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Guilty Until Declared

March 24, 2013 By moadmin

In the Passion of the Son of God there is a complete reversal of the reality of the world: guilty are declared forgiven, welcomed into grace, innocent willingly offer themselves as guilty for the sake of the guilty.  In this we find the fullness of God’s being and grace.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Sunday of the Passion C; texts: Luke 22:14 – 23:56

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

There is something troubling about the way great tragedies are reported and discussed in our country.  Frequently the words “innocent lives” are used when someone brings a gun into a school or a mall and indiscriminately shoots and kills, when a terrorist sets off a bomb, when any thing horrible is done by someone to someone else.  After these tragedies it’s just as troubling that there seems to be a rush to know “why” the perpetrator did what they did, what is to blame: is it random, were they evil, were they abused, were they mentally ill?

The implication that we seem to live with is that some people deserve to die, and some people do not.  There are “innocent” people who deserve all good, and “guilty” people who do not.  Of course we’re not so crass as to state that boldly all the time.  But in our words and actions we show this is our view.  There were 27 who were killed by the shooter in Newtown, but only 26 bells were tolled on the Friday after the shooting, and 26 is the number of victims often listed.  Somehow there wasn’t room to include in compassion and grief the mother of the shooter, who was the first to be killed.  Again, most are too civilized to speak this aloud, but surely there is blame being laid at her feet, therefore she doesn’t fit our neat “innocent lives” group.  And of course no bell would ever be considered for the shooter himself.  Our artists have challenged us to reconsider all this, writers like J. R. R. Tolkien and Victor Hugo, for example, who have written great stories which open the question of who does and who doesn’t deserve to die, to be punished, beyond the simplistic frontier justice we seem so enamored of in our culture.

Today it is the evangelist Luke who challenges our prevailing attitude, so much so that he overturns our entire worldview, leaving it a shambles.  In its place is a view of the gracious and awe-inspiring love of the Triune God for a world filled with guilty people, guilty people who get off, who avoid punishment.  In its place is a view of the supreme Innocent One who takes all that guilt upon himself, though undeserving of it, and changes what it is to speak of “justice” for all time.

Luke shapes his story like none of his fellow evangelists when it comes to this reversal, for he repeatedly raises the question of innocence and guilt throughout his narrative.

Luke is the only one who tells us that Pilate repeatedly declared that there was no legal basis for a death sentence upon Jesus.  John recounts this once, Matthew and Mark never.  But Luke has three separate times where Pilate essentially makes a grand jury ruling, “there is no basis for this sentence, this charge.”

In addition, when Luke speaks of the two who were crucified with Jesus, he calls them, literally, “evildoers”.  (Our translation renders this “criminals.”)  Matthew and Mark say they were robbers, much less serious.  John just says there were two.

Lastly, while Jesus is declared “not guilty” by Pilate three times, three times Luke refers to the two fellow accused as “evildoers,” criminals.  And in case we didn’t pick up on this, only Luke tells us that the centurion who crucified Jesus declared his “innocence,” as NRSV translates it, and what he’s literally saying is that Jesus is “righteous,” “just,” dikaios.

There are therefore people dying on the cross in Luke who are guilty and deserve it.  And there is one who is dying who absolutely doesn’t deserve it.

But that’s just the beginning.  Just as critical as these declarations of guilt or innocence by the narrator, Pilate, or the centurion, there are the other startling declarations from the central figure himself, again found only in Luke’s account.

The first is the most powerful statement of the grace of God in the entire Gospel, and that’s saying something, for this is a Gospel rife with grace.  Remember that Luke has told us from the beginning who Jesus is, the Son of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, anointed to bring the good news of the reign of God.

And as this Son, filled with the Spirit of God, is being nailed to the cross, he speaks to his Father, but not in hatred.  He asks forgiveness for those who are killing him.  “Father, forgive them,” he says.  “They don’t know what they’re doing.”  Think of the shattering implications of such an act, such a prayer, from such a person.

Then, again, only in Luke, when Jesus is being mocked, one of the evildoers also mocks him, only to be rebuked by his fellow evildoer.  And here in a nutshell is all of Luke’s theological view of this crucifixion, this death.  The evildoer says that he and his fellow have been “condemned justly,” they are getting what they deserve for their actions, and that is death.  But this one, he says, “has done nothing wrong.”

We deserve to die.  We have no cause for complaint.  But this one is innocent.  That’s the center of the crucifixion in Luke.  But there’s a second, world-upturning declaration: the evildoer asks Jesus to remember him “when you come into your reign, your rule.”

Just “remember me,” that’s all he asks.

And without a question about deserving or undeserving, repentance or confession, without any question at all, the dying Son of God says, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

So for the record, in addition to an innocent person dying without deserving it, we also have this innocent person offering the forgiveness of almighty God to those who killed him, and the welcome of almighty God to one who actually did deserve to be killed for his crimes.

It’s more than we ever could fully comprehend.  And it changes everything.

What Luke forces us to reconsider by his telling of this story is literally everything we believe to be true about guilt, innocence, punishment, and grace.

This is consistent with the rest of his Gospel, and the book of Acts, but it’s no less difficult for that.  The coming of the Son of the Father, filled with the Holy Spirit, is the beginning of the reign of God on this earth.  The healing and teaching, the grace and welcome this eternal Son of God brings in Luke’s telling is a deep and abiding cause of joy for us as we read it.

But now we see this Righteous, Innocent One suffer and die.  And the wicked, evil ones are forgiven for it.  It offends our sense of justice, our sense of right and wrong.  It sounds just like what happens in the parable of the Prodigal Father, and once again we find ourselves on the side of the elder brother and his outrage at this injustice.

That is, until we realize that we are the guilty ones.  We are the ones who “know not” what we do.  It doesn’t matter to Jesus if we see ourselves as the younger brother in his story or the elder brother.  Because all the brothers in the world, all the sisters, are lost, broken, guilty.

Whether we can justify ourselves in our own minds as “innocent” or not is not relevant.  Whether there are some who to our minds are clearly “guilty” is also not relevant.  In the realm and reign of God, the Son of God came to seek and to find the lost.  And then to celebrate.

And the sooner we admit our lostness, our guilt, our sinfulness, the quicker we understand and grasp the indescribably astonishing truth of God’s love for us.  “Father, forgive them,” Jesus says about us.  “They don’t know what they are doing.”  Except when we do, and we say, “we are justly worthy of condemnation.”  Then Jesus says to us, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

There are no loopholes.  All are guilty.  But Luke has left no loopholes in grace, either.  All are loved and forgiven.  That is our thing to ponder on this Passion Sunday, as we enter once more the gates of Holy Week.  Everything is upside down, and no one gets what they deserve: not the innocent Son of God, not guilty humanity.

And so we go from here in wonder, with much to consider, much to think about.

If our lives are built around the idea that we get, or we should get, what we deserve, well, can we ever say we deserve all good from God, much less forgiveness?

And yet Luke says that’s the whole point of the Innocent One, the Son of God, offering his life.  To declare all who are guilty innocent, free, loved.  To start the party of celebration that those who were lost to God are now found, and the feasting in heaven may now begin.

This week will give us much more to consider.  But with this as our hope, it will also give us the possibility of life now and always.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Filed Under: sermon

Midweek Lent 2013, Mount Olive + Words for the Pilgrimage (a walk with Hebrews)

March 20, 2013 By moadmin

Week 5:  “Follow Him”

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen; Wednesday, 20 March 2013; texts: Hebrews 13:1-3, 7-16, 20-21; John 15:8-17

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Much notice has been made of Pope Francis’ early signs that he might be a different kind of pope than his immediate predecessor, especially his non-verbal actions that seem to signify a different way.  Internal sources say that he did not ascend the papal throne after being elected as he received the greetings of his brother cardinals, but remained standing on the main floor, addressing them as “brothers,” not “your lordships”.  He’s reached out in graciousness to the press, to people of other faiths, and has continued his previous practices of not covering himself with all the trappings formerly considered due his office.  The word used a great deal in describing his early actions is “humility.”

The writer to the Hebrews would be surprised, I think, that we are surprised by this.  This author would be a little nonplussed to discover that when the pastor charged with leading the largest communion of Christians on earth, the priest called the vicar of Christ, acts in a way that reminds people of Jesus Christ, people are astonished by it, remarking on it.  For Hebrews, it should be expected, and not just of the Bishop of Rome.  For Hebrews, this is the shape of the life of all Christians, that we imitate our Lord Jesus Christ in our actions and in our love, and we imitate those who have gone before us who modeled that same way of Christly life.

We have been exploring the ways in which Hebrews invites us to consider our lives as pilgrimage from our earthly city to the city that is to come, language which now we hear in today’s reading.  But as this author concludes this sermon of Hebrews, we are reminded that not only is this not an individual journey each of us makes on our own, but we are actually obligated to serve each other on that journey, just as our Lord has served and continues to serve us.

Hebrews begins the final chapter with exhortations to pay attention to each other, exhortations to mutual love, hospitality, doing good and sharing all we have.

Up until this point it could be possible, though not wise, to have read much of Hebrews’ argument from an individual perspective.  This whole sermon that is Hebrews invites the hearers to follow Jesus through the wilderness of life.  To see him as our access to God, our entrance into the holiest of places.  And even to see those who have gone before us as surrounding us in encouragement.  And without care, one could take that strictly in an individualistic sense.

But now in the final persuasive argument of this sermon, the author makes it explicitly clear, if it wasn’t before, that we are called together to be like Christ ourselves, for each other and for the world.

The last verses of chapter 12 really are better attached to chapter 13, by setting up the exhortations of 13 with this exhortation: therefore since we are receiving an unshakeable kingdom, let us give thanks and offer our acceptable worship to God.  And our response, our worship to God, Hebrews says, is serving others, after the model of Jesus.

Here this serving is called love, both inside the community and outside, though the translation we know commonly doesn’t show the parallel very well.  We are invited to “mutual love” and “hospitality to strangers” in our translation.  There’s more here if we dig.  “Mutual love” is philadelphia, the love of the brothers (and sisters, we would add.)  But this word is more about a bond of connection, a deep tie, than emotional feeling. [1]   We are in Christ together, and we are to let that bond of Christly love between us continue.

“Hospitality to strangers” is interestingly philoxenia, love of strangers.  So there’s a parallel construction here: we love our sisters and brothers in the community, are bound to them.  And we love strangers, are bound to them.  In fact, we might best translate this “care for each other and care for strangers.” [2]

Both directions are central to our life on the pilgrimage.  We cannot be individuals in Christian community, worshipping for ourselves, believing for ourselves.  We belong to each other in ways we did not devise, through the waters of baptism and the joining of our lives to Christ: we are made one.  So Hebrews says: live that way.

But we cannot simply look to each other, close the circle, Hebrews says.  We are also bound to the stranger, whomever it is we encounter.  By so caring for the other, welcoming them into our midst, we serve God with a worthy worship.  And we might even be entertaining messengers from God, angels, Hebrews says.

The care we give is further expanded to cover all who are in prison and tortured, all in need we might say.  Reminding us of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25, Hebrews lifts our vision from ourselves to others in our community and outside, for no one is outside our call to care and love in Jesus’ name.

It is in fact, because of whom we follow, our pioneer, the center of this whole writing, that we are called to such love and care.  We are called to go where he goes.  And that’s not always to nice places.

Hebrews uses a powerfully arresting image to bring this home.  In the Israelite camp in the wilderness, the layout was one of circles of holiness, centered on the Tabernacle.  Unclean things were taken outside its boundaries. [3]  So the leavings of the sacrificial animals whose blood was brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for atonement were burned outside the camp.

Hebrews has already said we have no need for such sacrifices, for our High Priest offered himself.  But here Jesus isn’t the High Priest, he’s the refuse: Jesus went outside the camp, outside the city gate, to sanctify us by his blood, Hebrews says.  He went to the garbage heap, where unclean things are burned, to be burned himself in order to make all things clean.

And so we are told to get out there, too.  To go where he goes.  So Hebrews has told us on the one hand that Jesus has entered the Holy of Holies for us and opened it to us forever.  But now we see that he leaves the center, the place of God’s presence, and brings God’s presence outside the city to the worst of the worst.

We know from our own work and homes that tough, disgusting jobs sometimes need to be done.  It always makes it harder for us to avoid them if our superiors or colleagues or family members are unwilling to avoid them.  That’s where we are in the whole of our lives, this author says: we have a boss, a Lord, a Master, who goes to the darkest, dirtiest, worst places to bring the love and grace of God.

Outside the city, to the place no one wants to go.  Since he’s there, how can we stay where we are?  “Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured,” our preacher says.

It’s a powerful argument that compels us out of our complacency to act, to move, to reach out to others.  It’s like when someone starts cleaning up a house and you’re sitting on the couch with the paper.  It takes a relatively high level of stubborn rudeness to remain there while hard work is being done around you.

Hebrews reminds us that our call to care for each other and the stranger will likely lead us to places of discomfort and pain.  But our Lord has already gone there, and is there still.  You see, the Pioneer of our journey isn’t only making the path easy for us.  Sometimes he takes us off the path into the bogs and swamps, into the infested places, because there’s someone there who needs our help and care.

In the end, Hebrews simply reminds us of Jesus’ original call to us, that we love one another and the world as he has loved us.

Do good, share what you have, Hebrews says, care for each other, care for the stranger, don’t care for money or your comfort here.  Love one another even if it means losing, being hurt, because that’s what our Leader has done and is doing.  And if we’re following him, it’s not just for our comfort, it’s for the sake of all on this pilgrimage.

Because we are all on our way to a city that is to come, we’re in this together.  And with our Lord guiding us, “making us complete in everything good so we may do his will,” with such help and strength we can help all on this pilgrimage of life, that nobody gets left behind, nobody falls to the wayside, but all make it safely to the city that is to come.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen


[1] Craig R. Koester, Hebrews (The Anchor Yale Bible), copyright © 2001 by Yale University, as assignee from Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.; p. 557.
[2] Ibid, p. 557.
[3] Ibid, p. 570.

Filed Under: Midweek Lent 2013, sermon

Responsive Abundance

March 17, 2013 By moadmin

God has done a completely new thing in the Son’s extravagant offering of his life for the sake of us and the world, and that abundant offering moves us to offer praise and thanks in extravagant abundance for the sake of God and the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, 5 Lent C; texts: John 12:1-8; Isaiah 43:16-21

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

We sometimes have an awkward, if not outright negative reaction to extravagant gifts.  There is often in our culture a sense that when we receive a gift that seems exorbitant, generous, costly, we are required to say, “Oh, you really shouldn’t have.  This is too much, too much!”  In fact, we sometimes can find ourselves thinking or saying that even for gifts that aren’t so much.  A wise person I knew once said that it is as important to learn to receive well as it is to give well.

What’s interesting about this beautiful act of Mary of Bethany toward Jesus is that the response of the recipient is gracious and grateful: Jesus praises Mary for her generosity.  It’s others in the room that offer their criticism, in this case, Judas.  When Matthew and Mark tell this story, it’s “the disciples” who criticize, but John has a point to make about Judas, including his exclusive tidbit that Judas was a thief who stole from the shared purse used to feed and care for the poor.

It seems clear that Judas isn’t really concerned about the poor, but Jesus’ answer is often seen, incorrectly, as an instance of him not caring, either.  Of course he’s really saying that his own impending death and subsequent absence from his disciples is cause for their attention now, while caring for the poor will always be their job, their mission, their concern.

It is, however, Mary’s gracious, astonishing action that dominates our attention today.  It raises in us questions of our own response to the presence of the Lord, to the grace of God, and our place on the spectrum running from Judas’ disdain to Mary’s adoration.  Even Judas’ concern for the poor invites us to ask how we distinguish between gifts to God that in their own right are worthy and gifts we might give to the poor in God’s name.

Since we can scarcely take our eyes off of Mary in this story, let’s look at her more fully.

When we look at her gift we need to see it through her eyes rather than through our sense of its foolishness or wastefulness.

We do note first, however, the shocking extravagance of this gift, the careless regard for cost that is exhibited in this action of great care.  This perfume Mary takes up is worth about ten months’ wages of a daily laborer, the kind of people Mary knew well, the kind of people who spent time with Jesus.  In fact, many of his disciples likely weren’t earning that kind of daily wage, and were in various stages of poverty.

But even a daily worker couldn’t conceive of having ten months of wages set aside in savings, let alone deciding to buy perfume with it.  At that economic level, you eat what you earn, and are glad if what you take home in wages at the end of the day feeds you and your family.  So Judas’ concern for the poor has two truths in it: they literally could have fed a lot of people, a lot of families, with that money; and everyone who lived on the edge financially who heard his complaint could be sure to at least share his shock at the cost.

But Mary takes this perfume that cost so much and dumps it out, pours it over Jesus’ feet, wiping them with her hair.  She throws it away, seemingly, and though John tells us that the house was filled with the glorious scent, still, we might easily fall onto Judas’ side of this conversation.  It certainly makes Matthew’s and Mark’s assertions sensible, that “the disciples” complained, not just one.  Mary seems careless about the value, careless about the waste, careless about the hungry people she must certainly know.

Caring or careless: that’s the key distinction here, isn’t it?  Mary cares more for Jesus than for the cost of her gift.  That’s the point of concern for those critical of her.

We need to note, however, that Mary’s generosity arises out of her gratefulness to Jesus and her sense of what is now happening.  In the first place, this happens immediately after Jesus has raised Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, from the dead.  In real time and in John’s Gospel, it is the event that precedes this dinner party for Jesus.  We can almost see this party as part of the family’s gratitude for Jesus’ miracle of restored life.  Mary’s overflowing generosity comes in part from this gratitude and love.

In the second place, this happens immediately before Holy Week.  Six days before Passover, John says.  Now, Jesus has been telling the disciples that he is going to Jerusalem and will be put to death by the leaders of the people.  In the synoptic Gospels, the male disciples at least seem to act as if they’re not really listening to Jesus.  In John’s Gospel, in the previous chapter, when Jesus announces he is going to Bethany to help his friend Lazarus, however, his disciples, including the men, try to dissuade him because his life is threatened.  When Jesus persists, Thomas encourages himself and the others that they should all go and die with Jesus.  So in John’s telling, even the men are a little aware.

But clearly Mary’s more deeply in tune with Jesus’ mood and the political and religious tensions of the day.  She anoints Jesus for burial, he says.  She perfumes his feet and the whole room to prepare him for what is to come.

Which leads to the third thing Mary understands: she understands her role as servant of Jesus.  It is John who tells us that Jesus does this very same action for the disciples, though without perfume, on the night of his betrayal.  He washes their feet, and calls them to do the same for each other.  Mary anticipates that action by nearly a week, and washes Jesus’ feet with perfume and her hair, showing herself as the servant disciple Jesus wishes the others to become, the ideal disciple.

Mary’s insight and actions actually help us re-imagine what the LORD is saying through Isaiah today.

At one level, this beautiful text can be understood as a message promising the return of the exiles.  In this section, the first part of Second Isaiah, the prophet who spoke comfort to the Israelites in Babylon, the LORD God of Israel once more claims what is always God’s name-tag identification for Israel.  Since the Exodus, whenever the people of Israel needed to identify their God, or God needed to self-identify, it was always, “The One who brought us out of Egypt, out of slavery, into the land of promise,” or similar phrases and images.

So it’s no surprise to see the LORD say today, “I am the one who makes a way in the sea, who casts down chariots and armies.”  Of course: that’s who God is.  What is surprising is what’s next: God says, “Don’t remember that any more.  Forget all that stuff.”  This is the defining moment of salvation for Israel, the deliverance at the Red Sea and the entire Exodus.  And now in exile, God says, “Yes, that was I.  But forget about that.”

And that’s because God is about to do a new thing, a greater thing than the greatest thing.  And the new thing is described as a way in the wilderness, water in the wilderness, to give the chosen people drink, to sustain them.  Given its context, of course we can see this abundant grace of God, this promise, as referring to the return from exile.  They will have a path made for them through the wilderness, they will go home.

But in light of the life, death and resurrection of the Son of God, Christians have seen that “new thing” as far greater than the return from exile.  Death is reversed, the new reign of God has arrived, and the life in the Spirit is given.

At this point, on the verge of Holy Week, the fullness of this abundance is not yet known.  But somehow, Mary gives a gift appropriate for such an abundant grace that is to come, such a new thing.  Perhaps only such an extravagance could begin to approach an appropriate response for such love.  In light of the cross and empty tomb, Mary’s generous foolishness seems a perfect choice.

And though she didn’t know fully what was to come, she did know that in this Master of hers life came to her brother and was restored to their family.  The deaf heard, the blind saw, the lame walked.  And her brother lived.

And she knows, even if she doesn’t yet understand, that somehow this Master, this Son of God, whom she loves, is facing death.  So she gives him beyond the best.  She pours out all her love in a gift that is beyond understanding, just as her Master is going to pour out his love in a way that is beyond her understanding.

What Mary gives us is a model and inspiration for our own extravagant response.

We of course know what is to come for her and the others, for Jesus.  We know the marvelous end of this story and the beginning of the new story of God’s reign begun in Jesus.  We know more than she does at this point that Jesus’ sacrifice of himself was truly a new thing, the new covenant Jeremiah foretells, a new thing where the God who can bring a people out of bondage and return a people out of exile offers himself for the sake of those people.

This cross to which Jesus is heading is his choice, his willing giving up of all divine right and power and authority.  He does this, John says, to draw all people to himself.  To redeem, not to judge.  To save the world, not to condemn it.  The LORD was right back in Isaiah, but only after Easter do we fully understand how utterly new this is.  That the almighty God who made all things would set aside power in order to win us back with sacrificial love.  To seek and to save the lost, Jesus says.  To find us.  To find all.

What Mary teaches us is the proper response when such a Lord is present, when such a Christ is with us: there is nothing we give that is too extravagant, too priceless.  So when we worship, like Mary, we bring the best we can bring.  We have a choir that rehearses hours on one piece of music that lasts three and a half minutes at our liturgy, a waste of time to an efficient world.  But the gift of our best, our all, to the God whose love transforms us.

We take time in liturgy weekly to be with God, praise God, lament to God, be fed by God, to gather in God’s presence and give our best.  There are some who would see this as a waste of time, too.  But we have found that the love of the Triune God is so profoundly deep we are included in that love, broken and sinful that we are.  We have nothing better to do than be here to worship such a God.

We “waste” money on expensive candles and use them up in our worship, people among us “waste” a lot of time and care to bake bread which will be gone in ten minutes of Eucharist, because this is the best we can offer.  There would probably be cheaper options, but we don’t choose them.

And for your information, Judas, we also give of what we have to help others, feed others, love others because of this transformative love we have received.  Perhaps we could learn from Mary to be more extravagant with this, more wildly giving, that is true.  But the poor we always have with us, and we will care for them because we are loved by God with a death-defeating love.

And speaking of Judas, we also know this mystery and marvel: With such a new thing that God has done, such a new thing that includes even we who are broken and sinful, perhaps there is even room for Judas in it.  There was for Peter.  If Jesus truly came to seek and to save the lost, who is more lost in this story than Judas?  Cannot the One who is to be lifted up and draw all people to himself also bring Judas into his cruciform embrace?

We know it is so.  And that gives us more reason for abundant response like Mary’s, abundant joy, abundant grace to share with all who fear they have no place in God’s gracious abundance.

Perhaps what Mary invites us most today is to quit looking at her and start following her example.

The abundant love of God in a world that claims there is a scarcity of love, the overwhelming outpouring of the grace of God in a world that keeps score of wrongs and judges others, this is the reality that our Lord Christ has made known in his death and resurrection.  We are invited by Mary’s example to respond with the same abandon, the same joy, in worshipping the One who has done a new thing and is making all things new, and so participate in that making, that gracing of this world, this new creation.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Filed Under: sermon

Midweek Lent 2013 + Words for the Pilgrimage (a walk with Hebrews)

March 13, 2013 By moadmin

Week 4:  “A Great Crowd”

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Wednesday, 13 March 2013; texts: Hebrews 11:1-3; 12:1-2, 12-13; John 17:1a, 6-19

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Last weekend a number of people from Mount Olive were privileged to worship at Great Vespers at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in St. Paul, where our administrator Cha Posz is a member.  Some of us arrived an hour early and were able to witness a baptism as well.  It was a beautiful evening and the hospitality and welcome of the people of Holy Trinity was gracious and warm.

As in most Orthodox places of worship, the walls and ceiling of the nave and chancel were covered in icons, and the icons at Holy Trinity were almost overwhelmingly beautiful.  We spent a little time after Vespers with Fr. Jonathan as he gave an introductory talk about them.  The place of the icon in Orthodox liturgy is a topic which requires far more time than we have here today.  But I wanted to share one impression that I had throughout the evening, as a Western Christian worshipping for the first time in a place where these faces surrounded us all, faces mostly of Biblical figures, but also some of more recent years.  At more than one point in the Vespers, I looked around and was deeply moved by the sense that I was experiencing a little of what the author of Hebrews was describing, that I was “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.”  These people of faith whose faces, and in some cases, whose words, were before and behind and beside, surrounded our prayer and our song, even encouraged and strengthened our prayer and our song.  It was an experience of the holy that I’ll not soon let go.

This might be the best part of this sermon to the Hebrews, the part we’re considering today, the claim by this ancient preacher that we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us as we journey through our lives.  One almost gets the image of a great stadium with this author’s language of running “with perseverance the race that is set before us.”  It’s as when in the Olympics, the marathon runners run their course with crowds encouraging them from the side of the road all along the way, and then at the end the runners arrive in Olympic stadium to a massive roar from the rest of the spectators who are gathered to cheer the finish.  It’s thrilling beyond description to think of our lives as so surrounded, so supported, so encouraged along our road, and to consider the greeting we will find at the finish of our own race.  And as we experience that pilgrimage of our lives, at whatever place we now find ourselves, it’s tremendously comforting and a great gift from this author to us.

There are several ways in which this great cloud, or perhaps we could say, great crowd of witnesses are God’s gift of grace to us on our journey.

The first is the witness of faith that those who have gone before us offer us.

The preacher to the Hebrews makes this point movingly in chapter 11, after the opening verses we heard just now.  After introducing the topic of faith, Hebrews moves to a great litany of people of faith who are for us models of faith and trust in God’s goodness.

Abel, Enoch, Noah.  Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph.  Moses, the people of Israel at the Red Sea, Rahab.  Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah.  David, Samuel, all the prophets.  All these people, like those in the icons at Holy Trinity, are offered to us as witnesses of what it is to live in faith.

“Faith,” Hebrews says, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  That’s a little hard to hold some days.

And these witnesses that Hebrews offers us, along with a list we would also add from the New Testament, were we to write this chapter, people like Mary Magdalene, Peter, Thomas, Mary and Martha, Stephen, Paul, these witnesses are our encouragement.  Because they are like us and yet lived in faith, we can learn from them and be encouraged and strengthened by their witness and experience.

And we have beyond these biblical witnesses those whom we call saints, some known to us and others known to the world, who are also such models and witnesses.

As I understand it from Cha, in the Orthodox church only those who have formally been called saints are referred to with that term.  In the West, we use it more freely to include both those officially recognized by the Church and those whose lives are lived in Christ, even to we ourselves as baptized children of God.

But that means that we in effect each make our own list of witnesses who have helped us.  Some are those shared by many, people like Francis, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther, Julian of Norwich, countless saints whose lives have been and continue to be witnesses to us of what it is to live in faith.  The Church has an abundance of blessing in the sheer numbers of such witnesses.

But then we all have our more quiet list of those saints who have modeled the faith to us in our lives or to our families, those whom perhaps few others know but without whom we would not believe as we do, would not be able to journey as we do.

And this is the great crowd which shows us a life of faith in the wilderness, which helps us see a path, helps us understand our own faltering steps.

But this preacher doesn’t limit the crowd to those who have witnessed in the past.  There is also confidence that we all are companions to each other on this journey, in profoundly important ways.

The gift of the community of faith that Jesus gives is that we do not journey through this wilderness of life alone.

As some of you know, I’ve been in a spiritual direction group with three other pastors and a spiritual director for 14 years.  It’s been a tremendous gift of companionship having these four people on my journey of faith and in my ministry.  And that has been the metaphor that has best described the experience: these are companions who walk on the same path as I, and they are looking ahead with me.  They help me see potholes, catch my arm when I stumble, and help me as I reach a crossroads to discern which path seems best.

This is what Hebrews says we all are for each other.  We are given the gift of community in Christ, and this is no small gift.  As companions in our journey together, we surround and care for each other and look to the needs and concerns of each other, we “lift drooping hands,” as the writer says, “strengthen weak knees, make straight paths for the feet”.  This is Jesus’ gift of the Body that he creates, that others help us as we walk the path of our lives, help us navigate the tricky parts, even help smooth out the rough parts, as Hebrews says.  Knowing that we do not walk alone, but are strengthened by our fellow travelers sustains and refreshes us again and again for the journey.

But if you look at these words, this is not only comfort, but exhortation, that we take seriously our role as companions of others on the journey.  Hebrews exhorts us all to be this to each other, not simply to bask in receiving it from others.

And at our best, as a community of faith, we both receive and give help on our pilgrimage, because we do it together.  And that companionship is also simply the comfort of having fellow travelers, who share our stories, pass the time, laugh with us and cry with us, who make our journey lighter by being with us and we with them.

There is one more element we’ve not considered about this “crowd” of witnesses, and that is the word “cloud” that Hebrews uses.

When the writer says we are surrounded by so great a “cloud” of witnesses, we are given an image which suggests the very real presence of those who have gone before us, the hosts of heaven.  This is not simply the role we’ve already considered, that these are past witnesses of faith, either in our lives or the history of the Church and before, the people of Israel.  This is something much more.

There is in Hebrews, and subsequently in the theology of the Church these past 2,000 years, a pervasive sense that those who have gone before us are even now surrounding us and encouraging us.  This is the role of saints as those who cheer on the sidelines at a marathon.  They who have gone before us and who are at the throne of God now surround and cheer us on in our race, our journey.

There is much we don’t know about what it is like to have died and still have the world awaiting Jesus’ return and the full restoration of the kingdom.  There are some who pick up on hints in Paul that we simply all sleep, and all are raised at the last day.  That may well be.

But there are also these hints, which the Church has deeply rooted into its theology and powerfully in its hymnody, that those who have died and gone before us are not asleep but actively worshipping at the throne of God even now, and as Hebrews suggests, surrounding us.

Hymn after hymn speak of the saints who worship God and who are joining us in prayer and praise.  Our Eucharistic prayers frequently invite those who have gone before us to join in our prayer and thanksgiving.  And frankly, many of us have experienced a sense of this presence, this surrounding cloud, as comfort and hope in our journey of life.

Therefore, Hebrews says, let us run with perseverance this race set before us.

With such witnesses past and present, models and encouragers, cheerers-on, we now take our turn in the journey, and focus ourselves on our pioneer, the perfecter of our faith, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose death and resurrection we also hope and find life.  He is the One who, as we hear in his prayer in John, specifically asked the Father to support us as a community, that we might be together even when he is gone.  He is the One who asks this of the Father in order that we, his community, might have his joy completed in ourselves.

This is the joy which sustains us in our race, our pilgrimage, our journey.  We are not alone, with Christ ahead of us and all the witnesses around us, and so we move forward with hope and confidence toward the life God is even now making in us all.  And best of all, toward that life which we will only know fully when we finally arrive at the stadium and finish our race to the cheers of those who have already finished and are celebrating our arrival.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Filed Under: Midweek Lent 2013, sermon

Always a Welcome

March 10, 2013 By moadmin

In the Prodigal Son we learn our right relationship to God; it is that of parent to child. In this parable, Jesus teaches that our actions never change our relationship to God and in this love we are always welcomed home. 

Vicar Neal Cannon, Fourth Sunday in Lent (C); text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32; Psalm 32; II Corinthians 5:16-21

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The Pharisees have a big problem with Jesus talking to sinners.

Every time Jesus talks to a tax collector, they call him out. Every time Jesus eats with a Samaritan, they hassle him. Every time Jesus goes for a walk with a Gentile, the Pharisees get all worked up!

Why is that?  What’s the big deal?  Let’s just let the guy eat his lunch already!!

But for the Pharisees this was a big deal, and they had their reasons why. In the Old Testament, we read the story of a people who were constantly struggling to maintain their relationship with God. One day, the people are being faithful to God, and God is blessing them, and the next day the people are worshiping other gods and sinning in various ways, and God is punishing them.

Over and over again in the Old Testament God tells the people to follow his ways, to remember the laws and commandments. God warns them that there are consequences to breaking the rules. And so the Pharisees learned the rules and they learned them very well. They taught that if the people followed the rules, they would have a good relationship with God.

But then Jesus and his disciples come along, and they don’t follow the rules quite as well. Sometimes on the Sabbath Jesus would heal the sick and his disciples would pick grains of wheat from the fields. And as we find out today, Jesus would eat with people who were sinners; he would eat with people who were breaking a lot of rules.

And for the Pharisees this is a big deal because if our relationship with God is dependent on following the rules, then breaking the rules would mean that God might punish us. To be a Pharisee you had to be very careful about making sure everyone was following all the rules.

So when the Pharisees confront Jesus for spending time with rule breakers, Jesus tells them the parable of the Prodigal Son, the story of a wayward son and his loving father who welcomes him back home.

This story is often read with one major inaccuracy. The inaccuracy in the story that we often hear is that the father accepts his son because his son repents. We think this because we hear the son practice his confession, so we think that it’s because he repents the father accepts him back as his son. But if we listen more carefully we realize that the father never hears his confession. The father sees his son a long way off and embraces him before he says a word. When the son does repent to his father, the father never even acknowledges his words but clothes him with his finest robe, sandals, and rings.

The reason that the story is sometimes read in this way is because we unintentionally use a lens that says, “Our relationship to God is dependent on what we do and say.”

We do this for a lot of reasons. We tell ourselves that this story is about what the son does to earn his father’s forgiveness because we want to believe that we can redeem ourselves. We want to believe that if we follow all the rules perfectly, God won’t be angry at us.

Here’s the problem. When we read this story the way that Jesus told it, we realize we got the story backwards. We think that it’s what we do that impacts our relationship with God, when in Jesus’ story it’s actually our relationship to God that impacts what we do.

In this story Jesus tells us that our relationship to God isn’t dependent on our actions. God loves us even when we sin. God loves us when we do well. God loves us when we are close by and God loves us when we are far away. Jesus puts this love for us into terms that we can understand. Jesus puts it in terms of a relationship. Jesus says, this is the kind of love a parent gives to a child, and anyone who has had a relationship based on unconditional love knows what this is like.

As some of you know, my birthday was last week. And as happens every year, I got a phone call from my parents. It was during the day so I wasn’t able to answer but my parents left me a message singing Happy Birthday to me.  And then after singing Happy Birthday my Mom said something really incredible to me. She said, “Neal we love you. We were there the day you were born, and there is no one else who can say that but your Dad and I.” And I realized that this is the kind of love that we receive from God. This is the relationship a parent gives to a child, the kind of relationship Jesus was talking about.

This is the kind of love that says, I was there for you on the day you were born, and I will always be there. No matter how old you are, no matter what you do, no matter what you say to me, I will always see you as my baby, my child.

This has deep meaning for us. In this parable we discover that we are not objects or pets in God’s eyes. We are God’s children and God wants nothing more than to be in relationship with us. The Psalm today tells us, “Do not be like horse or mule, which have no understanding; who must be fitted with bit and bridle, or else they will not stay near you.” In other words, God doesn’t use us as we would use an animal. God doesn’t force us to do God’s will.

Like the younger son, we are given the opportunity to leave whenever we want. We’re given the freedom to take our inheritance and waste it away. We can pollute the Earth and exploit its resources until the land is parched and withered. We can treat our family, friends, and neighbors with contempt until we are alone in this world. We can exchange love, and life, and community for immediate gratification until we’re empty inside.

But from the parable we learn, life is better when we have a relationship with God. And yes, there are rules when we live in God’s house, but our relationship is never dependent on how well we follow those rules. God is always our Parent and we are always God’s children.

But like all children, we think God’s rules are there to get in our way. We think they hinder us. Don’t eat too many sweets, treat your sister nicely, don’t stay out past midnight!  Unfortunately, too often it’s not until we get sick from eating too many sweets, or a relationship with a loved one is ruined, or we get in a car accident because we drank too much at the party and decided to drive home that we realize that God made these rules to keep us safe, to give us life more fully. In the context of God’s relationship to us, we realize that the rules don’t define the relationship,
God’s loving relationship to us defines the rules.

The Good News is, as Jesus tells us in our parable today, that even when we do screw up the door to reconciliation and forgiveness, the door to coming home, is always open. When we realize the world and all its charms is not everything it’s cracked up to be, God is there waiting for us like a Parent waiting for their child to come home late at night.

During this time of Lent this is an especially powerful thing to remember because as we confess our sins, as we prepare ourselves to come before the altar we remember that before we ever uttered a word God forgave us. Before we did a thing, Jesus Christ, the living expression of God’s love, died on cross and was resurrected as proof of the length and depth that God goes to have a relationship with us. This relationship that God has with us, changes our very nature.

As St. Paul says, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” In Christ we are new creatures, a new creation. God sees us as he would see a newborn child. And as such, we can do nothing to separate us from this kind of love, this relationship.

When we are in relationship with God, when we treat others as brothers and sisters in Christ, we become as St. Paul says, “ambassadors for Christ,” because we proclaim as Jesus taught us that God is our loving parent who has welcomed us home.

When our neighbors really tick us off, we forgive them because we know that God forgives us. When our children are too much to bear, we endure their childishness because that’s what God does for us. When a brother or sister sins and falls short of God’s will on Earth, we rejoice and celebrate when they come home safe and sound.

And when we screw up, we repent because of the pain and suffering it has caused us and the world, but we never have to fear God abandoning us because in Christ we have a promise that our sins are forgiven, and that our Loving Parent will never leave us. Thanks be to God.

Filed Under: sermon

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