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"To an Unknown God"-- Acts 17:22-31-- May 25, 2014

"To an Unknown God"-- Acts 17:22-31-- May 25, 2014

 

It was a very impressive gallery. The wood floor glistened. The lighting was subtle but targeted directly to bring out the shape and shimmer of the objects– a glistening Oscar statue from the Academy of Arts and Sciences; an Emmy, a Tony, an Obie, a Grammy–all the highest awards given to stars of stage and screen and concert hall and internet downloads. There was a Heisman trophy, a Stanley cup, an Olympic gold medal, a Wimbledon cup, a green Master’s jacket–prized honors to athletes at the top of their game. There were framed magazine covers– Time’s Man and Woman of the Year, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, People’s 50 Most Beautiful People, Forbes’ Richest Man, faces and bodies that represent the ideal human form and station in life. And then in one corner was a black and white photograph of a young woman with Afro-Eurasian features– a blend becoming more and more common. Her clothes hung off her body; her eyes were haunting. She was holding a young child in one arm and clutching a plastic garbage bag in the other, leaning wearily against a cement wall, on which had been spray-painted the words, "And the winner is....?"

It was not so unlike the marketplace through which the apostle Paul walked almost 2000 years ago in Athens. "Athenians," he said, standing on the steps of the Areopagus, "I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’"

Luke, the author of Acts, tells us that "all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new." The philosophers debated with one another, and welcomed Paul into their debate, saying "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means." This was a gathering of seekers, "engaged [as one commentator describes it] in intellectual conversation, searching questions, honest answers, lively debate, and real dialogue." (Rev Anne Howard, The Beatitudes Society, 5/20/14)

In the midst of various altars and idols, with the sound of hawkers and sellers and philosophers and chanters, there stood that one altar with the inscription, "To an unknown god." "Maybe it’s not enough," the altar seemed to say for the Athenians, "maybe it’s not enough that we worship the sun over our heads and the ground beneath our feet... Maybe between the altar to the Goddess of the harvest and the God of the sea we’ve missed something..." [Howard, op cit.] "To an unknown god."

That market place, that gallery I mentioned at the beginning, is what we walk through everyday. All around us, on airwaves and microwaves, in magazines and newspapers, on small screens and big screens, the altars of the gods our society worships are all around us. "I see how very religious you are," we might say, even though most people would protest and say, "Oh, I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual."

Paul’s speech--we might even call it a sermon– may be a good model for us as we try to engage in conversation with our "spiritual but not religious" friends and neighbors and family. Even though Luke tells us that Paul was "deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols," he still looks for common ground. "I see how extremely religious you are," he says, ‘and I found among your idols and altars an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’" Paul meets the Athenians where they are and, at least as he begins, he does so without judgment.

"I see that you are seeking." Isn’t that a much better place for conversation than "You’ve got it all wrong" or "I know that I’m right"? "To an unknown god" is a much more honest ascription than a claim to The One and Only Truth, which, of course, Christians have done all too often. Too often we have taken Mystery out of that mysterious name for God–"I am"– and narrowed down the path that Jesus called "the way," shrunk the shimmering wisdom of his "truth," and cut off huge parts of "the life" he embodied–"I am the way, the truth, and the life." "To an unknown God." You must not speak the name of God, our Jewish forebears warned.

St. Augustine, who did quite a bit of seeking of his own in his youth, looking for love in all the wrong places, as they say, wrote, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." Our strivings, our addictions, our obsessions, all the things that we make religions or gods of, are all, at their heart, at their deepest level, longings for God. Paul talked about this to the Athenians–

The God who made the world and everything in it, the one who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is that One served by human hands, as though needing anything, since God gives Godself to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God–though indeed God is not far from each one of us. For [Paul said, quoting one of the Greek philosophers] in him we live and move and have our being’; as even some your own poets have said, ‘For we too are God’s offspring.’

This is the human condition, Paul is saying, this longing for something deep and true and beautiful within us, and in our own experience, we know that to be true. We "know" all sorts of things–we are constantly "telling or hearing something new," like those who heard Paul–in biology, technology, psychology, geology, astronomy–so many discoveries and insights into the way we human beings, our world, our universe work, and yet, and yet... the more we know, many scientists will tell you, the more we discover what we don’t know. The Mystery continues to deepen.

And for all we "know," those of us who may be spiritual and religious,"we still don’t quite know how to name God,[as one writer put it,] or how to name ourselves in relationship with God, not to mention Jesus." And particularly for those of us who don’t want to appear dogmatic or pushy, maybe we have never even tried to figure out who God is or who we are in relationship to God–to figure that out for ourselves, let alone try to explain to somebody else. And so we kind of just settle, we let it go. "Let go and let God," we may rationalize, but really, what do we do with that restlessness that Augustine talked about, that longing and hunger for Home? What do we do with those questions that we had as teenagers? What do we do with those questions about our purpose in life that plagued our young adult career choices? What about those unanswered questions of our midlife crises? Where do we leave those questions raised when we lose a loved one, or a job, or a dream? How do we understand the inevitable failings of our bodies? What about that big, final question, about death? This Memorial Day weekend we remember and we acknowledge our losses. Where can we find a place where it’s safe to keep on asking those questions? Where can we find companions in that search? If not here, we have no business staying in business.

To settle for that "unknown god" Paul says in essence, is to settle for ‘a polite little god who asks little of us." (Howard, op cit.) For Paul that is not enough. God is knowable, he tells the Athenians, we have experienced the true God in the man whom God raised from the dead. This God is the God of all creation, indeed the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Like fish are in the sea, we are in God, and we cannot separate some people or parts of creation off from God. Have you tried doing that with the ocean? We know that this God whom we know in Christ Jesus is not the god of empires. Though he suffered and died, Jesus was raised from death by God to demonstrate that nothing–not even death–can separate us from this God, who is love and light and life, whose power paradoxically is manifest in weakness, who may indeed appear as a poor young Afro-Eurasian woman holding a child and a garbage bag.

The Way of Jesus, in whom we know this God, along with the truth and the life, appears less and less naive to me as I look at the world around us, at the problems of our community, our nation, and our world. It appears less and less naive and more and more wise. This Way must be presented in the marketplaces and galleries of ideas and actions in our 21st c. world. It can stand up to and alongside some of the more dominant ones. Look where the way of empire and domination have gotten us and the planet on which we live. Look where the way of celebrity and riches have gotten people like LA Clippers owner Ronald Sterling, or Lindsay Lohan, or any number of casualties of the star-making cult. Look at the poisoned rivers and decimated mountaintops and black lungs which greed has produced. Look at the hopelessness and shame that our economic system has generated in our young people.

This "unknown" God whom we know in Christ Jesus offers us life-saving wisdom for the world and for our lives. We have got to find ways of living and sharing that good news with folks, with generations, for whom the language and norms of the church hold little meaning. It doesn’t mean that all those folks "out there" don’t long for God, by whatever name we call God. In a Pew Research survey, it was discovered that Millenials–those people between the ages of 18 and 33–pray with as much regularity as their grandparents. Just because they are not affiliated with faith communities doesn’t mean they are not seeking. The House for Sinners and Saints in Denver CO where the 6 foot tall, tattooed 30-something Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber is pastor, describes its norm as "low obligation/high commitment." They meet on Sunday afternoons and have no pews or flags, but they share a longing for God and community in which to experience God, a place to come to know this "unknown" God.

"I will not leave you orphaned," Jesus says to his disciples in our reading from John’s gospel. He was speaking to them before his death, before they would have to face the world without his physical presence, but he assured them that they would not face it alone. The God who was in Him would be with and in them. God’s Spirit would advocate for and empower them and their community. He was addressing that same longing that the Athenians and that all of us have–to know that we are not alone, and, more than that, that we are loved and worthy of love. This is not a polite little god who asks little of us. This great God of love and light asks of us everything–all that we have and all that we are–and at the same time, asks nothing at all– we are simply loved completely and forever.

May we seek and come to know this God and even, as the catechism says, to "enjoy God forever." Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"Abundant Life–really?"-- Acts 2:42-47, John 10:1-10-- May 11, 2014

"Abundant Life–really?"-- Acts 2:42-47, John 10:1-10-- May 11, 2014

 

Mother’s Day, for all the hearts and corsages, is a minefield. Absolutely we should acknowledge and express gratitude to our mothers who labored and nourished and nurtured us, who loved us and gave sacrificially of themselves, so that we might have life. Absolutely, although not just on one day of the year.

But sometimes the ones who did all that for us weren’t our biological mothers. Some-times, for a whole host of reasons, our biological mothers were unable to "mother" us, and so other people did, other women, even some men. Sometimes our mothers were so young, so wounded, so sick that our association with the word is very complicated. Some of us today are missing and grieving our mothers who are no longer physically with us. And that’s just looking in one direction, down the line of those who mothered us.

Then there’s the other direction, down the line of succession: those we have mothered–or didn’t. For some women, this day has painful associations–perhaps we’ve never been able to or chose not to give birth. Perhaps we’ve lost a child–or more than one. Perhaps we’ve given up a child, to adoption or foster care. Perhaps, like most of the women in the bible who were childless, we’ve been made to feel shame, or been pitied, because we weren’t "mothers."

So "Happy Mother’s Day" is a loaded expression. ...Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it, just please think about it first. It may not be quite the sweet sound you assumed it to be.

"Good Shepherd Sunday," which this year is the same day as Mother’s Day, is another one of those days that sounds sweet and innocuous, especially if you’ve never known or been a shepherd, but, like other’s Day, Good shepherd Sunday has a bit more ‘bite" to it than it may seem. All the pictures and stained glass windows of Jesus as the Good Shepherd show him holding adorable lambs with happy sheep crowding around him. That probably wouldn’t have been the image that came to mind to the folks to whom Jesus told he was the Good Shepherd. Remember the Christmas story? The shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night, out in those fields, because nobody wanted them any closer. They were the unsavory, marginal characters whom no one else but God would think of entrusting good news to.

One commentator reminded me of another image–that of the shepherds in the movie "Brokeback Mountain." They were cowboys, she said, rugged, horse-riding, independent,[ and, of course in that movie, gay.] Nothing sweet or innocuous about them or about the nature of the business they were in.

In the 10th chapter of the gospel of John, Jesus uses a couple of different sheep-related images–"I am the gate for the sheep," he says. "I am the good shepherd." And he talks about the dangers of thieves and imposters.

In what is sometimes called "The Shepherd’s Psalm," Psalm 23, the psalmist writes about having a table spread in the presence of enemies, and walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

And finally, in the reading from Acts, we hear about the early Christian community in a way that many people think is probably idealized. They all lived together, shared everything in common, spent their days praying and worshiping, adding loads of people to their numbers each day and held in high regard by everyone. Really? Some 40 or 50 years later, which is when Acts was written, that may have been how Luke imagined it, but chances are, like every other human community, things were not quite so perfect.

So, in addition to being a lot grittier than we have sometimes been led to believe, what else do these texts for Good Shepherd Sunday have in common? The notion of sufficiency. "The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need." "I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come and go out and find pasture...I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." One could even argue that the challenge of motherhood is the challenge of enoughness–how do we provide children with what they need–for health, for wholeness, for discovering their true identity–

without giving them too much.

Of course, our culture has certain ideas about sufficiency and "enoughness," and the main lesson is, You can never have too much. You can never be enough. You hardly ever hear about "enough." If a little is good, a lot must be better, right? Our food is engineered so that we crave more and more. "Bet you can’t eat just one," the Lay’s Potato Chip commercial used to say, and they’d have a pretty good bet–all that fat and salt that most of us have become addicted to? It’s impossible to stop at "just one." And, clothes, toys, gadgets, ...the one who dies with the most toys wins, right? Or maybe just dies.

Of course, it’s money that we’re sure will make us happier if we get more and more. But actually, unless you’re at a sufficiently low level of income that you still need money to take care of basic needs–food, shelter, clothing-- it has been shown that levels of happiness do not increase over the long term with more and more money. Ask folks who’ve won the lottery or Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Usually, if they were happy before they won, they’ll end up being about as happy. If they were unhappy before they won, they’ll end up being just as unhappy. Sometimes it’s a nightmare.

"The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the pro-ceeds to all, as any had need." Every December we witness the seemingly endless amount of stuff that we as a community have accumulated. It’s called the Serendipity sale. And there’s nothing like moving to discover just how much stuff you have. We as Americans are being buried by our stuff, and our landfills and storage units grow literally into mountains. While the Serendipity Sale is a great way to recycle some of that stuff, might we also think about establishing a kind of sharing system where we could commonly own–or at least use–items and appliances that we don’t all need to have all the time? Rototillers, snowblowers, sewing machines, carpet shampooers, chainsaws, camping equipment, maybe trucks or cars? The Time Bank is another example of exchanging and sharing time and talents. Our loan fund, in which we could pool more of our resources, might become a resource for those who want to purchase energy-efficient appliances but need a little help with their extra upfront costs. And of course, thinking of our air, water, soil, our ecosystem as held commonly might be a start in making sure the generations who come after us will have enough–to breathe, to drink, to grow food, to live.

"The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." Despite the pastoral setting, it sound pretty stark. Does living in the sufficiency of God have to be sparce, bare, bland, colorless? "I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly," Jesus said. Really? What kind of abundance is he talking about? Author Cynthia Bourgeault writes,

What seemed disconcerting to nearly everybody was the messy, freewheeling largeness of [Jesus’] spirit. Abundance and generosity bordering on extravagant seemed to be the signatures of his teaching and his personal style....[In many of his parables] the thing that sticks in people’s craws is in each case the display of a generosity so beyond comprehension that it can only be perceived as ‘unfair.’ But as we look further, that extravagance is everywhere...

...the feeding of the five thousand, with 12 baskets of leftovers...the seed that falls on good soil yields 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold...the jar of priceless nard, poured over Jesus’ head and feet.

"It was not love stored up," Bourgeault writes, "but love utterly poured out that opened the gates to the kingdom of heaven. Over and over, Jesus lays this path before us. There is nothing to be renounced or resisted. Everything can be embraced, but the catch is to cling to nothing." (Wisdom Jesus, pp. 69-70)

The secret to abundant life is simply letting go of everything, allowing yourself to be emptied. We might even say, allowing yourself to be "enough." Because we live in such an abundance of Love, when we trust in the Source of that Love and don’t cling to or grab anything, Love flows freely through us and we ourselves become sources of love and life. It’s that simple. Easy, it’s not...maybe even a bit like "asking elephants to fly," as Bourgeault points out, but she goes on to say, "It is not a matter of believing in flying elephants so much as of purifying the heart." (The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, p. 52)

The practice of self-emptying which Jesus embodied "is not a stoic stance against a pitiless reality," she writes; "rather it is a direct gateway into a divine reality that can be immediately experienced as both compassionate and infinitely generous. Abundance surrounds and sustains us like the air we breathe; it is only our habitual self-protectiveness that prevents us from perceiving it." (Ibid., p. 104)

"I came that you might have life," Jesus said, "and have it abundantly." Greed and grasping and hoarding only stop up the flow of Love. "I am the gate," Jesus said. "Whoever enters by me–by the way of self-emptying, embracing and letting go–will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture....The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need."

We know that there are any number of false shepherds luring us to what they say are greener pastures, but they are thieves and bandits, as Jesus said. We and our children are bombarded by calls to come over where the grass is greener. Buy this. Eat this. Be this. Don’t be a fool and believe all that God and Love stuff. Look where it got Jesus.

Where it got him is resurrected. It got his band of sorry, clueless followers filled with the Spirit of Love and Life and Power that changed their lives and countless generations after them, not, granted, with a flawless record, but the abundant life he offered them is still offered to us. "The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." "I am the gate"–that gate is the way to life for us and ultimately for the whole world. The Good Shepherd, God our Mother, a community that cares for all who have need, all of them more complex, more challenging, but ultimately more life-giving than any Hallmark card could ever portray. "I am the gate," Jesus said. May we enter through that gate and find abundant life. Happy Good Shepherd’s Day!

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Church World Service Kits

Church World Service Kits

As the sign reads, the wall of cartons are from 27 churches.  They weigh 3,092 pounds and contain 777 School Kits, 706 Hygiene Kits, 170 Baby Kits, 2 Flood Buckets, 25 Quilts, 1 Box of Rolled Bandages.  The estimated value is $24,150!!
“On the Road Again, Still, Always...”-- Luke 24:13-35-- May 4, 2014

“On the Road Again, Still, Always...”-- Luke 24:13-35-- May 4, 2014

 

Once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus. Now, Emmaus isn’t on any map, which, of course, hasn’t kept the archaeologists, the scholars, those who would “re-trace” His steps, from trying to find it. There are at least 4 places within that 7-mile radius from Jerusalem that have been identified as “Emmaus,” but I prefer to think of Emmaus, as Fred Buechner suggests, as “the place to run to when we have lost hope or don’t know what to do, the place of escape, of forgetting, of giving up, of deadening our senses and our minds and maybe our hearts, too.” [The Magnificent Defeat, cited by Kate Huey in Sermon Seeds, 5/4/14]

So, once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus, when a stranger fell into step beside them, and asked them what they were talking about. They could hardly believe he hadn’t heard. The events of the past days seemed so all-consuming to them, in fact, seemed to be boulders all around and in front of them–Don’t you see them? Ooh, look out! You’d better be careful....

But he turned out to be their guide through the rock-strewn path, re-reading the guidebook that had led them up to this point, drawing them into his calm, assured narrative, so that when he appeared to be heading on after they had reached the inn, they invited him to join them for a meal. It was only then, when he sat at table with them, and blessed and broke the bread, that the vibrations of their own bodies caught up with his, and they recognized him. And then he was gone again.

“Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens,” writes biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan. [The Historical Jesus, p. xiii] In this one, exquisitely written story, the early Christian community described their life in those days and months and years after Jesus was crucified. It was in the encounter with strangers, with scripture, in the breaking of the bread as he had done, that they encountered the Risen Christ in their midst, over and over again. Traveling two by two, being invited into homes, sharing meals, telling the story, bringing healing and good news, they experienced His presence, saw His face, and then he vanished from their sight...only to turn up again as they were walking down the road, sitting at table, telling the story, again, still, always.

Once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus... “but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” It was their self-pity and nostalgia that kept them from recognizing him, Cynthia Bourgeault suggests. “Clearly they are stuck in their story, [she writes] and their stuckness is what makes them unable to see the person standing right before their faces.” [Wisdom Jesus, p. 129]

Are you stuck in a story that keeps you from recognizing the Risen Christ walking beside you? Maybe it’s a story about how the world “really” works–that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that might makes right, and that the one who dies with the most toys wins, and you’re a fool if you think otherwise. You won’t find salvation in hanging out with homeless, powerless people. Is that the story you’re living? Or maybe like the two companions stuck in their story of self-pity and nostalgia, you can only see how much you’ve lost, how much better things used to be. Or maybe you’re just so busy you don’t even think you’ve got time for stories–you’ve got this meeting to go to, and this practice or lesson to get the kids to, or this doctor’s appointment or that deadline. Maybe there’s just so much noise and distraction and so many text messages and e-mails that whatever vibration the Risen Christ is on, you’re pretty sure you’re not on the same frequency.

Once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus, that place we run to when we have lost hope or don’t know what to do, the place of escape, of forgetting, of giving up, or deadening our senses and our minds and maybe our hearts, too... Do you know that road?

Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. But the story of Emmaus tells us that resurrection is not enough. “You still need scripture and eucharist,” Dom Crossan writes, “tradition and table, community and justice; otherwise, divine presence remains unrecognized and human eyes remain unopened.” [The Birth of Christianity, p. xi.] The risen Christ doesn’t invite his companions on the road to share a meal. They invite him. It’s the same, still, always. He won’t barge in unwanted or uninvited. That’s not the kind of power God wields. But hospitality and openness make transformation possible. Our transformation. The world’s transformation.

Once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus... and they invited the stranger who had joined them in to have dinner with them. “When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.”

So may we invite friend and stranger – and the Risen Christ – to the table. Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens. “Lord Jesus, be our holy guest. Our morning joy, our evening rest. And with our daily bread impart Thy love and peace to every heart.”

May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"Then,....as now...."-- Matthew 28:1-10-- 10 a.m. Easter 2014

"Then,....as now...."-- Matthew 28:1-10-- 10 a.m. Easter 2014

 

When I was growing up, there was a Clairol commercial that focused in on a lovely, vibrant woman with great hair, and "the hook" was, "Does she, or doesn’t she?"  Does she color her hair, or is that her natural hair color?  And, the answer was that, if she used Clairol products, "only her hairdresser knows for sure."

The implication was that one should only color–or dye–one’s hair discreetly.  You wouldn’t want people to know that that wasn’t your own natural, beautiful hair.  Of course, things have changed.  When our son Alex was a teen-ager, I was absolutely relieved to know that he dyed his hair, because, dear God,  if that electric blue color was his own natural color, we had a far bigger problem than adolescent self-expression!

"Does she, or doesn’t she?"  "Did he, or didn’t he?"  That’s the question that has been asked over and over on Easter Sundays throughout the centuries.  Did Jesus physically rise from the dead, or didn’t he? Or Did somebody actually steal the body?  or Was it just in the imagination of his followers, or was it just a metaphor, or did he rise in some other body?  You can spin yourself dizzy pondering those questions, and you’re welcome to do that.

But, as Fr. Richard Rohr writes, "Up to now, it has been common, with little skin off anyone’s back, to intellectually argue or religiously believe that Jesus’ physical body could really ‘resurrect.’  That was much easier than to ask whether we could really change or resurrect.  It got us off the hook–the hook of growing up, of taking the search for our True Selves seriously."  (Rohr, Immortal Diamond, p. ix) So, rather than asking, "Did he, or didn’t he?" it might be more important to ask, "Are we, or aren’t we?"  Or even, "Is he, or isn’t he?"  Is Christ still being raised today, in our world?  Have you seen Him?

Matthew says that when the Risen Christ appeared to the women, they took hold of his feet and worshipped him.  There is a bronze sculpture of a homeless Christ, created by the Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz.   The only U.S.statue is in Davidson, NC, in front of St. Albans Episcopal Church.  Jesus is depicted as a vagrant, "huddled under a blanket, his face and hands obscured; only the crucifixion wounds on his uncovered feet give him away." (John Burnett, NPR)   St. Albans Church is in a fairly wealthy neighborhood, and one lady actually called the police the first time she saw it while driving by–there was a man sleeping on a bench out in front of the church! Scandal! Another neighbor, who lives down the block from the church, wrote a letter to the editor, saying the statue "creeps him out."

The sculptor took a miniature version of the statue to the Vatican to see if they might be interested in having the sculpture there.  Pope Francis immediately put his hands on the knees of Jesus the Homeless, closed his eyes, and prayed.  Not surprisingly, there will be an installation of the statue on the avenue leading up to St. Peter’s Basilica.

Meanwhile, back in Davidson, the rector says that, despite those few negative reactions, "It is now common to see people come, sit on the bench, rest their hand on the bronze feet and pray."

The question isn’t "Did he or didn’t he?" but rather "Is he, or isn’t he" being raised and appearing in the midst of our world today, even, as he said, in the guise of those who live on the margins? Do we have eyes to see him here and now? Is he or isn’t he being raised in your life?  If, as Fr. Rohr contends, the Risen Christ is an icon–a charged image-- of full consciousness, the resurrection of our True Selves, then just as the Christ Risen in formerly fearful and dense disciples became a threat to the empire, so the Christ Risen in us, as our True Selves, may be a risk and threat to the world as we’ve constructed it.  "After any ‘raising up’ of our True Selves,’ [he writes] we will no longer fit into many groups [like our families or former groups of friends], even much of religious society."  (X-xi.)

Taking our own growth seriously is a threat to others who haven’t made that decision for themselves.   What do you mean, you don’t want to.... whatever–have another beer or joint, you don’t want to hang out with so and so, Are you too good for us now?  Who do you think you are? We’d rather have your old self back, not this new "True Self."  Those are Good Friday words.

"We know how to live in a Good Friday world," one writer says, "where innocent people get killed and the weak get stepped on, but to live in a world where love is victorious over hate, where hope is stronger than despair, is difficult, a challenge to conventional wisdom." (Joseph S. Harvard, Journal for Preachers, Easter 2014, p 4)    We live in a Good Friday world of inevitable climate change and loss of species.  We live in a Good Friday world of money equaling power, let alone speech, and where fewer and fewer people have most of the money and therefore most of the power.  We live in a Good Friday world where bad news is the only news.

And the news is grim every day–this senseless act of violence here, that tale of human negligence or weakness or stupidity or depravity there, this ecosystem poisoned and doomed, those children weakened with hunger and disease. Or closer to home, this ongoing struggle with addiction, a family torn apart by abuse and dysfunction, my own failures and sorrows.  We get the stuff that leads to Good Friday.

But the Good News of Easter is that Easter "is utter newness," as Walter Brueggemann says. And the really good news is that "It does not depend on us, not even on our expectation.  It is given to us....[and] Given our culture of deep and honest despair that is bereft of expectation, the news of Jesus is both urgent and credible." [Brueggemann, Journal for Preachers, Easter 2014, p. 2)

Utter newness.  It sure seems like the same old same old.  Our eyes and ears have grown dim to the really Real, so accustomed we are to the air-brushing and smoke and mirrors and spin. But Easter "does not depend on us, not even on our expectation.  It is given to us."   So we must not close our eyes and ears to the new life that even now is emerging from the most unlikely places.  Keep your heart open to the softening that God’s melody and love seek to sing in you.

Listen to the words of a woman whose broken heart has become fertile soil for new life.  Leigh Knauert endured the unspeakable tragedy of losing her husband to illness and then a brief time later her 14-year-old son Peter committed suicide.  Talk about your Good Friday.  At Peter’s memorial service, Leigh spoke of the power of her faith and her community of faith.

...I stand here today to tell you that even in the unspeakable awfulness of what has happened to Peter, death will not have the final word, not in my house and not in my family.  Horrific images and haunting questions of why will not be my focus, even if they manage to creep in sometimes.  Darkness and evil and horror and sadness and guilt and pain will not be the last thing left at the end of the day.  I will continue to tell them that they have no place in a life and in a family that has been won over by Jesus’ message of triumphant love.  That love will triumph over everything, even this.

‘Where, O Death, is your sting?’  That I can answer.  The sting of death has been and will continue to be a big part of my life experience.  However, I can also answer the question asked next to that one in I Corinthians 15: Where, O Death, is your victory?’  And my answer is, ‘Not here.’  I hope that you as my community can keep answering this question with me this way.  Death will have to find another place to settle in.  We will keep choosing life together, and we will move ahead in our faith in the One that will, one day, banish all death forever, the day when we meet Peter again face to face and see that beaming smile and know that all of this is behind us, and love has won once and for all.

[Journal of Preachers, Easter 2014, pp. 39-40]

 

You don’t get to such a place overnight.  You don’t get to such a place alone. You need a community.  You have to train your eyes and ears and heart to perceive this kind of new life emerging from the dry, painful places.  You have to practice this kind of resurrection.

So, here, in closing, are "Twelve Ways to Practice Resurrection Now," again from Fr. Richard Rohr–

1. Refuse to identify with negative, blaming, antagonistic, or fearful thoughts (you cannot stop ‘having’ them).

2. Apologize when you hurt another person or situation.

3.  Undo your mistakes by some positive action toward the offended person or situation.

4.  Do not indulge or believe your False Self–that which is concocted by your mind and society’s expectations.

5.  Choose your True Self–your radical union with God–as often as possible throughout the day.

6.  Always seek to change yourself before trying to change others.

7.  Choose as much as possible to serve rather than be served.

8.  Whenever possible, seek the common good over your mere private good.

9.  Give preference to those in pain, excluded, or disabled in any way

10.  Seek just systems and policies over mere charity.

11. Make sure your medium is the same as your message.

12.  Never doubt that it is all about love in the end.

Did he or didn’t he rise from the dead?  Is he or isn’t he still being raised in our midst, in our world, in us?  Are we or aren’t we being raised to new life right now?  It takes practice, but ultimately, thank God, it’s not up to us.  God is the Resurrecting One, appearing all around us, lying on park benches, in lives that refuse to give death the last word, in the growing number of people who know their lives are connected to the earth, in your life and in mine.  Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

 
Sunday April 20th

Sunday April 20th

Sunday April 20th Holy Sunday:

Resurrection of the Lord—Easter Day:
Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 , Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43, John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10 read texts

Resurrection of Our Lord—Easter Evening
Isaiah 25:6-9 Psalm 114 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8 Luke 24:13-49 read texts

or all readings
Saturday April 19th

Saturday April 19th

Saturday April 19th Holy Saturday:

Holy Saturday (other than the Vigil):
Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24, Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16, 1 Peter 4:1-8, Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42 read texts

Resurrection of the Lord—Easter Vigil:
Genesis 1:1—2:4a, Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26, Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13, Psalm 46, Genesis 22:1-18, Psalm 16, Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 , Exodus 15:1b-13, 17-18, Isaiah 55:1-11, Isaiah 12:2-6, Baruch 3:9-15, 32—4:4 or Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6 , Psalm 19, Ezekiel 36:24-28, Psalm 42 and 43, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 143, Zephaniah 3:14-20, Psalm 98, Romans 6:3-11, Psalm 114, Matthew 28:1-10 read texts

or all readings
Kids help conserve energy by insulating electrical outlets

Kids help conserve energy by insulating electrical outlets

As part of our Lenten activities, to raise awareness and promote earth sustaining activity, the Eaarth Advocate Group sponsored an after church activity. All the (accessible) electrical outlets and switch plates were insulated. Thanks
to all who helped, especially David Durfee for organizing, Tom Steffen for supplies and our two youth representatives pictured here.
"Calling Out New Life" -- John 11:1-45 -- April 6, 2014

"Calling Out New Life" -- John 11:1-45 -- April 6, 2014

 

We’ve been working our way through John’s gospel this Lent, stopping along the way to listen in on those long conversations or stories that take place during Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.  We’ve overheard his nighttime conversation with Nicodemus about being born anew, with all the  complexities and struggles involved with that.  We’ve stopped at a well in Samaria and witnessed that remarkable conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman there about water and living water and what really quenches our thirst.  We’ve witnessed a remarkable healing of a man born blind, who comes to see in a way that those who are sighted have chosen not to.  And we’ve been reminded, at each stop, of the ways that these topics and conversations and stories take place not on some abstract, "spiritual" plane, but are deeply connected with embodied life on earth–our need for water and sustenance, how we are all part of web of existence, how we see or don’t see what is around us.

So today we are nearing Jerusalem with Jesus in this Lenten journey–just two miles away, in fact, we are told; and just a week away from Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem and the beginning of those awesome and awe-full events we remember during Holy Week.  The way forward is narrowing.  The humanity of Jesus is in full view as he confronts that most human of events–the death of a loved one.  "Grief puts us in the largest company on earth," Helen Keller said.

"Lord, he whom you love is ill," the message said.  It was that 3 a.m. phone call that we all dread.  The dividing line between before and after that we’ll remember for years afterwards.  There’s no going back to sleep after such a call.  But, "Accordingly [John tells us] though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was."

Wow, interesting call.  No one can blame Martha and Mary for blurting out when Jesus finally arrives, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."  If only you had come.  If only you had dropped everything to come rescue us or at least be with us, to talk to the doctor, to help us make those terrible decisions.  Have you been part of a conversation like that?

"Though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus

was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was."  Someone has suggested that a decoder ring would be helpful in reading John’s gospel, because he uses certain code words throughout.  Stayed is one of those code words.  "Where are you staying?" the first disciples asked him.  Stay or Abide in me, Jesus said.  Jesus was staying or abiding in God before going to Bethany, before facing that death and the death that he knew was coming after that.

There’s no Garden of Gethsemane scene in John’s gospel, no "tears like blood" falling on the ground before Jesus’ arrest, but here in this story about Lazarus’ illness and death is John’s scene or insight into the humanity of Jesus....how he was fully human and yet so open–emptied really–so that he could be fully open to God.

It takes prayer to empty yourself of survival-at-all-cost

[writes one commentator].  It takes prayer to put yourself in harm’s way for another’s sake.  It takes abiding in God even if you’re the Christ, to ready yourself to face untruth, torture, and death.  Indeed, that is perhaps what makes Christ the Christ–patiently abiding in God rather than running off at every request to save the world, every suggestion that he could and should. [Liz Goodman in Journal for Preachers, Lent 2014, p. 9]

So, Jesus needs those two days before going off to Judea, to Bethany, to abide in God if he is to glorify God through this death and in his own.  Glorify is another one of John’s code words, and unlike the other gospels who talk about Jesus’ being glorified by sitting on a throne at the right hand of God, in John Jesus is glorified when he is lifted up on the cross, utterly emptying himself to be filled with God.   Jesus tells the disciples, "Lazarus is dead.  For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.  But let us go to him."  And Thomas, who gets such a bad rap for being "The Doubter," is the one who really sees–"Let us also go," he says to the other disciples, "that we may die with him."

The scene that awaits them in Bethany is not unlike other scenes of mourning and grief.  The community has gathered to support the sisters. Martha meets Jesus on the road and simply states, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him."  "Your brother will rise again," Jesus assures her, and Martha recites the creed, what she knows in her head. "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."  Jesus cups her face with his hands and says, "I am the resurrection and the life."  In this moment, I am–the name of God.  God is. Now.  Here.  Not just in the future.

Martha returns to her sister and tells her that Jesus is asking for her, so Mary too goes out to meet Jesus.  Mary lives less in her head and more in her heart than Martha, so she is weeping when she comes to Jesus, as is pretty much everyone else.  "Where have you laid him," he asks. And when they say, "Come and see"–another theme in John’s gospel– Jesus weeps.   Jesus, who lives completely in both head and heart, is overcome with compassion and begins to weep as well.  Here are his tears, for them, for Lazarus, for himself, for all of us.

The actual raising of Lazarus occupies only 2 verses of this whole long story.  Lazarus himself doesn’t speak or indicate how he feels about being raised from death.  And we can imagine, it’s not a totally positive experience.

Writer Mary Karr describes a similar experience–

If you live in the dark a long time

[maybe the dark of addiction, or grief, or anxiety] and the sun comes out, you do not cross into it whistling.  There is an initial uprush of relief at first, then–for me anyway–a profound dislocation.  My old assumptions about how the world works are buried, yet my new ones aren’t yet operational.  There’s been a death of sorts, but without a few days in hell, no resurrection is possible." [cited in Sermon Seeds, 4/6/14]

After giving thanks for God’s abiding presence, Jesus cries with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"  One can only imagine what the scene was like.  Wonderful?  Horrible?  Terrifying? "Dislocating," at best, as Mary Karr says.  This is a temporary resurrection, Lazarus still needs to be unbound by the community, and he will die again.  This is a practice run for Jesus, as empty as he is, but he will empty himself even more when it comes time for him to die.

"Many of the Jews who had come with Mary [John tells us] and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him." But if we read on, we know that it was this raising of the dead that sealed Jesus’ fate.  It’s not the cleansing of the Temple here in John that is the final straw–he’s already done that in Chap. 2–but the raising of the dead.  Death is in charge of death, the Powers say, not  God, and certainly not a God who empties himself.

So, this is not really the end of the story; in many ways it’s just the beginning.  But this story of grief and death and regrets and what we do with despair and discouragement has to be part of the story if it’s to become part of our story.  "He whom you love is ill."  "I have some bad news."  "There’s been a terrible accident."  "We’ve found something on the MRI."  "The level of threat to life on this planet as we’ve known it has increased from high to extremely high."  What do we do with news like this?  The time for prevention is over. "Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead,’" not "just fallen asleep."

So, though he loved Lazarus and Mary and Martha, Jesus stayed where he was for 2 days.  He abided in God, he immersed himself in prayer, drenched himself in the Love and Power of God.  We dare not skip this step.  The world is full of people rushing in with "the solution" to our problems, our economy, our image, our whatever.  What the world needs is people drenched in the God of Love and Light and Life, so willing to empty themselves that God can fill them and use them to heal and unbind the world.  For we do have a part in this reclamation.  "Unbind him and let him go," Jesus said to the crowd surrounding Lazarus.  There are so many graveclothes binding us and our brothers and sisters, human and animal, plant and mineral, bindings of pollution and exploitation, of abuse and oppression, of greed and poverty, of deception and false hope.

Sometimes when we have no other hope–when we are finally brought to our knees, utterly discouraged and spent, when "we admitted we had no control over our drinking," when we confess that the situation is way beyond us–it is then that we find that "our help comes from God, who made heaven and earth."  A way appears where there was no way.  Someone offers to help or invites us to join them.  Bread is broken and we recognize the stranger in our midst. A table is set before us.  We discover we are part of something far greater than ourselves.

God is with us.  We are not alone.  Thanks be to God! And let us keep the feast. Amen.

 

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

 

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