Message Archive

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) Revelation 5:11-14 John 21:1-19 Psalm 30

Even if your knowledge of the Bible and the foundations of Christianity are limited, you’ve probably joked about St. Peter who holds the keys to the pearly gates and you understand the meaning of the phrase “Damascus Road experience” as in that of Saul of Tarsus, better known by his post-conversion reference as the Apostle Paul.  We’re familiar with the fact that The Vatican is centered around St. Peter’s Square and St. Peter’s Basilica with St. Paul’s Basilica just outside The Vatican boundary. Do you know that the “see” of the Episcopal Church is the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul?  Most call it the Washington National Cathedral without realizing it is the spiritual base location of The Episcopal Church.

Nearly every city has a St. Paul’s Church; many have a St. Peter’s Church.  Whether Roman Catholic or Anglican or low-church Protestant; we revere St. Peter and St. Paul as the fearless frontiersmen of our faith, both martyred for their faith, quite likely in Rome on the very grounds that bear their names in eternal notoriety.

From the Passion Narrative still fresh in our minds from Holy Week, we remember Peter’s fervent denials of his affiliation with Jesus in the hours before the Crucifixion.  Three times, with growing hostility, Peter negates the assertions of others that he was among Jesus’ followers – three times, and then, as Jesus had predicted, the cock crowed. In Luke’s account of the Passion, we read that, as the cock crowed, Jesus’ eyes locked with those of Peter across the crowd – the two knowingly acknowledging the sound of the cock’s crow, confirming Peter’s three-fold denial as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  It is a chilling scene to imagine – Peter convicted, literally, in the eyes of Jesus.

Unlike Peter, Paul’s actions that brought on his conviction by Jesus Christ were not the result of a fleeting sense of fear and cowardice.  Paul, known at the time as Saul of Tarsus, had, for months and years, actively, zealously sought to imprison and/or kill the followers of Jesus Christ – “breathing threats and murder” against any who belonged to “the Way” – as the Christian movement was known from earliest times.  Saul of Tarsus with all honesty and earnestness decried the Christian movement as heretical – in opposition to God’s will.  Jesus of Nazareth blasphemously claimed to be the Son of God; Saul’s chief goal as Pharisee seeking to follow God’s will was to stamp out this blasphemous movement.  No one at the time was considered a greater antagonist of Jesus Christ than was Saul of Tarsus.

So, we have Peter, well known for his denial of Christ, condemned personally by the Lord in the hours before the crucifixion; and Paul, the best-known persecutor of Christ and his followers who would kill to stop the Way.  Yet, to this day we worship in the most world renown cathedrals consecrated in their honor, the most sacred landmarks bear their names. How could these seemingly non-redeemables be redeemed – and not just redeemed, but lifted to the level of highest esteem in all of Christendom?  We simply cannot imagine Christianity without the input of these dissenters turned apostles – Peter and Paul.

Peter and Paul were confronted by the unquestionable reality of the Risen Lord. Despite their illustrious pasts, Peter and Paul were not lost to Jesus Christ; as none is lost.  Peter and Paul were redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that conquered sin, evil, and death – redeemed just as you and I are redeemed.

Peter confronts the Risen Christ on the shore of the sea – “Naked,” says the writer of John, “he put on some clothes, for he was naked” – naked, as Adam realized he was naked just at the time of his recognition of his fall into sin – his denial of God’s authority.  It is only at that time of realization that Adam and Eve became aware of their nakedness. Similarly, Peter is aware of his nakedness before the risen Christ.

Having thrice denied Christ on the eve of the crucifixion, Peter thrice responds to Jesus’ question, affirming his love for the risen Christ here on the beach, [“Yes, Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.”] and thrice receiving his call to ministry.  “Feed my lambs; tend my sheep, follow me.”  Peter is redeemed; we will read in our lessons from the Acts of the Apostles in coming weeks of his leadership in the establishment and ongoing nurturance of the Church in Jerusalem.  These are our roots; these are the sparks that could not be stamped out, even as Peter went on to pay the ultimate cost of discipleship, crucified upside down in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero.

And, Paul, having never known the earthly Jesus personally, was confronted by the risen Christ in a flash of light that knocked him to the ground as he heard the words, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Those called upon to care for Saul in the aftermath were skeptical and fearful.  In a vision, Jesus assured them: “He is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

In the months and years to come Paul was embraced by these earliest Christians who provided his base as he moved north and west into Galatia, Asia Minor, crossing into modern-day Europe at Corinth, and finally Rome, establishing the house churches as he journeyed tirelessly, writing prolifically to these house churches, so that today we are blessed and guided by these writings to the Ephesians and the Corinthians and the Romans and others as they sought to BE the Church.  And, Paul, too, would pay the ultimate cost of discipleship, being martyred in Rome after his much-lauded arrival there in the decades following the Resurrection.

In our state of sinfulness, we stand naked before God – God for whom no secrets are hid.

But, none is lost to Jesus Christ.  No matter the depth of your faithlessness, no matter the extent of your sinfulness, Jesus came to recue you and me; Jesus came to redeem all.

Our call to discipleship may not be as specific and sensational as Pau’s call on the Damascus Road; our discipleship likely will not lead to martyrdom, as thousands are martyred still throughout the world each year purely because they refuse to deny their faith in Jesus Christ, but our call to follow Jesus Christ is just as real as it was for Peter and Paul.

Jesus is saying, “Follow me.”  If Peter and Paul could follow, it should be pretty simple for us.  Abiding in his Word, basking daily in the light of our redemption through faith in Jesus Christ, our nets are filled to overflowing.

Acts 5:27-32 Revelation 1:4-8 John 20:19-31 Psalm 150

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

The April 14 account of the 5-year-old being thrown from the third floor of the Mall of the Americas in Minneapolis, falling 39 feet to the first floor, struck a note of horror in all of us.  Questions abound.  Did they say “thrown” from the third floor?  Who would do such a thing?  Maybe a seriously overwrought parent?  Could the child possibly have survived?  None could imagine such an intentional act of evil.  We are drawn to seek more information.

As it turns out, it was a young man with a troubled history at that mall from which he had been banned.  He had come there, perhaps seeking vindication, with the specific intention of killing someone, preferably an adult; the small child happened to be easy prey.  As the preschooler stepped close to the rail of the balcony, the young man approached and pushed or hurled him over the rail.  The perpetrator was arrested and is being held under a $2 million bail.

That the small boy could have survived seemed impossible.  Isn’t that too good to be true?    Maybe it really wasn’t the third floor from which he fell; maybe he fell onto something below that cushioned his fall.  How could anyone survive a 39-foot fall onto stone flooring?  A bystander had said the child was not breathing when first responders arrived.  We crave further information.

Days later, I was again shocked by a report confirming that the child had survived and stating further that, though he had numerous broken bones, he had no internal injuries or head trauma.  In a statement, the attorney for the boy’s family quoted them as saying, “All praise, glory and honor to Jesus!  He saved our son’s life and is healing him in the most miraculous ways.  Our son is now alert and conscious and is no longer in critical condition.”  The spokesman indicated that the child will need multiple surgeries and, without doubt, a lengthy unpredictable recovery period.  No other information has been made available, however, and, it is notable that no official statement of his condition has been released.  Is this positive news too good to be true?

Do you have doubts?  If you are human, you are curious, skeptical at best, not yet ready to believe as these parents profess to believe that Jesus has saved their son from an unimaginable dance with death.  Yes, we want and pray for this child to survive and grow into adulthood free from crippling physical and mental debility. But, can we really count on such a miraculous outcome.  Do we believe?  Do we walk by faith and not by sight?  Can we believe without having seen?  Or, do we seek more information to counter our doubts?

Never do we mention doubt without thinking of Thomas, the Apostle, known as Doubting Thomas.  The Apostle Thomas is the focus of this second Sunday of Easter year after year.  Our Gospel lesson for this Sunday after Easter Day is always the same.  Thomas was not present with the other apostles when the resurrected Jesus appeared first to them.  Later, when told of Jesus’ appearance, Thomas doubted their story. The unjust and unflattering moniker of “Doubting Thomas” stuck.

But, Thomas was not the first of them to doubt and question.  All but John had fled from the crucifixion; in fear, the others had doubted Jesus’ words of comfort and assurance that he had shared with them during their years of ministry together.  Specifically, in their last days together, Jesus had tried urgently to prepare them for his death and his return on the third day.  Yet, they had fled in fear.

And, as we recall the Easter Day accounts of the apostles when summoned to the empty tomb, and when they return to tell the others, we find much doubt and skepticism.  Luke tells us that when Mary Magdalen and the other women came to report the news given to them by the two men in dazzling white who stood by them at the empty tomb, the eleven apostles considered their words an “idle tale.”  Even as the apostles began to recount Jesus’ words of assurance that he would overcome death and the grave, they just couldn’t believe that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead.  Surely, they wanted to believe; was it too good to be true?  Just what were the yet-to-be-disclosed details?  They wanted to know more, and yet they were afraid of the unknown.

In this account of Jesus appearing to Thomas, Jesus reveals to Thomas the hands that had been penetrated by the nails of crucifixion and places Thomas’ hands into the sword-pierced wounds on his side.  It’s a little humorous to imagine the other ten apostles puffed-up with pride as Thomas takes the “hit” for all the doubters.

Because Thomas doubted, he searched; he came back for more information; he dug deeper and more diligently for the truth.  Confronted by the risen Christ, Thomas embraced that truth of our redemption by the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior.  Rising from doubt to the most profound understanding and belief, he responded, “My Lord and my God!”

Thomas and the other apostles called by Jesus to follow him were human as we are human; they doubted as we doubt.  They were not extraordinary humans, they were humans called to do extraordinary things – as each of us is called to do extraordinary things in the name of Jesus Christ.  When we doubt as Thomas doubted, we struggle and search more diligently for the truth – good news beyond our comprehension.  When we encounter others who doubt, we are better equipped to guide them through their own paths of doubt.  Confronting the profound truth of our salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, with renewed certainty, we affirm Thomas’ acclamation, “My Lord and my God!”

Alleluia! Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Is that too good to be true??  Or, do you truly believe that Christ overcame sin and death, and rose from the grave? Jesus’ words to Thomas are words to us. No, we were not among those who had seen the earthly Jesus.  Yet, in seeking, especially in overcoming doubt, we come to believe.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Isaiah 65:17-25 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 John 20:1-18 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

 

Alleluia.  Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;

Therefore, let us keep the feast.  Alleluia.

These phrases compile the Fraction Anthem that we sing or say when the consecrated host is lifted up above the altar and broken, reminding us of Christ being lifted up upon the cross, his body broken for our salvation.  In the Rite One words of Institution within the Eucharistic Prayer, we read that, there upon the Cross, Christ made, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world– a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice; nothing more is required in redemption of the sins of the whole world.  There is nothing we can equate or add except our praise and thanksgiving.

Sacrifice is another one of those words in the English language that we trivialize with frequent inconsequential usage.  We have “sacrifice flies” in baseball; we parents sacrifice for our children’s education, and later our children sacrifice for our old age needs.  But, throughout the duration of Lent, particularly Holy Week, and on Resurrection Day we are confronted with the reality of the one and only full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice – a sacrifice that was a labor of love.

Some years ago, my aunt became very ill with an unexplained virus.  She languished unconscious in the hospital for many days – weeks.  There was little anyone, including the medical professionals, could do except pray that she would have the physical stamina to prevail over the virus until it ran its course.  My uncle sat by her bedside, powerless.  Day after day, he held vigil next to his unconscious beloved.  In his desperation to bring her comfort, he searched out her hairbrush and began brushing her hair, tenderly, gently, hour after hour, offering the only gift he knew to offer.

Very slowly, Aunt Dorothy began to get well.

She had no recollection of the many days of unconsciousness, except the awareness of Uncle Don by her side brushing her hair. This, she described as the safety net that kept her grounded in this world – the one element keeping her soul from slipping away from her earthly body.  Surely, Uncle Don had suffered great discomfort over the long hours; we could say he sacrificed his own physical needs to remain present with the woman he loved most on earth.  Yet, this was a labor of love, selflessly, willingly given, with no thought of his own comfort.

My soul has been abundantly gratified this past week as we have gathered to experience the events of the last week of Jesus’ earthly life.  We have participated in his last evening with his disciples, bathing their feet, sharing their last meal together [which we are specifically instructed to continue], hearing the words of the New Commandment that we love one another in a radically different way than had been our previous understanding.  We stripped the altar bare and reflected on the emptiness of Jesus’ earthly departure.

On Friday, we read again of Jesus’ journey to the cross – standing alone before Pilate, unjustly accused; bearing the burden of the cross, being whipped and spat upon and humiliated, stripped naked, and finally lifted up on the cross in excruciating pain until death.  Last night we kindled the new Paschal fire; we entered worship in the dark and little by little experienced the coming of the light – the light of Christ – the one and only full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  We sang Alleluia, Christ is Risen Indeed!

For all who came, all who participated – the choir under Rebecca’s direction presenting some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard; the altar guild working tirelessly in their sacred ministry to perform their many necessary tasks of numerous altar hanging changes, polishing the brass, preparing the altar and arranging the lilies; the lay readers and altar servers; and others working behind the scenes.

We have walked the arduous way of the cross over the past days and today we shout Alleluia with the greatest fervor.   Our participation has been, not from a superficial sense of duty, but as a labor of love and desire.  Our only sacrifice that we bring is our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving – freely, willingly, lovingly given, our hearts filled with thanksgiving.

The one full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice of our Lord was a labor of love – knowingly, willingly, freely given.  Jesus took the cross – the burden of our sins upon himself; Jesus suffered and died that we might die to sin, and Jesus rose from the grave that we might be redeemed from death and evil.  Jesus’ suffering and death upon the cross was a labor of love.   His resurrection assures us of that reality.

He asks only that we love and serve one another as he, throughout his earthly life, showed us how to love and serve.

Alleluia.  Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;

Therefore, let us keep the feast.  Alleluia.

The Great Vigil of Easter

God said, “Let there be light, and there was light, and God saw that the light was good.”

 

“Rejoice now, heav’nly hosts and choirs of angels… all the round earth, bright with a glorious splendor, for darkness has been vanquish’d by our eternal King… This is the night when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.  How blessed is this night when earth and heaven are joined and man is reconciled to God.” [The Exsultet]

 

These beautiful and meaningful words of the Exsultet, with which we begin the Easter Vigil liturgy are worthy of being repeated.  This is the impetus of this night’s glorious celebration.

This is the night we celebrate the light victorious over darkness.  From writings composed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the earliest years of our Anglican faith tradition, we find A PRAYER TO BE SAID AT THE LIGHTING UP OF CANDLES which begins: “Great and thick darkness over whelmeth our hearts, O Lord, until thy light do chase it away.”

It was St. Francis of Assisi who said, “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”  Tonight, we celebrate the glorious light that once and for all time has chased away the great and thick darkness of our hearts.

There are times of darkness in our lives, sometimes times of very deep darkness. Yet, we are reminded that God did not create darkness; God created light in the darkness as we have read in the Genesis account of Creation.  God created light and separated it from the darkness; God called the light Day and God called the darkness Night.  By naming the darkness, God took charge of the darkness, assuring us that his light remains victorious even in the darkness.

Even in the darkest stormiest nights of our lives, we know that morning will come, light will come.  We look toward the light; we know the light will come.

We pray that the horrific fire at Notre Dame Cathedral has cast its light in the darkness of faithlessness that has permeated throughout France and much of Europe and the world over the last century.  Perhaps the Paschal fire that has led the procession of Christians through the streets of Paris will spread to chase away the great and thick darkness that has overwhelmed the hearts of so much of the world.  There is no darkness that is not vanquished with God’s light.

As people of faith, we carry both the light and the darkness.  There is never a time when darkness is not present.  As people of faith, we confront this reality and strive to focus on the light – nurturing the light that vanquishes the darkness, ever seeking the strength to move toward the light, to rise out of the darkness of evil that seeks to consume us.

Tonight, we stand near this marvelous flame and sing the worthy praise of this great light… How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is wash’d away through Jesus Christ God’s Son our LORD, who lives and reigns with him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen  

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 Hebrews 10:16-25 John 18:1-19:42 Psalm 22

 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
and are so far from my cry
and from the words of my distress?

This is the first verse of Psalm 22, the psalm we read in unison.  Authorship of the psalm is assigned to David; it is subtitled a plea to be delivered from relentless enemies. Like many of our psalms, it addresses relentless assaults by enemies.  In David’s case, as in ours, these relentless enemies take widely varying forms – humans who seek to bring us harm, physical threats to our health, emotional weaknesses, addictions, the voice of Satan seeking to redirect our path. There are many situations in which we can relate to David’s desperate feelings of being abandoned and forsaken by God.

The Passion Narrative from the Gospel of Matthew assigns these same words to Jesus as he dies on the Cross.  It is always concerning and distressing to us to think of Jesus, the Son of God, God come to earth in the human person of Jesus, crying out to God as if he has been abandoned and forsaken, as if God has separated himself from Jesus, as if God has no concern for suffering.

Does God not hear the suffering of his people?  Or, does God indeed hear and suffer for us?  If so, how does God suffer for us?  And, how do we know if God suffers for us?  Our reflection on this sacred period between Jesus’ death on the cross on Good Friday and his Resurrection on the third day is fertile ground for discussion and theological study.  In that reflection, we are confronted with the reality of Jesus’ suffering and seeming abandonment by God.

I spent yesterday in the waiting areas of Virginia Oncology Associates as my dear friend was undergoing her fifth of six chemotherapy infusions.  As a bystander – an outsider, fortunately, from that select group of cancer patients, the bonding and comradery are obvious.  Regardless of age, or race, or status in life, the goal of cancer treatment endurance and survival rendered each one equal to the other. Shared remedies for side effects, regiment of treatment, attention to eating properly and taking medications as proscribed produced ongoing empathetic exchanges.  Even the medical providers who commit their expertise and compassion toward the healing and comforting of these patients, time after time, day after day, still cannot relate in the same way as these united in their combat against the common foe of cancer.

The experience brought to mind the wonderful accounts of Father Damien of Molokai – accounts that illustrate this phenomenon better than most stories we could share.  Father Damien had been called as priest to Molokai to minister to the people of this Hawaiian Island.  You might recognize that island as the one set aside as a leper colony up until much too recently.  For decades, suspected victims of leprosy were ripped from their families and transported by force to the island where they could be held in captive isolation to prevent the spread of leprosy.

Father Damien was called and went willingly, well understanding the risks. Without fear, he administered Communion to gaping mouths, he held hands disfigured and missing fingers, he bandaged weeping sores, he prayed with them through sickness and death and buried them, all the time knowing the risk – all the time feeling that he could not completely nurture these so desperately ill because he himself was not a victim of leprosy.

Inevitably, after some decades of faithful ministry to the lepers of Molokai, Fr. Damien contracted the disease.  For him, there was an inexplicable sense of joy that he could now suffer in solidarity with those he so loved.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
and are so far from my cry
and from the words of my distress?

How many times have we uttered those same words in desperation?  Today we come to acknowledge that God in Jesus Christ is united with us in that desperation; today we acknowledge that God knows our earthly suffering; today we give our most intentional thanksgivings for God’s love so true and unconditional that he was willing to take human suffering upon him – to be bound to us in our suffering; today we pause and focus on this enormous sacrifice – this enormous way of pain that our Lord suffered – – for us.

Jesus lives out the long-ago prophecy of Isaiah, bearing our infirmities and carrying our diseases.  God came to earth in the human person of Jesus Christ, to live and die, to suffer pain and to be tempted by sin as we are tempted.  Because he came, suffered, and died, we are assured that he is bonded to us in our own earthly suffering.  And even in our grave desperation, we are not forsaken by God; God is never separate.

Until we experience the way of the pain of the cross as we do today, and come to a clearer understanding of this enormous sacrifice, until we better understand the cost that was paid for our redemption, we cannot rejoice with the fullest of joy on the Day of Resurrection.

Jesus joins us here today; Jesus shares our sorrows; we share his sorrows.  Jesus takes our sorrows upon him; today we take his sorrow upon us.  In the Incarnation of the Word made flesh – Jesus Christ, we are assured of that bond; we are assured that God will never forsake us.

Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14  1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-17, 31b-35 Psalm 116:1, 10-17

As we walk with Jesus through the words of the Gospel narratives week after week, year after year, we glean from the teaching and examples of his ministry. We seek to grow closer and closer and follow more diligently.  We reflect on the words we read, and we dig deeper and deeper for the ever-expanding message that Jesus intends for us.  Always, we need to pay close attention and listen with ever greater intention.

But, never perhaps, is there a time that we need to be more keenly open to the message than in the accounts of this last evening, these last hours, of Jesus’ earthly life.  Jesus is well aware that these are the last moments of his earthly ministry, his last opportunity to instill the foundations of his mission into those charged with carrying on without his earthly leadership.  What critical instructions would you give to those closest to you if you knew this was your last opportunity?

Clearly, Jesus’ words and actions on this last evening should be observed in detail, prioritized as the foundations of our faith journey – our call to ministry.

Jesus’ earthly life ends as it began – in ultimate humility.  From a feeding trough in a cattle stall in Bethlehem amongst kneeling sages and shepherds; Jesus kneels now at the feet of his disciples to wash away the grime of life – soothing and tending their sore, dirty, blistered feet.  These are the feet that have born them along the dusty rocky paths of their journeys throughout Galilee and now Jerusalem as they have followed Jesus and gleaned the essence of his call to discipleship.

Few scenes could equal the humility of this scene described by the words of John’s Gospel: The Anointed One – the one they had come to know as the Messiah so long foretold by prophets – taking the position of a slave, the lowliest of positions, on his knees before them, bathing their feet.  This is truly a “new commandment,” not simply spoken, but exemplified.  We are to humble ourselves in love and service to one another.  That is the critical message that Jesus came to bring to us; this is the message that Jesus used these last vital moments to implant in those who would take forward his mission.

Jesus is well aware of the horror that is to come.  He is well aware that the devil has entered Judas and is guiding him toward the most horrific and well-known betrayal of all creation.  Yet, Jesus calmly sends Judas on his way to accomplish his deceitful mission; then quietly and persistently in ultimate humility, Jesus begins to serve those remaining.

In this scene of betrayal and impending horror, Jesus is the essence of peace and forgiveness; Jesus concludes his times of togetherness by demonstrating the critical message of loving servitude on his behalf – serving the needs of one another without fear – accepting one another’s weaknesses, forgiving one another, being at peace with one another.

On this final evening, Jesus demonstrated his most basic and vital messages as he shared the Last Supper with those who had known and loved him the most.  As they shared this final meal, Jesus instructed them that they were to continue participating in this Last Supper – the Holy Communion – in remembrance of him.

More than two thousand years later, we continue to share this meal; in peace with one another, in mutual forgiveness, we are not bystanders, we are participants In Remembrance of Him.  As did these original disciples, refreshed by his message, nurtured by his love that is present in our love for one another, and fed with the spiritual food of the Holy Communion, we go in peace to love and serve. With all our senses, we are faithful participants in this last evening of Jesus’ earthly life – the vital messages for which Jesus gave his life.  With all of our senses we are to be the New Commandment.

Exodus 3:1-15 1 Corinthians 10:1-13  Luke 13:1-9 Psalm 63:1-8

When our daughters were completing the 3rdand 4thgrades, Roland and I made the decision to move them from the small rural Eastern NC elementary school, where they had been since kindergarten, to Raleigh. Thus, they began their school experience as 4thand 5thgraders in an entirely different environment from which they had been accustomed – where they had known everyone and their parents, to an urban environment where their many classmates were from an endless variety of backgrounds – where they knew no one.
Our older daughter, the academe, was devastated to be leaving her friends. This lasted for about 3 days, at which point she willingly admitted that for once in her pseudo adult life, Mama and Daddy were right about something; this change was for the better. However, our younger daughter, who at first was quite excited about the new adventure, grew more and more frustrated and melancholy. After a month or so, on a Saturday afternoon, when I went to investigate the sound of the blinds going up in her bedroom, I found her consumed in tears, her backpack packed and her heart determined to climb out of the third story window of our apartment and make her way back “home.”

A reality that I had failed to consider for this child who had grown up in her very small world and in the shadow of her academically gifted older sister was that from kindergarten through third grade, children learn to read; from third grade on, children read to learn. If children do not learn to read by third grade, school and life are difficult. Laura had smiled and stayed quiet, hiding her head in a book, and had managed to escape third grade without applying herself to the challenge of learning to read. Now she was in a foreign land where everyone and everything was unfamiliar to her, and she had no basic fundamentals to allow her to keep pace and find her way.
For most of us, our faith journey is comparable to one or the other of our daughters’ experiences. We could divide our faith journey into two stages. The first is the stage of our lives in which our image of Christianity is shaped and healthy fundamentals are tested and developed; our faith is somewhat legalistic and structure – Do this; Don’t do this. The second stage, is the stage in which we live into our life in Christ – where we really get down to the work of living and loving as God intends us to live and love – as Jesus Christ came to show us how to live and love. We wrestle with the big issues and listen for the little answers in our daily relationships.
Richard Rohr describes these as two major tasks of human life. “The first task,” Br. Richard says, “is to build a strong ‘container’ or identity; the second is to find the contents that the container was meant to hold.”[1] Think of all the time we invest in the first stage of getting our education, finding our career, building a home, establishing relationships and community. Rohr suggests that it takes much longer to discover the second stage, which is “what we are really doing when we are doing what we are doing.”
As mature intentional Christians, we come to better understand what we are really doing when we are doing what we are doing. With good nurturance and diligence, we move more quickly from one life task to the next, from the building-container-stage to the stage of filling ourselves or allowing ourselves to be filled with that that we are meant to hold.
Otherwise, we continue to struggle on and on to patch our faulty containers; expending our energy in directionless paths, mostly struggling unaware of the true reason for the underlying anxiety- anxiety that manifests itself in meaninglessness, in anger and bitterness, even violence. Too many in our world just keep trying uselessly to patch their leaky containers, allowing the fractures to grow larger and larger, never understanding that the problem is the misguided construction of their containers – the misguided understanding of God’s love and mercy for which there are no clear guidelines.
Lent is a time for this serious process of discernment. This time of self-denial of the traditional luxuries of our container allows us more focus on the existing contents and the potentially ever-broadening fractures of our container – what we are really doing when we are doing what we are doing?
Through this Lenten discernment, we might find that, like the fig tree, what we often need is a good dose of manure. So, simply stated, Lent is the time we determine just how much manure we need thrown on us, manure that nurtures our fragile efforts toward growth in our understanding of what it really is to love and live as God intended. That manure is the basic fundamental of God’s mercy. With enough of the proper fundamentals we embrace God’s mercy, the burden of our past failures is lifted; we understand that we are fully and truly forgiven by God, redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is our sins that punish us, not God; God is merciful; God saw the suffering of his people and brought them out of Egypt to the Promised Land; God sent Jesus Christ to redeem us, to affirm his promise of mercy and redemption. Of all those in our lives who love us the most, God loves us more.

The second stage of our faith journey is our grasp of the reality of being filled with God’s love and mercy – filled to overflowing with God’s love and mercy – love and mercy for those who love us and for those who have hurt us, for those who have inconvenienced us, taken advantage of us – those who need to see what it is to be a container filled with God’s love and mercy.
Life is hard, perhaps hard beyond human endurance if our containers are not constructed with the nurturance and direction of God’s love and mercy, love and mercy that is only visible in our human relationships – we learn love and mercy from each other – we learn the absence of love and mercy from each other.

Truly grasping the miracle of God’s love and mercy, as best we can in our human state, is to discover the font that fills our containers as God intends. What we are meant to be doing when we are doing what we are doing is exemplifying the redemptive power of God’s love and mercy for those in need of healthier sturdier containers. In turn, we will move closer to a profound understanding of this Most Merciful God to whom we bring our confessions and find the full forgiveness of unconditional love. And, in turn, the world’s containers will overflow with unending love and mercy.

Blessed Lent.

[1]Adapted from Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass: 2011), xiii-xv, 2.

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 Philippians 3:17-4:1 Luke 13:31-35 Psalm 27

Our Old Testament lesson is from the saga of Abraham.  God promises the childless Abraham not only a son, but countless descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky.  We are told that the Lord reckoned this promise to Abraham as righteousness.

But that was not to be the end of God’s promises to Abraham. Additionally, God informs Abraham that He brought him out of Ur for the purpose of giving him this land through which he has traveled since his first encounter with God.  The land from the Nile River of Egypt to the Euphrates, which runs through modern day Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, was to be the possession of these countless descendants.

Our lesson tells us that, on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, whose name would be changed to Abraham later in the story.  Abram’s vision includes this ritualistic ceremony that symbolizes the solidification of the covenant and the consequences of breaking the promise.  A covenant, interestingly, is most often defined as a binding agreement between two entities in which both parties make some sort of promise or obligation to the other.

But, in this case, God does not ask Abram to contribute anything. Abram is not making any obligations. There are no specific actions required by Abram to fulfill his part of the covenant.  To be made righteous or to prove his righteousness, he is, quite simply called to remain in a right relationship with God.  Being in right relationship requires that he trust in God’s promise.   Trust puts Abram in right relationship with God – a relationship of praise and worship.

Trust, like that of the Psalmist, includes not only our affirmation of faith, but our lamentations as well.   As we read from Psalm 27, “Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.”  Remaining in this right relationship of trust means trusting God, praising and worshiping God, in the bad times as well as the good times.

Our greatest and only true fear is separation from God. Again, from the psalmist, “Do not hide your face from me.  Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!”  God remains faithful in his covenant – this covenant He established with Abraham so many thousands of years ago.  Still, we are asked only to remain in right relationship with God. Still, we are asked only to trust his promise.  In trusting in His promise we resist the evil enemy forces that seek to separate us from God – the little voices that tell us that we are not worthy, that we are not loved, that we are alone and without help in the face of our distress.

When we do not trust, we risk a sense of separation from God. When times are good, it is easy to forget that we are dependent upon God.  We tend to begin to believe that we can do it all ourselves – to give glory to ourselves.  When times are bad, we remember our humility, but it is easy to begin to believe that God has forsaken us.

Trusting and believing are the essence of our faith, and faith is the “wedding ring” that unites us to God through our mutual commitment. Remaining in right relationship with God requires our trust in God’s promise.  To use Martin Luther’s analogy, It is not simply believing that the ship exists; it is stepping onto that ship, putting to sea, and entrusting ourselves to the voyage.[1]

Trust is a difficult thing for us; from the time of Abraham, it has been a difficult thing for God’s people.  And, yet, it is all God asks of us, all that is required for us to remain in a right relationship with God, to God be the glory.

By the time of Jesus’ ministry, God’s covenant had passed from generation to generation of Abraham’s descendants down to Jesus and his fellow Jews.  Time and time again, God’s people had forsaken their trust and fallen into despair. Each time a remnant had been preserved to carry on the task of preserving the word of God.

We have jumped ahead in Luke’s Gospel to a time late in Jesus’ ministry.  In today’s lesson Jesus has made his way to Jerusalem.  The shadow of the cross is growing more intense.  The hollowness of religious life and worship is evident in the disingenuous concern of the Pharisees for Jesus’ safety.  In actuality, they just wanted him to shut up and go away and quit challenging their religious authority.

The hollowness of political life is evident in Herod Antipus, who, in our Gospel lesson represents shallow self-serving greed for power.  This Herod, the son of Herod the Great, served only at the pleasure of the Roman emperor; he was part of a dynasty that was dependent upon a false peace enforced among the Jewish people by the controlling Roman army.  Rome was vehemently opposed to the message of the Gospel.

Much of the world in which Jesus exists with Rome at its center has separated itself from God.  Jesus came into the world to save us from this fate of separation from God.  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”  Jesus wants only to gather us into His arms and assure us of His presence with us.  When we fail to trust; when we fail to give God the glory, we push Him away.

Think of Abraham and his countless descendents – the people of God – when you step out outside on a clear night and look up at the vast expanse of stars farther away than we can possibly comprehend, more numerous than we could begin to count.  Look up at the vast expanse of stars and trust that God keeps His promises; He has gathered us unto himself and is guiding our ways.   Trust that it is for this reason that he sent His Son to live and die as one of us and to overcome death on the cross.  Trust that there is nothing that separates us from God except our own failure to acknowledge His constant presence with us.

God is present in relationship.  Lent calls us to renew and refuel that relationship – through Bible study and prayer, through ministry, through worship and praise.  Yes, we can praise God at home, on the fishing pier, and on the golf course, and we all need those times of relaxation and joy.  But, in these times of solitude and enjoyment we do not forget our need to be refueled with God’s nourishment of our place in the Body of Christ.  Think of what happens to a glowing log when it is pulled from the fire and left on its own.  We are called to worship and praise God, not ourselves.  We are called to worship and praise as God’s children, worship and praise as the Body of Christ in relationship with fellow children of God.

Remember these words from the Apostle Paul, “Our citizenship is in heaven.  The Lord Jesus Christ will transform our body from our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.  Stand firm in the Lord in this way.”

Step onto the ship; put to sea; and entrust yourself to the voyage.

Carry with you the words from Paul’s letter to the people of Philippi, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”  Amen

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Romans 10:8b-13 Luke 4:1-13 Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

Worldly convention tells us that Lent is a time that we give up something that is tempting to us; chocolate seems first on the list; alcohol is a frequent abolition of choice; of course, all meats or at least red meat on Fridays is a traditional centuries-old exclusion for the 40 days of Lent.  We consider giving up these luxuries as acts of self-denial, somewhat of a sacrifice that allows us to suffer in a small way along with Christ as he suffered on the Cross; or, at least to be more mindful of that suffering.

Certainly, for our own good health, we should limit our chocolate intake, we should use alcohol with good judgment and restraint, and we are wise to reduce our portions of red meat.   Lent is a good time to focus on healthier living for ourselves, resisting the harmful temptations of gluttonous overindulgence.  And, Lent is a time to focus more intently on our temptation toward lack of gratitude for the provision of the essentials of our lives – our daily bread – for which we should not forget to give thanks.  The ancient Hebrews countered this temptation with the established directive that, without fail, the first of the fruits of the harvest were to be brought forward as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

In our Gospel account of Jesus’ 40-day encounter with the devil in the wilderness we are confronted with temptations far more consequential.  These temptations are not concerned with that that goes into the body, but that that comes out in our words and actions.  These temptations that Jesus is encountering are the serious temptations of the heart, temptations toward evil, that diminish and have the potential to destroy, not only our physical and spiritual health, but the good health of our relationships with one another – temptations guided by the devil and in clear opposition to the kingdom of God.  These are temptations that have the capability to bring serious harm to our neighbor and all of God’s creation, temptations that involve our exploitation of or lack of concern for others in our selfish pursuits of earthly obsessions in ways that bring immeasurable inexcusable harm.

We learn that Jesus is led to the wilderness just after his baptism in the Jordan; thus, we are to understand that our baptism does not insulate us from temptation; we are intended to be confronted with the realities of hunger and despair.  Our strength comes in being tested by the cares of the world and thereby experiencing God’s supremacy over temptation.

Thankfully, on this first Sunday of Lent, Jesus is demonstrating for us God’s supremacy over temptation; Jesus maintains his ability to choose to be obedient to God in the face of temptation; Jesus lifts up to us our ability to make choices; we, too, much make the choice to hear and follow the voice of the devil or to hear and follow the voice of God.   Jesus is demonstrating the necessity of seeking God’s supremacy over our earthly obsessions – obsessions that make room for the devil to enter.

Jesus is not left alone in the wilderness to face these temptations presented by the devil; we are told the Spirit remains with him.  Neither are we left alone to confront temptations; the Holy Spirit remains with us during the times we experience this difficult sense of wilderness in our lives.

The devil’s temptation is real.  Here, in the wilderness, we are the most vulnerable.  The devil will meet us in the wilderness as he met Jesus in the wilderness.  He will be there in the little voices in our heads that tell us we haven’t the time to listen to God’s voice, we don’t have the talent to do God’s will, that God might lead us where we don’t want to go.  The devil is saying, “Be afraid; be very afraid.  You deserve earthly comforts, prestige, and protection.  Hold on to that anger; hold on to that resentment; punish those who have hurt you; they deserve it.  God has nothing for you.”

As faithful people of God, the wilderness becomes a time when we are open to God’s guidance and grateful for his mercy – a time when we draw strength from the vows of our Baptism.  When we draw strength from the vows of our baptism, we yield to God’s mercy and grace and love – and judgment.  And, yielding to God’s mercy, grace, love and judgment, we are reoriented in our faith journey.  And, we emerge with a stronger, clearer understanding of God’s will for our faith journey.

The devil will meet us in the wilderness, and he will seek to tempt us away from God’s will.  But, God is there with us in the wilderness; God is with us in this Holy Lent with his mercy, grace, and love.

If your time in the wilderness is a time to yield to God’s mercy, grace, and love, you will emerge with a clear sense of reorientation.  You will emerge with a clearer sense of your unique gifts and strengths – your unique place in the Body of Christ.

The wilderness is a time of vulnerable yielding.  Here in the wilderness, to whom will you yield?