(Note this is the text for a sermon for Reconciler's first worship service to include children throughout the service.)
Today we celebrate the ascension of Jesus Christ. Jesus goes up into heaven. How does Jesus go up? Like a balloon filled with Helium? (Give balloon(s) to one or two children and ask them to hold on to it. And tell them to wait that you will ask them to let them go in a few minutes.) Like a kite on the wind. And what does it meant that Jesus went up, ascended? Look at the various icons and drawings of Jesus’ ascension what is going on in those pictures? What is Jesus doing besides being in the air? Jesus is sitting, and there is a footstool. This is important. But Jesus also is blessing the disciples. Do you see different responses of the disciples?
In the two stories of Jesus’ ascension we heard today Jesus doesn’t just go up into the sky. Jesus also Promises that the Spirit will come after Jesus leaves. We are not left alone by Jesus’ leaving, God is still with us, and oddly enough more with us than when he lived and walked with the disciples in Galilee and Jerusalem. How do you feel when Parents leave for to go out with out you? What if your parents didn’t leave you with a baby sitter or someone you know a friend or other family member but left you with their presence but in a different form: that would be odd but nice wouldn’t it? Jesus has left but is still with us, so not like when parents leave and leave you with someone else. Jesus leaves goes up into the clouds; Yet Jesus is more with us. So then How are we to understand Jesus Going up and yet remaining with us perhaps more present and we more present to God through Jesus Christ, not just through the coming of the Holy Spirit, but because Jesus Christ ascended.
(Tell the Children to let the balloons go) How does it feel to let a balloon go? What if you were outside and let it go up into the sky. So Jesus goes up kind of like a balloon but Heaven isn't in the sky- (Angels in the ceiling) Metaphor of up. Up can mean other things than simply above our heads. We might say when we are feeling good that we are feeling up today. And when we feel sad we may say that we are feeling down. What does up and down say when we use them in this way. Up means we feel good happy joyful, like a balloon floating along easily in the air. When we feel down we feel like we are dragging along the floor like a balloon that has lost its air. There are other meanings of Up. I might say that something that was said was over my head. (Children when parents are talking about things you may not understand completely and are talking to each other they aren’t looking at you they are looking and speaking over your head), so it means I may not fully understand, there is more to what is said than I know or can understand.
So When Luke speaks of Jesus Christ going up and disappearing from view in the clouds, there is more than just that Jesus actually went up into the air. We know God and heaven isn't in space hovering just outside the air surrounding the earth. Up doesn't mean in space, and so the Russian Cosmonaut who went into space and radioed back that he didn't see anybody in space, was looking in the wrong place. So, then Why did Jesus go up?
Being up can literally mean being able to be seen and heard better by a group of people, so a preacher may go up into the pulpit. (Actually go up into the pulpit) If I go up into this old large pulpit I can see you all better but I am also more distant. However if we were in a much larger space Like in the sanctuary next to us, or if the chapel was filled with people, being up if you are in the back or in the front you can see me and hear me just as well. , where as if I am down with everyone those who are closest to me can hear me and see me. (Go down during this sentence) When we say God is up in heaven we mean not that God is in the clouds or in space but that God is in a place where God sees and is aware of everything and that God is able to know each and everyone of us. We also mean that God is both different than we are as human beings. God is above us above our heads; we can’t know everything about god or understand God completely. God speaks over our heads. And yet we can all hear God in heaven no matter who we are. Like being in a pulpit that is raised up so everyone can see and hear the preacher
Jesus Christ ascends, goes up, to God Jesus' Father in heaven like going up into a pulpit and not like helium filled balloons going up into the ceiling or sky. Jesus goes up because Jesus is God and human. Jesus goes up to teach us that God will always be with us and one of us in Jesus Christ who is God and human. In Jesus Christ we are already with God, because God in Jesus Christ is the same as God the father, yet different. We are already with God because Jesus Christ is human and Jesus’ humanity, our humanity in Jesus Christ is with God and is God. This is difficult to understand, it is over all our heads. God showed the first disciples and us that Jesus was both God and human by Jesus going up into the sky and withdrawing into heaven even though heaven isn't actually up.
Since heaven isn’t actually up but heaven is the place from which God is always present everywhere. So, we enter heaven here when we worship, and especially when we go up to the altar and pray over the bread and wine of communion and then receive Jesus Christ in the bread and wine.
So we don't look literally up, and so the angels question the disciples as they stand staring up into the sky. We don't wait to go up into the sky. We live in the world confident that Jesus Christ went to heaven and is with God the Father because Jesus Christ is God. Because of the ascension Jesus, now in heaven, is more present to each and every one of us than he was when he lived and walked in Galilee and Jerusalem. Through the Spirit and the bread and wine of communion Jesus is with us and hears us and we can see him at work in us. Don't look up, but wait and see how God shows God’s self to you in bread and wine and in the presence of the Spirit of Christ, the promised Holy Spirit, in yourself and in others. Heaven is not up in the sense of being somewhere in the sky, but as that place available to everyone. Heaven is that place where God and Jesus Christ can speak and be present to us all, aware of all that takes place in the universe and still present to you and able to speak to you an be with you. Knowing this, seeing Christ ascend, then brings the joy of knowing that God is always with us and beyond our grasp.
Amen.
Showing posts with label Resurection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resurection. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15
The Season of Easter
"Alleluia, Christ is Risen. The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia."
It is now the Season of Easter. In the Church year we have 40 days of fasting in Lent, as we prepare for and contemplate the way of the Cross, followed by 50 days of celebrating and contemplating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We may not all be at this place of rejoicing and experiencing resurrection during this particular season of Easter, but we celebrate not based on our circumstances but based on what God has done. And we celebrate in hope that we will all know and can know now the power of Resurrection in our lives, even in the midst of grief and death and continued struggle. The reality of Easter, of Christ's Resurrection from the Dead, is our hope when things continue to seem dark. So, it is also important in this festive season of Easter to remember our passage through the three Days, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. We need to keep together the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. One is not more crucial than the other. We don't get at the truth by emphasizing one and ignoring the other. The death and Resurrection of Christ is one act of God, to transform the world and bring an end to sin death and all injustice and unrighteousness. The death and Resurrection of Jesus then aren't primarily about human experience, but about God's acts to return all things to God, that all may be found in the source of all life and who is life and light itself.
May this season of Easter be full of God's joy and peace.
It is now the Season of Easter. In the Church year we have 40 days of fasting in Lent, as we prepare for and contemplate the way of the Cross, followed by 50 days of celebrating and contemplating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We may not all be at this place of rejoicing and experiencing resurrection during this particular season of Easter, but we celebrate not based on our circumstances but based on what God has done. And we celebrate in hope that we will all know and can know now the power of Resurrection in our lives, even in the midst of grief and death and continued struggle. The reality of Easter, of Christ's Resurrection from the Dead, is our hope when things continue to seem dark. So, it is also important in this festive season of Easter to remember our passage through the three Days, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. We need to keep together the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. One is not more crucial than the other. We don't get at the truth by emphasizing one and ignoring the other. The death and Resurrection of Christ is one act of God, to transform the world and bring an end to sin death and all injustice and unrighteousness. The death and Resurrection of Jesus then aren't primarily about human experience, but about God's acts to return all things to God, that all may be found in the source of all life and who is life and light itself.
May this season of Easter be full of God's joy and peace.
Monday, April 28
Sixth Sunday of Easter - The Spirit of Truth
New Testament: Acts 17:22-31
Psalm: Psalm 66:8-20
Epistle: 1 Peter 3:13-22
Gospel: John 14:15-21
First Peter tells us to be ready to give a defense to any who ask. People I know, people we know, our culture asking, about our hope, our faith. Do we know how to answer? Are we ready to give a defense? As I prepared this sermon I was listening to David J’s album Urban Urbane. David J was a member of the seminal Goth band Bauhaus, who broke up and went on to do their own projects you may be more familiar the Peter Murphy or Love and Rockets and Daniel Ash. David J went on to do more experimental rock and jazzy projects. Urban Urbane as an album deals with as the album title indicates the realities and contradictions of our urbanized world. At the end of this album comes the son No Faith, hear is a questioner, asking the questions, and asserting both a longing for truth and the loss of truth.
No Faith by David J, Album Urban Urbane
Well, I don't know what
The question is
But, Lord give me an answer
Don't know the question
But please give an answer
Searching high, searching low
High, low
I got no faith
In no Catholic churches
Can't waste no faith
On no, no capital purchase
I got no faith in no
Cosmic casino
Run by some guru
In a white stretch limosino
Searching high and low
I got no faith
In no academican
I got no faith
In no evangelist
With a mission
I got no faith
In no government in session
Neo-fascists practiced
In the art of false impression
Searching high and low
Where to go?
I got no faith
In no national institution
Built on an arms deal
And compulsory contribution
No faith in the rich
No faith in the poor
Little faith in anarchy
And no faith in the law
Searching high
Searching low
I got no faith
In no, no human nature
Look at all the armies
And the rape of Mother Nature
I got no faith
In no marital status
Resulting in attrition
And eventual hiatus
Searching high
Searching low
High, low
High, low
How do we answer such questions, such a searching? We too struggle with these questions and yet we are hear. We have some hope in the midst of our own questions. We have been facing some of our own doubts In the face of the resurrection of Jesus in this season of Easter. There are claims of truth in the texts we have been reading, but we do not want to be exclusive. And so we wonder at the words of Jesus that say I am the Way the Truth and the Life. Even so Jesus’ words in John claim a unique position. The particularity of Jesus of Nazareth is necessary for knowing god. All three of our texts say things like the World does not know God, that even when cultures or religions may have some inkling of God, even as creator that that portion of knowledge is ignorance, if it does not lead to Jesus Christ the one risen from the dead. Our texts I think should cause us to doubt what we believe about truth, about inclusive and exclusivist positions concerning the Church.
Our position on truth is perhaps understandable. If truth is abstract and non-relational, if it is something I either poses or don’t, if it is something I can wield in self-righteous satisfaction and demand that others then do as I say because I have the truth and others do not, then our objections to an exclusivist truth are on the right track. Though this reading of our Scriptures is from a position of power and pride foreign to the texts themselves. What I ask of us tonight is to admit that the interpretations we have heard are mistaken and to look at the texts before us from their perspective when Christians were not the powerful but the persecuted, and hear then what our this attitude can tell us about truth and the accounting of our faith and hope.
There is no coercion in this presentation of truth, though there are clear boundaries, but they are permeable boundaries. No one is beyond the bounds of God’s love, not even the dead who died in the flood because they would not repent. In these texts there is no fortress wall, but in the end either you know God in Jesus Christ as the one who is raised from the dead and are saved or you do not. If you do not you are invited to know Jesus Christ. There is no other way to fully know God, who is creator, except as trinity, father Son and Holy Spirit, not because some human said so, but because God has only acted in full self-revelation in Jesus Christ. If you want to know the truth one must be in relationship with Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is God and God is truth. This is the logic of these passages.
Three things I’d like to draw our attention to concerning our relationship to this truth that is being in relationship with God. 1) Our relationship to truth is in our being priests. We are to handle our words, and those we speak to about the truth as if they are holy things as though we are priests attending to our most sacred duty. 2) While we are called to recognize that other cultures and religions may have some sense of the truth of God, we are also called to proclaim that only in relationship to Christ can that portion of truth be fulfilled. 3) The truth is about entering the divine relationship of the Holy Trinity who is truth, which thus the truth compels us to obey Jesus’ command to Love, but it is only in the relationship to Jesus that we find this love that is truth.
First Peter is a bit of a rambling epistle and so there is much packed into this brief epistle and this brief passage. It is difficult to pin down one theme. But a theme in this epistle is our priesthood as members of the Church. Our priesthood is derivative from Christ’s. The holiness then spoken of our priesthood is not our possession, but something we receive. Peter begins his epistle calling us back to the time of the Exodus when God took slaves out of Egypt and then called them a nation of priests a holy people, not because of their worthiness but because of what God had done. Our priesthood is not a source of pride but of humility.
We encounter the priestly theme in our passage when Peter moves from discussing our suffering and persecution to how others and we may respond to our suffering. So, in the midst of our struggles in life we are to sanctify Christ in our selves, in our hearts, we are to remember our priesthood our being set apart. Then so having remembered our set apartness in Christ, we are to handle the demand and our answer as to why we have any hope, with gentleness and fear (RSV says reverence). We are to handle the question and our answer, the questioner and the relationship with the carefulness of handling holy objects. This approach to our defense or answer is one of careful attention as a priest attending to the most sacred duty. There is no pride or cavalier attitude allowable in the moment of handling holy things. Our faith, the reason we can have hope in the world and those who notice our faith and our hope, are not to be treated cavalierly or roughly but with holy fear. We are called to answer gently. We are not to act rashly or out of anger or even out of a need to persuade. We are also not to act as if Jesus Christ makes no difference. We are to handle the situation as holy that is to se that occasion and our faith and the person we encounter as a holy thing that we offer to God as priests. We do so because Christ did this and acted as priest not only for the living but also for those souls who having rejected the truth of God in the times of Noah were preached to by Christ. In baptism we are like Noah saved form the flood, for in it we are given a clean conscience through the Resurrection of Christ. We are priests; we have hope and faith because of the work of Christ and our identification with the priestly work of Christ in baptism. As priests we are to proclaim this truth about Christ and the salvation that is found in being identified with Christ’s.
This is also the proclamation Paul gives in Athens when he finds a very religious and inclusive people, so inclusive that they include an altar to their ignorance, to the unknown God. Athens is perhaps not far from where we are at in our context today. In some sense we still harkens back to this seat of philosophy and intellectual center, Plato and Socrates. Our philosophers, intellectuals and many beyond the walls of the academy share this attitude today both of intellectual dispute, search for truth and attempt to be inclusive of all assertions of truth. We learn from Paul that we don’t have to condemn this that we can look into our culture and find the portions of the truth that is known or discovered. Paul goes beyond praise and demonstrates from their own poets’ praise of Zeus that they know something of this God, who is creator, even if this knowledge is, in comparison to knowing Christ, ignorance. Paul recognizes that in culture there may be bits of truth, the beginnings of God’s self revelation, but he is clear to the Athenians that this truth is ignorance if it is not joined with the knowing God in Jesus Christ, who is raised from the Dead.
The particularity of this claim of truth and that the truth is manifest in someone raised from the dead is too much for the Athenians. It is also too much in our context. Perhaps too much for we who have faith in Jesus Christ? I too have struggled with this. What of those who remain with only the portion of truth? In college I had a professor who was Buddhist with whom I studied Buddhism. If it were not for Christ raised from the dead I could have easily become a Buddhist or Hindu. In my conversations with my professor we talked and I saw in him the gentleness of Christ and the presence of the Spirit, and yet I also had to admit that it was partial, that I could recognize the Spirit because I knew Christ. My professor thought challenged me, to recognize the difference and incompatibility of Buddhism and Christianity. I could not follow Buddha and believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and God. Christianity did not claim that Jesus was a Buddha one who had just achieved enlightenment like everyone else can with enough time. We believe that God was in God’s fullness in Jesus Christ, and the Resurrection is the sign of that the universal truth was in one particular human being. Some of those philosophers and religious reject the Paul’s proclamation of this truth, and remain in the ignorance of the altar to the unknown god, others hearing this connection between their acknowledgement of ignorance of the truth ask to hear more, and some like Dionysius the Aeropagite, accept Paul’s proclamation. Paul wavers neither from commending the small bits of truth their culture has come to nor from asserting that Jesus Christ, the one risen from the dead is the only full revelation of God. The only way to come into the full truth their culture and religion already recognizes is to accept the risen one.
It is the risen one, or rather the one who is to be raised, who speaks to us about our being sent the Spirit of Truth, if we show our love for Jesus by keeping his commandments and thus being in relationship with him. Through Jesus we have relationship with The Father and the Spirit of Truth. These are intended as words of comfort Jesus gives to the disciples knowing he is going to his death and they will be fore a time scattered. There is an assurance that the disciples will not be bereft of relationship to Jesus or God. The assurance that we are not left alone as Jesus’ followers. These words then are not intended to boost our egos as believers, but to give comfort and assurance of relationship. If these words are used for a basis of self-assurance and pride then such an interpretation is a lie foreign to the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit, the advocate, the one who is given so that we may remain in relationship with Jesus Christ, who is one with God the Father, is the Truth as Jesus is the Truth, because all are one and God in relationship in truth and love. Remember the commands Jesus gives are summarized in the command to love one another, spoken at the beginning of this speech of Christ’s that he gives just before he is arrested, which we heard weeks ago on Maundy Thursday. The assurance of these words is that in all that is going to happen in all the confusion that the followers of Jesus are not being left without relationship to Jesus and to God, who is trinity. The Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, are all the truth, we are to relate in love to the truth and obey the truth out of love. This truth should bring us to love one another and neighbor, because truth is a person, and the truth is to be in relationship with the God of Jesus Christ.
All our passages are about truth because God is the truth, the god revealed to us in Jesus Christ who is raised from the dead. There is no other God, but this God, no other full revelation of this God than in the incarnation of the Son as Jesus of Nazareth. This truth as such can only be received in relationship. This isn’t about my experience or my truth this is about the Spirit of Truth who is given to those who enter into relationship with God through the one who is the incarnation of God and thus died and rose from the dead. This is not faith in me as a preacher, or us as Christians or the Church as separate from Jesus Christ, but faith in the Raised one Jesus Christ. Through faith we enter this relationship. By God’s saving acts in Jesus Christ we are made holy and made to be priests. We are to handle ourselves our words about the truth, which is God, and those who demand an answer to why we have hope and faith with reverence and gentleness. We are to be gentle, to act out of love, to hold all things reverently. In so doing we both acknowledges that in various cultures and religions there is some truth and that there is only one complete revelation of God. There is only one who has the whole truth and that is Jesus Christ, because Jesus is God. All other knowledge experience and understanding of God, is partial and thus also an ignorance. But we are to show forth the love, to show that truth is a person, with whom through the incarnation we can have a relationship. We then as Christians as members of the Church, the body of Christ, are possessed by the truth we do not posses it. We only can proclaim what we have received, we are made holy not by our having something but by the act of God in Jesus Christ through Baptism. Salvation is about being in relationship with God. From this relationship come the proclamation and the truth claims of the Church. Everything is bound up with Christ, the one risen from the dead, as the full revelation of God. God came in our midst to reveal God’s self to us and save us through that revelation because without it we only had our ignorance, our meager groping after the truth and God. In the end all other truth claims even ones that get it partially right are ignorance in comparison to knowing and having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who is the truth, and who give us the Spirit of truth, which is expressed and given in gentleness love and compassion.
Psalm: Psalm 66:8-20
Epistle: 1 Peter 3:13-22
Gospel: John 14:15-21
First Peter tells us to be ready to give a defense to any who ask. People I know, people we know, our culture asking, about our hope, our faith. Do we know how to answer? Are we ready to give a defense? As I prepared this sermon I was listening to David J’s album Urban Urbane. David J was a member of the seminal Goth band Bauhaus, who broke up and went on to do their own projects you may be more familiar the Peter Murphy or Love and Rockets and Daniel Ash. David J went on to do more experimental rock and jazzy projects. Urban Urbane as an album deals with as the album title indicates the realities and contradictions of our urbanized world. At the end of this album comes the son No Faith, hear is a questioner, asking the questions, and asserting both a longing for truth and the loss of truth.
No Faith by David J, Album Urban Urbane
Well, I don't know what
The question is
But, Lord give me an answer
Don't know the question
But please give an answer
Searching high, searching low
High, low
I got no faith
In no Catholic churches
Can't waste no faith
On no, no capital purchase
I got no faith in no
Cosmic casino
Run by some guru
In a white stretch limosino
Searching high and low
I got no faith
In no academican
I got no faith
In no evangelist
With a mission
I got no faith
In no government in session
Neo-fascists practiced
In the art of false impression
Searching high and low
Where to go?
I got no faith
In no national institution
Built on an arms deal
And compulsory contribution
No faith in the rich
No faith in the poor
Little faith in anarchy
And no faith in the law
Searching high
Searching low
I got no faith
In no, no human nature
Look at all the armies
And the rape of Mother Nature
I got no faith
In no marital status
Resulting in attrition
And eventual hiatus
Searching high
Searching low
High, low
High, low
How do we answer such questions, such a searching? We too struggle with these questions and yet we are hear. We have some hope in the midst of our own questions. We have been facing some of our own doubts In the face of the resurrection of Jesus in this season of Easter. There are claims of truth in the texts we have been reading, but we do not want to be exclusive. And so we wonder at the words of Jesus that say I am the Way the Truth and the Life. Even so Jesus’ words in John claim a unique position. The particularity of Jesus of Nazareth is necessary for knowing god. All three of our texts say things like the World does not know God, that even when cultures or religions may have some inkling of God, even as creator that that portion of knowledge is ignorance, if it does not lead to Jesus Christ the one risen from the dead. Our texts I think should cause us to doubt what we believe about truth, about inclusive and exclusivist positions concerning the Church.
Our position on truth is perhaps understandable. If truth is abstract and non-relational, if it is something I either poses or don’t, if it is something I can wield in self-righteous satisfaction and demand that others then do as I say because I have the truth and others do not, then our objections to an exclusivist truth are on the right track. Though this reading of our Scriptures is from a position of power and pride foreign to the texts themselves. What I ask of us tonight is to admit that the interpretations we have heard are mistaken and to look at the texts before us from their perspective when Christians were not the powerful but the persecuted, and hear then what our this attitude can tell us about truth and the accounting of our faith and hope.
There is no coercion in this presentation of truth, though there are clear boundaries, but they are permeable boundaries. No one is beyond the bounds of God’s love, not even the dead who died in the flood because they would not repent. In these texts there is no fortress wall, but in the end either you know God in Jesus Christ as the one who is raised from the dead and are saved or you do not. If you do not you are invited to know Jesus Christ. There is no other way to fully know God, who is creator, except as trinity, father Son and Holy Spirit, not because some human said so, but because God has only acted in full self-revelation in Jesus Christ. If you want to know the truth one must be in relationship with Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is God and God is truth. This is the logic of these passages.
Three things I’d like to draw our attention to concerning our relationship to this truth that is being in relationship with God. 1) Our relationship to truth is in our being priests. We are to handle our words, and those we speak to about the truth as if they are holy things as though we are priests attending to our most sacred duty. 2) While we are called to recognize that other cultures and religions may have some sense of the truth of God, we are also called to proclaim that only in relationship to Christ can that portion of truth be fulfilled. 3) The truth is about entering the divine relationship of the Holy Trinity who is truth, which thus the truth compels us to obey Jesus’ command to Love, but it is only in the relationship to Jesus that we find this love that is truth.
First Peter is a bit of a rambling epistle and so there is much packed into this brief epistle and this brief passage. It is difficult to pin down one theme. But a theme in this epistle is our priesthood as members of the Church. Our priesthood is derivative from Christ’s. The holiness then spoken of our priesthood is not our possession, but something we receive. Peter begins his epistle calling us back to the time of the Exodus when God took slaves out of Egypt and then called them a nation of priests a holy people, not because of their worthiness but because of what God had done. Our priesthood is not a source of pride but of humility.
We encounter the priestly theme in our passage when Peter moves from discussing our suffering and persecution to how others and we may respond to our suffering. So, in the midst of our struggles in life we are to sanctify Christ in our selves, in our hearts, we are to remember our priesthood our being set apart. Then so having remembered our set apartness in Christ, we are to handle the demand and our answer as to why we have any hope, with gentleness and fear (RSV says reverence). We are to handle the question and our answer, the questioner and the relationship with the carefulness of handling holy objects. This approach to our defense or answer is one of careful attention as a priest attending to the most sacred duty. There is no pride or cavalier attitude allowable in the moment of handling holy things. Our faith, the reason we can have hope in the world and those who notice our faith and our hope, are not to be treated cavalierly or roughly but with holy fear. We are called to answer gently. We are not to act rashly or out of anger or even out of a need to persuade. We are also not to act as if Jesus Christ makes no difference. We are to handle the situation as holy that is to se that occasion and our faith and the person we encounter as a holy thing that we offer to God as priests. We do so because Christ did this and acted as priest not only for the living but also for those souls who having rejected the truth of God in the times of Noah were preached to by Christ. In baptism we are like Noah saved form the flood, for in it we are given a clean conscience through the Resurrection of Christ. We are priests; we have hope and faith because of the work of Christ and our identification with the priestly work of Christ in baptism. As priests we are to proclaim this truth about Christ and the salvation that is found in being identified with Christ’s.
This is also the proclamation Paul gives in Athens when he finds a very religious and inclusive people, so inclusive that they include an altar to their ignorance, to the unknown God. Athens is perhaps not far from where we are at in our context today. In some sense we still harkens back to this seat of philosophy and intellectual center, Plato and Socrates. Our philosophers, intellectuals and many beyond the walls of the academy share this attitude today both of intellectual dispute, search for truth and attempt to be inclusive of all assertions of truth. We learn from Paul that we don’t have to condemn this that we can look into our culture and find the portions of the truth that is known or discovered. Paul goes beyond praise and demonstrates from their own poets’ praise of Zeus that they know something of this God, who is creator, even if this knowledge is, in comparison to knowing Christ, ignorance. Paul recognizes that in culture there may be bits of truth, the beginnings of God’s self revelation, but he is clear to the Athenians that this truth is ignorance if it is not joined with the knowing God in Jesus Christ, who is raised from the Dead.
The particularity of this claim of truth and that the truth is manifest in someone raised from the dead is too much for the Athenians. It is also too much in our context. Perhaps too much for we who have faith in Jesus Christ? I too have struggled with this. What of those who remain with only the portion of truth? In college I had a professor who was Buddhist with whom I studied Buddhism. If it were not for Christ raised from the dead I could have easily become a Buddhist or Hindu. In my conversations with my professor we talked and I saw in him the gentleness of Christ and the presence of the Spirit, and yet I also had to admit that it was partial, that I could recognize the Spirit because I knew Christ. My professor thought challenged me, to recognize the difference and incompatibility of Buddhism and Christianity. I could not follow Buddha and believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and God. Christianity did not claim that Jesus was a Buddha one who had just achieved enlightenment like everyone else can with enough time. We believe that God was in God’s fullness in Jesus Christ, and the Resurrection is the sign of that the universal truth was in one particular human being. Some of those philosophers and religious reject the Paul’s proclamation of this truth, and remain in the ignorance of the altar to the unknown god, others hearing this connection between their acknowledgement of ignorance of the truth ask to hear more, and some like Dionysius the Aeropagite, accept Paul’s proclamation. Paul wavers neither from commending the small bits of truth their culture has come to nor from asserting that Jesus Christ, the one risen from the dead is the only full revelation of God. The only way to come into the full truth their culture and religion already recognizes is to accept the risen one.
It is the risen one, or rather the one who is to be raised, who speaks to us about our being sent the Spirit of Truth, if we show our love for Jesus by keeping his commandments and thus being in relationship with him. Through Jesus we have relationship with The Father and the Spirit of Truth. These are intended as words of comfort Jesus gives to the disciples knowing he is going to his death and they will be fore a time scattered. There is an assurance that the disciples will not be bereft of relationship to Jesus or God. The assurance that we are not left alone as Jesus’ followers. These words then are not intended to boost our egos as believers, but to give comfort and assurance of relationship. If these words are used for a basis of self-assurance and pride then such an interpretation is a lie foreign to the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit, the advocate, the one who is given so that we may remain in relationship with Jesus Christ, who is one with God the Father, is the Truth as Jesus is the Truth, because all are one and God in relationship in truth and love. Remember the commands Jesus gives are summarized in the command to love one another, spoken at the beginning of this speech of Christ’s that he gives just before he is arrested, which we heard weeks ago on Maundy Thursday. The assurance of these words is that in all that is going to happen in all the confusion that the followers of Jesus are not being left without relationship to Jesus and to God, who is trinity. The Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, are all the truth, we are to relate in love to the truth and obey the truth out of love. This truth should bring us to love one another and neighbor, because truth is a person, and the truth is to be in relationship with the God of Jesus Christ.
All our passages are about truth because God is the truth, the god revealed to us in Jesus Christ who is raised from the dead. There is no other God, but this God, no other full revelation of this God than in the incarnation of the Son as Jesus of Nazareth. This truth as such can only be received in relationship. This isn’t about my experience or my truth this is about the Spirit of Truth who is given to those who enter into relationship with God through the one who is the incarnation of God and thus died and rose from the dead. This is not faith in me as a preacher, or us as Christians or the Church as separate from Jesus Christ, but faith in the Raised one Jesus Christ. Through faith we enter this relationship. By God’s saving acts in Jesus Christ we are made holy and made to be priests. We are to handle ourselves our words about the truth, which is God, and those who demand an answer to why we have hope and faith with reverence and gentleness. We are to be gentle, to act out of love, to hold all things reverently. In so doing we both acknowledges that in various cultures and religions there is some truth and that there is only one complete revelation of God. There is only one who has the whole truth and that is Jesus Christ, because Jesus is God. All other knowledge experience and understanding of God, is partial and thus also an ignorance. But we are to show forth the love, to show that truth is a person, with whom through the incarnation we can have a relationship. We then as Christians as members of the Church, the body of Christ, are possessed by the truth we do not posses it. We only can proclaim what we have received, we are made holy not by our having something but by the act of God in Jesus Christ through Baptism. Salvation is about being in relationship with God. From this relationship come the proclamation and the truth claims of the Church. Everything is bound up with Christ, the one risen from the dead, as the full revelation of God. God came in our midst to reveal God’s self to us and save us through that revelation because without it we only had our ignorance, our meager groping after the truth and God. In the end all other truth claims even ones that get it partially right are ignorance in comparison to knowing and having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who is the truth, and who give us the Spirit of truth, which is expressed and given in gentleness love and compassion.
Sunday, April 20
Fifth Sunday of Easter- The Way The Truth and The Life
Sermon preached by Jorge Sanchez
New Testament: Acts 7:55-60
Psalm: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
Epistle: 1 Peter 2:2-10
Gospel: John 14:1-14
"I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me": one of the most memorable, most poetic, and most often quoted verses in the Gospels, maybe in all the Christian Scriptures. And I find it terrifying.
When I first got the invitation to preach, I was told that I could choose from among a few Sundays, but that this Sunday, today, the Fifth Sunday of Easter, was the Pastoral Team's first choice of when I was to preach.
I looked up the lectionary readings, saw this Gospel, and immediately thought, "Well, that Sunday's out."
Yet as I read the other lessons for other Sundays, this Sunday and particularly this Gospel kept harassing me. After some thought, I decided to accept the challenge and the call God was issuing me through the Pastoral Team's preference.
The Pastoral Team's preference was just that —a preference— but I think God took it over to make it a call to wrestle with the Scriptures.
As I am sure is the case with many, if not most of you, I find this verse greatly troubling. It is a seemingly exclusivist statement; therein lies the great stumbling block for me. No Jesus equals no God equals no heaven, as the rest of the chapter explains or at least implies with its mentions of the many dwelling places in the Father's house.
Exclusivity, in general, does not sit well with me. So much so that for a few years in college and a few after I was a practicing Baha'i, and shortly after Hank was born, when I was beginning to sense a call to ministry and a deeper connection with God, I though of answering that sense of call within the Unitarian Universalist tradition. While I feel certain of what the Truth is, I am not comfortable with that Truth becoming a barrier; indeed, I do not think the Truth is a barrier, the way so many mis-use this verse to make it a litmus test as to who is and who is not, who may and who may not call themselves children of God.
So there I was, thinking about preaching for the first time, and I could choose to look at this verse —this scary verse that made me very suspicious and defensive— or I could choose another. So, as I
am a fool, I chose to preach tonight.
And before I begin reflecting on tonight's lessons, I hope that, if nothing else, you realize the necessity of grappling with passages of Scripture that are troubling, confusing, seemingly uncharitable and exclusive. While in our own personal study we may be able to say, as Marilynne Robinson says, "One wishes it were not so," we cannot in our witness to the church and the world. Too often those who identify as progressive/liberal/pick-your-label Christians simply pass over these passages about sex, or vengeance, or patriarchy, or exclusivity with a dismissive "Oh, the Spirit says something different now," or "Well, it's clear that's just wrong." That's not enough.
So, once I tried to figure out what this Gospel meant I looked at this passage in context, both of John's Gospel and the lectionary.
Something I had never noticed is that Jesus says this after the washing of feet. Jesus says this right before he dies. Judas has ducked out of the party early, and the Apostles know something is up. Thomas asks, "Where are you going?" Phillip pleads, "Show us the Father." They all look at him and, with their eyes, they say, "Throw us a freakin' bone here, Jesus. Things are getting weird. Things are getting scary."
And Jesus gives this perplexing, baffling, challenging, non-answer: "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Jesus is saying here the Incarnation is sufficient for knowing God: "Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do." If you want to know God, Philip, do the works that I do, because I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." To know God do the works I do.
And here is a new challenge this presents: the one who does the works of God knows God, whether we agree with that one or not. That includes Christians we disagree with as well as non-Christians who are doing the work of God. With a seemingly exclusive statement, Jesus includes all those who do the work of God and thereby know God. Jesus healed and consoled and guided, but he also prayed quietly in the Temple and included and, yes, rebuked people, pushing them closer to the truth of their lives to hopefully push them closer to the Truth of the Gospels.
We the many members of the Body may not always understand each other, may not always agree with each other, but the multi-faceted even idiosyncratic witness we give is the very Incarnation itself: it is the Way, the Truth, the Life. No one comes to the Father except by finding and accepting one's unique vocation, right here, right now, both short-term and long-term: it might be changing baby diapers or adult diapers or dealing with the crap we get from a person who's hurting or scared or lost or drunk with power or willfully oblivious to the needs of others.
Take Stephen. Poor Stephen! A man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, a deacon, chosen and set aside to serve —to do the works of discipleship, to take care of the most marginalized of the marginal, the widows and the poor— he walks the Way, the Truth, the Life, and less than sixty verses later it gets him stoned! That stinks! Discipleship sucks! The Way is hard! Thank God for those dwelling places, otherwise Stephen is S.O.L. So associated has Stephen been with his martyrdom that he is often depicted in artwork with those fateful stones floating around him or even resting on his tonsured head.
What does this mean for us? The stewardship we expect to be our vocation might not be what we are remembered for; our witness might be associated with some rather unpleasant rocks. I say this because our vocation goes beyond social justice. It is easy to think of serving those who are economically or politically disenfranchised, but this is a diverse neighborhood in many ways. Part of this church's ministry might be to minister to the spiritually lost and poor, a ministry I find somewhat distasteful. I grew up Roman Catholic, so the focus on solidarity and service to the poor runs deep, but I wonder if sometimes we are also called to minister to those who are poor in hidden ways.
But take note, even in that hard, hard moment of martyrdom, putting his money where his mouth was, taking his last stumbling Steps, Stephen prays for those who stone him. Not condescendingly, not self-righteously, not smugly, but in love, in the love of the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
And yet First Peter consoles us, as if the two poles of the Way are martyrdom and consolation: long for the spiritual milk of fellowship, of love, of the good in the world. "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people." We are to live as a body of priests to serve God and God through God's people. You —like Peter, Thomas, Philip, Mary Magdalene, Thecla, Junia— are not perfect, often fearful, sometimes sinful, but good enough because we are children of God through the Incarnation.
"I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life." The Way is hard but it is do-able, scary, but be not afraid because we are up to the task.
Andrew Marr of Saint Gregory's Abbey quotes another monk, Sebastian Moore of Downside Abbey, as saying "Fear keeps the show going the way we know it and prefer it."
Marr explains that the "show" referred to is "the tendency to keep our society going by making a point of excluding some people s o that we can define ourselves by what we are not rather than we are. In the risen life, [in the life of an Easter people] we define ourselves by who we are —children of God.
Christ is risen. Let us walk the Way, proclaim the Truth, and embrace the Life as children of God, gathering around the Table and inviting everyone —everyone— in.
New Testament: Acts 7:55-60
Psalm: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
Epistle: 1 Peter 2:2-10
Gospel: John 14:1-14
"I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me": one of the most memorable, most poetic, and most often quoted verses in the Gospels, maybe in all the Christian Scriptures. And I find it terrifying.
When I first got the invitation to preach, I was told that I could choose from among a few Sundays, but that this Sunday, today, the Fifth Sunday of Easter, was the Pastoral Team's first choice of when I was to preach.
I looked up the lectionary readings, saw this Gospel, and immediately thought, "Well, that Sunday's out."
Yet as I read the other lessons for other Sundays, this Sunday and particularly this Gospel kept harassing me. After some thought, I decided to accept the challenge and the call God was issuing me through the Pastoral Team's preference.
The Pastoral Team's preference was just that —a preference— but I think God took it over to make it a call to wrestle with the Scriptures.
As I am sure is the case with many, if not most of you, I find this verse greatly troubling. It is a seemingly exclusivist statement; therein lies the great stumbling block for me. No Jesus equals no God equals no heaven, as the rest of the chapter explains or at least implies with its mentions of the many dwelling places in the Father's house.
Exclusivity, in general, does not sit well with me. So much so that for a few years in college and a few after I was a practicing Baha'i, and shortly after Hank was born, when I was beginning to sense a call to ministry and a deeper connection with God, I though of answering that sense of call within the Unitarian Universalist tradition. While I feel certain of what the Truth is, I am not comfortable with that Truth becoming a barrier; indeed, I do not think the Truth is a barrier, the way so many mis-use this verse to make it a litmus test as to who is and who is not, who may and who may not call themselves children of God.
So there I was, thinking about preaching for the first time, and I could choose to look at this verse —this scary verse that made me very suspicious and defensive— or I could choose another. So, as I
am a fool, I chose to preach tonight.
And before I begin reflecting on tonight's lessons, I hope that, if nothing else, you realize the necessity of grappling with passages of Scripture that are troubling, confusing, seemingly uncharitable and exclusive. While in our own personal study we may be able to say, as Marilynne Robinson says, "One wishes it were not so," we cannot in our witness to the church and the world. Too often those who identify as progressive/liberal/pick-your-label Christians simply pass over these passages about sex, or vengeance, or patriarchy, or exclusivity with a dismissive "Oh, the Spirit says something different now," or "Well, it's clear that's just wrong." That's not enough.
So, once I tried to figure out what this Gospel meant I looked at this passage in context, both of John's Gospel and the lectionary.
Something I had never noticed is that Jesus says this after the washing of feet. Jesus says this right before he dies. Judas has ducked out of the party early, and the Apostles know something is up. Thomas asks, "Where are you going?" Phillip pleads, "Show us the Father." They all look at him and, with their eyes, they say, "Throw us a freakin' bone here, Jesus. Things are getting weird. Things are getting scary."
And Jesus gives this perplexing, baffling, challenging, non-answer: "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Jesus is saying here the Incarnation is sufficient for knowing God: "Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do." If you want to know God, Philip, do the works that I do, because I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." To know God do the works I do.
And here is a new challenge this presents: the one who does the works of God knows God, whether we agree with that one or not. That includes Christians we disagree with as well as non-Christians who are doing the work of God. With a seemingly exclusive statement, Jesus includes all those who do the work of God and thereby know God. Jesus healed and consoled and guided, but he also prayed quietly in the Temple and included and, yes, rebuked people, pushing them closer to the truth of their lives to hopefully push them closer to the Truth of the Gospels.
We the many members of the Body may not always understand each other, may not always agree with each other, but the multi-faceted even idiosyncratic witness we give is the very Incarnation itself: it is the Way, the Truth, the Life. No one comes to the Father except by finding and accepting one's unique vocation, right here, right now, both short-term and long-term: it might be changing baby diapers or adult diapers or dealing with the crap we get from a person who's hurting or scared or lost or drunk with power or willfully oblivious to the needs of others.
Take Stephen. Poor Stephen! A man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, a deacon, chosen and set aside to serve —to do the works of discipleship, to take care of the most marginalized of the marginal, the widows and the poor— he walks the Way, the Truth, the Life, and less than sixty verses later it gets him stoned! That stinks! Discipleship sucks! The Way is hard! Thank God for those dwelling places, otherwise Stephen is S.O.L. So associated has Stephen been with his martyrdom that he is often depicted in artwork with those fateful stones floating around him or even resting on his tonsured head.
What does this mean for us? The stewardship we expect to be our vocation might not be what we are remembered for; our witness might be associated with some rather unpleasant rocks. I say this because our vocation goes beyond social justice. It is easy to think of serving those who are economically or politically disenfranchised, but this is a diverse neighborhood in many ways. Part of this church's ministry might be to minister to the spiritually lost and poor, a ministry I find somewhat distasteful. I grew up Roman Catholic, so the focus on solidarity and service to the poor runs deep, but I wonder if sometimes we are also called to minister to those who are poor in hidden ways.
But take note, even in that hard, hard moment of martyrdom, putting his money where his mouth was, taking his last stumbling Steps, Stephen prays for those who stone him. Not condescendingly, not self-righteously, not smugly, but in love, in the love of the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
And yet First Peter consoles us, as if the two poles of the Way are martyrdom and consolation: long for the spiritual milk of fellowship, of love, of the good in the world. "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people." We are to live as a body of priests to serve God and God through God's people. You —like Peter, Thomas, Philip, Mary Magdalene, Thecla, Junia— are not perfect, often fearful, sometimes sinful, but good enough because we are children of God through the Incarnation.
"I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life." The Way is hard but it is do-able, scary, but be not afraid because we are up to the task.
Andrew Marr of Saint Gregory's Abbey quotes another monk, Sebastian Moore of Downside Abbey, as saying "Fear keeps the show going the way we know it and prefer it."
Marr explains that the "show" referred to is "the tendency to keep our society going by making a point of excluding some people s o that we can define ourselves by what we are not rather than we are. In the risen life, [in the life of an Easter people] we define ourselves by who we are —children of God.
Christ is risen. Let us walk the Way, proclaim the Truth, and embrace the Life as children of God, gathering around the Table and inviting everyone —everyone— in.
Sunday, April 6
Sermon Third Sunday of Easter
Third Easter RCL year A
Sermon text Luke 24:13-35
Rev. Jacki Belile in her sermon last Sunday encouraged us to see that in the Resurrection and the appearances of Jesus Christ there was space for us to have our doubts--Space for our questions. In our Gospel today we find questions and doubts once again on that first Easter: Cleopas and his companion have many questions. They are puzzled. The world and the recent events don’t make sense. They have decided to get away just a few miles but about a day’s walk. We are not told why they left Jerusalem, and the Apostles those gathered around them. But it may have been simply to get away from the bustle and all the confusion. To get away from all the theories and probably a good bit of arguing about what it all meant and what to make of an empty tomb. Jesus raises from the dead and still, everything remains unclear and uncertain.
I suggest that Cleopas and his companion are more analogous to us 2000 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection than the doubt of Thomas the Twin. I say this because Cleopas’ and his companions encounter with Jesus is liturgical. For it is in Scriptures and at Table that Cleopas and his companion find Christ and are transformed by the encounter with the risen Christ.
As these two disciples are on their way in the world, at first all they have is their experiences and their set hopes and expectations. Yet their hopes and experiences alone don’t give them any answers. If they were left with their doubts and their own experiences and their own interpretations, they would never have seen the Risen Christ or understood what had happened. They are not left on their own Jesus comes along side them and begins to ask them what they are discussing. Jesus gets them to tell him their sense of what has happened and their interpretations. They are somewhat flabbergasted that someone could be ignorant of the events that have just transpired. However they answer that the prophet Jesus who had done great deeds and had great renown was given over to the Roman authorities for execution by crucifixion. The source of their grief and confusion isn’t only that he was prophet and friend but they had hoped he would be the one who would redeem Israel. This Jesus was not only a prophet but would be the one to bring the end of Roman rule over the people of God. They were expecting a restoration of the kingdom of Israel as the holy people of God with King and temple. Yet then add, Even more puzzling is that there are reports that the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth is empty and the claim of the women who found it is that the resurrection has happened. All of this and their entire experience of Jesus does not makes sense. Nothing about it computes, not the possible resurrection nor the crucifixion and the betrayal of the Jewish leaders through handing over Jesus to the Romans makes sense with their expectations of who Jesus was to be.
Is it really a wonder then that they do not recognize Jesus Christ when he is raised? They did not quite know Jesus before his death and resurrection. Their experience and expectations failed to provide the interpretive framework to make sense not only of what happened but also of Jesus himself. Their experience told them that Jesus was a prophet whom they hoped would be the messiah. On their own with their own experience and reason they could not see what had always been right before their eyes.
Jesus then shows them how the Scriptures actually are fulfilled by the death and resurrection of the messiah, himself. Cleopas and companion listen, intrigued but they still don’t see that it is Jesus who is interpreting the events for them from the Scriptures. Luke does not tell us explicitly what Jesus said, but then all four Gospels are filled with references to the ways in which the life, ministry death and Resurrection of Jesus fulfill the Scriptures. Even as Jesus finishes up and pretends to go on ahead, they still just think of him as a stranger, and they invite him to stay with them. After a long days walk they sit down for a meal, and Jesus takes the bread, blesses it breaks it and gives it to them. And then it all falls into place, at the table with Jesus they see. At that moment of recognition Jesus disappears from their sight. In the breaking of the bread it all makes sense the interpretation of the scriptures, crucifixion and resurrection their own failure to see what was right before them because they did not have all the elements, because their experience had failed them. They needed more than just their own reasoning their own interpretations of scriptures and events. What they needed was for the Scriptures and an encounter with the risen Christ to interpret their experiences and opinions and openness to being transformed by that encounter. So they were and they recognize that the transformation had begun on the way as Jesus interpreted their experiences of Jesus from the Scriptures. Now having seen they realize that their hearts began to burn, what had been cold and lifeless had begun to come to life.
In response having now seen and understood they return the way they came and find the Apostles and those with them a buzz with the news that Jesus is raised from the dead. That is they return to the church the gathered faithful that group Jesus had formed. There they find that they are not alone, others have encountered the risen Christ with everything reinterpreted from that encounter. They have one thing to add that the breaking of bread of the last supper is the place of continual encounter with the Risen Christ.
You might recognize this phrase breaking of the bread and this story from the Eucharist liturgy especially the opening lines of the Covenant liturgy I use most Sundays when I preside at table. This is an important connection between this story and our liturgy and worship. In this story we are to see not only an event that happened two thousand years ago but what is to happen can happen is happening in our worship from week to week. The continual transformation and turning cold hearts warm again and again.
We come to worship in the midst of our lives at times they can be difficult and confusing. We sing and pray, but we also hear the Scriptures both the Hebrew Scriptures and their interpretation in light of Jesus Christ crucified and raised again found the New Testament Scriptures. These scriptures not only show us what God has done but are to interpret our experiences in light of Jesus Christ. Yet the Scriptures remain powerless without the encounter with Jesus around the table in Bread and wine. It is here for us that we meet and encounter the risen Christ and are able then to see and encounter Jesus and God in a world, which is a confusing and ambiguous and not infrequently an evil place. Our lives don’t make sense of this liturgy and the scriptures and the Eucharist. We come with all our lives the ups and downs: we come with our joys sorrows doubts and hopes. Then gathered around Word and Table in order that our lives are interpreted and given meaning by the liturgy and our worship. Sometimes some of us will be more able to see and so we come together also to encourage each other, but through reminding each other that it is here that we know we have encountered Christ. Gathered together in the midst of our journey we hear the scriptures and their interpretation and meet Jesus in bread and wine so that our lives take on a meaning beyond what we can experience and interpret on our own. So that our hearts may be kindled with warmth and life. On our own we our like Cleopas and his companion earnest, faithful but puzzled and confused, not knowing what to make of the world we find. In the liturgy we discover that it is God who gives meaning to life, and we encounter the Risen Christ, and he is made known to us in the breaking of the bread.
We then are Cleopas’ companions on the road to Emmaus on the way to encountering Christ. We come to our worship with the experiences of the previous week perhaps having lost sight of Christ and God. We hear the Scriptures to allow them to interpret our experiences and ourselves and to hear again what God has done in Jesus Christ. This begins to transform us and then we come to break bread and drink wine where we find Christ and are fed by him. In this we are transformed. In this is the transformation of the world as we who have gathered around Jesus seeking again and again to encounter him as the one through whom God has overturned the ways of the world. The way to Emmaus is the road of transformation; it is the path of Christian worship found in the liturgy it is the meaning of Holy Communion. The way of Emmaus is the place of our encounter of the risen Christ. It is only through this encounter that we are able to see God and Christ in the world; in the poor, the suffering, the oppressed and the stranger. It gives us sight and warms our hearts to new life.
Sermon text Luke 24:13-35
The Resurrection and the Worship of the Church:
On our way to Emmaus
Are you on your way to Emmaus? Are we all companions of Cleopas on our way? Are we trying to make sense of the world and our place in it yet struggling to figure out how it all fits together? What is this journey to Emmaus in which Christ interprets our experiences through the Scriptures. What is this encounter of Jesus that is both hidden and revealing? What keeps us from seeing Jesus, and what allows us to see him in the world and in our presence here?On our way to Emmaus
Rev. Jacki Belile in her sermon last Sunday encouraged us to see that in the Resurrection and the appearances of Jesus Christ there was space for us to have our doubts--Space for our questions. In our Gospel today we find questions and doubts once again on that first Easter: Cleopas and his companion have many questions. They are puzzled. The world and the recent events don’t make sense. They have decided to get away just a few miles but about a day’s walk. We are not told why they left Jerusalem, and the Apostles those gathered around them. But it may have been simply to get away from the bustle and all the confusion. To get away from all the theories and probably a good bit of arguing about what it all meant and what to make of an empty tomb. Jesus raises from the dead and still, everything remains unclear and uncertain.
I suggest that Cleopas and his companion are more analogous to us 2000 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection than the doubt of Thomas the Twin. I say this because Cleopas’ and his companions encounter with Jesus is liturgical. For it is in Scriptures and at Table that Cleopas and his companion find Christ and are transformed by the encounter with the risen Christ.
As these two disciples are on their way in the world, at first all they have is their experiences and their set hopes and expectations. Yet their hopes and experiences alone don’t give them any answers. If they were left with their doubts and their own experiences and their own interpretations, they would never have seen the Risen Christ or understood what had happened. They are not left on their own Jesus comes along side them and begins to ask them what they are discussing. Jesus gets them to tell him their sense of what has happened and their interpretations. They are somewhat flabbergasted that someone could be ignorant of the events that have just transpired. However they answer that the prophet Jesus who had done great deeds and had great renown was given over to the Roman authorities for execution by crucifixion. The source of their grief and confusion isn’t only that he was prophet and friend but they had hoped he would be the one who would redeem Israel. This Jesus was not only a prophet but would be the one to bring the end of Roman rule over the people of God. They were expecting a restoration of the kingdom of Israel as the holy people of God with King and temple. Yet then add, Even more puzzling is that there are reports that the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth is empty and the claim of the women who found it is that the resurrection has happened. All of this and their entire experience of Jesus does not makes sense. Nothing about it computes, not the possible resurrection nor the crucifixion and the betrayal of the Jewish leaders through handing over Jesus to the Romans makes sense with their expectations of who Jesus was to be.
Is it really a wonder then that they do not recognize Jesus Christ when he is raised? They did not quite know Jesus before his death and resurrection. Their experience and expectations failed to provide the interpretive framework to make sense not only of what happened but also of Jesus himself. Their experience told them that Jesus was a prophet whom they hoped would be the messiah. On their own with their own experience and reason they could not see what had always been right before their eyes.
Jesus then shows them how the Scriptures actually are fulfilled by the death and resurrection of the messiah, himself. Cleopas and companion listen, intrigued but they still don’t see that it is Jesus who is interpreting the events for them from the Scriptures. Luke does not tell us explicitly what Jesus said, but then all four Gospels are filled with references to the ways in which the life, ministry death and Resurrection of Jesus fulfill the Scriptures. Even as Jesus finishes up and pretends to go on ahead, they still just think of him as a stranger, and they invite him to stay with them. After a long days walk they sit down for a meal, and Jesus takes the bread, blesses it breaks it and gives it to them. And then it all falls into place, at the table with Jesus they see. At that moment of recognition Jesus disappears from their sight. In the breaking of the bread it all makes sense the interpretation of the scriptures, crucifixion and resurrection their own failure to see what was right before them because they did not have all the elements, because their experience had failed them. They needed more than just their own reasoning their own interpretations of scriptures and events. What they needed was for the Scriptures and an encounter with the risen Christ to interpret their experiences and opinions and openness to being transformed by that encounter. So they were and they recognize that the transformation had begun on the way as Jesus interpreted their experiences of Jesus from the Scriptures. Now having seen they realize that their hearts began to burn, what had been cold and lifeless had begun to come to life.
In response having now seen and understood they return the way they came and find the Apostles and those with them a buzz with the news that Jesus is raised from the dead. That is they return to the church the gathered faithful that group Jesus had formed. There they find that they are not alone, others have encountered the risen Christ with everything reinterpreted from that encounter. They have one thing to add that the breaking of bread of the last supper is the place of continual encounter with the Risen Christ.
You might recognize this phrase breaking of the bread and this story from the Eucharist liturgy especially the opening lines of the Covenant liturgy I use most Sundays when I preside at table. This is an important connection between this story and our liturgy and worship. In this story we are to see not only an event that happened two thousand years ago but what is to happen can happen is happening in our worship from week to week. The continual transformation and turning cold hearts warm again and again.
We come to worship in the midst of our lives at times they can be difficult and confusing. We sing and pray, but we also hear the Scriptures both the Hebrew Scriptures and their interpretation in light of Jesus Christ crucified and raised again found the New Testament Scriptures. These scriptures not only show us what God has done but are to interpret our experiences in light of Jesus Christ. Yet the Scriptures remain powerless without the encounter with Jesus around the table in Bread and wine. It is here for us that we meet and encounter the risen Christ and are able then to see and encounter Jesus and God in a world, which is a confusing and ambiguous and not infrequently an evil place. Our lives don’t make sense of this liturgy and the scriptures and the Eucharist. We come with all our lives the ups and downs: we come with our joys sorrows doubts and hopes. Then gathered around Word and Table in order that our lives are interpreted and given meaning by the liturgy and our worship. Sometimes some of us will be more able to see and so we come together also to encourage each other, but through reminding each other that it is here that we know we have encountered Christ. Gathered together in the midst of our journey we hear the scriptures and their interpretation and meet Jesus in bread and wine so that our lives take on a meaning beyond what we can experience and interpret on our own. So that our hearts may be kindled with warmth and life. On our own we our like Cleopas and his companion earnest, faithful but puzzled and confused, not knowing what to make of the world we find. In the liturgy we discover that it is God who gives meaning to life, and we encounter the Risen Christ, and he is made known to us in the breaking of the bread.
We then are Cleopas’ companions on the road to Emmaus on the way to encountering Christ. We come to our worship with the experiences of the previous week perhaps having lost sight of Christ and God. We hear the Scriptures to allow them to interpret our experiences and ourselves and to hear again what God has done in Jesus Christ. This begins to transform us and then we come to break bread and drink wine where we find Christ and are fed by him. In this we are transformed. In this is the transformation of the world as we who have gathered around Jesus seeking again and again to encounter him as the one through whom God has overturned the ways of the world. The way to Emmaus is the road of transformation; it is the path of Christian worship found in the liturgy it is the meaning of Holy Communion. The way of Emmaus is the place of our encounter of the risen Christ. It is only through this encounter that we are able to see God and Christ in the world; in the poor, the suffering, the oppressed and the stranger. It gives us sight and warms our hearts to new life.
Monday, February 12
Sermon Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26
Entrusting Ourselves to the Living Stream
Jeremiah is writing in difficult times. His prophesies come from a time of turmoil, and ultimately the end of Israel, of Judah as a sovereign nation. These words from God through Jeremiah come at a time of intense political debate, a time of politicking, a time in which using force of arms or diplomacy is being argued and disputed. It is a time in which doing more is seen as the solution to the problems Judah faces. If only we could do more, have more cohesion, more weapons etc. Sound familiar? 1 Corinthians is written to a church in turmoil. Paul is addressing a church that has split into factions; there are disputes over apostolic authority, disputes over what is or is not a sin and what is acceptable sexual conduct, and theological disputes over what is essential for the faith. Sound familiar? Luke writes his Gospel in a time when the world is dominated by a world power, that is mostly peaceful at its centers of power but on the fringes there is violence, skirmishes and war. At this time these wars at the edges of the empire don’t quite touches the citizens of the great empire. There is a peace of sort, but at a price, Palestine in particular is in turmoil, Rebellions, insurgencies, and ultimately the desolation of Jerusalem. Luke’s Jesus is speaking to an oppressed people on the edge of an empire, people who have been impoverished by the empires political and economic system, while others are made wealthy by that same system. Sound familiar? These are three thumbnail sketches of the context of our three texts for today. I mention these contexts because we have a tendency when we find our Scriptures and the tradition of the Church difficult to accept to claim that everything is so different these days. After all back then 2000 years ago or more, those were different times, believing in God was easier then. Sure there are differences: our science and our technology is different, and we may know more about certain things, like molecules and atoms and electrons and protons, and our conception of the cosmos is vastly different,. However, as I have done, I can also list to you the ways in which things are much the same. We haven’t transcended our humanity, our creatureliness, or our sinfulness. Things are still much the same, we are no more prone to doubt than those of the past, and we are no less gullible and credulous. We still believe our hope is in ourselves, in our ingenuity, our weapons, our politics, or our economics. We still put our trust in the wrong place in the wrong people and wrong things. Our texts remind us there is only one place of refuge, of hope; there is only one place that deserves our ultimate trust.
Listen again to Jeremiah: Jeremiah 17:5-10
17:5 Thus says the LORD: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the LORD.
17:6 They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
17:7 Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.
17:8 They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.
17:9 The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse-- who can understand it?
17:10 I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.
Do we not still do these things, whether we are Democrats, Republicans, radical activists, anarchists, socialists, or communists, or however we might identify. Do we not put our trust in ourselves? We, human flesh, can solve everything if only we have the right economic system, if only we have the right reforms, if only we have the right worldview, if only we have the right weapons, enough troupes, or enough money (either from taxes or from capitalist enterprise). Jeremiah tells us that when we choose to trust in ourselves whether we are reformists or for the status quo, whether we are anarchists or democratic capitalists, we chose to live in a desert. We choose to live on the edge of death if we solely rely on our own human effort and ingenuity. Jeremiah in a time of turmoil when it seems more is demanded to fix the world around us tells us to let go of our trust in ourselves, and to be willing to be planted next to that living stream that is God. Are we tired of death, and suffering and injustice and war, then stop trusting in human effort, seek to live in God’s care for only next to that spring is there true life, every where else is on the edge of death desert a slat plain where little if anything can grow. The trouble is when I say this I am sure we hear a call to be passive, to do nothing! The kings of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem heard this as well, and were convinced Jeremiah was mad or worse had it in for the chosen people of God. But the issue isn’t action or inaction, but rather in whom or what do we put our trust. To whom do we look for the ultimate solution, is it science, is it democracy, is it in money and economy, is it America, the President, the Presidency, in war, in peace, or in activism? Jeremiah says if we put our trust in any of those things we live in a desert. It is all the same, and it is simply not trusting in God. Jeremiah says we have a choice: God, the source of all life, or ourselves, life or death.
The Resurrection is also about life and death. In some sense accepting or rejecting the reality of the Resurrection is the same choice that Jeremiah prophesied, or at least that is what Paul is saying to us in this portion of Corinthians. Paul is not saying that he can prove the historicity of the Resurrection, or that the science and/or popular belief of the day find it an acceptable and believable doctrine. Rather he is saying that if there is no Resurrection then we are on our own, and Christianity is false, or more to the point Christians are hopeless (literally) romantics. Let us be clear the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a nice story or metaphor for Paul, it happened, it is inexplicable and it is the fulcrum of the faith! But why is Paul so adamant that Jesus Christ must have been raised? Isn’t it enough that it symbolizes our life in God? After all it’s not like Christ’s resurrection was simply resuscitation of a body, right? Sure that is so, the Resurrection is more than that so much more. Resurrection is the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s hope in God as the source of life. Paul is clear that without Christ’s resurrection there is no life, if the story simply ends with Jesus in the grave and some enlightenment on the other side, death still wins in the end. Death, that is a desolate world of survival, is all we have, and then the message of the Gospel is a joke. If the love shown us in the life Jesus just leads only to death, if God has not overcome the last enemy death, then love has no power, and there is no life. We then are hopeless romantics. We have a nice fable that might comfort us but has no power, it will not change the world, everything is the same, and death sin and injustice are the final word. This is the world without Resurrection with out a God in whom we can trust for our life. Resurrection is the fulfillment of the promise of Jeremiah 17. If we have encountered life in Jesus Christ, if we have found life in the trust of gathering here together then there is Resurrection.
In the final analysis, Jesus’ beatitudes and woes in Luke depend on the Resurrection for their truth. There is nothing blessed about the poor if God doesn’t bring to life, if God has not overcome that which is the ultimate source of poverty in the world. There is nothing blessed about mourning unless there is the possibility of being comforted in the reality that there is more than the power of the death squad, and the survival of the fittest. If Jesus just suffered we have no hope. If there is no Resurrection there is no danger, no curse or woe in looking after ones own wealth at the cost of others, there is no danger in taking headless comfort and enjoyment in a world of pain and death. This is so because the Resurrection says there is more than simple survival. Through the Resurrection of Christ we know that death, sin and the devil do not have the last word. This is why Paul says that our sins remain if there is no resurrection, because if this is the truth then Jesus Christ died and nothing changed. And if that is so then love is not the answer, love is just a game, a fable we comfort ourselves with. If there is no resurrection then love does not ground the universe, no resurrection and the universe is a cold heartless place, where justice is a pipe dream, and survival of the fittest, and “the Will to power” are the ultimate reality. Chose this day what you will follow, life or death.
So in whom or what do you trust? Do you trust that God raised him who was crucified to life again? Can you accept this thing that is beyond human explanation comprehension and control? This is what the Resurrection asks of us and has always asked. My reading of Corinthians and other passages of the New Testament belie current belief that it was easier 2000 years ago to believe in the Resurrection and a myriad of other doctrines we find hard to swallow. People were naïve then, it is said, Resurrection was a commonplace belief. This Corinthians passage, Thessalonians, Paul in Athens all show that Resurrection (probably for different reasons) was as difficult for people to believe then as it is now. Paul isn’t saying he can prove historically that Jesus rose from the dead, nor that it is explicable according to biology or the laws of physics, Rather he argues it is a matter of true verses false hope. If we are too hope in life that is beyond this desolate world and can also bring this desolate world to life, then the Resurrection is necessary. There is no other way for us to know life for the Resurrection is the ultimate defeat of the enemy of life and love.
If there is no resurrection than we only can hope in our own resources are own small attempts to solve the worlds problems, we can only hope in those who will die, in systems and nations that will pass like every other one before it. Without the Resurrection there is no life, or at least nothing beyond our own attempts to scrape out a life for ourselves. But if you are here I trust some part of you has tasted true life, you have tasted the Resurrection, you have experienced Love as that which grounds all things even though the world witnesses to the reality of death and suffering. The world is being transformed, Jesus has been raised, can you take the risk to really trust in this, in God, who asks you to let go of all our human attempts to control, and can say blessed are you who are poor, in a world that says blessed are you when you are successful and wealthy and can buy everything your heart desires. God says woe to you who are successful and wealthy and can buy everything your heart desires, for that is death, as you trust in only human things. My sisters and brothers there is only one way to truly live, it is in the reality of the Resurrection, trusting in God even when it is unbelievable and improvable, even when your world seems to be crumbling around you. ‘Christ has Died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again” is no fairy tale, it is not a nice metaphor rather it is what gives life to the world; everything else is always already in the grip of death. If you want life you will rest and be nurtured in the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Only in God and the one who has been crucified and raised can we find the nurture sustenance and care we need to act in this world dominated by death, sin and injustice. I urge us, echoing Jeremiah, to only hope and trust in God who is life and love, all else is desolation.
Psalm 1
Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26
Entrusting Ourselves to the Living Stream
Jeremiah is writing in difficult times. His prophesies come from a time of turmoil, and ultimately the end of Israel, of Judah as a sovereign nation. These words from God through Jeremiah come at a time of intense political debate, a time of politicking, a time in which using force of arms or diplomacy is being argued and disputed. It is a time in which doing more is seen as the solution to the problems Judah faces. If only we could do more, have more cohesion, more weapons etc. Sound familiar? 1 Corinthians is written to a church in turmoil. Paul is addressing a church that has split into factions; there are disputes over apostolic authority, disputes over what is or is not a sin and what is acceptable sexual conduct, and theological disputes over what is essential for the faith. Sound familiar? Luke writes his Gospel in a time when the world is dominated by a world power, that is mostly peaceful at its centers of power but on the fringes there is violence, skirmishes and war. At this time these wars at the edges of the empire don’t quite touches the citizens of the great empire. There is a peace of sort, but at a price, Palestine in particular is in turmoil, Rebellions, insurgencies, and ultimately the desolation of Jerusalem. Luke’s Jesus is speaking to an oppressed people on the edge of an empire, people who have been impoverished by the empires political and economic system, while others are made wealthy by that same system. Sound familiar? These are three thumbnail sketches of the context of our three texts for today. I mention these contexts because we have a tendency when we find our Scriptures and the tradition of the Church difficult to accept to claim that everything is so different these days. After all back then 2000 years ago or more, those were different times, believing in God was easier then. Sure there are differences: our science and our technology is different, and we may know more about certain things, like molecules and atoms and electrons and protons, and our conception of the cosmos is vastly different,. However, as I have done, I can also list to you the ways in which things are much the same. We haven’t transcended our humanity, our creatureliness, or our sinfulness. Things are still much the same, we are no more prone to doubt than those of the past, and we are no less gullible and credulous. We still believe our hope is in ourselves, in our ingenuity, our weapons, our politics, or our economics. We still put our trust in the wrong place in the wrong people and wrong things. Our texts remind us there is only one place of refuge, of hope; there is only one place that deserves our ultimate trust.
Listen again to Jeremiah: Jeremiah 17:5-10
17:5 Thus says the LORD: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the LORD.
17:6 They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
17:7 Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.
17:8 They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.
17:9 The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse-- who can understand it?
17:10 I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.
Do we not still do these things, whether we are Democrats, Republicans, radical activists, anarchists, socialists, or communists, or however we might identify. Do we not put our trust in ourselves? We, human flesh, can solve everything if only we have the right economic system, if only we have the right reforms, if only we have the right worldview, if only we have the right weapons, enough troupes, or enough money (either from taxes or from capitalist enterprise). Jeremiah tells us that when we choose to trust in ourselves whether we are reformists or for the status quo, whether we are anarchists or democratic capitalists, we chose to live in a desert. We choose to live on the edge of death if we solely rely on our own human effort and ingenuity. Jeremiah in a time of turmoil when it seems more is demanded to fix the world around us tells us to let go of our trust in ourselves, and to be willing to be planted next to that living stream that is God. Are we tired of death, and suffering and injustice and war, then stop trusting in human effort, seek to live in God’s care for only next to that spring is there true life, every where else is on the edge of death desert a slat plain where little if anything can grow. The trouble is when I say this I am sure we hear a call to be passive, to do nothing! The kings of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem heard this as well, and were convinced Jeremiah was mad or worse had it in for the chosen people of God. But the issue isn’t action or inaction, but rather in whom or what do we put our trust. To whom do we look for the ultimate solution, is it science, is it democracy, is it in money and economy, is it America, the President, the Presidency, in war, in peace, or in activism? Jeremiah says if we put our trust in any of those things we live in a desert. It is all the same, and it is simply not trusting in God. Jeremiah says we have a choice: God, the source of all life, or ourselves, life or death.
The Resurrection is also about life and death. In some sense accepting or rejecting the reality of the Resurrection is the same choice that Jeremiah prophesied, or at least that is what Paul is saying to us in this portion of Corinthians. Paul is not saying that he can prove the historicity of the Resurrection, or that the science and/or popular belief of the day find it an acceptable and believable doctrine. Rather he is saying that if there is no Resurrection then we are on our own, and Christianity is false, or more to the point Christians are hopeless (literally) romantics. Let us be clear the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a nice story or metaphor for Paul, it happened, it is inexplicable and it is the fulcrum of the faith! But why is Paul so adamant that Jesus Christ must have been raised? Isn’t it enough that it symbolizes our life in God? After all it’s not like Christ’s resurrection was simply resuscitation of a body, right? Sure that is so, the Resurrection is more than that so much more. Resurrection is the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s hope in God as the source of life. Paul is clear that without Christ’s resurrection there is no life, if the story simply ends with Jesus in the grave and some enlightenment on the other side, death still wins in the end. Death, that is a desolate world of survival, is all we have, and then the message of the Gospel is a joke. If the love shown us in the life Jesus just leads only to death, if God has not overcome the last enemy death, then love has no power, and there is no life. We then are hopeless romantics. We have a nice fable that might comfort us but has no power, it will not change the world, everything is the same, and death sin and injustice are the final word. This is the world without Resurrection with out a God in whom we can trust for our life. Resurrection is the fulfillment of the promise of Jeremiah 17. If we have encountered life in Jesus Christ, if we have found life in the trust of gathering here together then there is Resurrection.
In the final analysis, Jesus’ beatitudes and woes in Luke depend on the Resurrection for their truth. There is nothing blessed about the poor if God doesn’t bring to life, if God has not overcome that which is the ultimate source of poverty in the world. There is nothing blessed about mourning unless there is the possibility of being comforted in the reality that there is more than the power of the death squad, and the survival of the fittest. If Jesus just suffered we have no hope. If there is no Resurrection there is no danger, no curse or woe in looking after ones own wealth at the cost of others, there is no danger in taking headless comfort and enjoyment in a world of pain and death. This is so because the Resurrection says there is more than simple survival. Through the Resurrection of Christ we know that death, sin and the devil do not have the last word. This is why Paul says that our sins remain if there is no resurrection, because if this is the truth then Jesus Christ died and nothing changed. And if that is so then love is not the answer, love is just a game, a fable we comfort ourselves with. If there is no resurrection then love does not ground the universe, no resurrection and the universe is a cold heartless place, where justice is a pipe dream, and survival of the fittest, and “the Will to power” are the ultimate reality. Chose this day what you will follow, life or death.
So in whom or what do you trust? Do you trust that God raised him who was crucified to life again? Can you accept this thing that is beyond human explanation comprehension and control? This is what the Resurrection asks of us and has always asked. My reading of Corinthians and other passages of the New Testament belie current belief that it was easier 2000 years ago to believe in the Resurrection and a myriad of other doctrines we find hard to swallow. People were naïve then, it is said, Resurrection was a commonplace belief. This Corinthians passage, Thessalonians, Paul in Athens all show that Resurrection (probably for different reasons) was as difficult for people to believe then as it is now. Paul isn’t saying he can prove historically that Jesus rose from the dead, nor that it is explicable according to biology or the laws of physics, Rather he argues it is a matter of true verses false hope. If we are too hope in life that is beyond this desolate world and can also bring this desolate world to life, then the Resurrection is necessary. There is no other way for us to know life for the Resurrection is the ultimate defeat of the enemy of life and love.
If there is no resurrection than we only can hope in our own resources are own small attempts to solve the worlds problems, we can only hope in those who will die, in systems and nations that will pass like every other one before it. Without the Resurrection there is no life, or at least nothing beyond our own attempts to scrape out a life for ourselves. But if you are here I trust some part of you has tasted true life, you have tasted the Resurrection, you have experienced Love as that which grounds all things even though the world witnesses to the reality of death and suffering. The world is being transformed, Jesus has been raised, can you take the risk to really trust in this, in God, who asks you to let go of all our human attempts to control, and can say blessed are you who are poor, in a world that says blessed are you when you are successful and wealthy and can buy everything your heart desires. God says woe to you who are successful and wealthy and can buy everything your heart desires, for that is death, as you trust in only human things. My sisters and brothers there is only one way to truly live, it is in the reality of the Resurrection, trusting in God even when it is unbelievable and improvable, even when your world seems to be crumbling around you. ‘Christ has Died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again” is no fairy tale, it is not a nice metaphor rather it is what gives life to the world; everything else is always already in the grip of death. If you want life you will rest and be nurtured in the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Only in God and the one who has been crucified and raised can we find the nurture sustenance and care we need to act in this world dominated by death, sin and injustice. I urge us, echoing Jeremiah, to only hope and trust in God who is life and love, all else is desolation.
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