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SERMONS,
March-April 2003
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Resurrection of Our Lord Click here for printable .pdf file format Acts 10:34–43 He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him. Galilee. Why of all places, Galilee? It's like Woody Allen said, "God's being permeates everything that exists – except for certain places in New Jersey." Galilee is one of those certain places in New Jersey. Oh, it's pretty enough, nice and green – but it's the people there. Oy, such riff-raff. Galilee – its full name in Hebrew -- galil ha-goyim. The region of the heathens. Yes, a few of the religious live there – but none of them do anything quite properly – none of them quite know how to keep the religious law. They've intermingled with the heathens and the sinners for so long, they're just as bad as the rest. Galilee. Why would the resurrected Jesus want to make his initial appearance in Galilee? Land of the riff-raff, the outcast, the sinners. Oh yes, I forget – he and those men – and those – those putas, those indecent women that traipsed after him instead of staying home where they belonged – the whole lousy bunch is from there. But still – you'd think if he wanted to really grow his church, he would have made his first resurrected appearance some place a little more conducive to attracting – well, the right kind of people -- an up-scale membership. Why not an initial big splash in the temple? Or how about a show of force at Herod's palace – or even Pilate's courtyard? Better yet, go to the center of the empire itself. Show up in the senate, show up in the supreme court, set yourself up in the seat of power. Show people that you mean business. Get the pentagon on your side. Whisper in the president's ear. Then you could really shake things up. Isn't that what your resurrection is really all about? A show of power! Conquest! Triumph! Onward Christian soldiers, Mine eyes have seen the glory!! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified? He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him. He is going ahead of you – to the region of the outcast – to the region of the broken, to the region of the lost, to the regions of those on the margins of life. Go there if you wish to see the resurrected Christ. Do you wish to see the risen Christ? Go to where the homeless are being fed as honored guests, there you will see him just as he told you. Do you wish to see the Christ of Easter? Go to where the outcast are being welcomed and embraced and there you will see him. Do you wish to see the one who is risen? Go to where battered women are sheltered and treated with dignity, there you will see him. Do you wish to see the crucified Christ, triumphant over death? Go to where the sick are being cared for, where the dying are being comforted, and where the prisoners are being visited. There you will see the Risen Christ. He is going ahead of you – to where the last, the lost, and the lowly dwell. Wherever anyone is naked, hungry, abandoned, without hope, rejected, cast-out, cast-off, or out on the farthest edge – and where they are being touched or held or nurtured or prayed with or cried with – where any of the least of these are being treated as the beloved children of the most high God -- there you will see the full splendor of the Crucified and Risen One, there you will see eternal life breaking into the here and now. And there is another place you will meet the risen Christ. Before his death, Jesus declared, "you will see me again when they say, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Wherever two or three sinful people are gathered and say, "Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord," and take bread, give thanks, and break it; and take the cup, give thanks, and drink it – there the risen Christ will meet you. But when Christ meets you in the fullness of his body and blood, he will not leave you standing at the tomb. Nor is he going to let you stand around idle in church for that matter. He's going to lead you to Galilee. Just as he told you. Exodus 12:1-14 Click here for printable .pdf format There's nothing much pretty about feet. Mine are a mess. My heels are calloused and cracked. A couple of the joints bend at odd angles. My toenails are scraggly, broken, and -- well -- just plain gross. I'm sure you're starting to get the picture, so I'll spare you the rest of the gory details. Very few people do have feet that anyone could call "nice-looking." Oh, some people do get pedicures, paint their toenails, and maybe even put on a toe-ring or two – but these are temporary fixes at best. Spend a few hours on your feet in tight-fitting shoes – maybe on a hot day – and you know what the results will be. In the cultures of the middle east, even now as in Biblical times, the feet are considered the most unclean part of the body. And one of the worst social gaffes is to display the soles of the feet to others; to do so is an insult beyond compare. Feet are not pretty. But then feet aren't the only thing about us that isn't pretty. We all have unsightly places within us we don't want anyone to see or know about. And we all have little voices within our heads that remind us that we aren't who others think we are. We all live with the fear that someone, some day, somewhere is going to find out where the skeletons are, is going to see through our public presence, is going dredge up the sins of the past and hold up our present sins for all the world to see. Even if that fear of being shown faithless, fraudulent, and fallen hasn't hit us yet, we need be ware – remember the infamous words of Simon Peter – Oh, no not me Lord – I will never deny you, I will never desert you. I have nothing to hide. My feet are just fine, thank you. The lowliest work of the household is cleaning up the messes of others, including washing their feet. Washing the feet of the household is the work of the most lowly, and it is embarrassing that Jesus the Lord and Teacher stoops to such a thing. The embarrassment is made tragic by the Lord and Teacher's knowledge that in a few hours the ends of his service to them will be denial, abandonment, desertion. In a mere few hours the master's self-emptying will be repaid not with steadfast loyalty and courage but with self-serving actions that belie he was ever in their lives in the first place. Yet knowing all this, still he stoops to wash, still the master stoops to serve. And when supper was ended, he took the cup, and in the midst of faithlessness, gave thanks just the same, and gave it for all to drink saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin." Knowing full well not only their past sin, but the sin they are shortly to enter into, Jesus bestows forgiveness. He bestows forgiveness upon those in his company who are not yet able to forgive others – who are not yet been able to forgive Jesus. Jesus after all has let the disciples down – he is not the super-hero messiah they expected. Rather than flying around in a cape, they found him far too down to earth. He did not storm the palace like he was supposed to, he did not lead the anticipated revolution, he did not bring in the new moral order. His entrance into Jerusalem for his final campaign was an embarrassing failure and now the end is near and their trust in him is at an end. Ah, what a mess. Yet here, in the middle of this mess, Jesus stoops to serve, Jesus stoops to wash the feet of those poor conflicted wretches who are filled with anger, resentment, fear – much of it hidden not only from those around them, but from themselves as well. Jesus generously forgives those who cannot forgive him, loyally gives himself those who will not be there for him in his hour of need, tenderly touches those who will not be at his side to hold or caress his dying body. And so too for us. So too for us with our dirty, cracked, and smelly feet, our dirty, cracked, and smelly lives. Jesus stoops to cleanse, Jesus stoops to forgive, Jesus stoops to heal – us. Us -- who cannot ever get our acts together, who cannot forgive one another as we have been forgiven; Jesus still forgives us who are angry with God, angry with one another, who really aren't too sure we want reconciliation with God, let alone with one another. Yet until the end, our end, Jesus remains loving, steadfast, and faithful to us – loving, steadfast, and faithful to us who half-a-second after we've left the altar are back at it again as if we didn't know him – as if his body hadn't just become one with ours. Knowing all of this, Jesus still stoops to cleanse, to heal, to forgive. What sort of love IS this? And do we dare to be loved in this way? Do we really want to be loved in this way? Be careful here – for if the answer is "yes," everything will be changed. You will be changed – and your life will never be quite the same again. You might just end up loving one another as Christ has first loved you. Sunday of the Passion Isaiah 50:4–9a Click here for printable .pdf format It begins with the first healing story in the Gospel of St. Mark. There was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and the unclean spirit cries out, “What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” “Silence!” commands Jesus. Yes, silence, but not because Jesus can’t abide noisy spirits. We again hear a few verses later that Jesus went throughout the whole area casting out many demons AND he would not permit the demons to speak—because they knew him. And a few verses later, Jesus heals a leper—and warns him “sternly—not to tell anyone!” And again in chapter three of Mark’s gospel we hear that “whenever the unclean spirits saw him they shouted out ‘You are the Son of God.’” Once more, Jesus sternly orders them NOT TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!! And so it goes throughout the Gospel of Mark—Jesus ordering silence concerning his identity. What’s up with that? Here’s Jesus trooping all over Galilee, doing godly good works, and he doesn’t want anybody to know he’s the Son of God?? Why not let word get out that Jesus is the Son of God? Then maybe the stiff-necked religious right would have to shape up and listen to him. What’s wrong with a good show of power? Why all the secrecy? And why is it that the demons are so intent on telling the world that Jesus is the Son of God? It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him...and they mocked him among themselves, saying “He saved others; he cannot save himself...” [The bandits] who were crucified with him also taunted him...When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock, Jesus cried out...“My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last . . . Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” Now there is no stern order for silence. In St. Mark’s Gospel, it is only here at the cross that one can look upon Jesus and declare him to be the Son of God. It is only in this scene of utter abandonment and degradation, in this scene of pain and suffering that one can look upon Jesus and see the face of God. In Mark’s telling of the story it is only in beholding the naked, tortured, brutalized Jesus that one is allowed to proclaim that Jesus is the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God. By contrast, it is wrong and even demonic, to look upon the miracle-working Jesus, the healing Jesus, Jesus the great preacher and see the face of God there. Without the betrayal, without the abandonment, without the mockery, without the torture, without the scream of agony, without the death – Jesus is just another good person. And nothing more!! It is only at the
cross that we can see that Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, something
to be used, but that he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled
himself and became obedient—obedient—to the point of death—even
death on a cross. So let this same mind be in you, says St. Paul—for this is who you are as the baptized sisters and brothers of Christ Jesus—but not ever by your own striving or works, but ever and only by the power of the Holy Spirit present for you, here in this place in Word and Sacrament, truly present, her in this place, this Holy Week and for all the days of your journey. 6 April 2003 Jeremiah 31:31–34 Click here for printable .pdf format Now is the judgement of this world. Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne – Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Look there upon that scaffold, where God is hanged as a common criminal, with thieving fellows on either side. He saved others, himself he cannot save. Gods are supposed to look like gods, winners like winners, losers like losers. And the score on that hill far away, on that Friday long ago: Caesar, one; God, zero. Looks like Caesar wins. Looks like God loses. But looks are deceiving. Sire, we wish to see Caesar. The mighty Caesar, his flag, and his empire – where are they now? Caesar is dust, and his monuments are crumbling tourist attractions. And no one anywhere bows to Caesar's flag or wears it next to the heart. Where are all the mighty emperors, kings, queens, presidents, and prime ministers of this world? Where are all the mighty empires? Where are all their flags? Now is the judgement of this world. Those who love their way of life, their power, their preeminence, they will lose it all. Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Consider a grain of wheat. It falls into the earth and is buried. Buried things usually turn to dust. But the grain of wheat must fall into the earth, or else it will not rise – but what rises from that single grain will look little like what was buried. Still, Jesus' soul is troubled. Our souls are troubled. Shall we say, save us from this hour? No, says Jesus, I have come for this very hour that I may show the world that the only way to life that is eternal is to lay down the power of this world. What would happen if the greatest, most wealthy empire that the world has ever known laid down all of its arms and devoted billions upon billions upon billions of dollars in service to the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the illiterate? What if an empire's flag were the simple white banner of surrender? Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies . . . if it dies, it bears much fruit. Now is the judgement of this world. I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. And so you are justified when you speak and upright in your judgement. We like our power and our privilege. No, be honest; we love our power and our privilege. And we hide our eyes from seeing the sick, the wounded, the poor, the filthy, the least, the last, and the unlovely. We are rich and powerful beyond all telling and we pledge allegiance to the empire and its Caesar, and we minimize your commandments. Yet your way O God is written on our hearts, you have called us your people, you have promised you will be our God. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies . . . Now is the judgement of this world. Have mercy on us,
O God. Wash us through and through of the wickedness within us. Create
in us clean hearts, O God, and renew a right spirit within us. How we
long to see Jesus.
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