Christ gets in your way and invites you, calls you, transforms you, to walk in the Way and join God’s children in healing the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Easter, year C
Texts: Acts 9:1-20; Psalm 30; John 21:1-19 (plus 20-22)

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

Followers of the Way in Damascus probably prayed Psalm 30 a lot that week.

Word had gotten out that Paul, known better by his Hebrew name, Saul, was on his way to do in Damascus what he did in Jerusalem. He was an enforcer for the Council leadership, finding, arresting, and bringing back in chains those who proclaimed Jesus as Messiah. Luke says he “breathed threats and murder” against the faithful Christians. And now he was on the way to Damascus. Surely they all prayed “don’t let our enemies triumph over us,” from this psalm.

And Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, answered that prayer. By confronting their great enemy with love and invitation. Christ, who taught them to pray for and to love their enemies, said, “Here’s what I’ll do with those who hate you. I’ll love them over to our side.” Ananias and the others were understandably doubtful. But Jesus said, I’ve chosen him to be my instrument to bring my name – the Good News you all proclaim – to both Jews and non-Jews.

That’s the way of Christ: transforming hatred with love, for the healing of all.

And the risen Christ believes sinful people are absolutely necessary for this Way.

As tremendously daunting as the world’s problems are, with systemic sins like racism and sexism and classism, and deeply embedded patterns of violence and hatred as a common human way of living, God in Christ has a simple plan: change people one at a time, inviting them into the Way, and eventually all will be healed. The Dalai Lama once wrote, “Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way.” [1]

Christ couldn’t agree more. The healing of all creation will come by transforming the human children of God in it, to bring about the wholeness and life of all things.

And it’s the sinners, the broken ones who keep breaking things, the embedded, intransigent ones who perpetuate oppressive systems, the oblivious ones who benefit from the pain of others without knowing it or seeming to care about it, these are who Christ needs to transform.

People like Paul.

Vengeful, violent, and zealous for his cause, Paul is a notorious persecutor of the new community of those who trust in Christ.

Rather than violently stopping Paul, Christ looks at one of the best-trained Jewish people of his day, an exemplar Pharisee, brilliant in the ways of the Jewish faith, and says, “that’s one I could use to reach non-Jewish people, and bring my Gentile and Jewish children together, if I can change his heart.”

No one but God would think that way. So, Christ got in Paul’s way on the road to Damascus, and asked, “Why do you hate me?” Then told him to go to the city and people who he’d been seeking to destroy would help him. Paul went, and he and the world were never the same again.

Christ needed people like Peter, too, whose problem is the opposite of Paul’s.

Peter isn’t breathing threats and murder. He succumbed to his fear after boldly saying he’d never leave Jesus, denying him three times the first chance he got. Peter seems to us to stumble more than walk, overstep more than wisely act, one who at the test failed miserably.

Christ looks at this clumsy, impulsive, fearful follower and says, “there’s a leader. That’s one I trust most to lead my apostles.”

No one but God would think that way. So, Christ got in Peter’s way, sat down with him at breakfast and asked, “Do you love me?” After three painful asks, Jesus each time said, “take care of my sheep. Feed my lambs.” Peter did, and he and the world were never the same again.

Do you realize Christ needs people like you to walk in the Way, too?

The healing of all things will only happen when individuals are transformed from within. And sinners like you and me are critical, because we’re part of the problem. Changing us takes away that part of the problem and makes us part of the solution. Whether you’re breathing violence like Paul or running away like Peter, or in between, the risen Christ sees something in you that you can bring for the life of the world.

Maybe no one but God can see that. No one expected Paul’s transformation. Nothing Peter had done inspired trust he’d be a leader. But Christ saw who they could be, and got in their way, calling them into his Way.

What will that look like for you? God knows. But somehow Christ is going to get in your way to invite you to walk in his Way. Maybe on the road. Maybe at breakfast, saying “do you love me? Then I’ve got a job for you.”

And Peter had another lesson you could learn: don’t compare yourself to others.

After this conversation with Jesus, Peter wondered about his friend John. What would happen to him? Jesus said, “don’t worry about him. You do you, I’ll handle the others.”

That’s good wisdom. You aren’t expected to be Paul or Peter. Or Mother Teresa or Mary Magdalene. Nor are you to worry about whether others are having their conversation with Christ.

But you’ve already come here today to worship the Triune God and hear God’s Word. Essentially, you’ve said to God this morning, “can we have breakfast and talk?” You’re ready for it.

So, listen to what Christ says to you. Because there are lambs to be fed and sheep to be tended. A creation to be healed, God’s children to be brought into life and justice and peace. Christ has a role for you.

Don’t worry what others are doing. And trust that Christ has the utmost confidence you’ll be able to be and do what God sees in you. So that one day, all things will be healed through the Way of Christ.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] In the foreword to Peace is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh (New York: Bantam, 1991), p. vii. Cited in From Cruelty to Compassion: The Crucible of Personal Transformation, Gerald G. May (Fetzer Institute, 2003), p. 1

 

If you, like Thomas and the others, can find trust that Christ is risen, it will truly change your life and the life of the world you are in.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday of Easter, year C
Texts: John 20:19-31; Acts 5:27-32

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

Thomas has a lot at stake in seeing Jesus for himself.

Whether Thomas can trust his friends isn’t academic. This isn’t theological doubt that has no impact on how you live your life. If Jesus is alive, everything is changed for Thomas. If he’s dead, nothing that used to matter matters. He’s been living in a fog, like the rest of them, since that terrible Thursday and Friday, but now he’s had to hear the others’ excitement and joy for a week, still in a fog himself. What Thomas asks is simple, and fair. I’d like to see Jesus myself.

A risen Jesus, for all of them, is a reality question, not a theological one. Jesus was their friend, their teacher, they believed he was from God. They saw him dead. For real. And no one rises from the dead, except those Jesus raised. If Jesus is dead, it’s all over.

But if he’s alive, everything he taught is real and true and matters. If he’s alive, their lives change forever. If he’s alive, nothing is the same.

That’s what’s at stake for Thomas.

Do we have anything close to as much at stake in what happened?

To start with, for us Jesus’ resurrection is old news. 2,000 years of people have either believed in a risen Christ or not. I’ve heard “Christ is risen indeed!” every year of my life for nearly 6 decades. How can any change hinge on whether you trust Jesus is truly risen and living in the world if you’ve always known it?

And for hundreds of years the Church based all its evangelism on only part of what Christ’s resurrection means, life after death. That is a joy, a truth, a gift, but it’s not the only gift, joy, or truth. It’s a great promise. But once you trust it, life could go on as usual.

Life as usual was never an option for these disciples. A dead Jesus means lost hope, a sense of abandonment by God, a bleak future. A risen Jesus means life, and hope, and joy. God is with you, life has meaning, God’s love fills you and the world and transforms all things.

Can we perceive the resurrection with as much at stake?

Jesus said we who didn’t see this are blessed when we trust without seeing.

John reminds us of that, and says he wrote this whole Gospel as an eyewitness to you and me, to any who read it, to see for ourselves what these people saw and trusted, hoping in that seeing we’d find the same trust.

John’s promise jolts you and me into understanding the raised stakes. He says if you can trust Jesus is the risen Messiah, the Son of God, you can have life in his name. Abundant life, as Jesus promised and wants for all. Life here. Life with hope and purpose, life filled with the Spirit of God. Life-changing life that changes the world.

That’s what’s at stake. Those two Sundays Christ offered a new life to those women and men. Now he offers the same to you.

First, into the disciples’ fear, unstopped by locked doors, Jesus gives peace.

Luke and John say Jesus’ first words the Sunday night of his resurrection to the whole group of disciples were “Peace be with you.” Then he breathed God’s Spirit into them. The next Sunday, when Thomas was there, Jesus’ first words were “Peace be with you.”

That’s what the risen Christ offers you. Peace. Christ breathes the Holy Spirit into your lungs, into your body, God’s Spirit in your spirit, and says, “Be at peace.” So, we heard today, Peter and the others stand before the same council that condemned Jesus and defy the command to be silent about the resurrection. We’re going to obey God, not you, they say. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they had inner peace even when their lives were threatened, because God’s Spirit was in them. All these believers lived with this peace as they spread the Good News of God’s resurrection life.

Christ is alive. Risen from the dead, he gives to you the peace he promised on the night of his betrayal, breathing the Spirit into you, to give you life as he promised.

That’s why for centuries the Church has included Christ’s giving of peace at every Eucharist. We don’t want to risk forgetting this immense gift that changes our lives, no matter what happens in them – tragedy or joy, mourning or dancing, life or death. We share Christ’s peace with each other and so keep giving the gift.

Second, Jesus gives a life with purpose.

There’s more to this second gift which we’ll hear next week from John 21. But that Easter night, after giving peace and breathing God’s Spirit into them, Jesus sent these women and men out, making them all literally apostles, sent ones. They were sent to forgive the sins of others. To be God’s forgiving love that Jesus showed on the cross.

That’s their purpose now. It’s your purpose, too, your meaning to life. You, as God’s anointed in Baptism, are sent to forgive others for their wrongdoing. Not only those who hurt you. Jesus sends you to offer God’s forgiveness to all, no matter who they’ve wronged. To live a life that proclaims God’s final answer to all sin and brokenness is forgiveness and love.

And if you hold on to, retain, the sins of others, Jesus says, you keep forgiveness from them. Not ultimately – no one has the authority to prevent the Triune God from forgiving anyone. But if you don’t offer God’s forgiveness and love to others, Jesus says they will feel as if they don’t have it at all.

That’s Incarnation. Because humans don’t tend to assume their gods are forgiving, the true God needed to show us in a human, concrete way. The Triune God comes to us with a face – Jesus – to forgive and love us in such a way that we can’t miss it.

And now you and I and all who live in Christ are sent out as God’s forgiving love in the world. So no one doubts God’s grace and love for them. That’s your purpose.

Everything changed with Jesus’ resurrection for these women and men.

They had peace in God’s Spirit within them. They had a purpose, doing Jesus’ job of proclaiming God’s forgiveness. They began to live into Jesus’ promise on the night of his betrayal, that he was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Now they have a Way to live and walk, because Jesus is risen. The Way of Christly love and grace and forgiveness, living in their Risen Lord who is their Way.

Now they have a Truth that changes everything for them, because Jesus is alive. Not a doctrine of resurrection. A living Truth, God’s love Incarnate, death-breaking, life-giving, peace-pouring Truth to fill them with the Spirit and center their reality in a world of deceit and lies.

And now they have a Life to live, in the Risen Christ who is alive and in the world. A life with meaning and purpose. Abundant life that seeks to bring God’s abundance to all.

That’s what’s at stake, if you can trust that Jesus is God’s risen Christ, God’s Son, the Way, the Truth, and the Life for you and the world. Then you will find everything these disciples found, and more.

And nothing will ever be the same.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God’s new thing in Christ’s resurrection is very hard to comprehend, because everything is changed – but take heart. Others have gone before and show you the way.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Resurrection of Our Lord, year C
Texts: Luke 24:1-12; Isaiah 65:17-25; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26

For the second time in three weeks, Isaiah proclaims to us God’s new creation.

Once again, the Creator of all says, “do not remember the former things,” rather “be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating. A new heavens and a new earth.”

Nature itself is changed in God’s new thing, Isaiah declares. People who die at 100 years will be considered just a youth. War and violence won’t exist: if you build a house and plant the vineyards, you can live and enjoy that fruit.

We hear in Advent, from chapter 11, that the wolf and lamb will lie down together, but here God promises they will eat supper together. So again, nature itself is changed in God’s new thing – wolves have an entirely new nature. It is literally a new creation, with new rules and ways that the world works.

But it’s really hard to grasp such utter newness.

God’s new creation isn’t a friendly amendment, changing a little. Everything we believe is true about how the world works is upended. Predators and prey become beloved to each other. Weeping and death are no more. Peace and justice and safety are absolute: all can live in their homes and prosper.

We who trust in Christ believe this new creation began today, the day of Christ’s resurrection. Everything changed when Christ Jesus broke the power of death. Everything he taught that seemed so impossible by the rules of the world – loving your enemies and neighbors, knowing you are always loved by the Triune God, God’s children living in Christ transforming the whole world into peace and justice through love – all these things are now possible. Real. Because Christ is risen.

If we aren’t a little shaken by Easter’s truth, confused, startled, we need to listen to the Scriptures more deeply. Everything changes today. Everything.

So give these disciples a little slack.

They’ve had a week of seismic changes in how they understood the world to work.

Sunday was exhilarating; Thursday was perplexing, changing to terrifying; Friday was devastatingly unimaginable. Saturday was overwhelming lostness, trying to rebuild some idea of where to go from here. When Jesus died, every hope they had for who he was and what God was doing in him died, too.

So when the faithful women come to the tomb of Jesus and find it open and empty, of course they’re confused. The heavenly messengers sort of unfairly ask why they’re looking for the living among the dead: they couldn’t imagine he was alive. And forgive the male disciples, too, for doubting their sisters. The human mind can only go so far before shutting down.

How could any of them process yet another shift? Friday’s devastating loss forced a total re-evaluation of everything. And now this empty tomb, with the word that Jesus was actually alive?

But they did process it. We can see that from Paul’s words from twenty years later.

“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,” Paul says, “we are of all people most to be pitied.” He’s talking about the promise of life after death, but hold that for a moment.

“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ” means that some of these Corinthians had faith in Christ for this life alone. That’s what these women and men who first found an empty tomb passed on to the world: everything Jesus taught them about life in Christ here was true. Real.

If Jesus is alive, then self-giving love cannot be stopped even by death. Loving enemies and praying for those who hurt you is possible and will change the world. God’s undying love for you that always searches until you are found is true. Jesus’ promise to be with you always in the Spirit is real and fills you with life and purpose.

They were confused at first, these disciples. But they eventually lived a whole new life, where the rules of how people deal with each other were completely new, changed. It was so different they called it the Way. The Way of Christ – loving, peacemaking, sharing, compassion, self-giving – this was what they found in the risen Christ. Reason to live and to hope here.

So twenty years after the Resurrection, people were coming to faith in Christ for this life, here.

Apparently many didn’t yet believe in a life after death. Paul’s Thessalonians and Corinthians both struggled with this. They had faith in Christ as a hope for this life. And they lived it in Christ. They loved it.

But here Paul says, if the joy of living this new creation Christ in this life – a good thing! – is all you have, you’re missing something. Because in those twenty years, some of the believers began to understand another profound joy of Christ’s resurrection: if Jesus broke death, it was broken for everyone.

And so we, 2,000 years later, come to Easter expecting part of our joy is this promise: death is not the end. Every year, some of us come here with new wounds at the death of someone we love, the pain of their absence, mourning a loss, looking for hope. And once again we hear Paul’s confidence, that Christ is only the first fruits of those who have died. All who die in Christ are raised to new life.

There’s actually hope for you today in the confusion and misunderstanding of these people.

Be patient with yourself if you don’t fully grasp God’s new creation in Christ. If twenty years after the Resurrection the Church was still coming to grips with the utter newness of what God is doing in Christ, don’t be hard on yourself if it takes you time.

But do be ready for everything to change. In a new creation, even wolves have a different nature. The dead don’t stay dead. God’s Spirit inhabits God’s children and they do amazing things.

So take heart: your prejudices and habits that are harmful, the vestiges of the old rules of a racist, sexist, elitist world that some of us find so hard to eliminate, they will be broken down and removed by God’s Spirit. It might take some time. But do know that the old rules have to go in God’s new creation. The struggles to love, especially those who hurt you, and to forgive, these will take time for the Spirit to resolve, but God will. Because those old ways have to go in the new creation. They all do.

And when you doubt God’s love in the face of death, the Spirit will help you trust in the promise of resurrection for all who are in Christ. Including those you love whom you miss so much.

Having everything turned upside down in God’s new creation is a challenge. So is unlearning how the world and our society say things have to work.

But now you know not to look for life in dead places like this world’s way. Now you know that Christ is risen, and everything is changed.

And now you have the comfort that if you and I are a little slow on the uptake, struggling sometimes to see this new creation and live in it, we’ve got good company in these faithful ones who first saw the risen Jesus. And now they’re standing on the sidelines cheering us as we walk our journey into God’s new creation, learning as we go, holding each other’s hands in hope.

Because nothing has ever been the same since that tomb was broken and Christ stepped out. It never will be, thanks be to God.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Do you know what I have done to you? Jesus asks. May Christ open our eyes and hearts and transform us both to know and to do as Christ does.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Maundy Thursday
Text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35

“Do you know what I have done to you?” Jesus asked the disciples Thursday night.

What Jesus did is more than just what happened that night, with the meal and the footwashing. “Do you know what I have done to you?” can be asked of every step the Son of God took in these Three Days.

And now on this night, Jesus asks you the same question. Everything rests on your answer. And mine. And that of all who wish to follow Christ.

After washing their feet, Jesus asked: Do you know what I have done to you?

His disciples knew in their guts that what Jesus did was profoundly shocking. Our translation unwisely cleaned up the word John uses here. Jesus took the place of a slave, not a servant, John says. Paul likewise told the Philippians that Christ Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.

And we wince. We don’t want to hear ugly talk of slavery because we carry as a nation and a people the ugly stain of racism built for hundreds of years on dehumanizing millions of our siblings from Africa and other places, and committing genocide on millions of our siblings who were native to this land.

But Jesus doesn’t talk about it, either. Jesus, God-with-us, lives it, not identifying with the leaders and the privileged and the wealthy, or even his followers’ status, but taking the lowest place in his society, the place of a slave. Stripping down to his underclothes and taking a towel and bowl to the feet of the women and men gathered with him for supper.

Do you know what I have done to you? Do you know yet what it means that the God of all creation took on all human oppression and prejudice and stands with the lowest?

After the meal, Jesus could have asked: Do you know what I have done to you?

Jesus took the Passover bread and called it his body. He shared wine and called it his blood. Do you see what he’s doing? Again, we’ve watered down the language, this time by over familiarity. “The body of Christ, given for you. The blood of Christ, shed for you.”

But Jesus is hours from having his body nailed to a cross, his blood poured out on the dusty stones of Jerusalem. All for love of you and all the creation. Jesus says that’s what you eat and drink here.

Eat his body, chew on Jesus’ vulnerable love, let it enter all your cells, change your DNA. Drink his blood, take his sacrificial love into your bloodstream and let it bathe your lungs for breathing and feed your limbs for moving. You are what you eat. So eat me, Jesus says. Drink me, Jesus says.

Do you know what I have done to you? Do you know yet what it means for the God of all creation to pour out love like this, to be wounded and tortured and killed out of love for you and all God’s children?

In the Garden, Jesus could have asked: Do you know what I have done to you?

Go to Gethsemane and see Jesus – God-with-us, the Word who created all things – set aside all power and dominance and allow himself to be taken, betrayed, arrested.

Once more, we’ve domesticated the language. We easily recite, “Not my will but yours be done.” But do you know what that means?

Jesus, the Son of God, says once and for all that God will not use power over people. Manipulation and force and violence and getting what you want might be tools you’re encouraged to use, but the Triune God who made the creation and you will have none of it. Ever. God’s will is to resist all evil and hatred through non-violent love, not through power and might.

Do you know what I have done to you? Do you know yet what it means that the God of all creation will not fight you, force you, overpower you, or anyone else?

If you understand the bowl and towel, the bread and wine, the agony in Gethsemane, the death on the cross, you will realize there are inevitable consequences for all who follow Christ.

You cannot be an oppressor, benefiting from a racist, sexist, elitist system, if you follow Christ Jesus. The ruler of creation became a slave, the oppressed one. That is where God’s love always is.

So, hear this: on this very night, Jesus commanded his followers, do what I did. Be slaves to each other and the world. Only then will systems that oppress and marginalize and crush be dismantled.

You cannot eat and drink the vulnerable love of God and separate that from following Christ wholly with your life. God’s sacrificial love flows in your veins and transforms your cells because God wants to make you into that love.

So, hear this: on this very night, Jesus commanded his followers, love as I love. Be vulnerable to each other, offering your lives for each other and the world. Only then will hatred and abuse and destruction be ended.

And you cannot use the power and privilege of this world for yourself if you follow Christ Jesus. The One who by will and desire created the universe does not will that your life be built on the backs of others, enforced by your weapons or anyone else’s, or by violence, or threats.

So, hear this: on this very night, Jesus commanded his followers, put away your swords. Find your power in your non-violent love. Only then can evil and violent structures and societies be broken down and all people live in justice and peace.

Do you know what I have done to you?

You know the stories. But if you struggle with this deeper understanding that transforms the world, perhaps you could pray with me this night:

Christ Jesus, open my eyes to see you kneeling in subservience at my feet and bend my back to offer myself wholly and fully in service to all others as you did.

Loving Christ, open my heart to receive your suffering love in this Meal and widen my arms to offer myself wholly and fully in vulnerable love to all others as you did.

Prince of Peace, break my pride and insecurity so I recognize you setting aside power and violence to heal this world, and mold my will that I might offer myself wholly and fully and nonviolently as an agent of your peace and justice to all others as you did.

On this very night you said to us, “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” Blessed Jesus, give us the grace to know and to do, and, with you, to bring your healing to all.

Amen