God our Birthing Mother God our Forgiving Mother

We have all heard and seen conversations about the use of pronouns.  Perhaps you have seen emails with a person’s name and the pronouns they prefer to use:  she/hers, him/his, they/their. Do you wonder which pronouns God might use? Usually when I hear people talking about God, they use masculine pronouns.  God is usually a He and usually a very masculine, assertive, angry he.  Perhaps todays readings might offer us another image.

As we heard today’s reading from Genesis, I wonder what pronouns you would use to describe the action of God? Perhaps some of the images used in the reading might provide a clue. Water plays a critical role in this story.  Water becomes the image of both new life and death. As the newly freed slaves stand on the shore of the Red Sea, they realize that Pharaoh’s army is fast approaching on their heels. Perhaps they might wonder if God has set them up with the Red Sea on one side and Pharaoh’s army on the other side. Yet God is preparing a way which they could never imagine. God is about to give birth to God’s new people

You know what happens when a newborn is about to enter the world:  the waters break.  Can you imagine this water event on the Red Sea as the birth of Israel as a people? You will remember that for the people of Israel, water, especially the water of the sea and the ocean, represent chaos. You will recall that when God first created the world, God’s Spirit blew over the chaos of a dark water covered world bringing light and order.  When Moses stretches his hand over the chaos of the Red Sea, God’s wind blows again, brings order to the chaos, and creates a path for the newborn people of Israel to move through, a path from slavery into freedom.

Would you be daring with me and imagine God birthing Israel, letting the water from God’s womb break and a new path is created bringing forth a people into existence? We all know that when mothers are giving birth, they show themselves as mighty warriors, enduring profound pain as they bring new life into the world. So too our God shows herself a courageous mother, birthing her people with great power and splendor. We also know that mothers are powerful in protecting their children. We know God shows herself a powerful mother in vanquishing the Egyptians who are intent on destroying her child. The very waters of life which birth her infant Israel are transformed into the waters of death which defeat the enemy.

As we are talking about the power of mothers, let me shift our focus and look at another power of mothers:  the power to forgive. Mothers know the weakness of their children, the challenges they face and the times they fail to meet those challenges.

Many of us have experienced the power of a mother’s forgiveness even before we ask to be pardoned. God, our Mother, shows us, her children this forgiveness. Each of us know that God forgives us even before we ask for pardon.

As Jesus tells us today, we are to forgive not once but seventy seven times.  This number does not mean that you should have a calculator monitoring the times you forgive and stop when you reach 77. Jesus invites us to leave behind our childish patterns of holding back forgiveness and become like our Mother God, forgiving without number.  

You may have heard how important forgiveness becomes in all our lives. You have heard that you should forgive others because you waste valuable spiritual and emotional energy holding grudges, plotting reprisals, stewing in negative energies. Yes, all that is true. But that is not the reason we Christians forgive.

We forgive because God forgives. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We forgive because God brings the energy of forgiveness into the world through our sharing God’s forgiveness with others.

Someone remarked that the primary Christian practice is forgiveness. Forgiveness moves us beyond the constraints of our sometime juvenile patterns of behavior. Forgiveness requires that we grow up, that we see one another as fragile persons who fail but try again, that we engage one another with grace and graciousness.

We forgive because we have been forgiven. Perhaps you have discovered the energy of our Mother God, our Mother who comes to set us free, to give us a new birth, who creates new connections among her children by the forgiveness she shows each of us. We are nourished at this table where we eat the body of the Crucified and Risen Jesus who forgave his executioners. We are nourished at this table to find the strength to forgive. Let’s pray that we be touched by that water of new birth, that we know the forgiving love of God, that we bring that pardoning love to all we meet. 

Passover Transitions and Passover Meals

Exodus 12:1-14

12The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 14This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Today’s first reading from Exodus may have seemed a bit boring with all the details about the Passover supper. For those of us who oversee holiday meals, we all know the numerous rules which make for a successful dinner. In our home, and I am sure it’s the same for your home, it begins with the grocery list, checking that you have all the spices for baking the turkey, for seasoning the vegetables, for preparing the biscuits.  Will they like that white wine or should I also get a Rose, will the children enjoy the cider or should I get soda, will my nieces bring the coquito, our favorite Puerto Rican coconut rum cocktail?  Do you have those special tablecloths for the different occasions? Of course you must take out the good china, silver and crystal. Paper plates are just anathema in our home.

Just ask Carl, who washes all the dishes.

If you plan for the holiday begin weeks ahead, you will sympathize with that first Passover meal. The Hebrew slaves were about to begin a new life. For weeks, they witnessed God overturning Pharaoh with the multiple plagues from blood in the rivers, to frogs overrunning the palace. The final and deadliest plague would happen that night:  the deaths of the first born from Pharaoh’s son to the son of a slave. 

The Jewish people would gather in their homes on the eve of that most awesome final plague and share a ritual meal. They would enter into their houses as slaves and mark the doors of their homes with the blood of the lamb they would roast and eat. They would leave those houses as free women, men and children, free people setting off for their new homeland. That final meal would mark the transition from slavery to freedom.

But they were reluctant to leave behind that life of slavery. They were afraid to leave behind their slave identity and enter into that new identity as freed people. When they were caught between the pursuing army of Pharaoh and the Red Sea, they could not believe that God would make a way when they could see no way. When they ran out of meat and bread, when their water jars were empty, they could not imagine that God would send them quail and manna to satisfy their hunger and water from the rock to quench their thirst.

When you think about it, don’t you understand their dilemma? When you find yourself in those situations when it seems as if all your resources are empty, when the old ways just don’t work, when it seems as if everything and everyone is working against you, do you still believe that God will make a way, that God will provide for your need, that God will create something when you feel there is nothing?

Whenever people and communities are in transition, they face those same challenges. We as a community are entering into a significant transition as we prepare for a new priest. You may feel a great deal of anxiety as you face an unknown future with people you do not now know. But you are not alone. God is with you.

Just as God opened the sea and created a way through what the people saw as chaos, just as God fed the people when they were hungry, just as God prepared a home for a homeless people, so God will do those same miracles for you. The Jews had to surrender their familiar patterns of behaving, the anxiety of the transition, the fear of a new identity to meet the God who was coming to them. You too will have to let go of familiar patterns of behaving.

Over the past few years, you have discovered new ways of relating with one another, new ways of exercising authority, new ways of building connections between groups that may have not interacted with each other before. More of those changes need to happen.

We are always in the process of moving from inner slavery to greater freedom. Like our Jewish ancestors, we too have a ritual meal from which to gain strength. Jesus gave us the Holy Eucharist.

We all know that during the Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples he gave them, and us, the feast of his body and blood, the new Passover lamb who brought a new people into freedom.

Last week, I invited you to the mystery that something in us needs to die in order for something to be reborn.  Jesus gives us his body and blood to invite us into that journey, that journey from death to new life. While we, like our Jewish ancestors, resist the new identity of free persons, Jesus bids us join him in that inner surrender of negative energies so that we can become free.  As you taste the new Passover meal, the Body and Blood of our Crucified and Risen Lord, ask Jesus to help you in this transition. Ask Jesus to strengthen you, to open new doors for you, to find in this moment the grace of a new beginning. You have already created a new way of being church. Let that new way continue to grow and develop. With Jesus help, you know it will happen.

Jesus Calls You as a Disciple and to the Cross

Jesus calls us, one and all, calls us to follow him as his disciples. Most of us imagine:  Jesus calls others to follow him.  Jesus calls priests, deacons and some devout people in the church; but me?  Would Jesus call me? Jesus cannot call me because the call to be a disciple involves a deeper level of commitment, a more profound degree of faith, a stronger sense of vocation than I sense.

For all of you who excuse yourselves from the call to be a disciple of Jesus because you fail Jesus, take heart from today’s Gospel. If ever there was a disciple who regularly failed Jesus, who time and again did not get it right, it was Peter. Like every disciple Peter faltered in his faith. Like every disciple, Peter got up and did what disciples are called to do:  he followed in the steps of Jesus.

Whenever you think of disciples, you know that they are people of faith. Last week we heard Peter’s singular confession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus quickly commends his faith and calls his confession the foundation of the church. You all understand that when Jesus calls you to be his disciple you not only follow Jesus’ steps. You love Jesus. Perhaps, if this is possible, Peter’s love of Jesus leads him astray. 

We heard in today’s Gospel:  From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. All of us want to keep our loved ones from harm and suffering so we can easily sympathize with Peter when he tells Jesus:  "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." Jesus comes back with the strongest response:  "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

Twice Jesus calls someone Satan in Matthew’s Gospel and twice Jesus uses the same word in Greek:  Go Away. When the devil tempted him in the desert you would remember Jesus saying:  Away with you, Satan. Jesus is clearly saying that at the start of his mission the evil one wants to turn Jesus away from his call.

At this critical point in the Gospel, when Jesus realizes that his call will involve his death, the well intentioned, but all too human, Peter fails to understanding God’s mission for Jesus. Over the weeks following the death of John the Baptist, Jesus begins to understand that the conflict between his message and the Roman and Jewish leaders will inevitably lead to the cross. The cross becomes the great battlefield between death and life, the forces of death which represent the way of the world and the forces of life which are the kingdom of God. On the other side of the cross stands resurrection.

Resurrection becomes the turning point when the overt power of the world is overturned by the hidden power of God.

Jesus not only predicts that he will enter into the battlefield of the cross and resurrection. His disciples would engage in that same battle:  If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. The original Greek does not use the word follower but those who go behind me. 

But when Jesus reprimands Peter, he uses a similar phrase. He says:  Go behind me, Satan. Jesus invites Peter, as he invites all of us, to be those who go behind Jesus, who follow Jesus, even if it means following him to the cross. In our walk as disciples, Jesus invites us to the cross that something old in us might die in order that something new might be born. Let me say that again:  In your walk as his disciples, Jesus invites you to the cross that something old in you might die in order that something new might be born.

Each of us has a particular pattern of behavior, a well established pattern of relating to ourself and to others, it is so engrained in us, so embedded in our souls, that when we have to let it go, it seems as if we are dying. If you want to know where Jesus invites you to die, then just think of the areas of frustration in your life. Think of the persons with whom you are in conflict. Think of the persons with whom you cannot agree. If you look deep enough you might begin to find the place where Jesus invites you to die. Jesus invites you to die because that place in you is not working any longer. Jesus wants you to find a new pattern, a new way, a way that leads to new life, a way that leads to new hope.

Jesus is calling you, calling you today, to follow him as a disciple. Don’t be afraid of Jesus’ cross. Ask Jesus to help you to see the cross to see your particular cross and to let something in you die. Have the courage to let something die so something can be born.

Jesus goes ahead of you, leading to resurrection, to new life. For as we discover the small ways of dying to self, we will discover that even death itself will lose its power to frighten us. For we will discover the pattern God has embedded in all creation:  that death leads to new life, the cross to resurrection, diminishment opens a path to new opportunities. Ask Jesus to walk with you on that path. Jesus will neve let you down.

Little People Doing Big Things -- Shiphrah, Puah, Moses' Mother, Sister and Pharaoh's Daughter

Exodus 1:8—2:10

8Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, 14and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them. 15The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16“When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” 17But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 18So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. 21And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”2Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. 4His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. 5The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. 7Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Every generation is fascinated with the story of Moses.  Depending on your generation you may have seen The Ten Commandments or Prince of Egypt.  Some of us with grandchildren may know both! For us Christians, the story of Moses leading the enslaved Hebrews through the Red Sea into the freedom of the Promised Land resonates in our hearts as more than a beloved story from Sunday School. Jesus selected Passover, the annual celebration of the liberation of an enslaved people from Egypt, as the background for his passing over from death to new life. 

That story of liberation echoes throughout African American history as the defining story of American slaves receiving from God their freedom. The story of Moses and the Hebrew slaves endures as the defining story of every people who find themselves relying on God alone to bring them freedom and liberation.

Today, we focus on the beginning of that story.  Did you notice how women dominate the story of the birth of Moses? Did you notice how water plays such a prominent role in that story? The central image of the story of Exodus can be nothing other than water – a most feminine symbol.  The waters of the Red Sea part and allow the Jewish slaves are reborn into free people in the promised land. Those same waters which save the Jewish slaves become the instrument of death for their Egyptian overlords. We find hints of the importance of water in today’s reading. When Pharaoh commands the Egyptian people to kill the Jewish male children, he commands that they be thrown into water. 

Women begin the work of overthrowing the injustices of Pharaoh’s system. Another group of women, including Pharaoh’s daughter, see that the infant Moses and she saves the child from Pharaoh’s evil plans. How ironic that Pharaoh’s household will be overthrown by the royal daughter’s adopted son.  The Hebrew midwives, Shiphard and Puah, are introduced to us as rebel agents of God working against the evil plans of Pharaoh.  Notice how they act without any male collaborators and thwart the evil designs of an Egyptian ruler overwhelmed by fear. Moses’ mother and sister also undermine Pharaoh. While Moses’ mother acts against that command, she brings her child to the river and floats him in a basket on the water. Perhaps you will appreciate that when Jesus works his act of liberation through the cross the people who stand with him at the cross are women.

As we begin the story of Moses and the liberation of God’s people from Egyptian slavery, can ask ourselves where is God acting today to bring liberation to enslaved people? Perhaps we can begin with those communities who found in Exodus the hope of their liberation. We know the names of the big women players in the black and brown civil rights movements:  Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Josephine Baker, Isabel Allende, Sonia Sotomayor, Rita Moreno.

What about the forgotten ones? The ones like Moses’ mother and his sister? Amelia Boynton registered people to vote in Alabama from the 1930’s through the 1950’s.  When Dr. King raised the issue of voting rights in Alabama, Amelia found an ally in the work she was doing. On Bloody Sunday, she was attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge as were so many other unnamed women. When the nation saw the brutality of white racism attacking non-violent protestors, the passage of the voting rights act would follow and follow quickly.

Dolores Huerta collaborated with Cesar Chavez in the work of organizing farm workers in their struggle for equitable pay and working conditions. You may have heard the phrase used in Brown Civil Rights work:  Si, Se Puedo, Yes, You Can. Dolores first used that phrase. Perhaps you recall the boycott of grapes. Perhaps you recall that brown agricultural workers fared better after Dolores secured their rights and benefits.

Amelia and Dolores would not think of themselves as important players in the movement for black and brown civil rights. Both played significant roles in those movements for liberation. We see that God does not neglect the marginalized and persecuted. God steps up and comes to their help. People like you and me, people who did not think of ourselves as somebodies in the world, you are chosen by God for that work. Find that place where you can raise your voice, find that place where you can lift someone who is on the bottom, find that place where other Christians are making a difference. There you will find your place where God can bring freedom into the world through you, through people like you.  Prophets, God’s prophets, birthing God’s reign of justice.

Dinah, Tamar and Potiphar's Wife -- A Me Too Sermon

Dinah, Tamar and Potiphar’s Wife– A Me Too Sermon

 The Rev. Peter De Franco

August 20, 2023

The Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist

Preachers usually take one of the three readings as the starting point for their sermon. Today, I shall break that pattern and preach on what I shall call the omitted readings from Genesis. We have been listening to the story of Jacob and his highly dysfunctional family.  While the stories from the lectionary have focused on men, the lectionary omitted stories of three women:  Dinah, Tamar and Potiphar’s wife. Our weekly bible study examined Genesis and that study raised my understanding of these “forgotten stories” and the need to talk about them.

All these stories look at issues related to sexuality. Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, was raped by a foreign man, who then falls in love with her and asks his father to arrange a wedding between them. Dinah’s brothers surreptitiously agree to the wedding on the condition that the foreign men be circumcised. As the men are recovering from their procedure, Dinah’s brothers attack and kill the men of the foreign tribe.

Tamar married Er, the eldest son of Judah, Jacob’s eldest son. Er dies and Judah is required to have another of his sons try to have children with her. This son also dies. Judah, imaging Tamar is cursed, refuses to give his next son to her and sends her back to her father’s home.  Tamar comes up with a solution. Tamar plays the prostitute for Judah her father-in-law and conceives not one child but twins. Judah promises the prostitute a future payment and she takes Judah’s signet ring and staff as surety until she is paid. But Tamar, the trickster, plans to keep them as proof that Judah fathered her child. When Judah discovered Tamar was pregnant, he demands that she be burned to death. Tamar sends Judah his signet ring and staff. Judah recognizes the error of his way.

When Joseph is sold as a slave in Egypt, he works for Potiphar, one of the Pharoah’s high officers. Potiphar’s wife is struck by Joseph’s beauty and tries to seduce an ancient contender for People Magazine’s sexiest man. When the seduction fails, she accuses Joseph of trying to sexually assault her and Joseph is thrown into prison.

These three stories about rape, sexual marginalization and sexual harassment may make some of us uncomfortable. Perhaps the people who organized the Revised Common Lectionary anticipated that uneasiness and walked around their discomfort by omitting these stories. In their omission, they continued the culture in the church of avoiding conversations on difficult issues related to sexuality.

We are living in a Me Too Culture where the social norms of silence, shame and stigma are giving way to new patterns of speaking, confronting and changing these problematic behaviors.  I would like to interrupt that old church patterns by speaking about those stories and hopefully by creating a culture in our church of making the church a safe space to talk about and so find healing from situations of sexual abuse or inappropriate behaviors.

God gives each of us the gift of sexual energy to help us connect with one special other, to find physical joy in and with that other person, to comfort us in our loneliness, and to give birth to children. But some people, and it is mostly men, use sexual harassment and rape as tools to dominate and abuse women. What are some of the things we can do to create a religious Me Too Movement?

The first thing involves breaking the silence about sexual misconduct, about rape, harassment, and abuse.  33% of women worldwide experience sexual violence that 54% of American women receive unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances and 95% of these behaviors go unpunished.  Our culture does not listen to the voices of these women.

By creating a church culture which listens to women, we can open the doors to healing.  By acknowledging the pervasive abuse, we can begin to reverse those patterns.

Jesus invites us to respond to sexual violence and intimidation with compassion and love. Healing begins when people can tell their stories, can be accepted as victims of predators and not as instigators of sexual misbehaviors, can turn back the sigma and find a listening ear, a loving heart, and compassionate mind. God works that healing through each of you. You are the ones who can listen with love and bring healing. You are the ones who can confront misbehavior when you see it. You are the ones who can stand for the powerless who are victimized by persons of power. Perhaps the stories omitted from the lectionary can inspire us not to omit these stories from our hearts. May we create a culture which listens to others, which brings healing through listening, which minimizes stigma and accepts the other. It sounds a lot like what Jesus would do.

Jesus Walking to Us

Matthew 14:22-33

22Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” 28Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Most of us imagine the Gospels as short biographies of Jesus.  Matthew and Luke begin with his birth, tell the story of his ministry and conclude with his death and resurrection. Yet scattered in the gospels you discover unusual stories which cause us to wonder and contemplate the identity of Jesus. Today’s gospel story invites such consideration of the identity of this man who walks on the water.

Did you notice at the start of the story all the strange behaviors of Jesus with his disciples? Just before this story, Jesus fed a large crowd of 5,000 men so with the women and children we can imagine at least 15,000 people feasted on the bread and fish he provided for them. Jesus sends the disciples in a boat to the other side of the Sea of Galilee while he dismisses the crowd and climbs the mountain to spend the night in prayer with God. Why would Jesus send his disciples off in a boat into a storm brewing on the Sea of Galilee? Why would he send them in obvious danger? As their boat is tossed on the Sea, the disciples experience this vision of Jesus coming to them and walking on the water.

In an episode only cited by Matthew, Peter asks Jesus to approach him on the water. When Peter becomes frightened by the surging water and the threatening winds, he begins to sink and Jesus rescues him. As Jesus enters the boat, the disciples make a major confession of faith, calling Jesus the Son of God and worshipping him.

I would like to suggest that the today’s story may be better positioned at the conclusion of the gospel. Perhaps today’s Gospel is showing us an appearance of the Risen Christ to the disciples, commissioning them to go into the storm of proclaiming the Gospel and coming to them when they are swamped by opposition to their proclamation.

You all know that throughout this Gospel, God is continually manifesting Jesus as God’s Son, showing Jesus as God with us. When an angel tells Joseph about the birth of Jesus the angel names the child Emmanuel, God with us.  The last promise Jesus makes to the disciples in this gospel is “I will be with you always.” You remember that throughout this Gospel, God speaks about Jesus and reveals Jesus as God’s Son. At the Baptism, at the Transfiguration and ultimately at the Resurrection, God is manifesting Jesus as God’s Beloved Son.

God’s revelation calls on the disciples, and us, to respond in faith, to acknowledge that what God is telling us is true. God plants faith in your hearts so you can see Jesus as God reveals him:  the Son of God. In the Resurrection, God shows Jesus to be his Son, to be the revelation of God’s abiding presence among us.  In today’s Gospel story, God reveals Jesus in a miraculous moment of walking on the water, something only God can do.

When Jesus enters the boat the disciples acknowledge what God has shown them. They profess their faith: “Truly you are the Son of God.” Later in this Gospel, Peter will make that same confession. When the centurion overseeing Jesus execution witnesses Jesus’ death, that centurion makes the same confession:  “Truly, this man was God’s Son.” (Mt. 27:54)

You too are invited this day to be like the disciples in the boat. Jesus sends you, as he sent the disciples, to go into the world and proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God. When you go into the world, you, like the disciples, will experience the resistance of the world to that proclamation. You will feel as if you are in a boat tossed by the waves and threatened by the wind. In that moment of fear, Jesus invites you to overcome your fear by your faith.

God gives each of you a seed of faith to believe that Jesus is God’s Son, to believe that God continues to abide with you in the person of Jesus. There are times, and I know these moments happen for me and I guess they happen to you, when the challenges of life threaten that seed of faith. Like the disciples, your faith will allow you to see Jesus coming to you across the threatening seas and the terrors of the blowing wind.  Like the disciples, your faith will see Jesus coming to you, abiding with you, assuring you to walk out in faith, as Peter did, and meet Jesus in the middle of your fear, in the middle of the conflict, in the middle of any terror. When you, like Peter, walk out in faith and then perhaps falter, you can be sure that if you raise out your hand and call out in faith, Jesus will grasp your hand and lift you up and bring you to safety.

You all know those times when your faith seems to fail, when you feel overwhelmed by the storms, when the challenges of life buffet you like the winds threatening the disciples on the sea. You also know to go deeper with your faith, to move to a new level of relationship with Jesus, to reach out to Jesus and know his sure presence. Receive Jesus this day by faith when he comes to you in Holy Communion. Draw deeply on his presence, feel his love for you. Then go from this place, strengthened to meet any storm, confident that the Son of God will lift you up no matter how threatening the sea, no matter how frightening the wind.

Amazing the Angels of God -- The Birth of John the Baptist

Luke 1: 57-66  When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.” They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.” Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.”  Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.  Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.

Forty years ago, my mother and sister were both patients on the OB/GYN floor at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Paterson, N.J.  My sister had just given birth to my youngest niece and my mother was recovering from a hysterectomy.  Those were the days, remember them, when you would stay at least a week in the hospital to recover from major surgery.  My mother possessed this uncanny knack of knowing the details of the lives of the nurses in the hospital.  Those nurses also knew that my mother and sister were on the same floor.

My sister had planned a Cesarean and when she developed an infection, she was removed from the floor. Of course, my mother asked if she could feed her new granddaughter.  When I was visiting my mother, another visitor noticed my niece being brought into my mother’s room and the visitor commented:  “Look at that old lady who gave birth to a child.”

Perhaps the neighbors of Elizabeth and Zechariah made the same comments when Elizabeth, a would be resident in a 55+ community, became a mother to John. I hope that all the people who participate in our Bible Study would tell you that Elizabeth and Zechariah fall in line with other elderly couples who gave birth to children well past their prime. You know them: Sarah and Abraham, Rebekah and Isaac, Rachel and Jacob.  These women birthed their babies when everyone thought they were barren. All the angels of God look down on women in sacred history and comment:  “Look another old lady who gave birth to a child!”

Now I am not suggesting that all the senior women in our congregation start checking our dating apps in the hope of having children once again. No, all of us, women and men, can discover the ways God continues to give birth in unexpected and unanticipated ways. Some of you were here in 2017 when many of you may have felt like Elizabeth and Zechariah, never imagining that God could step outside the patterns which defined your church life. Yet if you compare where we are today with where we were six years ago, could you have imagined the difference?

Over that past six years, God gave new life to a church which others may have ruled out. Perhaps you count yourself among the new people who have discovered a new home in this church. Perhaps you are doing things at church you never imagined doing in the past. Perhaps you are seeing people come in and out of this building and discovering that this church is open to all people,  all people can find a place, all people can discover themselves loved by God, all people can find a place at Jesus’ table.

If you listen carefully to the story about the birth of John the Baptist, you will discover that the Holy Spirit continually hovers over events and people, transforms what was dead, brings new life. Can you imagine that the Holy Spirit would forget how she operated in the past? Would you imagine that the Holy Spirit could not perform that same miracle among us again?

Yesterday, Bishop Kevin Robertson of the Anglican Church of Canada, preached at the ordination of Bishop Sally French.  He used words to define the ministry of John the Baptist:  Connection and Courage. John connects times and people. John links the time of the First Covenant with the era of the Second Covenant. John brings together a band of disciples and connects them with Jesus.

Courage – for us who know the rest of the story about John the Baptist, we know that he needed courage in the face of conflict. In the face of conflict, John showed courage – courage to combat the evil of Herod Antipas who jails John and then executes him. Courage to put away his ego to make room for Jesus.

We too are asked to model connection and courage. We have all discovered the importance of connecting with others in our community.  We connect through our Thrift Store as we build relationships  with the other members of our community. We connect with others through our outreach, our engagement with our local community and communities far from us. We show our courage as we build challenging relationships. We show courage as a multi ethnic community building relationships that connect us with people unlike us. We show courage in championing the marginalized, people whom other church exclude we invite to the table.

We are convinced that God is leading us to create new possibilities, new opportunities, new relationships.  We have more work to do to live into our call of connection and courage. We have more people to meet, more opportunities to develop, more bridges to build. As we celebrate the Birth of John the Baptist, we discover that God continues to give birth, to breath new life, to surprise us with the Holy Spirit. All the angels of God look down on us in wonder and cry out:    “Look another old lady gave birth to a child!”

Juneteenth – God’s Hope

Romans 5:1-8 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

 The wind blew cold on the night of December 31, 1862.  Across the Southern States, enslaved persons gathered in churches and slave quarters. They gathered in churches confident that the hope for freedom kindled in their hearts by the Holy Spirit would lead to their political freedom. Only a few months before on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order that declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate States legally free. January 1, 1863 would be the first day of their freedom. Frederick Douglas wrote of that day:  It is a day for poetry and song, a new song. These cloudless skies, this balmy air, this brilliant sunshine . . . are in harmony with the glorious morning of liberty about to dawn up on us. When the clocks struck midnight, when the toll of the bells signaled the death toll of slavery, hundreds of thousands throughout the South became free persons.  

You can well imagine that white southern slave holders did not immediately free their slaves. Only when the Northern armies entered into the Southern states and enforced the Emancipation of slaves were the prayers of countless generations of enslaved person finally heard. Texas lies farthest west among the Confederate states.

Only on June 19, 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, did General Gordon Granger and his northern troops enter Galveston, Texas and proclaimed that “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free….”

On the first anniversary of General Granger’s proclamation, the first celebration of Juneteenth, an abbreviation of June Nineteenth, happened in Texas. Two and a half years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation were the last slaves in the Confederacy freed. Not until December 18, 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, was slavery finally abolished.

As you look at the pictures of those first celebrations of Juneteenth, can you wonder about the ways the people felt about their new found freedom? Do you remember that those enslaved women, men and children listened to the same bible passages you heard. I think of the passage we heard from Romans today: “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

You can well imagine the sufferings of slavery. Not only the humiliation of being bought and sold, of the punishment for infractions, the backs whipped and cut open, the families enduring the sale of children ripped from the arms of their mothers. Young light skinned women were valued as objects of sexual exploitation and were sold for four or five times the value of field workers.

When you go home, google pictures of the first celebration of Juneteenth. You can find one on the copy of today’s sermon. If you look deeply into the faces of these women and men, celebrating Juneteenth in 1880, you can see the growth of endurance leading to character leading to hope. Endurance leading to character leading to hope.

When we hear news reports coming out of Minneapolis about a police force run amuck with prejudice toward persons of color, where is our hope? When we see black faces of persons killed in mass shootings placed on our altar, where is our hope? When we know the fears of our black and brown sisters and brothers of being stopped while driving, the fears of mothers and fathers for their children, where is our hope?

Deeper than the damage of institutional racism, deeper than the threat of mass shootings, deeper than the fear for our children’s safety we have a hope, a hope that does not disappoint us. We have hope for we know the God who is on our side. From that first Juneteenth in 1865 we have a God who is fighting for freedom. We have a God who is overturning institutional racism with justice. We have a God who is awakening consciences to ban the weapons killing our sisters and brothers of color. We have a God who is bringing right relationships to law enforcement agencies. 

Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Listen to that Holy Spirit stirring in your heart. Follow the lead of that Holy Spirit directing you to work for justice even in our communities. Do not let your heart be overwhelmed by suffering. God has planted hope deep in your heart. Do all you can to keep hope alive. 

Abram & Sarai -- Journeying with the Marginalized A Sermon on LGBTQ+ Pride Sunday

Genesis 12:1-9

12Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 4So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. 9And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

Have you ever wondered about those neglected stories which never made their way into the bible? Today we heard the stories of the call of Abram. Abram, or Abraham as he is later called, takes center stage and emerges as the religious hero of Jews, Christians and Muslims.  God tells Abram:  Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

Notice the levels of sacrifice God is requiring:  forsaking the familiarity of your country, its language, customs and foods, your kindred, the circle of people who make you who you are, and your father’s house, the security and identity of being a part of this small group of people among whom you were born and with whom you have discovered your identity. God tells Abram to give up all of those treasured relationships.

But God says nothing to Sarai, his wife. Can you imagine what Sarai felt when Abram announces that he is uprooting them from all that is familiar and setting out on the dangerous road to an unknown country and an uncertain future. They embark on this journey into an unfamiliar future when they should have begun their retirement. 

Sarai’s story is not told. God does not speak directly to her, only to her husband. We shall get to know Sarai in the upcoming weeks and she is no shrinking violet. Her’s is the unwritten story, the text of silenced voices.

Perhaps we come to expect that the bible, written by men, pays scarce attention to the voices of women, slaves and those on the margins.  Perhaps we can overcome this omission in the biblical text, fill in the gaps, and wonder about the faith of Sarai, of Sarai’s slave, Hagar, of the other slaves and servants who had to leave behind all that was familiar and venture into the fearful unknown of their journey to a new land.

If we can imagine the fears and anxiety of Sarai, perhaps we can also make another leap. Perhaps we can feel the terror and consternation of contemporary displaced persons. We hear the stories of refugees fleeing political and gang violence in Cuba, Venezuela and Columbia. We see the caravans of families leaving Ukraine, Syria and Sudan uncertain of their future, vulnerable to outlaws, without money, language, family or skill and settling in a new and unfamiliar land. Perhaps, as we listen to the silence of Sarai, we can hear the silences of the refugees of our days, the immigrants searching for a new future, the asylum seekers fleeing persecution and terror.

If we train our hearts to hear the voices of the Sarai’s of our day, the cries of those marginalized in their lands and seeking solace in a new country, if we listen with the ear of our heart, there are other voices crying out to us. As we celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Sunday, can you hear the laments of our LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers calling out to you? How can we ignore the voices of our trans sisters and brothers? How can we neglect to listen to the voices of persons who do drag? 

Across our nation, states are oppressing our transgender sisters and brothers and drag performers. Over 75 pieces of legislation have been introduced in states limiting the rights of trans persons. Trans persons of color are likely to be killed or injured because of their gender identity. 

If you have never read about transgendered people, I invite you to read the educational flyer I copied from the Human Rights Commission web page.  People who identify as trans challenge the social norm that there are only two genders.  But today, more people understand that gender is determined by more than what our bodies show as our gender. More people understand that our brains may be gendered in one way and our bodies are gendered in the opposite way.

If our brain may be gendered differently than our body, then people are begining to understand that our gender is determined by the way we understand our gender.

This development in the way we understand gender shifts the way most of us learned about gender.  This new understanding of gender opens our minds and our hearts to accept our trans sisters and brothers and to remove the stigma surrounding their community.  Our trans sisters and brothers experience their lives as walking into a new land, a different land, a land where they are learning new boundaries and living in the way God created them.

Today we are reflecting on the call of God.  God begins to summon us from the moment God calls us into existence. For some of us that call is to be straight, for others of us that call is to be bisexual, for others of us that call is to be lesbian or gay, for others of us that call is to be trans.  Our journey does not uproot us from the familiar place in which we are born. Our journey is one of the heart, of learning the unique way God loves us into being, accepting the diverse ways God loves people and loving others in their God given diversity.

As we celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Sunday, imagine the ways you can be an advocate for those on the outside. As you advocate for others, you will discover that God has gone before you, creating new ways of understanding and new ways of loving our trans sisters and brothers. 

Living Interconnected Lives, the Trinity and Gun Violence Awareness

The feast of the Holy Trinity comes as a challenge to most of us. How can we see our lives as somehow connected with this mystery of God’s inner life? Each of us lives in a primary set of relationships which open up a door to understand ourselves and more so our God, in whose holy image we are created. Family comes as the primary set of relationships which defines us as persons.

Just think about the birth of a child in your family. Just remember how that network of relationships forms around the child, nurtures the child, and changes all the persons in that network. Many of you have shared how becoming a grandparent has transformed who you are as a person. Your joy spills out. You feel unimagined delight and unexpected wonder all occasioned by this little girl, this infant boy who comes into your family circle and changes everything.

Being a person means being in a network of relationships. Those relationships define who you are, they let others know who they are, and begin an endless process of transformation. If you are a mother or a father, a sister or a brother, a wife or a husband, an aunt or an uncle, a child or a parent, you are engaged in this wonderful dance which is the network of relationships you are. 

From our first reading about creation, we heard again that we are created in God’s image.  God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. If you exist as a person in relationships and you are created in God’s image, so you can understand that God also exists as persons in relationship.

The second reading lets you in on the quality of those relationships in God:  the Father/ the Mother is Love, Jesus is Grace, the Spirit is Communion. Just think about those words:  Love, Grace, Communion. All those words point to relationships. Because God dwells in an energy of holy relationships you also live in an energy of holy relationships.

You all know that when those relationships function at their best, you and all in your network are thriving. Yet you also know that you and all in your network are human and you stumble and fail. So you also know that that energy of love includes the power of forgiveness which allows you to start over, to repair the damage, to create the relationships afresh. 

This weekend people across our country are observing Gun Violence Awareness.  You were invited to wear orange today to remember the plague of violence devastating our nation because of guns.  Let me share some statistics with you. In 2022, 20,200 people were killed by guns. 995 children ages 0-11 were killed or injured.

5, 157 teenagers ages 12-17 were killed or injured. We experienced 647 mass shootings, 650 murder suicides (one in Linden this year), 26,328 suicides, 1,626 unintentional shootings. 

All this violence violates our identities as interconnected persons, persons in life giving relationships with other, persons who nurture other persons.  What can you do as a Christian to turn this violence around? Each of you are a member of the Body of Christ.  You are Christ in the world. Part of Jesus’ mission was to save the world from the evil which corrupted the human family. As a member of the body of Christ, you have a role to reverse the evil in the world.

Yesterday, I attended an event sponsored by Moms Demand Action in the Rahway River Park. They handed out materials and I am sharing with you some things you can do. Do you have 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes or more? You can find something you can do to counter our culture of gun violence.  I invite each of you to find something you can do, some way you can made a difference, some way you can work with God to reverse the evil in our world.

You may feel that the problem is too big for you to solve.  You are right, you cannot change the world by yourself alone. But together we can make a difference. Find the thing you can do and then faithfully do it.

God is working in the world, working to change the culture of violence, and God needs you to achieve God’s goals. We are all interconnected with God, interconnected with one another.  Even as we have a God who is grace, Love and communion, may you discover yourself as sharing in that grace, love and communion. Discover yourself working with God to create a healthy world, a peaceful world, God’s non-violent world. 

Pentecost -- The Spirit Forms the Church

Pentecost tells the story of the roar of God’s hurricane, with a blast of fire from heaven and the unexpected transforming energy of the Holy Spirit. That first Pentecost turned the tables on the spineless apostles huddled together in an Upper Room in Jerusalem. That Spirit turned the apostles upside down, sent them out into the streets of Jerusalem and made them witnesses. The Spirit made the ones who abandoned Jesus into the ones proclaiming his presence and bringing together the scattered people of God.

The Spirit does not work among the high and mighty, among the powerful and influential, among the haughty and self assured. Notice the people whom the prophet Joel cites as the ones who will receive the Holy Spirit: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”

Not to all the people in power, to the rich and influential, to the comfortable and secure, to none of these people does the Spirit come. The Spirit comes to all on the outside:  to the young both women and men, to the old and forgotten, to the slaves, the lowest on the social pecking order. If today, you feel yourself on the outside, if today you feel excluded, powerless and without influence, know that today the Spirit is looking for you, to raise you up, to strengthen your weakness, to give you power, to claim your place as God’s beloved ones. 

Notice that the Spirit is working to bring together the diverse people of God.  People from around the world gathered in Jerusalem for that first Pentecost. The Spirit drew together into one people the various groups. They found their new common identity as God’s children, as the ones selected by the Spirit as witnesses to Jesus, as those called into the new community of faith and love. 

The Spirit continues to draw together people different and diverse, variously gifted and talented, forming a new church even among us.  When we gather together every week, some common bonds unite us before we arrive. Some of us know each other as friends. We engage in social activities together, perhaps live in the same city or came here from another church.

When we answer the call of the Spirit to assemble in this place, we are invited to discover one another not as friends in a social club. We are invited to discover one another as children of God, united by bonds deeper than the links of a social club. We are invited to look into our hearts and souls and find God calling us together as a church, as God’s people, as witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. 

Today marks a very special event. Today Natalya will be baptized as a child of God, as a member of Christ’s Body, as a temple of the Holy Spirit. All through the years while you were growing up in the church, the Holy Spirit was preparing your heart for this special day. All through the years when you were training to become a teacher, the Holy Spirit was forming your heart for this time. The Holy Spirit did the unexpected for you, brought you to the Episcopal Church where you found your new home, where you found that balance between the Roman and the Evangelical churches to find yourself among this community of God’s people.

Most of us find ourselves among God’s chosen people, not singled out for the prestige of the world, but among those beloved by our God. Our God dwells on the edge and calls people from the edge to the center of God’s heart.

Natalya, you join all of us who are discovering day by day that we are among God’s beloved daughters and sons, called to experience how deeply we are loved by God, called to share that love by loving others, God’s least and God’s forgotten. Today all of us will recommit ourselves with you to the Baptismal covenant we made when most of us were children. We recommit ourselves to live in this community as God’s chosen people.  That connection of mind and heart unites us to one another in ways deeper than the superficial links of a social group.

May we all discover anew that spiritual connection of mind and heart that communion of spirits in God’s Spirit, that promise God makes to us every Pentecost.  May we feel that fire burn in our hearts, linking our hearts one to another in the communion of that sweet Holy Spirit.

Ascension Anxiety

Whenever the Gospel is proclaimed in the Church, Jesus becomes really present in the words of the ordained person speaking those words. We are so blessed today in Deacon Daphne’s presence among us. Through your presence and proclamation, Jesus comes among us. Long have we experienced your gentle and gracious presence and now you bring Jesus among us through your ordained ministry. We are indeed blessed. The church indeed is blessed.

You were challenged, Deacon Daphne, with the twists and turns of the passage from the Gospel according to John. So you deserve some extra points for managing that difficult passage!

You heard some of Jesus’ final words at the Last Supper. Jesus is praying to the Father, asking the Father to glorify him with the glory Jesus experienced with God before the world began. Some of you may think that Jesus is referring to a feast we celebrated on Thursday, the Ascension of our Lord. The Ascension raises mixed feelings for Jesus and for us.

When you think of the Ascension as an event between Jesus and God, don’t you feel happy that Jesus, who has come from the Father, is now returning home to the Father. You all know that longing you feel whenever you take a trip or a vacation. Yes, you enjoy the excitement, the new scenes, the different food, the wonderful entertainment. Yes, you also enjoy the return home to the comfort of your own bed, the familiarity of home cooked meals, and, for those of you living in Linden and Rahway, the never ending noise of planes taking off and landing from Newark’s airport. 

Ascension also comes as an event between Jesus and the disciples. You can well imagine the anxiety which the disciples felt as they are listening to this prayer of Jesus. As Jesus tells them that he is returning to his Father, they are wondering what will happen with them after he is gone. What will life be like for them without the familiar presence of Jesus? Perhaps they remember those words of Jesus which we heard some weeks ago:  Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Have trust in God.  Have trust in me. But they anticipate that empty feeling, the sense of abandonment, that loss of the comfort of Jesus’ presence.

Many of you can identify with the disciples in their anxiety.

Over the past two weeks, you have learned that people whom you have known at church will be leaving. Next week will be Mike Shubeck’s last Sunday as organist. At the end of September, Carl and I shall retire. Such moments of transition create considerable anxiety. Most of you expect that the church will bring you stability and security in the midst of a changing and challenging world. When you hear that people whom you expect to see at church will no longer be around, perhaps you feel off kilter and your stability and security are rocked.

Transitions challenge all of us. The uncertainty of unfamiliar persons replacing familiar ones makes our stomachs turn and churn.

Yet transitions also bring great opportunities. Most of the transitions in your life have brought greater opportunities, broader connections, new ways of being in the world.

The next few months will offer you similar possibilities. Jesus prays for you as you enter into this unsettling situation. He prays:  Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. Jesus reminds you that as you enter a time of transition, you should come together as a community, come together to show that unity Jesus has created among you.

You may be tempted to find comfort in the familiar, in things you did in the past, in patterns you already know. Now is the time to engage in new things, to develop relationships with new people, to discover a new path God is opening up for you. Yes, you will feel resistance to the new possibilities. Yes, you will be blessed beyond your imaging with what God is planning for you.

Just look at how blessed we were with Deacon Daphne. When I asked for a deacon, I planned to begin a latino ministry. But things did not work out with people from the diocese and the national church. God had another plan for Daphne with us. She provided a gentle pastoral presence, brought us on line worship, showed us her skill as a teacher.

You have seen that wonderful things come from unanticipated beginnings. Let’s continue to trust God to work miracles among us.  Let’s trust one another and work together to help that miracle begin. 

God our Mother – God’s Gift of Self

Many of us cannot wait for Sunday night when we can enjoy the latest installment of Call the Midwife.  This series, which is entering its tenth season, tells the story of a community of Anglican nuns working in one of the poorer sections of London as midwives and nurses.  These nuns are joined by a group of doctors and women midwives. Their interconnected stories are told alongside the weekly episodes about women in different situations as they give birth.

As the stories unfold, you begin to see how the nuns as well as the single women serving as midwives all step into the role of being a mother even if they are not biological mothers.

These women are constantly creating new circumstances which nourish, sustain and support the women for whom they care and the communities in which they live. As I watch the series, I become more and more convinced that women are given to us as the best icons of God. When we look at the women among us we get a picture of what God is like.

In every episode of Call the Midwife, women in the last month of pregnancy dominate the screen. Those of you who are mothers recall well those final months. You are ever on the lookout for a rest room. You never know when a little hand or foot will push against your uterus.  If you are in the eighth month during the summer, you dread that you did not time the pregnancy to happen in the fall or winter. You feel like you just want the baby to come out and stop this persistent battle of endurance.

Since today is Mother’s Day can we look at a pregnant mother as a model to understand the passage. Twice in today’s gospel, we are presented with the image of God dwelling in us and we dwelling in God. In speaking about the Spirit Jesus says:   You know her, because she abides with you, and she will be in you. Later Jesus talks of how God dwells in each of us:  On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

Each of us has lived inside another. Each of us spent 9 months dwelling in our mothers. The mothers among us know what that feels like.

The gospel takes that reality and turns it around. For our maternal experience has the mother, the stronger one, holding the infant, the vulnerable one, in her. In the Gospel that role is reversed.

God, the more powerful one, is contained in us, the weaker one. We have to turn inward, go into the depths of our heart, to discover that we are held by God our Mother. God our Mother dwells in our hearts. The God who dwells in our hearts holds us in her loving arms.

Speaking about God as our Mother can be a dangerous business. If we dare to consider God as our Mother on this Mother’s Day, we may also dare to acknowledge the complex feelings we all experience on this day. Some of us are blessed with ideal mothers, women who sacrificed for us, provided for our physical and emotional well being, and supported us through times of challenge and growth. Some of us experienced mothers who could not meet the challenges of their task, mothers who neglected us, whose needs and circumstances did not allow them to give us what we needed.

The ideal of motherhood can never be realized by any person.  When we see that she struggled to understand her son, not even Jesus’ Mother reached the perfection of motherhood. No matter how well or how challenged our human mother, in God we discover the ideal mother. None has been able to fulfill it properly but God and God alone.

Mother’s Day challenges us with very different and conflicting feelings. For those among us who lost children, for those among us who never had children, for those among us who struggle with mothers, this day unsettles us. I pray that during our worship you may dare to discover in God a spiritual mother, a mother who comforts you, a mother who challenges you, a mother who nourishes you, a mother who leads you to discover your best self. In the Holy Eucharist, Jesus gives himself to you, to dwell in you. In that sacred moment you will experience what Jesus promises you in the Gospel:  On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

In Jesus, God gives us God’s very self. There is not greater gift than the gift of one’s self. Mothers know how to give that gift. May you do what God your Mother does for you – give the gift of yourself to others, give the gift of yourself in loving service.

Hearing the Voice of the Good Shepherd

After Father Robert became a monk at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, he was charged with caring for the abbey’s flock of sheep.  During the Spring, he would spend countless hours in the sheep pen when the ewes were giving birth. Father Robert became an OB GYN vet for sheep. Just as with us human, birth for a ewe can be easy or it can be hard. Lambs would get stuck and he would have to pull them out. When a ewe had twins, which happened quite frequently, he would have to keep the first lamb close to its mother, let the mother smell the lamb and the lamb smell the mother so the lambs would know where they would go for their milk and protection.

Father Robert would ensure that the sheep had enough food and water. He would clean their pens and replace the dirty hay with clean bedding. He served as the father and mother to the flock. They knew that he cared for them.

During my first days at the monastery, I was walking near the fields where the sheep grazed and Father Robert was overseeing the flock. Like a proud father, he told me about his sheep. He recounted how they had given birth to their new lambs, how he was training Brother Samuel to care for the flock how he was concerned with a lamb that was not recovering from its tail cut.

Then he did the most amazing thing. It was getting late in the afternoon and the sheep had to return to the pen so he called them. Sheep, Sheep, Sheep Sheep. I thought he was crazy to imagine that the sheep would come to him. But no sooner did they hear his voice when they lifted their heads from the grass and began to meander down the field to their pens. I immediately thought of one of the lines from today’s Gospel:  the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. (Jn 10: 3)

As I returned to the monastery, I thought about Father Robert and the sheep. I wondered about the way he called them. Then it became clear to me why they came running to him. He cared for them. He fed them. He protected them. They knew that they could trust him. Of course they came to him when he called them.

The sound of the voice of the ones we love communicates to us more than just the words they say. They speak to us with their actions, with their concern, with their loving presence.

Like Father Robert, we all know what it feels like to hear the voice of the people whom we love. Do you have your cell phone set so when someone special calls you your phone has a special ring? Does your heart beat with joy when you hear that melody? We all have felt what it is like to hear the voice of people whom we love, people who love us. This warmth surges in our hearts.

As we hear this gospel, perhaps we can hear a deep call resound in our hearts. The call of our beloved Jesus inviting us to hear once again his voice. Jesus regularly calls to us, invites us, cares for us. What would it take for us to silence our hearts, to listen to his voice speaking to us, to hear his love in the silence, to taste his love in bread and wine. Jesus speaks to us every day, calls out to us, invites us.

Spring comes as a wonderful time to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. In the Spring the beauty of nature surrounds us and we are drunk with the splendor of flowers and trees in bloom. Perhaps their pollen might be too much for you.  Perhaps you can find some time just for yourself to steal away to a park, sit on a bench and behold the beauty of a garden. You may want to go the garden shop and pick up some pansies and plant them in your flower box. Or just find that special place where God sneaks into your heart and spend some time listening to that soft, tender voice of Jesus.

Easter comes as this special time for contemplation and relaxing in God’s beauty. Enjoy the beauty that surrounds you. Heard the voice that invites you closer to the shepherd’s heart. Hear that voice speak you name. As only the shepherd can speak it. As you return to your home, hear that voice ever calling you to your loving shepherd, to your true home.

Thomas the Apostle and The Crisis of Faith

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  Many of us who are involved in the theatre may appreciate what we might call the stage directions we find in the Gospel according to John. When John set the scene for last Sunday’s Gospel of the empty tomb of Jesus, the directions are clear:  Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark… The gospel reading we heard today involves similar stage directions:  When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house were locked for fear… Both scenes are set in the dark, the dark before dawn and the dark after sunset.  Both scenes are strategically set in the dark so we might see the coming of the light into this darkness.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  We know that this darkness symbolizes being in the dark with a relationship, the relationship with Jesus. We who endured two major episodes of gun violence can relate to the trauma suffered by the disciples. Those disciples hoped that Jesus would realize their hope for a new Israel, an Israel free from Roman occupation, a free Israel where they could relate to God and other persons with liberty.

Those hopes crashed with the brutal crucifixion of Jesus. Little wonder the disciples retreat in hiding because they are afraid that what happened to Jesus will happen to them. Fear has a way of snuffing out faith, especially when we need a deep and strong faith to face of devastating loss. Out of nowhere, Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples. He senses their fear and calms their anxiety with the words:  Peace be with you. When the disciples see the wounded hands and side of Jesus, they realize it is their beloved teacher. They are overcome with joy. Jesus again says:  Peace be with you. We can see these disciples surrender their fear for faith, faith in the Risen Jesus, standing in their midst.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  Every year we hear the story of Thomas on this Second Sunday of Easter. The story invites us to go deeper into the mystery of the Risen Christ. Every year we come to this Sunday with our faith battered yet again by the pains and losses of our lives. Every year, our faith skirts on the edge of doubt. We all know this trauma. Perhaps some terrible tragedy hits home and you wonder how a loving God can allow such pain to come your way. Perhaps you are content as a pig in mud with your Christian lives and then you question how you can believe in God when all you sense is darkness, how you can believe in Jesus when all you feel in indifference, how you can believe in the Spirit when people just seem to intentionally hurt one another. Those words of the Creed feel empty and without meaning. You find yourself in a crisis of faith.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  If you have not yet experienced a crisis of faith, then know that one day it will happen to you. It may feel as if everything you held dear about God seems empty and without meaning. You may feel as if God has abandoned you. At that very moment, Jesus is the one pulling the rug of your faith out from under your feet. Jesus is bringing you to a deeper faith. Jesus continually draws you into yet deeper dimensions of your faith because the old faith does not work.

When he has taken away one level of faith, it feels as if you don’t believe in anything at all. All the familiar feeling of faith has fled like the air out of a helium balloon and you are left with a deflated piece of rubber.

At that moment, Jesus speaks to you:  Peace be with you. Jesus draws you into a deeper relationship with him, a new form of friendship, a closer intimacy.  But to move to that new depth, you have to surrender the familiarity of your old familiar faith. You see Thomas exactly at that moment. Jesus comes to Thomas as he comes to you, in the darkness of doubt, and brings you to a new relationship with him. These Thomas moments will come upon you without warning and without planning. You know that you have in Jesus a friend who will never abandon you. He draws you into yet deeper faith. Trust Jesus when you enter into the crisis of faith. He is drawing you deeper into the mystery.

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

Rumors of Resurrection

Rumors of Resurrection floated in Jerusalem on that first day of the week. Rumors started with Mary Magdalene. On that first day of the week, when darkness covered the city of Jerusalem, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. The story for Mary begins with darkness. When she arrived at the empty tomb and goes into the chamber, darkness swallows her. Remember the tomb is a cave, a space without light. When she enters the tomb, the darkness increases. Did she wonder about that other first day of the week, the first day of creation when everything was darkness and chaos and nothing made sense. Somehow, in that darkness, she makes out that the body of Jesus is missing, only the grave wrappings are left behind.

As she steps out of the tomb she runs to report to Peter and the other disciple what she imagines as the theft of Jesus’ body. The first light of dawn illumined the sky. But Mary could only feel the darkness. Grief clouds the light from Mary. She cannot imagine anything more than death. For her, untrained in the resurrection, only a grave robber can make sense of the nonsense of the empty tomb. But there are hints of resurrection bubbling up in Jerusalem.

When angels speak to Mary, tears blind her eyes from seeing the light.Even when Jesus speaks to Mary, her heart cannot imagine the dawn of the new creation. She creates the illusion that she is speaking to a gardener. Perhaps she has found the grave robber!

But when Jesus says her name, Mary, she turns. She turns in her heart and enters into the light. In that light she sees Jesus. Jesus tells her to share the good news of resurrection with the disciples.

But what does she do? Overwhelmed by joy, she returns to the disciples rushes in and shouts:  I have seen the Lord. Ever since that moment, we have all been hearing those rumors of resurrection.

Each of has a tomb in our lives. Some of you face challenges with your health. Others of you search for new meanings in your lives. Grief may overwhelm your souls. Uncertain futures may loom for some of you. We live in a country where you fear that racism threatens your lives and the lives of those you love. You wonder what will happen to your rights as women, as members of the LGBTQ community, as immigrants, as outsiders.

For each of us, some form of darkness threatens us. For each of us, Easter comes to us as the first day of the week, the day of new creation, the day of unimagined resurrection. Easter brings us this invitation:  turn inwardly in our hearts, be ready for the unanticipated, hope for the unthinkable.

We all imagine Jesus to be the center of our Easter celebration and indeed Jesus stands in center stage. We know that the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead. The Holy Spirit shed new light in the darkness of Mary’s heart. The Holy Spirit brought faith to the disciple who saw the empty grave cloths. That same Holy Spirit stirs up hope in your heart. That same Holy Spirit gives life to the dead places of your spirit. That same Holy Spirit brings light to you even if you only feel the darkness.

Yes, God continues to do resurrection among us. God lingers on the side lines, eliciting a yet deeper faith from us, drawing us out of our darkness, bringing us into unimagined light. As you profess our faith in this God who brings light out of darkness, may you find your Mary Magdalene identity. Listen to Jesus calling you. Start your resurrection rumors. Let others know that God works resurrection in you.

The world hungers for rumors of resurrection. Your family members hold a hidden and unspoken desire for the hope Jesus brings. Be daring enough, be open hearted enough to let the Spirit enter you, to unlock your heart, to open your lips, to speak the word.

Let’s go out and share that resurrection life with all we meet.

With the Mother of Jesus -- A Good Friday Sermon

We have all seen pictures of Jesus nailed to the cross surrounded by his Mother, the Beloved Disciple and Mary Magdalene. Whose heart is not broken in contemplating this mother witnessing any mother’s worst nightmare – the death of her child. We remember that John’s gospel talks to us about themes associated with family – becoming children of God, being born not of blood but of God, born again of water and the Spirit, nourished by bread and fish and abiding with a loving Father. While these images come from family life, Jesus shifts the meaning of family from the biological family to the family of faith. As he stands on death’s door, Jesus entrusts this new family to the leadership of the Beloved Disciple.

For Jesus, blood does not makes a family. The Spirit creates family. All who are God’s children, all of us, born of water and the Spirit, all of us make up God’s family. When the Beloved Disciple takes the Mother of Jesus into his home, we see more than a loving son caring for his mother. We see the start of God’s new family, those who abide in God and God in them are the sisters and brothers of Jesus.

I’d like to tell you the story of Kelly Latimore. Kelly is an Episcopalian who lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He paints icons, religious paintings usually found in Orthodox Christian churches. After the murder of George Floyd, he painted the icon Mama. In this icon, the Mother of Jesus holds the dead body of her son.  Look at the face of Jesus. When Kelly is asked if the dead person is Jesus or George Floyd, he replies Yes. We hear:  Yes, it is Jesus.  Yes, it is George Floyd.

Look at the face of the Mother of Jesus. She is looking at you. She looks at you to invite you into the mystery of this death. In her broken heart we see more than the pain of the Mother of Jesus.

In her eyes we see the pain of the Mother of George Floyd, the mother of Brianna Taylor, the mother of Irvo Otieno, the mother of Cashay Henderson. The Mother of Jesus is looking at you, inviting you to share the mystery of suffering of mothers and fathers who have lost their children. The mother of Jesus invites you into that mystery because we are all sisters and brothers, linked heart to heart by God’s Spirit who abides in each of you.

We gather today, standing beneath the cross of Jesus and Jesus says to us, Behold, your mother, behold your son, behold your daughter. He invites us to discover that we are sisters and brothers of Jesus and so sisters and brothers of one another. Through our worship today may we discover one another as God’s beloved family, feeling the link between us created by God’s Spirit abiding in each of us. May that powerful Spirit send us out into the world, send us out to help create that world where no mother mourns the untimely death of her daughter or son, the death of any son or daughter killed by misguided police officers, killed by wonton violence, killed by hatred because they are different. May each of us who stands by the cross of Jesus feel the Spirit of the Risen One well up in our hearts as we go into the world as heralds of that love that burst from the empty tomb.

Discovering our Unity in Jesus -- A Maundy Thursday Sermon

Tonight we begin our sacred journey into the heart of God. Tonight we remember the sacred meal which Jesus shared with his beloved community, a sacred meal where he, the Paschal Lamb, gave himself to his disciples in the sacred signs of bread broken and wine poured out. Tonight Jesus comes to us as the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb given as food to nourish the community, the Lamb who strengthens the community, the Lamb who brings that community into the new covenant of faith and love.

On this night three images emerge from our readings:  the Paschal Lamb, the sharing in our Lord’s Body and Blood, and foot washing Jesus. We heard the story of the Last Supper from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  You may have noticed the pattern of the Last Supper of the breaking of the bread of Jesus’ body, followed by a shared meal which ends with the sharing of the cup of Jesus’ Blood. Paul and Luke present this sequence unlike Mark and Matthew where the blessing of the cup immediately follows the breaking of the bread.

Paul recounts this sacred story of a shared meal to the Corinthian community whom he sees as divided among themselves. 

While they profess a common faith in Jesus, they pay more attention to their unity based on the social connections they share outside the community. The Corinth community came from different social classes, different educational backgrounds. Some were slaves and others were free. When they gathered they connected with one another based on their common social bonds. Paul is calling them back to Jesus, the center of their unity. Jesus centers them in a communion deeper than the social status which separates them. Jesus centers them in their common faith which should lead them to their common life and their common love.

Every generation of Christians is challenged to discover Jesus as the center of their unity. Every generation of Christians is invited to see Jesus as the one who brings the community together. Paul’s invitation applies to us and his words need to be heard by our community. Our community comes from different cities, different social groups, different educational backgrounds. We have different skin colors, different accents, different talents. Some of us interact with each other in outside groups and we bond with each other in those different settings.

When we gather as the church we gather as Jesus’ disciples. Jesus centers us in our common faith, our common love for one another, our common calling as Christians. When we gather together, we are invited to leave behind those social distinctions which can divide us, those past affiliations which might attract us to this one and not that one. The humble foot washing Jesus shows us the way into this shared live of mutual love.

For some of us, humility involves self abasement and humiliations. Jesus shows us that humility does not require us to put ourselves down. Humility means living in the truth of who we are and who our sisters and brothers are.

Jesus steps outside the socially constructed roles of his day and reveals his identity as this social revolutionary. In Jesus’ day, women servants were charged with washing the feet of guests who came for a banquet. Jesus takes off his outer garment to show himself taking off his socially defined role as teacher and Lord to become the servant of all.

Jesus invites us to follow his example. Following his example involves breaking the socially constructed roles in which we feel comfortable. Following his example involves relating to one another on the basis of our faith in our common calling, our mutual love for one another, our center in Jesus.

Unlike our relationships outside the church, our connections inside the church are deeper than friendships, deeper than shared social bonds, deeper than what connects us outside these walls. Our connections inside the church involve us in a search for Jesus among us, getting to know one another more deeply, living in the hearts of our sisters and brothers in this space, caring for one another in our needs and building up one another in love.

We are invited to become like the Paschal Lamb whose body we eat and whose blood we drink. We are invited to become Jesus, the food who nourishes us, the wine who delights us, the meal who strengthens us. As we share in our Lord’s sacred meal, as we become the body of Christ which we consume, may the Spirit open our eyes to see one another as Jesus. May the Spirit strengthen us to enter into new relationships with each other based on this Jesus centered love.

If we, who are nourished on the Body and Blood of Christ, can be so transformed here, imagine how deeply you can then change the world outside here.   

Christ Conquers Death -- A Palm Sunday Sermon

Matthew 27: 46-61

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 47When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 48At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. 49But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” 50Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. 51At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. 54Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” 55Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him. 56Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.  57When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. 58He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. 59So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth 60and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. 61Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

The story of Jesus’ passion and death comes to us this year with a particular poignancy as we hold the memory of the death of innocent Jesus with the memory of the deaths of three innocent children and three innocent adults in Nashville, Tennessee.  I do not want to labor the parallels between a silent politician who had the power to stop the death of innocent Jesus and the silent politicians of our day who failed our innocent children after Sandy Hook and continue to fail them today. The angels in heaven who lamented Jesus death, cry out to God for justice and we join our tears with the tears of parents, families and children who lost their innocence when their school was the site of yet another mass murder.

I would like to draw your attention to a small detail unique to the end of Matthew’s version of the Passion, the dead who are raised after Jesus dies on the cross. You might imagine that this scene could have come out of a zombie apocalypse movie with the undead walking the streets of Jerusalem. Jesus, who is strangely silent throughout his passion, prays a lament to God with those mournful words, My God, My God, why have your forsaken me? That prayer echoes though the hearts of so many of us when death takes away someone we love, when we are left alone and seemingly abandoned and God seems to have forgotten where we live and how deeply we need God’s comforting presence. As in so much of the Gospel, a profound and unimaginable reality lies beneath the surface of the Gospel story and when all seems darkness and loss, new hope dawns on the horizon.

For any Jew, death comes as the ultimate defilement. Death robs the person of that precious image of the living God. The corpse cannot be touched without the living person becoming ritually impure.  In dying, Jesus becomes the defiled and impure one. He enters into ultimate isolation and abandonment.

He enters into that land of shadows not only as a human person. Jesus enters the valley of the shadow of death as the Son of God. God takes on this ultimate defilement, this ultimate loss and does the unimaginable. God robs death of its power.

This unspoken and hidden mystery, this overturning of the power of death, lies at the heart of this gospel. The dead are rising because death has lost its power. Even as the dead body of Jesus hangs on the cross, he has proven himself the victor over death. He has entered into battle with death and death has lost.

This deep paradox of our Christian faith, this mystery of the defeat of death by the dead Christ, undergirds our faith and sustains us with hope. Yes, innocent people may die at the hands of mad people. Yes, war may devastate countries and leave people wounded, homeless and uncertain of their future. Yes, our loved ones may die and we are left alone.

Under these horrific tragedies, our faith discovers unimagined hope. Underneath all this loss, Christ has conquered death. May our faith in the Crucified Christ, the conqueror of death, sustain us in our losses and carry us through to the dawning of Easter hope in our hearts.

Entering the Story of the Raising of Lazarus

Some Gospel stories come to us with deep feelings since we remember hearing these stories at difficult moments in our lives. The raising of Lazarus is regularly proclaimed at funerals of those we love and its story tugs at our hearts. We see Jesus crying at the death of his beloved friend and can feel that Jesus understands us in our grief.

So many of us think of this story as the promise that we and all whom we love will be raised to new life after death. Yes, that is true. But there is a far deeper truth to this gospel story, a truth that challenges us to look not at some future date when this world will end but to this day, in this very moment.

While we hear the story from Jesus’ point of view, imagine listening to this tale from that of Martha and Mary. When they send word to Jesus that Lazarus, Jesus’ dear friend is very sick, Jesus delays going to them.  From their perspective, we see a story about the absence of Jesus. Martha and Mary feel a good deal of anger about Jesus’ absence. Both of them confront Jesus with these same words:  Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

The gospel is telling us how we can deal with Jesus when he feels absent, especially when we are facing sickness and death. Even in her anger with Jesus, Martha tells him that she trusts in him:  But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him. She then goes on and expresses the deepest level of faith we find in this gospel:  Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.

Notice that she is not professing her faith in a future resurrection. She is telling Jesus that she believes in him in the present moment. She believes that he has come from God and is returning to God. She believes that Jesus will not abandon her. She believes that Jesus will bring her with him on that journey back to God which starts in the present moment. She hears Jesus, hears Jesus speaking in the depth of her heart, and she trusts Jesus.

Jesus reveals himself to Martha as Resurrection and Life. This is the Jesus whom she believes. She believes that Jesus will raise her beloved brother. She also believes that Jesus will be with her now, in this moment, with his presence even though she may not always feel that presence.

Each of us can enter into this Gospel story through Martha’s perspective. Every Sunday when we gather together, we profess our faith in the words of the Creed. When you profess your faith, it is more that affirming the articles of the creed. Martha shows you that faith in Jesus involves a living relationship with Jesus, a person to person connection, a spiritual presence of Jesus in our heart even if we only feel his absence. When Jesus speaks of himself as the life, he is talking about that relationship which you have with him, that intimate connection, that heart to heart union. 

Another entry into this gospel story comes through Lazarus.

From the start of this story, we know Jesus loves Lazarus. Lazarus comes to us as a faithful disciple, but one who may have fallen away, living on the margin of faith, perhaps even who has died to that deep connection with Jesus. But in death he can hear the voice of Jesus. We are reminded of that other verse from John:  the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. Lazarus, and all of us, can count ourselves as those beloved sheep of Jesus who hear his voice. Jesus knows us, and we follow him.

Just after this story, Jesus is pictured at the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus where he is their dinner guest. Jesus invites you this day to his banquet, to share in his life, to eat his body and drink his blood, to become one with Jesus.

You are invited to enter more intimately into your relationship with Jesus. If you are like Martha, a person of deep faith, may your heart hear Jesus inviting you to go yet deeper. If you are like Lazarus, a person whose faith is faltering, may your heart hear Jesus inviting you to eat with him, to become one with him. This invitation to deep intimacy with Jesus comes as the work of this week of Lent. Prepare your hearts for that intimacy with Jesus, with prayer, with sacred reading, with a silent presence. Next week we enter with Jesus into his greatest battle. He is preparing you for the contest. Be ready to enter with him into his passion that you may know the grace of his new life.