Courage & Compassion

Third Sunday of Easter
April 26, 2020

Acts 2:14a, 36-47 For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away.
1 Peter 1:17-23 …Love one another deeply from the heart.
Luke 24:13-35 Were not our hearts burning within us?
O God of our aching and burning hearts, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Three weeks into Eastertide, we are still hearing stories of the first day after the Sabbath, the day when the women found the tomb where Jesus had been laid to be empty. It’s a different Gospel from the last two weeks, and the stories are different. In Luke, Jesus’ first appeared not to Mary Magdalene, but to two of his followers who were headed out of Jerusalem to a place called Emmaus – one was named Cleopas. The other, a woman, I imagine….what was her name? Oh, it doesn’t say. Well, anyway. It’s a beautiful account of the art of resurrection, about how, even when we don’t understand it, we can’t imagine it, and we certainly are not looking for it, we can come to recognize that the Risen Lord can be walking along with us; the Risen Lord can be right in front of us without our knowing it, opening our eyes to the scriptures and opening our hearts to thanksgiving for shared meals. When they hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the eleven, they heard that the Risen Lord had also appeared to Simon (presumably Simon Peter), but there’s no story about that.
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Ready to love

Second Sunday of Easter – A
April 19, 2020

Acts 2:14a, 22-32 Deeds of power, wonders, and signs.
1 Peter 1:3-9 So that the genuineness of your faith…may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
John 20:19-31 Peace be with you…Peace be with you.

O God of grace, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today’s Gospel reading is a little like watching episodes of a tv show where the story leaves off at the end of one episode and picks up a moment later the following week. This passage begins, “later on the same day” – the same day that the tomb was found empty, the same day that Mary had mistaken the risen Lord for the gardener. The same day Jesus made Mary Magdalene the apostles to the apostles. And the Gospel says that she did go and tell the others that Jesus had said these things to her. That didn’t seem to do anything to assuage their fears because later on the same day, the disciples were hiding behind locked doors because they were afraid. 

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Repentance & Right-Relationship

Palm Sunday
April 5, 2020

 

Isaiah 50:4-9a I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
Philippians 2:5-11 He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death.
Matthew 27:11-66 “ .”

The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew §1 – congregation is seated

Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of [these people]?” Jesus said, “You say so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted. At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas. So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” For he realized that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over. While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him.” Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” All of them said, “Let him be crucified!” Then he asked, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.”Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

Meditation I 

For those of you who are joining Emmanuel Church for worship for the first time, or for whom this is your first Palm Sunday with us, I want to explain that we made a decision in 2014 to stop engaging in the custom of reading the Passion Narrative on Palm Sunday as a play script with members of the congregation taking various dialogue parts, and the congregation as a whole representing the crowd. Although it may be edifying to understand that we too are capable of the denial and betrayal of Love, and of being bystanders while brutal and deadly force is used against others, I’d rather we not practice any of that bad behavior in church! I do not believe that it is at all edifying to re-enact the highly implausible scenario that Pontius Pilate or any other Roman authority would have even permitted a large crowd to gather in the occupied capital of an occupied country during the time of a great feast celebrating the notion of freedom from oppression, economic exploitation, and political enslavement. It is not edifying to pretend that a Roman governor would have given people a voice vote about whom to crucify. Biblical scholars and historians have known this for a long long time, and yet much of the Church blithely carries on this libel in the name of tradition or custom or piety, with deadly consequences to Jews.[1] 
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What Love Does

Lent 4A
March 22, 2020

1 Samuel 16:1-13 But the Lord looks on the heart.
Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd.
Ephesians 5:8-14 Live as children of light.
John 9:1-41 As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind. So that God’s works might be revealed in him, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am a light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
They brought to the Episcopalians the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Episcopalians also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Episcopalians said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” The people did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the people; for the people had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the gathering. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

O God of our vision, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

 

Today I am preaching to a virtual congregation during the early days of a pandemic, the first Sunday in which our sanctuary is closed for worship since the fire in the fall of 2000, when Emmanuel quickly secured another place to gather, to continue being church. When one physical place becomes inaccessible, we typically comfort and reassure ourselves by gathering in another place. We are not used to responding to a big crisis with restraint and a discipline of distance from one another. We are trained to care for one another by sharing food, to reassure one another with physical presence especially when we don’t know the words to say. So in these early days of this pandemic, we are trying to figure out and learn new ways of being together virtually. The truth is, I feel intermittently creative and inspired, and clumsy and completely inadequate like I’m trying to build something using my grandchildren’s toddler tools. But once again, we are learning to be church in a new way.
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Networking

Epiphany 3A
January 26, 2020

Isaiah 9:1-4 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 I appeal to you…that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you.
Matthew 4:12-23 Follow me, and I will make you fish for people….Immediately they left.

Merciful and generous God, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

I want to begin by acknowledging that our lesson from Isaiah this morning sounds like it is teeing up the Gospel lesson. It sounds like Isaiah was anticipating Jesus. But Isaiah wasn’t anticipating Jesus any more than Isaiah or Jesus were anticipating what George Frederic Handel might do with this beautiful poetry. Actually, it is exactly the other way around. Matthew was living and growing in the stories of Jesus, at least two generations after Jesus’ death. Matthew was retelling those stories toward the end of the first century of the common era and thinking, “these stories sound so much like the stories that Isaiah told eight hundred years ago!” Isaiah was delivering an oracle of hope to the people of Judah who were in deep distress, danger, and despair.

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Narrative Theology

First Sunday after Christmas
December 29, 2019

Isaiah 61:10-62:3 For the sake of Zion I will not be silent. For the sake of Jerusalem I will not rest.
Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7 So you are…a child then also an heir, through God.
John 1:1-18 and the Word became flesh and lived among us

O God of our story, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

If you were in church here on Christmas Eve or anywhere else on Christmas morning, you heard the prologue from the Gospel of John, verses 1-14 of it anyway. Our deacon Bob and I chanted it by candlelight. So it’s curious that the lectionary assigns it again for the First Sunday of Christmas with four more verses. Curious, but I kind of like it because there are just some places a preacher shouldn’t go in a Christmas Eve sermon in an overly full service in the sanctuary. But today, in Lindsey Chapel, we can go there. Today we can review some Biblical Greek. Not many people want to review Biblical Greek on Christmas Eve. This morning we’ve got a little elbow room and I’m going to take full advantage. 

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Claim the scandalous holiness of God!

Fourth Sunday of Advent (A)
December 22, 2019

Isaiah 7:10-16 The Lord will give you a sign.
Romans 1:1-7 [You] yourselves are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place this way.

O God of love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Many of you have heard me say I love the way that each of our four Gospels tells a different story about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry – of how and when Jesus the Christ, Love incarnate, came into our world. The Gospel of Mark notes the beginning with John the Baptist preparing the way in the wilderness. Jesus came into the world, according to Mark, at his baptism. For Matthew, the preparation began with Abraham and he came into the world at his birth. Luke says, yes, he came into the world at his birth, but the preparation went all the way back to Adam. And for John – he was before the world even existed. Today the Gospel account belongs to Matthew, who writes, “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah [or the Christ] took place in this way.” If, as I think, Matthew’s Gospel was written a few years before Luke, then this is the earliest extant birth narrative for Jesus.

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A Time of Prayer

Seventh Sunday in Easter (C)
June 2, 2019

Acts 16:16-34  Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21  And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
John 17:20-26  So that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.

O God of purpose and possibility, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

In our Church calendar, we have entered into the commemoration of a period of time after Jesus’ death, in between when his friends stopped having powerful external experiences of his presence and started internalizing his presence. After they watched Jesus work and before they started feeling brave enough and inspired enough to make his work their own. In the Church calendar, the commemoration is nine days – a novena – a period of special devotion, a period of prayerful waiting for a spirit of holiness to deliver some grace in a circumstance of peril or need. Of course, any churchy observance or season might feel mismatched with what we’re experiencing or feeling. You might already be filled with inspiration – like our newly ordained deacon Sarah. You might be feeling dazed and confused by the sorrows of your life or the sorrows of the world. Either way, the Church invites you to be in a time of prayer about what’s next.

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Surprising Visions of Peace

Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C
May 19, 2019

Acts 11:1-18 The spirit told me…not to make a distinction between them and us.
Revelation 21:1-6 I am making all things new…to the thirsty I will give water as a gift.
John 13:31-35 I give you a new commandment, [in order] that you love one another.
O God of all, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.


We are thirty-five days into Eastertide, and our scripture lessons today describe visions: Peter’s vision, John of Patmos’ vision, and John the Evangelist’s vision. While Peter was in a trance of prayer, he had a life-changing dream that revealed there is no distinction between “them” and “us.” In other words, when it comes to the redeeming urge or work of the Holy One, (also known as Jesus Christ for Christians), there is no Jew or Gentile, no free or slave, no male and female, [1] 
no insiders and outsiders, no gender binary; all people are one. While there are always those in the center and those on the margins, those with more power and those with less, those of us who have and use more than our fair share of resources and those who do not have their basic needs met, we are all one. Peter realizes that he should not be hindering the work of God by deciding who is inside and who is outside of God’s reach when it comes to sacred and profane practices. Here’s where we often get tripped up as Christians. How does any of us decide what is godly is and what it’s not? Well, for starters, as our Presiding Bishop Curry is fond of saying, “if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” Of course it gets complicated, but that’s where we start. If it looks like there are competing interests that all have to do with love, we might need to enlarge our view. We might need to look at the situation from 30,000 feet where differences become imperceptible.

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Come alive!

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C
May 12, 2019

Acts 9:36-43 He gave her his hand and helped her up.
Revelation 7:9-17 He will guide them to springs of the water of life.
John 10:22-30 It was winter.

O God of eternal life, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

During Eastertide, our lectionary offers no lessons from the First Testament. The effect, I think, is to overemphasize a break between Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ religious identity and tradition. Instead, we have passages from the Acts of the Apostles’ romantic accounts of the beginnings of Christianity, written toward the end of the first century about “the good old days.” (Always be suspicious when you hear about good old days, because they’ve never been good for everybody.) Today it’s Peter raising Dorcas from the dead with a line that is almost exactly the same as what Jesus said to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead. Jesus reportedly said, “talitha cum” which means arise or wake up, come alive! Here Peter says, “tabitha anasteythi” which means arise or wake up, come alive!. In other words, Peter was ministering just like Jesus.

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