always directed to us as persons, to each by name. But it must not be personalized as if it’s all about us. We are part of a much larger whole, part of Christ’s Body through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. We are the Episcopal branch of the Jesus’ Movement. By keeping our eyes open, and focused on the Good Shepherd—by listening for his voice—by changing our point-of-view—by standing with the most vulnerable on the fringes of society, we have a chance to be the kind of community that is able “to hear the Apocalypse.”

…for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

As we see and hear this good news may we become doers of the Word, agents of  reconciliation and instruments of peace who share even now in the work of feeding the hungry and wiping away the tears of all who mourn. 

Alleluia. Alleluia.

Easter People

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Below is my sermon manuscript for Easter morning, preached at St. Michael's Church in Bristol. The Gospel for the day is Luke 24:1-12

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Peter goes home amazed. Did you catch that?

Whatever else happens or does not happen for you today in this liturgy, I hope that all of you will go home today amazed as well. We will be in good company if we do. This means that the point of this sermon is not to explain the resurrection to you. It’s to stand with you in awe and wonder and amazement.

The women (just so we are clear) were the first to arrive at the tomb to prepare their friend’s body for burial. You don’t need to be a feminist to notice this but I do think the sin of patriarchy has sometimes kept us from noticing this detail that the first ones to preach the good news of Easter were the women. They have not gotten up to put on their Sunday best to go to church to hear the old, old story about how the Lord is risen indeed, alleluia. They have come there to face death and Luke takes us through it in real time.

Imagine heading off to the funeral home for the calling hours of a friend whose life has violently and tragically been cut short. To say this is not easy to do is an understatement and many of you know this, firsthand. We have to mentally and spiritually prepare ourselves and I imagine those women felt some of the very same emotions we would as they set off for that tomb: shock, sadness, anger, disbelief, confusion…

But instead of death, they encounter these two men in dazzling clothes (are they angels?) who ask them a question: why do you look for the living among the dead? Well, the angel doesn’t give them a chance to respond but think about that for a moment. We thought we were looking for the dead among the dead, they might respond! And so they are, of course, confused. Who wouldn’t be? You show up at the funeral home and are greeted by two strangers in dazzling clothes and they tell you there is nothing to see here. What is happening? Is this some sick joke? But then they remembered, and then they run to tell the disciples, who consider it an “idle tale.” Nonsense from a bunch of overtired women!

Isn’t it curious, and wonderful, that Luke preserves all of this initial incredulity? That of the women, that of the men they tell. Maybe incredulity is always the initial response. He is risen? Say what? Talk of resurrection is serious stuff and I think if you were setting out to start a religion this would not be the way to do it. First of all, given the cultural context of the first century, wouldn’t you be sure to have some reliable and respectable men get to the empty tomb first? And then, wouldn’t you send in CSI to test the shroud for DNA evidence? That’s how the History Channel or the Discovery Channel would do it. But that is not how Luke tells the story: Peter and the others get the good news from the women, who get it from a couple of well-dressed angels.

So obviously Peter now has to go and check this out for himself. Luke tells us that “Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in he saw the linen cloths by themselves.” Notice that he gets no proof either. He gets no hard and fast evidence. There are plenty of other more rational explanations for a tomb being empty. Jesus doesn’t even make an appearance in the gospel reading for today. This is all we have to go on, at least for today: an empty tomb.

Amazing!

Now this may be the right time to gently remind you that Easter is not a day but a season that lasts fifty days to the Feast of Pentecost. There is so much more to come. I’ve often thought the Christmas message is so much easier to take in because we all know about birth. So twelve days of Christmas is enough. While we must all face death as well, however, the promise of resurrected life is a different matter altogether. It requires at least fifty days and probably a lifetime to unpack the Paschal Mystery.

Next weekend Jesus will appear to his disciples and we’ll get a case study in how hard it is to believe when we look at the reaction of Thomas, who was out getting coffee and donuts when Jesus appeared and so he was still struggling to believe a week later. Stay-tuned; there is so much more to come. We will get other stories of resurrection as well.

But for today, that’s all I’ve got for you: a couple of well-dressed angels with a message to some distraught women and a disciple who only hours before had denied even knowing Jesus. He now peers into an empty tomb and sees a shroud and suddenly he is changed for good. Changed forever.

Then Peter went home, amazed at what had happened. The dictionary says that to be amazed is: “to be affected with great wonder, to be astonished.” But there’s another meaning, an older meaning that is about being bewildered and perplexed; confused. Now here is my question for you: what if all of those emotions (which above all else generate questions rather than providing easy answers) are the beginning of authentic faith? What if we internalize this Word of the Lord today and mark it and learn it and inwardly digest it until we make it our own?

To say it another way, what if it really is ok if Easter leaves us with more questions than answers, and what if it really is ok if we leave here today feeling bewildered and perplexed? What if that is where the journey of faith is supposed to begin: with wonder and amazement? What would a more mature faith look like if that is where it begins and where it begins again?

Then Peter went home, amazed at what had happened. The challenge for so many of us as we get older, I think, is that we feel we already know this story, and it is harder and harder for us to be amazed by it. And because we think we already know the story we either believe it or we don’t in a binary way, and then it’s on to the ham or the lamb or some vegan alternative. But authentic faith cannot be rushed or forced or reduced to a formula. It comes to each of us in its own way and in its own time. Someone tells someone who tells someone who tells us. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen.

My job today is not to explain the resurrection to you. I’m sorry if that’s what you came here for today. But you wouldn’t take my word for it anyway. I’m just a priest with a vested interest in perpetuating the idle tales of women. My work today is not to provide you with more information or an explanation. The best I am hoping for is to point you toward that empty tomb and encourage you to look again, with Peter, so that you go home amazed.

What’s weird is that Peter sees nothing in that empty tomb, literally, except for that linen shroud. The amazement comes, I think, because deep in his bones he absolutely knows this is no idle tale. The women have proclaimed good news and as crazy as it sounds, it must have seemed to him to be the most real thing he’d ever heard. So real that it will turn a frightened fisherman who denied knowing Jesus into a bold preacher who is not afraid to shout it out: He is risen!

Peter’s amazement will lead him to finally become the rock Jesus knew he had it in him to be all along. And let’s be clear, that’s the case with us also, to become the best version of ourselves that Jesus already has seen and knows and claims for us. Easter is an invitation to be changed by becoming the people God calls us to become.

At Holy Baptism we take water and oil, outward and visible signs that are meant to convey a message about the love of God. I often tell parents who wish to have their child “done” that baptism isn’t fire insurance. It’s not about offering some kind of coverage “just in case.” Nor is it about magic, about trying to convince God to love a child that in fact God already loves and has loved from before time. The sacraments are for us, not God. They are meant to remind us of God’s love, and to call us into a community that will help us never to forget.  Whenever we celebrate Holy Baptism we pray for God’s amazing grace to take hold in the life of the baptized as they are welcomed into a community that promises to love them as God does—through and through—always. No exceptions.

When we do that, we pray that they will respond to that love with inquiring and discerning hearts, and the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and love God, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.

What if that gift of joy and wonder (which I think is just another way of talking about amazement) really is the beginning of Easter faith?  The early Church thought so, which is why they connected Baptism and Easter. In fact it was the only time of year the Church even did Baptisms for centuries. If that instinct is right, then maybe that is what we should be cultivating as a faith community here at St. Michael’s in the work that lies ahead during this transitional time. How can we be more and more a community where amazement leads us to joy?

The table is set and richly laden and all are welcome: those who have kept the fast and those who have not. That is what a fourth-century Christian preacher named John Chrysostom told those who gathered one Easter morning. He reminded them that it was not about who kept Lent perfectly but about God’s graciousness and generosity and amazing grace, and that all were welcome to “feast royally” and to enjoy the riches of God’s goodness. Let no one go away hungry!

So come! Taste and see that the Lord is good! Amazing!

A Sermon for Maundy Thursday

There are some truths in the Bible that require very little translating for us to understand them, because they seem to transcend culture and time and place. When Jesus says, “consider the lilies of the field,” it doesn’t require a brilliant Biblical scholar to grasp what he means. I think he means: go out, find a field with some lilies in it (or maybe a field with wildflowers will work just as well) and consider. Good old Mary Oliver once wrote, “I’m not sure what a prayer is, but I do know how to pay attention.” Jesus would have said, I think, if you are paying attention, then you are praying.

There are other texts where, if we can get a better sense of the historical context of first-century Palestine we can gain a deeper insight and a light may go on.  “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” Jesus says about paying taxes. When we notice that the Temple authorities were really trying to trap Jesus, or are reminded about the fact that the combination of Caesar’s claims to divinity and his head on the coin violated the Jewish understanding of the first and second commandments or we consider the politics of living in an occupied territory and trying to remain faithful to the principles of both non-violence and resistance, our understanding is far more nuanced, and we discover new layers of meaning for our own circumstances that go beyond how we may be feeling about the I.R.S. this week. These kinds of texts keep preachers like me employed.

There is, however, a third category, and it’s into that third category that I would put foot-washing. It just doesn’t seem to translate out of its first-century context very well into our world and it’s about more than understanding what happened; we also have to come to grips with our own internal resistance to something we may find awkward or embarrassing that first-century sandal-wearing middle easterners did not.

For them, foot-washing was a part of daily life. It was taken for granted that feet got dirty, and it was an act of practicality and of hospitality to clean them when somebody came into your home. All of that walking around in the desert in sandals made your feet dirty, stinky, and tired. So when the master came home from work, the slave soaked and washed his master’s feet. When guests came for dinner, you welcomed them by showing this act of kindness. It’s just what you did; like offering to take someone’s coat and hang it up.

But since this is not a part of our lives 364 days a year, it can feel not only awkward but difficult to understand on this one Thursday a year. Some of us have this thing about feet, our own and others. I wonder what would happen if we shined shoes instead? We’d still be dealing with feet, but maybe we’d capture the class issues better. But of course even if I edited the Prayerbook in such a way, I suspect that some of us would still go out and get our shoes shined before coming to church tonight.

Jesus doesn’t wash clean feet tonight, but dirty ones. While his action definitely has symbolic and theological meaning, first and foremost it is grounded in a practical and normal task that his culture understood and ours does not. But let’s try.

The Open Door Community, an intentional Christian community in Atlanta, Georgia, offers a foot-care clinic every Thursday night of the year for the homeless. It’s like a spa for the homeless community: 52 days a year they can get a free pedicure. I imagine that living on the streets is hard on your whole body in general and I imagine especially hard on your feet. Thankfully I have no first-hand experience with this. But I’m told that the medical volunteers at the ODC offer their time to take care not just of washing feet, but of dealing with bunions and all the rest. It’s an act of kindness and mercy to people who are not accustomed to being on the receiving end of such acts. There is something both tender and practical about that ministry that captures the meaning of this night and what it means to be the Church in the world.

In tonight’s gospel reading, Jesus takes a towel and a pitcher of water and a basin and he washes his disciples’ feet. Peter resists not because he is uncomfortable with having his feet washed. He lives in a culture where this is normal. What he resists is that Jesus is doing a servant’s job. And in that realization lies our first clue about the meaning of this night: first and foremost, this act tells us who Jesus is. This event is recorded in John’s Gospel, which is above all else focused on the Incarnation:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth.

In spite of this being about as orthodox as theology can get, most days we want to keep God “up there” in the skies, not in the muck and mire and confusion of our daily lives and certainly not washing feet. We want to keep God as God and humans as human. The problem is that Jesus messes up those tidy categories and no gospel writer better understands this than John. Jesus humbles himself to be among us as one who serves. We feel more comfortable, I think, crowning him with many crowns, and pushing him back into the heavens to be at the right hand of God the Father. We feel more comfortable at some level looking up to Jesus, and yet what Peter (God bless him!) initially resists tonight is that Jesus requires him (and us!) to look down, and around, in order to see him as one among us who serves.

Sandra Schneiders is professor emerita at The Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California. She says that there are three kinds of service. There is service as obligation. We do what we do because we are told we must do it.

The second kind of service, Schneiders says, is the existential mode of service. Here the server acts freely on behalf of the served because of a perceived need that she or he has the power to meet. Whether we get paid for it or volunteer, this is the kind of work that most likely makes us feel good when we do it. We feel a sense of calling and of responsibility to meet someone else’s needs. So a mother nurses her child, a teacher teaches her student how to read, a choir director teaches the choir a new anthem, a doctor prescribes the right medication for a patient, a pastor visits a parishioner in the hospital. While all of this is good, there is a shadow side to responsibility, and the servant needs to guard against fostering dependency and neediness.

Schneidesr says that there is a third way to serve, however: friendship. Friendship subverts both obligation and the perceived responsibility to meet somebody else’s needs. When we seek the good of a friend there is mutuality. The barriers that social power creates are broken down. Where there is friendship we both give and receive. Schneider says that…

…the politics of friendship, at its best, can build bridges over chasms of ideological, religious, racial, and social conflicts. Unfortunately, such friendships are rare and difficult to maintain.

Rare, and difficult to maintain, indeed. 

This is, I admit, a lot of social theory for a Thursday night in Holy Week. But if you are with me so far then I hope you will stay with me for just a few minutes longer before we get to the real sermon tonight: the invitation to share in this act of friendship. Did you notice that Jesus calls the disciples his friends. He calls us his friends.

The dynamics of those first two modes of service are to be found in this and all congregations: they are simply a part of the fabric of our life-together. Both are good and necessary. But there are also inherent dangers of misuse of power and of burnout as well as of fostering a culture of neediness that can infantilize people. When we are always the helper we are also in control. Clericalism is real and although clergy deserve some respect they should never receive all the privilege.

On this night, Jesus takes a towel, and a pitcher of water, and a basin. In so doing, he is giving instructions to the Church in every age and modeling for us this third way of service.

He calls us his friends. And he commands us to love one another as he has loved us. Yes, he is still master and lord. Yes, he is the second person of the Trinity. But by choosing to be our friend and our brother he shows us how to more faithfully be one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. He asks us to see ourselves—ordained and lay, paid staff and volunteers, young and old, male and female—as friends.

Schneiders points out that friendship holds within it the seeds of radical transformation, because it lets us “build bridges over chasms of ideological, religious, racial, and social conflicts.” Such friendships are not easy to cultivate or to maintain; they do indeed take work and they are rare. But the polarized world we are living in needs for us to get this now more than ever if we really do mean to be living members of Christ’s Body and not simply nominal Christians.

What if St. Michael’s Church committed not just tonight but 365 days a year to becoming a place where friendship can be cultivated across the great divides that we face?

I had a chance once a long time ago in a galaxy far away to sit in a room with George McGovern, who spoke about his close friendship in the U.S. Senate with Barry Goldwater. For those of you who aren’t political junkies like me, they were on way opposite sides of the aisle and they very rarely voted together on anything remotely controversial. But at the end of the day they’d go out to a bar near the Capitol and have a beer together and talk about their families. In so doing they could disagree without de-humanizing each other or calling into question one another’s patriotism or values or honesty.

We have the potential in this congregation to deepen friendships with those who may be as just as far apart on the issues of the day, both theological and political. Tonight we wash feet. Through this action, and in sharing the Eucharist together, the world is changed. These friendships help us to love one another as God has first loved us. They help us to be salt and light and yeast for the world. These things matter. They matter a lot, my friends.

Palm/Passion Sunday Sermon

Today’s liturgy is logistically challenging. Not as a big a challenge as the Easter Vigil, but a close second. We get used to coming into church and finding our ways to “our” pews and we know what is going to happen. But this day unsettles us and there is a lot going on. In part the challenge is about where we should focus our attention. Is this day about the Palms or the Passion? Yes.

 When The Book of Common Prayer was published in 1979, it bought both Palms and Passion into one liturgy. As written, no sooner do we stop singing and waving our palms than we pivot toward the Passion. Today we’ll hold off on that to the very end. We’ll give the Passion the last word and then we’ll depart in silence. I hope that even though my tenure with you will be fairly short, that it’s something that might take hold here going forward, but of course that won’t be up to me.

I’ve been leading pilgrimages to the Holy Land for a while now and I hope to return again this fall. I’ve had the extraordinary good fortune to stand in the Palm Sunday Church in Beth Phagee—“the house of the little fig” – at least ten times. Today an ecumenical procession of pilgrims has already made its way from that Church to the Mount of Olives, and from there into the old city of Jerusalem, amid shouts of “hosanna.” It is a life-transforming experience to walk in those places.

Even so, we don’t have to travel halfway around the world, nor two thousand years back in time, to enter into the deep mystery of this day’s events. Our liturgy today seeks to replicate that same drama in order to bring us closer and to make the story more real. Our goal is not only to better understand what happened once upon a time, but what is happening in the world in which we live, right now. For we believe that this is God’s world and that the story of God’s love continues to unfold even now, even in this unsteady and confusing world.

And so the story begins in Beth-Phagee, where Jesus and his disciples have finally arrived after having left Galilee and the Mount of the Transfiguration to make their way to Jerusalem. Some scholars argue that another parade was happening across town at the other end of the holy city and that’s important to say. That other parade was a display of Roman imperial power, as Pontius Pilate rode into the city with horse and chariot and shining armor and the brass bands were playing John Philip Sousa marches. The Romans are worried that in the holy season when pilgrims came from all over the land to the Temple to remember that old, old story of the Exodus that a riot might break out, that someone might start chanting, “let my people go!” And so they are showing their force to try to make sure no one gets any crazy ideas.

The central religious event of this week, Passover, is centered on that Exodus story. Now I suppose that it possible to spiritualize the Exodus narrative to the point where it no longer has any relevance to the “real” world and that would have suited Caesar and his man in Palestine, Pontius Pilate, just fine. As long as the Exodus story can be confined to the distant past and remembered only as something that happened long ago, then it is of little concern to the Romans. It’s just a nice little story the Jews remember with a Seder meal. Who cares? Pass the matzoh, please…

But the point of the story is that it isn’t meant to be confined to Seder prayers: it’s a story about God’s work in the world. It’s a never-ending story about the move from slavery to freedom, a story meant to inspire both hope and action. The old story of the Exodus that is remembered every Passover tells of how God was with a tiny band of slaves to lead them out of the bondage of Egyptian imperial power by tossing horse and rider into the sea.

Now if the Jews who are gathered in Jerusalem begin to connect the dots and see how similar Roman imperial power is to Egyptian imperial power that might lead to an insurrection. The normal response of imperial power, when it feels threatened, is to instill fear. If you have all the power then you make sure people stay very afraid. Frightened people can’t think straight. So maybe that is what that parade on the other side of town is all about: intimidation. Making it clear who’s in charge.

What then, can we say of our little parade from Beth-Phagee to Jerusalem? What exactly is Jesus up to? I want to propose that it’s a protest march and that today as you’ve come to church that is what you have participated in: not a parade so much as a march, a demonstration. A rally.

Jesus is mocking what is happening on the other side of town the way he always does, by acting out a parable to remind his disciples and anyone with eyes to see that all imperial power is temporal and that all empires will come to an end.  He draws on Old Testament language from Zechariah 9 and Psalm 118: so that in the context of this Passover festival he seems to be suggesting that God is about to do a new thing. Hosanna, Son of David, the people cry, remembering that David was king over Israel and Jerusalem was his capital city and that the Messiah is supposed to come into the city to bring about regime change.

The Gospels tend to give Pilate a bit of a free pass. Most scholars think this is because by the time they were finally written down, the last thing that the early Christian community wanted was a full-frontal assault against Rome. By the time the gospels are written down, the Temple has been destroyed by the Roman authorities because of a Jewish insurrection. Rome responds with the military might at its disposal. So even though we will hear today in Luke’s Passion Narrative that Pilate just wants to flog Jesus and then let him go, we need to hear that with critical and discerning ears. In Matthew’s Gospel, we get that famous image of Pilate washing his hands.

The suggestion seems to be that this was all the fault of the Jewish Temple; that they forced Pilate into this. But almost certainly that isn’t how it went down. Almost certainly, Pilate took care of business in the way that imperial power always does, by letting someone else do his dirty work. He wanted, and got, “plausible deniability” that allowed him to publicly wash his hands of the whole mess. But don’t be fooled, as the people of Jesus own day and the early Christians certainly were not fooled. They knew that Pilate was not a good man who lacked the courage to stand up to the Temple authorities, but a grand manipulator who has plenty of blood on his hands that no amount of handwashing could ever get rid of.

What this day is really about is a clash of kingdoms: will it be Caesar or Christ? Will it be the Pax Romana, a peace that is at best an absence of war, or the Pax Christi, the peace of God that passes all understanding? You can’t sit this one out! You can’t sit in the middle of Jerusalem to wait and see what happens. Who is Lord over our lives? These are two very different cultures: one is about the love of power and the other is about the power of love. Which side are you on?

By Friday we’ll see how it all turns out. Or at least we will see what always seems to happen: the forces of evil will align to destroy Jesus and try to silence him. When people get out of line that is what you do: you stir up an angry mob to have them killed. Or you disappear them. End of story.

Except, as it turns out, the best they can do is kill him and yet that is not the end of the story. Friday’s sorrow gives way to Saturday waiting, which ultimately yields to Sunday’s surprising joy. Please come back next Sunday to hear that part of the story but I suspect you all know what’s coming…

In our own day, separating church and state doesn’t mean that religion is only about spiritual matters. The gospel we proclaim has profound implications for our political and economic choices. Claiming Jesus as Lord transcends and critiques all of our political loyalties and ideologies. As Jim Wallis has said, God isn’t a Democrat or a Republican. But when we say, not just today but every week when we gather to break the bread: Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord we are declaring our allegiance to Christ. We are making a political claim that Jesus is Lord, not Pharaoh, not Caesar, not any one who claims to be king. 

Ultimately we remember that this “Son of David” is “king of kings and lord of lords.” And he shall reign forever and ever. As we once more walk this journey of Holy Week, and in particular the three holy days of this coming week, we are not going back in time. We are being re-membered, re-formed, re-newed by the Paschal Mystery. We are being taken once more to the very heart of our faith and the affirmation and insistence that death does not get the last word. Not this time. 

Not ever. Love is stronger than death.