Mark 4: 35-41 June 24 2012 Our Saviour's
Last week we talked about the Kingdom of God, how it is growing all around us, if we can only open our eyes and see it. And today we are going to talk about what it takes to see God working in the world.
Right off the bat, let me say that to see God at work, you have to look with eyes of faith, not as the world sees. When we look at things using normal logic, human understanding, we will not see God. We will see disaster, failure – crucifixion. These are the circumstances where God does the best work. Only the eyes of faith can see God at work in these circumstances.
When David faced Goliath, everyone around thought they were going to see a slaughter. Well, they did, but it was not at all the way they thought. How could little slip of a boy, unarmed (except for a shepherd's sling) dare to stand up to the giant? But he stood there in God's name, and prevailed.
And the disciples in the boat, they were in a sticky predicament, bailing the boat for all they were worth, and where was Jesus? Asleep. He'd had a long day! Well, in a situation like this, everybody is needed to bail. Even the Master. I think that's why they woke him up. They handed him a bailing can. And he had no use for the bailing can, he simply told the wind to stop. And it did.
“Don't you have any faith?” He asked the disciples. Because to the eyes of faith, it is just when the situation is darkest that God is able to act most decisively. God goes undercover in happy, everyday situations. God works behind the scenes. But when the going gets tough, God steps up to the plate.
You know, I think it's my fault that this congregation is going through difficult times. When I first started here, I prayed that we would be able to see and recognize God's presence with us. But in good times, God is present with us, but asleep in the boat. It takes tough times for us to remember to cry out, “Don't you care that we are perishing?” And then we can see God at work, doing much more than we can ask or imagine.
Now Our Saviour's Lutheran Church looks like it is perishing. A lot of people have left the church because they think it is doomed. Chris Hlady resigned from Council on Wednesday because he thinks this congregation is dysfunctional.
But to the eyes of faith, God is moving in this place. God is not bailing us out by sending some new members so we can go on as we were before. When we cry out to God to save us, we must be prepared for whatever it is God intends, which may be quite different from what we hope for or expect.
Last Tuesday I should have left the building much earlier than I did – I was messing around with the bulletin, putting it in trifold form that you see today. I looked at my watch and thought I should go, but I just kept on at the computer until I saw that it was almost 6 o'clock. As I was leaving, Pastor Asefa of the Oromo congregation was just arriving for Bible Study. We had a very interesting chat at the door, and he told me that now that he was ordained, he was interested in doing some outreach work in this neighbourhood. Wow. Just what Pastor Gavin of Holy Community was saying. Just what we ourselves have been saying. At that moment I felt God moving, setting up something that will change lives and rejuvenate the church.
Just as St Paul was saying in our second lesson, there is a disconnect between what the world sees and what God sees. “We are treated as imposters” Yes, that is what a lot of people think of churches. “And yet we are true.” We are honest and faithful to the truth of the gospel. “As unknown, and yet we are well known. As dying – and see, we are alive.”
This congregation is alive – alive in all the best ways. We have people of faith and gifts who are willing to give of themselves to follow Jesus. We have trust that God is in control, even of the wind and the waves.
“We are punished.” Yes, the Christian church has a lot to repent of, especially the arrogance we once had, expressed in crusades and witchhunts and intolerance and exclusion. But it's pretty hard to hold on to arrogance when we are entirely at the mercy of God, as we are today. But God doesn't want to destroy us for our sins, “we are not killed.”
“We are sorrowful.” Yes, we think of the glories of the past, and grieve for the many losses we have suffered. “Yet we are always rejoicing.” Even in our deepest grief we know the good news of the resurrection, and are able to rejoice. “We are poor.” Yes we are. We are fast running out of cash. We are lacking in manpower. “But making many rich.” We have the Good News that can enrich anyone! “Having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” As God's children, God gives us all good things. All our needs are provided for.
So, through what eyes are we going to look at this congregation? Through the eyes of the world, or through the eyes of faith? And are we going to just keep bailing, as though our salvation depended on us? Or are we going to give control over to Our Saviour, so that he can command the wind and waves to be still, so that we can go over to the other side, as he had commanded.
We don't know what is waiting for us over on the other side of the transformation God is leading this congregation through. It is uncharted territory for us. But God knows every hill and valley, and has prepared a place for us, and will get us there safely.
We are starting to see some of the rough outline of the terrain, however. Whatever it looks like, I am sure it involves cooperation with our brothers and sisters of the Oromo Christian Fellowship, and Holy Community Covenant Church, and the NA, and Scouts Canada, and who knows what other partners God will send our way. We often pray for unity in the church, and then act surprised when God sends opportunities our way.
Again from St Paul: “As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, 'At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.' See, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation!” Thanks be to God. Amen.
June 17 2012 Mark 4: 26-34 June 17 2012 Our Saviour's
The Kingdom of God! We are told that Jesus came preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God. We are told to seek the Kingdom of God and everything we need will be given to us. I guess the reason we are told to seek the Kingdom, is that it is never very clear exactly what the Kingdom is.
Jesus never comes right out and explains what the Kingdom of God is. He is always telling parables about it. He is giving out hints and glimpses. Why is that? Why doesn't he just come out with it? Maybe he can't. Maybe it is something that can't be put into human words. Or maybe we would have a hard time understanding. Maybe he has to give us little glimpses, so that we can use our imaginations and connect the dots, and really understand in our hearts and in our lives, not just with our heads.
So let's look at the two little glimpses Jesus gives us of the Kingdom of God today.
First of all, Jesus says that the Kingdom is like a farmer who sows seed, and doesn't know how it grows, but when it is grown, he harvests it. Then he says it is like a mustard seed which grows to be a large shrub. A common thread here, the idea of growing.
Growth is somewhat of a mystery. Biologists are still trying to figure out what the triggers are that start the growth of a seed. There are many different factors that go into growth – warmth, water, sunlight. But it all starts with a seed. The seed doesn't have to be very big. In fact, it can be tiny, like mustard. In fact, mustard was considered a nuisance weed, the kind of plant that, once planted in your garden, you can't get rid of it, and it starts to take over. Now that is an interesting image for the Kingdom of God.
So, what do we know from these two parables? The kingdom starts with seeds. It is a mystery how it grows. It does grow, and grows quite large, large and persistent. And in the end, it is beneficial – it bears fruit and provides shelter.
In the first parable, the seed has to be planted. Who plants the seed of the Kingdom? We are not told. Logically, if it is the Kingdom of God, God would be the one to plant the seed. However, in the case of the mustard plant, it plants its own seeds, crowding out other plants. The growth of the kingdom is organic and inexorable. God may plant the first seeds, but then the the plant itself reproduces itself. The Kingdom bears the fruit of more Kingdom.
But where do we fit into all of this? Where's the “so what?
For practical advice, you can always turn to Martin Luther. In fact, I'd like you to turn to Martin Luther right now, in your red books, right at the back, to page 1163. The commentary on the Lord's Prayer, the Second Petition: “Your Kingdom Come. What does this mean? In fact, God's kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us. How does this come about? Whenever our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that through the Holy Spirit's grace we believe God's holy word and live godly lives here in time and hereafter in eternity.”
God plants the seeds of the kingdom in us. In our baptism we receive citizenship in the Kingdom. And this citizenship is activated by the Holy Spirit, by our own prayer. Every time we say, “Thy Kingdom come” we invite God to come into our lives and help us to believe and to act as if we believe.
So, God is active in your life. Every Sunday I stand up here and ask for “God-sightings”. I ask you where you have seen God active in your life. And usually most of you look like a herd of deer in the headlights! You just can't think of anything. You probably don't really think that God is there at all!
But God is. God has promised to be, and God always keeps promises. The trouble with us is that we are not accustomed to thinking in terms of what God is doing. We pay attention to what we are doing and what our neighbours are doing, and don't open our eyes to what God is doing. We don't notice the Kingdom of God growing up like a weed right before our eyes.
Here is a little exercise for you. It's not too hard, everyone can do it. The only hard thing is remembering to do it. It's a discipline. It might help you to make some kind of visual reminder to put in a visible place to remind you to do it. Maybe take the bulletin, or cut the picture out of the bulletin, and set it by your bed or stick it to your bathroom mirror where you brush your teeth at night.
Because this is what I want you to do: Every night before you go to bed, I want you to think back over the day and remember one thing, one way, that God was active in your life. It can be just a little thing, a butterfly (which God created) or a sunset, or a smile, or a kind word. It could be an amazing coincidence (and you are allowed to give God the credit – nobody else will take it). It could be something you learned or something you did which surprised even yourself. It could be the gift of a friend in need or a loved one who sustains you with their love. It could even come hidden in news of a disaster, as compassion arises and neighbours help neighbours.
God is working all around us. The Kingdom is growing all around us. Seeds are planted, crops are harvested, shelter is provided. All we have to do is look around us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Mark 3:20 – 35
I was watching the TV show Downton Abbey the other day with Lucy. It takes place in pre-World War 1 England. It seems quaint to us to see a society where everybody had his or her own station, and knew just what society expected of them, whether they were a housemaid or a duke. And when one of the housemaids dared to buy herself a typewriter because she wanted a career as a typist, consternation arose all around! She was not following the script, the plan for her life that society had decreed!
We feel our society is not so rigid, and indeed it is not. Yet there are still scripts that are given to us by society, by our families and our employers. And woe betide us if we fail to follow the script, if we write our own scripts, or follow a different script! Many families have been thrown into confusion when a daughter becomes pregnant without being married, or if a son declares that he is gay. They are not following the script. People become distressed and anxious, and even angry, when the approved script is not followed.
In our Gospel today, Jesus is not following the script. Different people had different expectations of him, and he wasn't following any of their scripts. He wasn't raising an army to become the kind of military king some people wanted. He certainly wasn't being a good Jewish boy and marrying a nice girl and settling down and building up his carpentry shop. He wasn't supporting his widowed mother the way the eldest son was supposed to. He wasn't following the right script.
And so his family comes to take him home, to put an end to the craziness, to get him back on track again. And the Jewish authorities speak against him, warning people that he can't be the Messiah, because he is not following the right Messiah script.
Whenever we deviate from the script other people think we should be following, strong negative feelings are thrown at us. I'm sure you have experienced this in your own life. Either other people criticized you harshly for your behaviour, or you have criticized others for their behaviour. Because we all do it. It's one way that society tries to make people conform to what is considered normal behaviour.
And sometimes it's good, maybe most of the time it's good. We frown on bullying. When someone is verbally or physically abusive, we bring the full force of law down on them. When someone is wasting their money on addictions or gambling , familes resort to interventions, to bring them to their senses and impress upon them the damage they are doing, not only to themselves, but to the ones they love. This is what Jesus' family thought they were doing.
But sometimes, the script needs changing. Sometimes the way it's always been done is not the right way for this time and this place and this person. Sometimes God has a different script.
In our first lesson we see a clear distinction between God's script and the people's script. God wants Israel to be a different kind of nation, a nation that does not depend on the leadership of a king, but the leadership of God. But the people want to follow the script that all the other nations are following; they want a king. And so they get a king.
And in our Gospel, Jesus is writing a different script, too. It is a script where God has power over the forces of evil. It is a script where people who do the will of God are bound together in a family that is even stronger than a family bound by blood. It is a script which in the end will result in his death. And in his resurrection.
We all have a choice as to what script we will follow. Will we follow the script our families and society have given us? Or will we follow God's script? They are not always the same. And especially when God changes the script on us, there is hell to pay. We will face a great deal of doubt and opposition. Tempers will flare and harsh words will be said. There may even be ruptures in family relations. Sometimes it may seem that it is just not worth it.
God is changing the script in the world right now. For 500 years the Lutheran church has followed a certain script, a certain way of being the church in the world. This is what we grew up in, this is what we are used to and what we want. But it's not working any more. God has changed the script. God is pushing us to become a different kind of church.
Now this leads to a lot of confusion, doubt, anger and dissension. Even last Sunday we witnessed this. And what makes it worse is that it is hard to agree on what the script should be, even if we agree that the old script is not working any more.
It is easy to look at the story of Jesus and his family and see so clearly that Jesus was right and Jesus was following God's script. And it is easy to look back at Samuel and his contemporaries and see that it might have gone a lot better for them if they had paid attention to Samuel and played it according to God's script. I'm sure a hundred years from now people will look back at our struggles and clearly see that what we have done is right, or that we really missed the boat. I wonder which!
But whatever happens, we have to remember that the script we are to follow, is the same script that Jesus followed. We follow the script of reaching out to the hurting and lost. We follow the script of giving of ourselves in the face of criticism and scorn. When we were baptized, we were baptized into Jesus' death so that we would also participate in his resurrection. As Paul puts it, “We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart.” Now that is a very important point, because it is all too easy to lose heart when we are faced with confusion and doubt.
Paul goes on: “Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” You could also say that of our congregation. Our outer nature is surely wasting away: our finances are faltering, our average attendance is slipping; but our inner nature does not depend on these external signs. The life of this congregation is still strong, the love we have for each other sustains us, and the hope for the future which God is giving us is carrying us along.
God has a future planned for us; a future with hope. God is guiding us to discover how we can move into that future. Between us, we and God are writing a new script for Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, a script that is loving and welcoming and challenging and inspiring. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Trinity Sunday June 3 2012 Our Saviour's
How to explain the Holy Trinity? The short answer is, you can't. Take a look at the fans up there on the ceiling. There are three blades, but they are whirling around so fast it looks like just one blur. And if you stuck your hand in there to try to stop it so you could see each blade clearly, it would hurt like blazes! That's the kind of thing that happens when you stick your mind into the dance of the Holy Spirit to try to stop the action so you can examine each person separately – your head hurts! Everything God does is done by the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You can't separate them. But you can tell them apart.
Sometimes people try to describe the difference between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, by different things that God does. They talk about God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sustainer. Now this would be very tidy if we knew that God the Father was the Creator of the world, and God the Son, Jesus, was the Redeemer of the world, and God the Holy Spirit was the sustainer of our faith and life. And indeed they are.
But Creation, for example, involves all 3 persons of the Trinity. In Genesis 1 God says, “Let US make human beings in OUR image.” Plural right from the start. And in Psalm 104 it says, “When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.” And in Colossians 1 it says about Jesus, that “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created.” So it seems that just making the Father the Creator won't work. The Son and the Holy Spirit are Creator, too.
This is also the case with our redemption or salvation. Yes, it was Jesus who died on the cross, but he was doing it by the Father's will, and it was the Father who raised him from the dead. And it is the Spirit who warms our hearts and sparks faith in our minds so that we can embrace the cross for our salvation. So Jesus is our Saviour, and the Father is our Saviour, and the Spirit is also our Saviour.
And it is the same with the sustaining that we receive from God. Yes, the Holy Spirit comes to us to awaken God's gifts in us and fill us with joy. But the love we have is poured into our hearts by the Father. And Jesus promised to be with us always, to the end of the age. So the Holy Spirit is the Sustainer, and Jesus is the Sustainer, and the Father is the Sustainer.
Are you thoroughly confused yet? All three persons of the Trinity are present in whatever God does, but we do identify some things more with one and some things with another. The point is, God comes to us in many different ways; we experience God's presence in many different ways.
In our first story this morning, Isaiah experienced the presence of God in the temple. And we think, well, of course, that is where people are supposed to experience the presence of God! But to tell the truth, that does not always happen, does it? We come to church, to the sacred space, hoping that God will make God's self known to us. It is not always as dramatic as Isaiah's experience, not by a long shot. But God is there, and God does become known to us.
But worship is not the only place that we can experience the presence of God. Many people experience God's presence through Creation. I must say, that when I walk in the woods, I often feel very close to God. I think that is why the hymn “How Great Thou Art” is so popular. Sometimes God the Creator is our first experience of God.
And some people first experience the presence of God in the midst of a crisis. It may be that they need healing, or it may be that they need forgiveness, that something is wrong, drastically wrong with their lives. In the midst of their brokenness, they cry out, and God is present with them. The work that is so closely associated with Jesus, the work of healing and forgiving and saving, is some people's first and most powerful experience of the presence of God.
And still others first experience God in the love and acceptance of the Christian community. The Holy Spirit binds us together in love, with all our differences and our quirkiness, and this is a powerful testimony to the presence of God. When, as the Body of Christ, we are Christ to one another, in reaching out, in hugs, in smiles, in casseroles, in prayers, in water and bread and wine – that too is the presence of God.
What was your first experience of the presence of God? Was it in creation? Was it in a crisis situation? Was it among God's people? No matter how you first experienced the presence of God, your spiritual growth requires some experience of the others as well. A person who finds God in nature, but who never comes to the realization that life is broken and needs a Saviour, remains a child spiritually. A person who comes to God on their knees begging forgiveness, and yet who never joins in a Christian community, will have no opportunity for growth. A person who lives happily in the love of the church, but who never is exposed to the wonders of creation, will never reach their full potential.
God is with us, God is all around us, God is within us, God is within the people around us. There are so many opportunities to experience the presence of God.
Isaiah met God in the temple. The furnishings of the temple, the smoke of the incense, the carvings of the Seraphim, became windows through which God was able to reach out and touch Isaiah, and call him to ministry.
We call sacred, the things through which God makes God's presence known. The church is a sacred place, because many people encounter God here. The bread and the wine and the waters of baptism are sacred, because God promises to meet us there. The whole world is sacred, too, because God reaches out to us through Creation. And this gathering, this small, but powerful gathering, is also sacred, because God is present to us in each other.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all here, right now. And just as they cried out to Isaiah, “Who shall I send?” God is still crying out for people to go for God. And in the same way, we cry out, “Here am I; send me!” And as we respond to the moving, urging, impelling work of God, we are caught up in the movement of the Holy Trinity, always moving, like the fan, refreshing, energizing, enabling us to be what God wants us to be. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Luke 24:36b-48
We Christians are a strange lot, according to the world. We believe in things that many people find completely incredible. Angels and demons – and a dead man rising back to life! That makes a lot of people think only of zombies, to tell the truth. Or ghosts.
There are so many different ways of seeing things – so many different ways of understanding the world. I was reading something last week that stated that every religion answers two questions: What is real? And what is important? And it is these questions that sharply divide Christians from those who do not believe.
The disciples had a lesson in our Gospel today about what was real. They thought, as everyone else does, that once a person had died, they stayed dead. And so, when Jesus appeared to them, they at once jumped to the conclusion that he was a ghost. I think they had never heard of zombies in that culture!
Jesus had quite a time convincing them that he was not a ghost! He had to show them his wounds to prove that it was really him and not a look-alike. He even had to eat some fish to prove he was not a ghost. (Good thing they didn't have any brains lying around...)
That makes us ponder, what is it that has convinced US that Jesus is alive? How has God reached into our lives and changed our way of seeing? For all our texts make it quite clear that we cannot see the truth, we cannot know what is real, what is important, unless it is revealed to us by God's own self.
“You mortals, how long will you dishonor my glory? How long will you love illusions and seek after lies?” says our Psalm today. “Many are saying, “Who will show us any good?” Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.”
And this is indeed what many are saying. They want to be shown something good, they want to know what is real and what is important, but they just can't see it. This world is a mirrored fun-house, where illusion is just as convincing as the truth. How can any of us know the truth?
There is only one way, and Jesus brings that way to his disciples. “He opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” God is the one who brings understanding to our minds. God is the one who enables us to understand what is real and what is important.
The people that Peter was preaching to had seriously misunderstood the situation when Jesus had been killed. “You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead.” Can't get more misunderstood than that, can you? And now, is God furious with them? Has God rejected them?
No! Peter tells them, “I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.” They couldn't help it, God had not revealed the truth to them, so that God's plan of redemption could be carried out. So Peter goes on and offers them the way out: “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.” This is always the way God works; God offers us forgiveness and a chance at a new beginning. Even when we have acted in ignorance, even when we knew perfectly well what we were doing was wrong, God offers us forgiveness and and new start.
And then a miracle happens. We see the truth. We see the truth about ourselves, we see the truth about God, and we see the way forward, the way to God. A few steps, anyway. Enough to be going on with. Steps in the right direction. Steps out of the fun house, the house of mirrors, the world of illusion.
God speaks to us through the words of scripture. God speaks to us through the words of preachers. God speaks to us through the wonder of nature. God speaks to us through the love of the community. God speaks to us in the silence of the dark of the night. God never stops speaking to us, calling us, revealing God's own self, God's own love to us.
This is what is real. This is what is important. God's love shown to us in the old stories about Jesus rising from the tomb. God's love shown to us in the healing done in Jesus' name. God's love shown to us in the forgiveness of sins.
“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Thanks be to God. Amen.
John 20:19-31
“These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” This is the big SO THAT, the chief motivation for John to write his gospel, and for that matter, for all the gospel writers. So that you may come to believe.
Now, we tend to use the word believe as if it means to have an opinion. “I believe it is going to rain today.” The word has a much deeper meaning as it is used in the Bible. There is intellectual content of course, but there is also an element of trust and confidence, and even loyalty, to the word believe.
Now, how does this belief happen? What causes it?
The kind of proof we need to believe in Jesus is not the kind of proof that we need if we are, say, developing a cure for cancer. It is not scientific, experimental, verifiable proof that we need. It is more like the kind of proof we need for falling in love. Ian and I know about this. We had only known each other 3 months when we decided to get married. And then we were only engaged for 5 weeks! 4 months from start to, well, not to finish, because that was only the start after all, and we're still going, after 38 years. We didn't need a lot of proof that we were a good match – and we were right.
Thomas thought that he needed tangible proof. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” He wanted proof that he could touch. But in the end, he didn't need that much proof. There is no indication that he actually did touch Jesus. When he saw Jesus and heard his voice, that was enough – he fell to his knees: “My Lord and my God!”
And there are many who don't even have this amount of proof – who just hear the story, and believe. And they are blessed.
Now I think there are 3 stages to coming to belief in Jesus. 1. We are attracted by the story, we want to believe it is true. 2. We decide to believe it is true, and start to behave as if it is true. 3. We get affirmation of the truth of our belief by what we experience.
This is also true in the process of falling in love: I first met Ian and just knew that we would be good friends. I decided that he was worth getting to know better. Then as we spent time together, we found more and more reasons to keep spending time together.
So the process of coming to belief in Jesus is much like falling in love with someone: You hear the story of Jesus; you decide that it would be worthwhile to be one of his followers; and as you act like his follower, you have experiences that convince you that you were right; everything about him is true.
What is the proof for you? Some people have had supernatural experiences. One man I know was baptized in a river as an adult. He says that while he was under the water, he could feel the pastor holding his hand, but he could feel another hand in his other hand, and he knew that it was God's. Some people have dreams or visions. Some people just have a sense of a comforting presence. All these are valid signs of the presence of God, proofs that the Jesus story is true.
But there is another affirmation that the gospel is true: the love and fellowship that is found in the church. It is significant that Thomas, after he was not present at the first appearance of Jesus, did give up. He was still with the community when Jesus appeared again. He didn't abandon his friends because he thought they were deluded. He still hung around with them.
The kind of love that the early church had for one another is so beautifully described in our first lesson from Acts: “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and... everything they owned was held in common.” And in the second lesson: “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.”
Because when we believe, we have no need anymore to SEE the body of the risen Christ. We ARE the body of the risen Christ. WE are the proof that Jesus is alive.
Now, walking in the light, as John says, means being honest with one another. It means being honest with ourselves about our faults and our shortcomings. It means forgiving one another. We cut each other some slack because we are all struggling with some sin or other, if we are honest about it. And Jesus tells us to forgive one another in the power of the Holy Spirit. If we retain the sins of any, they are retained. We have to let go of them, let go of all our grudges and hard feelings from the past, and forgive one another freely, in order to set each other free.
In a world where everybody seems to be promoting their own agendas and putting up a perfect front for the world to see, covering up their inadequacies, it can be refreshing to be among a people who are humble and honest and forgiving. And this is the final proof that Jesus is alive.
People will fall in love with Jesus when they not only hear his story but see him in the flesh. And that's us, folks. We are the body of Christ. A bit broken, but filled with new life, the life of the Spirit, eternal life. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Just when you think you know how the world works, God comes and turns everything upside down.
On Maundy Thursday Jesus taught his disciples that bosses are now servants, and servants are bosses, in fact, there are no more bosses and servants in the Kingdom of God, but all are servants of each other, bound together in love.
On Good Friday Jesus taught his disciples that vulnerability is victory, that defeat is glory, that failure is success, that the only way that violence and hatred can be overcome is with love and forgiveness.
And now on Easter Sunday, Jesus is teaching us that death is life, and that humanity is now divine, as the divine is human.
Last Sunday we contemplated God in Jesus, hanging on the cross out of love for God's fallen creation, taking responsibility for all the sin and suffering of the world. God had to become human for God to know the full extent of our fallenness. And so God did the unthinkable thing – God did not hold us to account for our sins. God took those sins upon God's own self, and paid a terrible price of abandonment, suffering and death.
Some would say, “Well, if God takes responsibility for all my sins, then doesn't that allow me to just do whatever I want and keep on sinning?” Well, yes and no. If you are some kind of sociopath, who is not moved by suffering, who doesn't have any compassion, yes, I suppose so. But then you would keep on sinning anyway.
But when we see the suffering of Jesus, we are deeply moved. It is always moving to see the victim of an injustice. And seeing this suffering arouses compassion. Compassion is made of two latin words: con, meaning with, and passion, meaning suffering. We suffer with Christ. That's what it means to be baptized into the death of Christ. This is what it means to eat his body and drink his blood at communion. We are joined to him, we have communion with him in his death. We take his death into our bodies, just as he took our body to his death. We think about his suffering, we have compassion with him, we are grateful to him, and so we participate in his death.
And then we are transformed. Because when Christ participated in every single aspect of human life – including death – human life was taken up into the life of God. And was transformed. Now all human life is caught up in the life of the divine. As Peter said, there is no distinction based on ethnicity or culture. “Everyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.” God and humans are joined together on the most basic level – right down to the DNA.
And this is activated in our baptism. As we participate in the death of Jesus, we also participate in the resurrection of Christ. Christ's life is in us. We are in Christ as Christ is in us. And new life begins.
John is pointing to that new life in the way he writes his account of the resurrection. You notice, that Mary comes to the tomb “while it was still dark”. This may remind us of the darkness and chaos before the creation of the universe, while “the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.” That is certainly how Mary must have felt in her grief. Life had no shape now, no content – her life was in darkness.
And of course, where does this story take place? In a garden. Just like the first garden, the garden of Eden. In the garden of Eden, God had grieved because the first humans were lost to him; now Mary is grieving because she thinks that God is lost to her. No wonder Mary thinks that Jesus is the gardener; he IS the gardener of the new Eden. And the fruits that this garden produces are love and joy and peace.
This is no longer the first day of the week, the first day of creation. Sunday has now become the eighth day of creation, the day of new creation. Eight has always symbolized the resurrection; when you come up for communion, take a look at the font and see how many sides it has!
Everything is different now – the very rules of the universe have changed. Death no more has dominion over the universe. God is changing things, slowly but surely, and you are a part of that change.
For this God-life that has become a part of you in your baptism will not be denied. It will grow in you, Christ will grow in you, and you will find yourself less and less attracted to sin. You will find yourself more interested in caring for your neighbour. You will become more and more the person God wants you to be.
And in the end, even death itself has lost its sting. The psalm that we read earlier is the one that I read at a burial, standing beside the open grave: “This is the gate of the Lord; here the righteous may enter.” Or, as the choir sang last week: “Here, O Lord, the very death I fear is that which draws me near, Lord, to Thee.”
Death has become life. Sorrow has become joy. Guilt has become forgiveness. God has turned everything upside down. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Just when you think you know how the world works, God goes and turns it all upside down.
We all have an instinct for self-preservation. That instinct leads to fear. We fear many things, but above all we fear dying. And our instinct is fight or flight. If we can't run away from what we fear, we become angry. And our fear of violence turns violent. Violence erupts from insecurity, from anxiety, from fear. And then it turns and becomes evil. People start to enjoy the power that they get from putting the fear onto someone else with violence. And so the cycle continues, violence begetting violence.
We are told that God hates violence. Right near the beginning of the world, there was violence on the earth, and God decided to wipe the earth clean of violence with a flood. Didn't work very well, did it?
How could God stop this never ending cycle of violence? This endless round of fear and self-protection and lashing out, this grasping for power over others to ensure one's own safety, this blood lust and cruelty?
God met it head on, in person. God in Jesus gave himself over to the darkness.
God’s love is so strong that Jesus is willing to submit to violence in order that his followers might see once and for all that violence is not the answer. For in the face of violence Jesus refuses to employ violence but instead insists that God forgives us. We remember today Christ’s willingness to sacrifice himself so that no more blood would be spilt and no more bodies destroyed for the sake of sin.
Jesus confronted the fear and evil that constrains us from being the loving creatures that we were created to be. And this gives us courage to also confront the demons that lurk within. It gives us hope that we do not have to be captive to fear, captive to violence, captive to sin. We are confident of Christ’s promise that God is gracious and violence will not win.
Dog eat dog is the way of the world, the way of our instincts. But Jesus' kingdom is not of this world. Jesus transcends instinct and shows us a better way. Jesus empties himself, and becomes obedient to death, even death on the cross. Jesus shows us the way of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Because when we are faced with fear, when anger grabs hold of us, when our sufferings seem too much for us, when despair overtakes us – Jesus has been there. Jesus knows what we are going through – even to death. And there we find that love is stronger than death. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Just when you think you know how the world works, God goes and turns it all upside down.
The disciples knew how the world works. There are bosses and there are servants. The servants work for the bosses, take care of the bosses. The bosses sit back and enjoy.
And then Jesus turns that on its head. Jesus gets the basin and the jug of water and the towel, and kneels to them and washes their feet. And teaches them that greater honour is due to the ones who serve.
This has been embraced by the church, and to a large extent, by our society. Our politicians are called ministers, and the word minister is from the Old French, meaning “servant”. Those who run the government offices are called public servants. We give honour to these servants, and to others who serve: firefighters, nurses, philanthropists. The concept of honouring those who serve others has become engrained in our society.
It has in the Church, too. We honour those who work hard to help others. In fact, many people work hard to help others because that is the way they will get honour. Jesus' instructions kind of backfired, there. People are not supposed to do good because they will get brownie points, but because it is good to do good. But that's human nature.
People like the role of taking care of others, of being the servant. We have several hints in scripture that Peter thought of himself in that role, that his job was to take care of Jesus. He scolded him when he started talking of his suffering and death. He had a sword and tried to fight when Jesus was arrested. He probably thought of himself as some kind of bodyguard.
But now Jesus is turning that upside down, too. Jesus is kneeling at his feet, and Peter doesn't like to have the tables turned. “You will never wash my feet!” he exclaims.
And isn't that what we are often like? We want to be doing the caring, and it makes us uncomfortable when someone tries to, or has to, look after us.
I have a friend, who was sick, and I brought her some groceries. And she said, “I owe you so much; you have done so much for us! You shouldn't have to do this for us!” And I actually had to read her Acts 2:44,45 before she would accept the service I was offering. Acts 2:44 and 45 reads, “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.
Now, I pray that when I am in need, I may also have the grace to accept what others give me with humility. For in allowing someone to give you something, you are giving them also a blessing; for “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” as Luke tells us in Acts 20:35.
And Peter learned this the hard way. Jesus said to him, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." And this is how it works: we both bless each other, and are blessed by each other, when we serve one another. Society may be divided into haves and have nots; but it should not be that way in the church. I minister to you, but you also minister to me, and that's the way it should be, for that's the way we are bound to each other in love.
The symbolism of the footwashing means that there are no bosses here; there are only servants. The way of the world is turned upside down. And the kingdom of heaven is ours. Thanks be to God. Amen.
I was having a really rough day on Friday when I wrote this. It all started when my dog bit someone. I know, I know, this is really bad. This made me feel horrible. I was really shaken, because I felt like a complete failure as a dog owner. And from there I started to think of all the other parts of my life where I feel like a failure. I have a nagging suspicion that if only I were a better Pastor, we wouldn't have to sell the building. And I am a terrible housekeeper. And this tapped into a huge well of emotions that have been building up for the last 60 years. I am a failure. I am inadequate. I am just not good enough.
This was how Peter must have felt. He felt it was his duty to protect Jesus, and he was a complete failure at it. When he should have been keeping watch in the garden, he fell asleep. He tried again. He struck out at the people who came to arrest Jesus, but his attempt was pathetic. Then when he followed him to court, and people accused him of being his friend, he denied him. No wonder he broke down and wept.
While Jesus I'm sure understood Peter's clumsy attempts to protect him, he also didn't appreciate it. Because Jesus knew that his destiny was to die, he didn't need well-meaning friends trying to talk him out of it. That made it only harder. And it was hard enough, as we can see from his agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus had his fair share of the normal human instinct of self-preservation. But he had to overcome it in order to do what he had to do.
I wonder if it was only when God became human that God fully understood just how weak and flawed humans are. God had been struggling with his humans ever since God had created them. God had tried various ways of getting us to be obedient and faithful, and everything had either backfired or failed. So God became human, and realized the depth of our inadequacy. We honestly just can't help it, we were born this way. We don't want to be this way, but how can we do otherwise? We are always beating ourselves up because of our failures. And if we can't stand to beat ourselves up, we beat each other up, and that's even worse. And here we are, trapped in our human nature, longing for God but stuck in the mire.
So God did the only thing God could do to release us from this trap that God had unwittingly placed us in by creating us. God took the blame. Yes, God in Jesus took the blame for all the sins that we as humans have committed. Jesus allowed himself to be taken, and blamed, and tortured, and killed. This was God showing humans that God takes all the responsibility for our failures. They are nailed to the cross along with Jesus.
So, if Jesus has taken all the blame, I cannot and must not blame myself. I must not take my anger with myself and turn it outwards against my neighbours. Jesus knows our every weakness. Jesus knows how hard we try. Jesus knows how disappointed we are in ourselves when we fail. And God says, “My child, my own dear child, I love you and I will never leave you. No matter how you fail, I will never fail you. Allow me to help you. Allow me to lift you. Come to me, and I will give you rest.”
God never writes people off; God never gives up on people. Jesus didn't write Peter off, even after all his failures. After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to Peter especially. And when Peter didn't know what to do next, Jesus gave him instructions: “Feed my sheep.”
So, in all our failures, through all our sin, we hear the voice of the prophet Isaiah: “The Lord God helps me, therefore I have not been disgraced... It is the Lord God who helps me, who will declare me guilty?” Our sins and failures have been gently lifted from us by our Saviour, Jesus. His body given, and his blood shed, to take upon himself our sins, that body and blood now nourishes us and strengthens us for all our struggles. Thanks be to God! Amen.
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