Sermon for Easter 7, 5/20/2012, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Here we are in a liturgical in between time -

            after the Ascension, celebrated this last Thursday,

            and before Pentecost, next Sunday,

yet still being in the Easter Season.

The Ascension is placed liturgically 40 days after the Resurrection

            following what Luke the Evangelist wrote in Acts 1.

40 days is a significant, representative  number,

the number of fullness, completion.

The 40 days of appearances of the Risen Christ

indicate a fullness of resurrection witness.

Then with the Ascension as a demarcation, a dividing point,

we are faced with a profound change –

the Risen Christ no longer physically present

so that instead the Risen Christ would be present in us through the HS.

But here in this novena of days in between Ascension and Pentecost

            is the opportunity for personal and community reflection

                        on Resurrection

                        and on new appearances of the Risen Christ to each of us

                                     intimately in and through the Holy Spirit.

So let’s explore Ascension and look at it a bit more closely.

The event of the Ascension marks a distinct break

between the physical appearances of Jesus

and a whole new way for the Resurrection Jesus to appear.

We could say that the Ascension puts closure

on the old familiar way of looking at Jesus.

The disciples had spent a lot of time with their Teacher,

living very closely with him,

listening to his teachings,

witnessing his actions,

being sent out to try all this out themselves

and coming back to him for reflection on their experiences in ministry,

and then seeing it all come to a screeching halt

when Jesus pushed the religious authorities to the breaking point

and he was arrested and executed.

But then here he was again!

But how changed!

He had a solid body, which he invited them to touch, and that could eat food,

but that solid body could show up in a locked room.

At other times he showed up but was not recognized,

and then when he was recognized, he disappeared.

It even seems that in one instance

he appeared in two different places simultaneously.

It seems like this was sort of a transition time for the disciples,

a time in which Jesus was preparing them for a transition

from one way of recognizing his presence to another,

from the physical experience of Jesus,

which was bound by the limitations of space and material presence,

to Resurrection presence

which is unbounded in time and space.

The collect for Ascension Day describes this Resurrection presence this way: 

“…our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens

that he might fill all things…”

No longer bound by a mortal body,

the Resurrection Jesus now thoroughly pervades all life,

all of the universe, all of creation.

And so the Ascension sets things up for Pentecost.

Now if I were a disciple at the time of Jesus

and had the wonderful experience of being physically present with him,

I’m not so sure I would rejoice at the thought of the Ascension.

Who wants to give up what some would call “the real thing”

for an unknown, unseen, untouchable, intangible

resurrection presence of Jesus?

Who wants to give up what they have known and loved about Jesus?

But here is the extremely important point about Ascension:

We have this great human propensity

for holding on to the Jesus of our past experience,

closing off our receptivity to any new – to us – revelation of Jesus.

We would keep Jesus bound

by the limits of our own experience and perception of him.

But Jesus will not be held, will not be restrained.

The point was made very graphically to the disciples

on the mount of the Ascension.

Jesus is taken from their sight in such a way

that it is clear that this is good-bye, the end.

The disciples had no choice;

it was back to town to sit and wait and see what comes next.

True, they were sitting with the promise of Pentecost,

but little did they know what that would be like

or that they themselves would become Resurrection appearances of Christ.

Now what has this to do with Emmanuel right now?

What has this to do with you or with me individually right now?

And can we recognize what transitions we are going through right now?

Well, we always face one transition, an ultimate transition:

            the death of the physical body

            and the transition of birth into a liberated way of being in resurrection.

As it says in 1 John 5, from the Epistle for today,

            “…this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

            Whoever has the Son has life…”

Hallelujah!                          So what is a faithful response to this?

As we move through life with our mortality ever before us,

            we can fearlessly look it in the face

            and make provision for those who will come after us,

knowing we are links in a continuing lineage of family and faith community.

So I will now read to you a rubric from the Book of Common Prayer, page 445,

            the final rubric from the liturgy for Thanksgiving for a Child.

The Minister of the Congregation is directed to instruct the people,

                        from time to time,

            about the duty of Christian parents to make prudent provision

                        for the well-being of their families,

            and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health,

                        arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods,

                        not neglecting, if they are able,

                                    to leave bequests for religious and charitable uses.

Voila! – Legacy Sunday!                       

And to help you with this, resources are available at adult ed. class today.

Meanwhile between now and death,

            what’s the advice from today’s readings for us?

The Acts reading from chapter 1

            is preceded by the last words of Jesus before ascending:

                                    Stay in Jerusalem

                        until you are empowered.

                        Then you will have plenty to do.

Ten days they waited, and then Pentecost and the Holy Spirit

            and empowerment for ministry,

an empowerment not just what they would receive,

            but for the whole church,

                        for all who would come after them as followers of Jesus.

The empowerment is for giving testimony about the resurrection of Jesus,

                                                for witnessing about him.

Hmmm – How well do we do with that? you? me? Emmanuel?

There is a caveat in this:           

            Saying that we will witness by our deeds will only go so far.

            You have got to be able to put your faith into words also,

                        or we are missing the boat.

Again, from today’s Epistle reading:

            “If we receive human testimony,

            the testimony of God is greater;

            for this is the testimony of God

            that he has testified to his Son.

            Those who believe in the Son of God

            have the testimony in their hearts.”

God’s testimony is what is effective and God puts that in the heart,

            where the Holy Spirit enlivens and empowers it.

If we are to wait on anything, it is this – for God to act in us.

That is just what Jesus prayed for us in the Gospel reading from John 17.

In this portion of it this year, Jesus prays,

            “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me,

            so that they may be one, as we are one…

            …Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

May we trust that truth.

May we trust the One who prayed that for us,

            the One who is himself Truth,

            who reveals himself to us in new ways

                        beyond the limits of old familiar ways of looking at Jesus.

May we trust the Risen Christ.

Trust that as though our lives depended on it,

            for, of course, they do.

Sermon for Easter 2, 4/15/12 Emmanuel, Mercer Island

The Gospel for today is always the same for the 2nd Sunday of Easter,

            but it is so rich a story that we can always hear again with new ears.

There are two parts to this gospel reading,

            and the theme of the first part is summed up in the collect.

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery

established the new covenant of reconciliation…

Jesus appears to the disciples (all except Thomas) and says to them:

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus breathes into them Holy Spirit,

            and then he commissions them into the ministry of reconciliation

                        "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;

                        if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Well, we may want to back away from this statement, sounds too much like:

            "I forgive you, but I don't forgive you."

So let me help unpack this.

The Greek for "retain" means hold, to hold back, like a retaining wall.           

            bind.  restrain.                        What is being restrained?

            “If you restrain the sins of any, they are restrained.”

not the person, but the sin.

            We can have a restraining effect on sin!

So notice: there is a two-fold aspect to the ministry of reconciliation.

Forgive or take away sins – responding to the occasion of sin, reactive reconciliation. 

And retain or hold back sins - proactive reconciliation.

Think about the implications of this for us in daily life:

            What we say,

what we do,

the attitudes we have,

the opinions we express,

how we live out relationships

– all can be proactive reconciliation.

We who are called by his Name,

            have been sent, and

            have been given an awesome power and force in the world for good,

a force that is desperately needed now in any number of countries

                                                rife with war and civil unrest,

                        and in any number of homes among family members.

We are called to ministry of reconciliation through our baptisms;

            Book of Common Prayer, page 855, from a section in the Catechism, Outline of the Faith:

Q. What is the ministry of the laity?

A. The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church;

            to bear witness to him wherever they may be

            and, according to the gifts given them,

            to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world;

            and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.

There is much more to say about the ministry of reconciliation

            but we also have the other half of this gospel reading.

Someone forgot to tell Thomas about the meeting.

Despite all the other disciples corroborating their story of seeing the Risen Christ

            Thomas says he must not only see, but also touch.

He would not trust just his eyes.

Maybe all the others were deceived by their eyes – hysterical hallucinations.

He wants to see the wounds; he wants to see that which killed Jesus.

Maybe he wants to make sure

            that it is absolutely apparent that Jesus is risen from the dead,

                        not just a survivor of the ordeal of crucifixion.

So Jesus shows up,

and apparently unseen the Risen Lord had overheard Thomas’ conversation.

Jesus shows great compassion to Thomas

            and he give a special invitation to Thomas to touch the wounds.

Doesn't say if Thomas then did touch.           

But what Thomas said is very significant:            "My Lord and my God!"

Thomas was not just looking at Jesus as his rabbi, or teacher, or master,

            but as GOD.                        This is bold declaration of faith.           

Thomas goes from doubt to calling Jesus God.

            This even goes beyond what the others told Thomas.

Thomas' declaration, "My Lord and my God!" is both a creed

and an act of devotion or worship, a response to the Holy.

Then in verse 29 from the Gospel reading Jesus says:           

            Blessed are those who have not seen,

            and yet believe.

Now here is another place where how the Greek gets translated into English

            is tricky.

There are nuances of meaning around any Greek word

            that may overlap with the many nuances of meaning

                                    around a corresponding English word,

and the Greek verb pistew is one of them.

It gets translated believe and have faith in.

            In English for us here in a church setting

                        believe has a creedal sense to it

                        – such as in a tenet of belief or a doctrine.

            It can have a sense that having gathered so much evidence

                        one can now reliably believe something.

Have faith in is more relational.

            We say we have faith in someone

                        because our experience of that person shows us

                        that he or she is trustworthy.

It’s a matter of trust level.

            Being willing to trust what is not in my control.

            Trusting what I cannot prove, what I cannot dictate as verifiable,

                        only what has been revealed to me,

what I have experienced so subjectively.

Faith, in this sense then, is a participation in relationship

with the God of the resurrected Lord in us.

Now listen carefully to what I am going to say.

We are not saved on the basis of what we believe.

We are not saved on the basis of what we believe.

If that were the case, then purity of theology, the content of belief

            would be of primal importance,

and only those who believed rightly would be saved, reconciled to God.

That makes for a pretty scary situation,

           since with all the different denominations and all their different belief systems,

knowing what is right belief is problematic.

If someone didn’t know the right formula of doctrine, then too bad.

            This would leave out most children,

            those of low mental capacity and the ageing mind that is forgetful.

But that is not the case.

            It is a matter of trust, that kind of faith, rather than belief.

So can you see that it is not what you believe, but what Jesus did.

God doesn’t leave anything as important as salvation,

            to us and our response alone.

Even our faith is a gift.

If we really comprehended the reality of our baptism

            as being in Christ in his death and resurrection

then we could say with Paul: Gal. 2:20

            “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,

            and the life I now live in the flesh

            I live by faith in the Son of God,

            who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Now back to what Thomas said and its connection with the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is a concrete and specific Resurrection appearance of Jesus.

In the Eucharist we say that we have before us the Body of Christ.

            These are the words as the bread is placed in your hands, right?

So do you realize what you take into your hands every Sunday?

            The very presence of the Resurrected Lord,

                        tangible, touchable.

That is why we make such a point of the moment of silence

            at the breaking of the Bread.

This represents the very wounds of the crucifixion,

            the very thing Thomas wanted to see and to touch.

And we get to touch and see and taste and eat.

When the altar party lifts us the patens and chalices, and the Presider says             “The Gifts of God for the People of God” these are words of invitation:

come forward to see and touch and taste

            that our faith, our trusting may be nurtured

            and our spirits and whole being nourished

            and strengthened for the ministry of reconciliation.

The very thing Thomas wanted to see and to touch,

            we get to touch and see and taste and eat.

All you need to do is trust the process of the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus,

                        the Holy Spirit breathed into us and at work within us,

                                    and take the Mystery into your own hands.

Sermon for Lent 2, 3/4/12 Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Each year the Bishop recommends a book to the diocese to read during Lent.

This year he recommended the Bible.

Well, how novel, you might say.

After all the Bible IS “Holy Scripture,”

            words that have the power to convey what is holy,

                                    what is of God,

                                    what is revelatory of God,

                                    what is life-revealing and life-sustaining.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church

            and during all those Sunday School years

            we got some of the stories in the Bible, but not really a whole lot of them.

I remember being embarrassed because of my ignorance of the Bible

            around other kids who went to bible churches,

                        who knew more of the stories

                        and who had been made to memorize verses.

So as a young adult I made a point of reading the Bible all the way through.

And that began a love affair with the Bible

            that has continued throughout the years.

I would read the Bible according to the two year lectionary for the Daily Office

            using a different translation every two year cycle.              You can too.

I also have studied Greek and Hebrew so as to delve deeper into the texts.

But the main point for reading the Bible is what

A colleague of mine wrote in his church newsletter this last week:

“…we  easily remember the characters, plot and action of good stories,

and the stories of the Bible are wonderful, often strange, even bizarre, intensely personal narratives in the lives of real human beings

living the intensity and often confusion

of an intimate open or closed relationship with God…”

The Gospel reading for today is just such a story:

            personal, about Peter, as a real human being

            living the intensity and confusion of an intimate relationship with Jesus                                     that is both open and closed to what Jesus is saying to him

                                                                                                and to the other disciples.

First we need a little background to give some context for the story.

To understand the Gospel for today,

            we need to back up and read what came just before today’s reading.

And then you may come to see that what we are dealing with here

            is radical, counter-intuitive and off the charts.

But then we are dealing with Jesus,

            or rather I should say, HE is dealing with us.

He loves us so very much,

            and so he disturbs us.  That’s part of the love.

Those of you who are taking part in the adult education hour

            for this Lenten series with Peter Snow already have a leg up on this.

-- That’s a bold-faced “hint” to the rest of you to attend. --

Peter Snow last Sunday talked about the Hebrew ideas regarding the Messiah

            and the historical context for this tiny nation

                        caught up in the movement of vast empires sweeping through,

            how the people were focused in their despair, their hopes, their prayers

                        for the Messiah who would rescue them  -- and more:

the Messiah who would take on the foreign oppressors

            and actually would conquer them, and the nations of the world,

            bringing them to their knees,

so that it would be they who would come to Jerusalem bearing their tribute money

            instead of the other way around.

So Jesus had just asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”

And they had related ideas about his being a prophet.

And then he had asked them point blank, “Who do YOU say that I am?”

And Simon Peter, bless his heart, blurts out, “You are the Messiah/

            the Christ/the Lord’s Anointed.”

And in Mark’s version, Jesus simply says, “Don’t tell anyone THAT!”

Why?  Because that was not the kind of Messiah

that had anything to do with Jesus and what he had been doing and preaching.

Then, the passage continues, Jesus began to teach his disciples – what? –

            that the Son of Man MUST undergo great suffering  --  Oh, no!  --

            and be rejected by the elders, the chief priest, and the scribes

                        -- NOT be affirmed in messiah-ship by the religious power that be!

                        that is, to be considered a heretic and outlaw

            and THEN be killed – but the Messiah was supposed to live forever –             

and after three days rise again.              Huh?

He said all this quite openly.

This was not what the disciples expected Jesus to say,

            nor what they wanted to hear.

This was the moment when the fingers go in the ears:

            “La la la la la.  I’m not listening.”

Jesus would keep repeating this however.

Well, all this just flew in the face

            of what Simon Peter had just claimed for Jesus,

                        because the Messiah was not supposed to die, but live forever.

What Jesus was saying was totally unacceptable.

It seems Peter was ashamed of Jesus for backing away from

            his (and the culture’s) ideas about the Messiah.

For Peter, being a good Jew,

            the idea of Jesus rejected by the religious leadership is unthinkable.

And the kind of death Jesus says he will die is incredibly shameful.

I’m sure Peter thought

            he was expressing positive concern and appreciation for Jesus,

but that was so small and so off-track from this greatest of all spiritual actions

            that would be the salvation of the whole world.

So Jesus comes down fast and heavy on Peter

and makes his rebuke of Peter for the sake of all the other disciples present.

And today’s reading ends with a final rebuke for Peter

                        - and anyone else for whom the shoe fits -

            “If you are ashamed of me and what I am telling you,

                        then I’m ashamed of you.”

Ouch! 

Well, one crucial part in what Jesus was saying had been missed:

            Jesus would be killed, and after three days rise again.

The deal is the resurrection.

            If we don’t get that, what Jesus said next can’t make sense.

Because Jesus then called to him not only his disciples, but the whole crowd,

and said,

            “If you want to follow me,

            you have to deny yourself, renounce/disregard yourself,

                        forget yourself, refuse to acknowledge yourself,

                                    that with which you identify yourself.

            In fact, take up a cross of your own, your own means of execution.

            Then you can follow me,” said Jesus.

Because here’s the great paradox:

            If you try to save/preserve yourself/your life,            you will lose it.

We all know that we have no control over how long we live.

If you try to save your life and cheat death,

            that will only go so far and then you’re dead.

                        -- The undeniable reality of our mortality. --

BUT if you lose your life for my sake, Jesus says, you will save it.

            If you lose your life for my sake, you will save it.

Now, what really does that mean?

It’s important for us to grapple with this because this statement

                        - If you want to save your life, you will lose it,

                        but if you lose your life for my sake and the Gospel’s,

                        you will save it. –

            appears in all four Gospels, a total of seven times.

Hmmm, must be important.

What does it mean?

Start with this thought:

            Jesus is saying that I need to lose the idea that my life belongs to me.

The word for life in the passage in Greek means more specifically

            life breath, life force, that which animates the body,

            the breath that God breathed into the first human

                                                                                    formed of the dust of the earth.

Notice our own breath and the process of breathing.

It is hard wired into us,

            not even needing my intention and will in order to function.

How is it that I can then claim that my life belongs to me.

Life is a gift that we get to live.

Well, I need to wrap this up,

            because I have way too much that I could say about all this.

Here’s the situation:  You have to give up the idea of your life.

Follow Jesus, and it is no longer your life.

Follow Jesus, and you will come to see the truth of this

            and the great liberation this brings.

Now be willing to see your life in respect to

            the mission of the Kingdom of God coming on earth as in heaven.

Follow Jesus, and it is no longer your life

            and now life is lived out in Christ, in service and in mission.

We might say either that we can’t do that,

or we really don’t want to do that, we would rather have our own little lives.

But that is settling for the small self in place of the fullness of life,

            the full human potential, the abundance of eternal life

                        which is not off somewhere when your body finally dies,

                        but is here, now, even if you don’t realize it.

Jesus would call us into a discipleship

            in which you would die out of your life and into his life.

This may not be the message we want to hear,

            but it’s Lent, so it’s a good time to listen to it anyway.

Read your Bible.

The story for today is one of those stories

                                                that can connect with us on the basic human level:

a story that is personal, about Peter, a real human being, like you and me,

            living the intensity and confusion of an intimate relationship with Jesus                                     that is both closed and open to what Jesus is saying to him

                                                                                                and to the other disciples.

Think about your own mortality

            in the light of what Jesus is saying.

And remember that one crucial part

            about after three days rising again.

The deal is the resurrection.