Living the Story

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Sermon for Sunday, May 18, 2014 || Easter 5A || John 14:1-14

livingthestoryAttending seminary a few subway stops away from Washington D.C. provided some lovely distractions. The National Gallery of Art was my favorite. The Air and Space Museum was a close second. I visited most of the District’s tourist attractions during my three years there, and most lived up to their billing. One that did not was the D.C. zoo. The zoo is squashed into a tiny piece of the District, and the animals are squashed into tiny pieces of the zoo. The panda paddock was smaller than the backyard I mowed every week growing up. The elephants had no room to move. Everything was concrete and wrought iron. And the one time I went there, I couldn’t help but think what an inaccurate use of the word “zoo” I was witnessing.*

You see, the word “zoo” comes from a beautiful Greek word, which has also morphed into a popular girls’ name. The name is “Zoey”; the Greek word is ζωη (pronounced zo-AY). Zoe mean “life,” but the life reflected in the zoo’s tiny paddocks full of forlorn-looking animals is not the kind of life the word zoe comprehends.

You see, zoe means “life,” yes, but the connotation of the Greek doesn’t stop there. The word from which we get “zoo” means expansive life, life without bounds, the kind of life that the creature is meant to live. Jesus uses this word in today’s Gospel lesson when he answers Thomas’s question. The disciple asks, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” I Am the Life. This life – this zoe – is the expansive, authentic life of the creature living as the Creator dreams for the creature to live. As we walk with Christ through our lives, he offers us his zoe, a life of purpose and meaning and fulfillment. A small piece of Christ’s life appears in what we call the Gospel; I’d like to spend the rest of this sermon telling you all a story – well, fragments of the story of Jesus’ life as told by John, our Gospel writer for today. The more we tell this story to each other, the more we will live it, and the more our lives will reflect Jesus’ zoe.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through this Word – all life, all zoe, in fact. This Word became flesh and made his home among us. He lived with us in order to teach us how to live, how to tune our lives so they resonate with the Creator-of-all-that-is. Everyone needs a name, and his earthly parents called this Word-made-flesh “Jesus.” Jesus lived in an obscure corner of an obscure corner of a mighty empire. But pretty soon the empire would sit up and take notice.

One day Jesus was out walking and two fellows, John and Andrew, came up to him and asked where he was staying. Now Jesus could have said, “Down the street to the left of the well just past the marketplace.” That would have been a fair answer to the question. Instead, Jesus says, “Come and see.” Jesus’ life is a life of inviting.

Three days later, Jesus went to a wedding celebration with his new friends and his mother. Now, weddings in those days went on for a whole week, but something at this wedding threatened to cut the festivities short. They ran out of wine. Jesus wasn’t going to get involved, but his mother had other plans. So Jesus had several large jars filled with water, but when the steward tasted it, the water had become wine. And moreover, this wine was even better than the wine that ran out. Presumably, the festivities continued in full swing. Jesus’ life is a life of celebrating.

Some time after that, Jesus met a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. The man often came to a certain pool, a pool renowned for curative properties. He was so focused on getting into the pool when Jesus came that he almost missed the opportunity in front of him. Jesus commanded the paralyzed man to get up. If anyone else had said this to the man, he would have thought it a cruel joke, but something in Jesus’ tone (or maybe it was the fire in his eyes) made the man obey. He stood up, and then I imagine he danced for joy. Jesus’ life is a life of healing.

Soon after, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee, and a vast crowd followed him. Unwilling to send the crowd away, Jesus took a laughably small amount of food – barely enough for one family – thanked God for it, and distributed the five loaves and two fish to over five thousand people. After he fed the people with physical food, he also fed them spiritual food. Jesus’ life is a life of feeding.

Skipping forward quite a ways in the story, Jesus was getting ready to share another meal when first he took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself, got down on his knees, and washed the dusty feet of his disciples. This act of service was so at odds with how they thought their teacher should act that Simon Peter told Jesus not to wash his feet. But Jesus saw the matter differently. To remove the dynamic of power – one over another – Jesus commanded his friends to wash each other’s feet, to serve each other. Jesus’ life is a life of serving.

The next day, Jesus met the empire – both the worldly empire of Rome, which occupied his homeland; and the otherworldly empire of evil, death, and division, which occupied the hearts and minds of those he wished to bring back to God. Jesus, condemned to death, dragged a cross to a hill outside the city. In the anguish that followed, he drew to himself each and everything that separates us from God, and their power died with him. Jesus’ life is a life of sacrificing.

Three days later, his tomb was empty. Jesus was alive again, though not again. Rather, Jesus was alive anew. In his death and resurrection, he brought creation back into right relationship with God. The Word made flesh, who made his home with us, gave us a new opportunity to make our home with God. This new relationship was the ultimate act of reconciliation. Jesus life is a life of reconciling.

Inviting. Celebrating. Healing. Feeding. Serving. Sacrificing. Reconciling. These are just seven pieces of Jesus’ life – his zoe – the expansive, authentic life which he offers to us all. Now, I have two questions for you. First, how do you or how can you participate in Jesus’ zoe by intentionally integrating these actions into your lives? Perhaps you’ll invite an acquaintance to church. Or celebrate someone else’s good news. Or be a healing presence for a person’s who’s sick. Or cook food to feed the hungry. Or serve God by using your unique constellation of gifts. Or practice sacrificial giving so that God’s work in the world, say at our partner school in Haiti, can shine even brighter. Or reconcile with a person from whom you are estranged. In each of these actions, know that you are embracing Jesus’ life and living as the Creator meant for you to live.

My second question: what other pieces of Jesus’ life can we add to this list and what stories point to them? Jesus’ life is a life of loving, of teaching, of truth-telling, of relationship-building, of prophetic-speaking and Spirit-breathing, and so much more. You and I each have the opportunity to tune our lives to the frequency of Jesus’ zoe. When we do, we become beacons of the light of Christ shining in this world. We become the flesh, in which the Word makes his home. So I encourage you this week, and this lifetime, to live the story of Jesus’ life in your own. Invite. Celebrate. Heal. Feed. Serve. Sacrifice. Reconcile. And be authentic expressions of the life, the zoe, which God dreams for creation.

—

* I was told after the service in which I delivered this sermon that the D.C. zoo has been much improved since I visited it some eight or nine years ago.
Art: detail from “Miracle at Cana” by Vladimir Makovsky (1887).

Psalm 23, Expanded

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(Sermon for Sunday, May 11, 2014 || Easter 4A || Psalm 23)

shepherdessIn six years of priesthood, I’ve preached on the psalm exactly twice. Today, I’m going to make it three times. Psalm 23 is among the most well-loved and oft-quoted passages of scriptures. We read it at funerals or by the bedsides of those who are sick. When you listen to these words, you might hear an echo of your grandmother reciting it to you when you were a child. The words of Psalm 23 are powerful and gentle at the same time. But, as with anything you hear over and over again, the words can grow stale and distant. So I’d like to try something. I’d like to offer a meditation on Psalm 23 by expanding the thoughts contained in each of the six verses. Saint Francis of Assisi did something similar with the Lord’s Prayer, and I’m going to follow his example. As you listen, see how the venerable words of the twenty-third Psalm strike you anew.

The LORD is my shepherd.
For most, our agrarian days are long past and we see pastureland only from the car window as we drive by on the highway. We see the animals in the field, and we think, “How quaint and how beautiful.” But something tugs inside, and we notice a secret longing for a simpler time. We desire to tramp through the long grass, the only sounds the swish of our clothes rubbing together and our voices calling the flock. Each sheep has a name, and as we call, they come. We have a shepherd, too, who calls us each by name. We have a guide. A protector. A provider. The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not be in want.
It’s a statement of faith that hangs on the promise of provision, the expectation that the Lord will provide. But this English rendition of the Hebrew words gives them more than one meaning. We will not be in want; that is, we will lack for nothing we need to sustain us. But we will also be free from the concept of “wanting”; that is, when we believe the Lord will provide, we will resist the siren song of consumer culture that seduces us, that tries to tell us security only comes with more stuff. “I shall not be in want,” means that we understand proportion, that we have a realistic notion of the word “enough,” and that we find contentment in living simply.

He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.
These are the good days – the days of plenty, the days of refreshment. The still waters reflect God’s peace. The green pastures announce God’s abundance. Peace and abundance feed our awareness of the One who leads us. We notice that, in the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”* Noticing this grandeur re-“charges” us. Or in the words of the psalmist:

He revives my soul
My essence. My life-force. The gift God gave each of us in the sparkling moment of creation that connects our fleetingness to God’s eternity. God’s grandeur is present, and yet we might still miss it. We tire. We burn out. We feel more fleeting than eternal. Thus our Lord revives our souls time and time again…

And guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.
Oftentimes in the psalms the poet reiterates a thought with a parallel one, which is why many psalms have a repetitive nature to them. Here we have a hidden parallel: reviving our souls and guiding us along right pathways are two sides of the same coin. The pathways along which our shepherd guides us lead to revival, to green grass and refreshing water. And all for God’s name’s sake; in other words, all to make God’s grandeur apparent. And yet…

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.
If the shepherd is leading us, why do we walk through this particular valley? Why is it on the route at all? Do we stumble into the valley of the shadow of death because we have strayed from right pathways, or do the right pathways include a road through this valley? We all know life isn’t just green pastures and still waters. We are a people formed by the reality of the cross. But the cross – the shadow of death – is not the end of the story. The joy of the resurrection proclaims that we are not abandoned in the valley of the shadow of death. No. We walk through the valley and out the other side. Perhaps we make this journey because there are people stuck in the valley. It is our duty and our joy to help them find their way out.

In the valley we fear no evil; not because evil doesn’t exist, but because fearing evil gives it power. Fear keeps us from trusting that we will make it out the other side of the valley. Evil seeks to separate us from the One in whom we put our trust. But evil will not succeed…

For you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
This is our mantra while in the valley: “You are with me. You are with me.” Just because we have trouble noticing God’s presence doesn’t mean God is absent. And so we breathe these words, “You are with me,” until they become, “I am with you.” And dwelling in that truth, we find comfort. Comfort and sustenance, for…

You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me.
On the bad days, we might not be able to find the green pastures or the still waters. We might stop believing we have enough and start listening to the seductive voices of those who trouble us, those who chant: “More. More. More. Then you’ll find comfort.” And so, on those bad days, instead of leading us to the pasture to forage for ourselves, the Lord sets a banquet before us. The Lord places what we need right in front of us so we can’t miss it. And we discover once again the abundance inherent in trusting in the Lord to provide.

You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.
When the Lord provides, the Lord provides. What we are fearful won’t be enough overwhelms us instead. Our cups overflow with blessing, both because there is so much blessing, and also because we have made ourselves too small to contain it. The extravagance of God’s blessing fills us in a way that the “More” of the seductive voices could never achieve. When our cups run over, we have the opportunity to spill God’s blessing on all those we meet. As the Lord guides us along right pathways, overflowing blessing marks the way for us and for those who will come after. And as we walk those ways…

Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
The Lord, our shepherd, guides us, leads us by the hand through the valley of the shadow of death to the green pastures and still waters. The Lord takes the lead. We follow. And notice what follows us: God’s goodness and mercy trails us like the churning wake of a ship at sea. Thus, we are surrounded: God’s blessing and abundance before us, God’s goodness and mercy behind us. And above, below, and within us is the truth of God’s promise that…

I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
For ever includes right now. To dwell means not just to live, but to abide. To unpack all our boxes. To put our clothes in the drawers and fill the refrigerator. To make a home for ourselves in the palm of God’s hand. This is the witness of this beautiful poem, Psalm 23. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we have a home in our Lord’s house. We have a provider in the Good Shepherd. And we have eyes to witness, here and in the life to come, a world “charged with the grandeur of God.”

—
Art: Detail from “Shepherdess,” by Jean-Franc Millet (1864).
* Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur“

Book Review: Planted

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Note: I haven’t done book reviews on WheretheWind.com in the past, but I am now dipping my toe in those waters. What a joy to have been contacted to review Planted right at the time I was thinking about reviewing books!

planted“In theological terms naming is the first step in moving from an ‘I-It’ relationship with something or someone to an ‘I-Thou’ relationship, a relationship where a person or creature or even an object becomes known not just for its usefulness, but for its innate worth. It’s the first step in the kind of understanding that leads to caring.”

I marked this and many other passages in my copy of Planted by Leah Kostamo with a green pen, and when I was done with the book, I had run into a common problem when reading a book as meaningful, memorable, and thought-provoking as this one. I had underlined so many passages that my green markings did very little to help me sift through them all.

Such is the nature of this delightful and quick read by the cofounder of the first dedicated Christian environmental center in Canada. Kostamo dedicates a good portion of the book to anecdotes about the sometimes wacky, sometimes dirty, always sacred life at the A Rocha center in British Columbia. These stories of interns, guests, and workers ground the tale in real life and experience. But the balance of the book is where the true depth lies. Kostamo integrates into the anecdotal narrative honest and thoughtful theological reflection on creation care, stewardship, and vocation.

While none of the theological reflection breaks new ground, Kostamo quirky sense of humor and gracious storytelling style invites the reader to hear anew the call of God to be a faithful steward of creation. Many times while reading I found myself underlining a sentence and realizing I had had the same thought myself in the past. But unlike me, Kostamo did something with it! Her experience lends a humble authenticity to her reflection that makes me both remember things I had forgotten and long to take further steps to align my life so it resonates more fully with God’s call to stewardship of creation.

For example, here Kostamo is talking about the value of being in nature: “…North American media has turned information into entertainment, rendering it impotent when it comes to motivating change. We live in a deluge of information – awash in statistics that should have us running hell-bent through the streets to some constructive action. But we don’t. It seems that fear tactics and empirical knowledge have a short shelf life when it comes to inspiring change. What lasts is wonder.” *

The notion that wonder, not fear or statistics, inspires change has been percolating in me since I read it and I’m excited to see how God is inviting me to use this new idea in my life.

Planted begins with more stories of the A Rocha center and less theological reflection, but about halfway through the ratio flips. If you find yourself grazing through the stories but not getting much out of the book, please stick with it. The stories help ground the reflection to come and both are important for the integrity of the book as a whole. Kostamo sows stories in the first half and reaps theological reflection in the second. And the harvest is bountiful.

—

*Italics mine.

My thanks to Leah Kostamo for the complimentary copy of this book, which I received for purposes of review.

Resting All My Weight

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Sermon for Sunday, April 27, 2014 || Easter 2A || John 20:19-31

WinslowHomerFarmerToday we are going on a journey to the center of a word. This word happens to be one of the most misused words in the English language, and it happens to be an important word in our Gospel lesson today. This word is “believe.”

For several years now, I’ve tried to use the word “believe” only when talking about God. This is tricky because practitioners of modern English rarely treat the word with that kind of discretion. The word “believe” has become commonplace. How often have you heard a question like this: “Do you believe in [fill in the blank with a hot button issue of the day].” Somehow, the word “believe” has become synonymous with “think something is okay.” This watered down understanding is a far cry from how the word is used in our Gospel lesson today: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Here “belief” is synonymous with life and relationship with God, not with mere assent to a particular position. As we journey to the center of the word “believe,” let’s try to recapture an undiluted definition.

The best way to talk about the word “believe” is to tell a story. Here’s a version of one that I heard a priest friend of mine tell several years ago (and he heard it from someone, too, so there’s no telling to whom this story belongs).

A Bible scholar trekked deep into the heart of the Amazon River basin, and there he found an indigenous tribe that had barely had any contact with the outside world. Like any decent Bible scholar would do, he set about learning the language of the people in order to translate the Good Book into the local tongue. While staying in the village, he lived with a farmer and his wife. For months, the scholar worked and worked: he listened to the people talking, made notes, slowly built a lexicon, and then set to the task of translation. He spread his papers out over the rough wooden table in the kitchen of the hut and put pen to paper.

But soon he stopped. He was stuck. In all his study, he had never heard the villagers use a word that seemed to him synonymous with “belief,” which was, after all, an important word in the Bible. He put his pen down and sat there, just thinking and feeling sorry for himself. Just then, the farmer came in from the fields all hot and sticky from a hard day’s labor. He sat down in the chair opposite the scholar, leaned back on two legs, propped his feet on the table, and let out a grateful sigh. In halting words, the scholar asked the farmer what his word for “believe” was. The farmer didn’t understand. The scholar tried to explain using other words, and comprehension dawned on the farmer. “Do you see me sitting here,” he said in his own language. “I am leaning back in this chair after a hard day’s work. My feet are up. I am resting all my weight on these two legs.” And the scholar found his word.

So to believe in something is to rest all of your weight on that something. Think about the first time you ever went to the pool. The older kids who knew how to swim were doing cannonballs into the deep end and playing Marco Polo in the shallows. The teenage boys were staring at the lifeguard in her red one-piece and layers of tanning lotion. The adults were laying in reclining lawn chairs around the edge of the pool, far enough away to be out of the splash zone.

But you took no notice of any of this. You were too busy contemplated your next action. You were standing by the edge of the pool, your toes curled over the cement lip of the shallow end. You had your arms crossed in front of you and your knees bent in. Your teeth chattered – from either fear or cold, you couldn’t tell. And there was your Dad standing three feet from you. He was standing waist deep in the water like a titan, impervious to Poseidon’s attempts to plunge him under. And he was extending his arms out to you, beckoning you to jump. He would catch you, of course, he said. You would not drown. You would be safe. You would have fun once you got used to the water. All you needed to do was jump into his arms.

You had a choice to make. You could waddle back to the safety of the towels and the bag with your sister’s change of clothes in it. Or you could jump, believing with all your might that your Dad would catch you, that you could rest all of your weight in his embrace. That’s belief.

But recall, I mentioned that belief is a tricky concept. It’s tricky for several reasons. Here’s one. When you decided to jump into your Dad’s arms on your first visit to the pool, you took the leap because you believed what he said. He would catch you, no matter what. You could rest your weight in his arms. Equating this belief with belief in God is where everything gets tricky. Here’s the problem.

There is a chance, however slim, that your Dad would fail to catch you.

No matter how earnestly we believed in a parent’s omnipotence or a coach’s perfection or a teacher’s omniscience, those people turned out to be…well, people. They were all stricken with the gene for human fallibility. Of course, not being perfect didn’t make them bad people. It just made them people. When we equate our belief in humans with our belief in God, we often make the mistake of hedging our bets were God is concerned. We apply to God the expectations we have when we believe in other people, thus unwittingly reducing God’s power and glory to the levels that fit comfortably in a fallible human body.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not telling you to repel all human contact because those fallible humans are not to be trusted. Human beings are fundamentally good. We usually do the right thing. We usually live up to the trust others have in us. What I am saying is this: there is no “usually” with God. God always does the right thing. God always lives up to the trust we place in God, else God wouldn’t be God.

So when you speak of belief, remember that God is the One in whom you can always rest your weight. God is the One who never fails to keep a promise. Therefore, God is the one whom we can always believe. When we reserve the word “believe” for God alone, we can begin to recapture the majesty that the concept of belief has lost through overuse in unworthy situations.

If believing is about resting your weight on something, then belief means knowing and trusting the something that takes your weight. This is your foundation. Every foundation that is not God is not a foundation at all, but a structure built on God, who is the ultimate foundation. God is, so to speak, the ground upon which everything rests. Believing in God is all about not being content until you find that ground, that deepest foundational level, upon which to rest your weight.

In our Gospel lesson today, Thomas discovers this foundation when he sees the Risen Christ’s wounds and says, “My Lord and my God!” Thomas’s journey has led him to rest his weight on the Risen Christ – to believe. The next time you use the word “believe,” ask yourself if the context surrounding that word is your foundation, something you can truly rest your weight on. If not, try a different word. We rest our weight on the One who is our foundation. For we believe in God.

*Art: Detail from “For to be a Farmer’s Boy” by Winslow Homer (1887).

We Rise with Christ

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Sermon for Easter Sunday, Year A || April 20, 2014 || Matthew 28:1-11

Easter2014Good morning and welcome to St. Mark’s church on this beautiful Easter Sunday. As I see some unfamiliar faces out there, please allow me to do a quick introduction. My name is Adam Thomas, and my wife Leah and I moved to Mystic three months ago today so that I could become the rector of this wonderful church. In that short space of time, I have been overwhelmed by the welcome we received from this parish, and I feel incredibly blessed to be a part of this community. If this holiday of Easter brought you across our threshold for the first time today, I invite you to return again on a day of less fanfare, to join us, and to enhance our community with your presence.

On Good Friday two days ago, I didn’t finish my homily. Instead, I left those present with a cliffhanger. We were standing at the foot of the cross with Jesus’ mother and beloved friend. The powers of death and darkness and despair and fear and shame and domination were careening towards Golgotha, were bearing down on us, were about to crush us. Jesus had just said, “It is finished.” Jesus had just breathed his last.

That could have been the end. “It is finished,” might have been the final words of one ready to take his curtain call, to take his bow, to exit stage left. But if that were the case, we wouldn’t be here today. Today, we celebrate the resolution of the cliffhanger. Today, we witness Jesus Christ rise from the grave and leave entombed the powers that seek to separate us from God. Today, we turn away from those powers and embrace the truth that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

We wait in suspense three days for the resolution of the cliffhanger. And in that time removed from the foot of the cross, we realize that when Jesus said, “It is finished,” he meant, “It is accomplished.” It is completed. My work is fulfilled. He laid the trap for the powers that seek to separate us from God. He offered himself up as bait. And they took it. On this side of Easter, we look back on the dark events of Good Friday and see the full scope of the plan that Jesus only hinted at to his friends before his arrest.

On the cross, he lured those powers of separation in. He absorbed all our darkness and despair, our fear and shame, our desire to dominate, even the power of death itself. As he suffocated to death on the cross, they appeared to be winning. But it was all a setup. Their power died with him. And he left their wasted shells in the tomb when he rose triumphant.

Yet we still see the powers of separation active in our world today. They still seek to pull creation apart, to pull us apart. And so we might be left to wonder if Christ’s resurrection actually accomplished anything at all. We might be tempted to ask what good it did. These are fair questions to ask, and God knows we struggle with them. But in the midst of the struggle, God constantly calls us to look more carefully for God’s presence in all situations, to engage the suffering of this world on a deeper level, to see into the truth of things.

And when we do this, hope stirs in us. We see that while the forces Jesus lured to the cross still exist, their ultimate power is no more. They have lost. They just don’t know it yet. We live in a reality in which Christ is risen. The truth of the risen-ness of Christ permeates existence. Everyone and everything that can be redeemed, that belongs to God’s original intention for creation, rises with Christ. Everything else stays in the tomb.

In today’s Gospel reading, when the angel beckons the women to see the place where Jesus lay, I wonder what they see? A burial shroud in the corner, perhaps. But mostly just emptiness. Indeed, after the resurrection, the tomb was the burial place for emptiness. For nothingness. This emptiness, this nothingness is the eventual outcome of all those things Jesus lured to the cross. What the women don’t see is death and darkness and despair and fear and shame and domination all crowding for space, invisible in the emptiness of the tomb. There is no room for those things in a reality built on Christ’s risen-ness. Those things are being forced out of reality, forced to stay in the tomb where they belong.

So what does belong in a reality built on Christ’s risen-ness? All we need do is look at the opposites of the things left in the tomb.

Instead of death, we have life. We rise with Christ when we choose life-affirming paths, when we share our gifts and resources so that other may have life, and when we act sustainably so that all creation can enjoy the fullness of life.

Instead of darkness, we have light. We rise with Christ when we walk in the light, when our choices reflect values that prioritize strengthening relationships, and when we encourage others to shine with their own light.

Instead of despair, we have hope. We rise with Christ when we believe that the bounds of possibility are far wider than we can perceive, when we dare to dream of all the wonders we can do when we partner with God, and when we offer a grief-stricken friend a shoulder to cry on.

Instead of fear, we have trust. We rise with Christ when we surrender daily to God our fruitless desire to control the future, when we make choices relying on our faith, and when we ourselves practice trustworthiness and the keeping of promises.

Instead of shame, we have grace. We rise with Christ when we let go everything that keeps us from embracing God’s love, when we discover how graceful we are when we dance in concert with God’s movement, and when we look upon others and see the beautiful beings that God sees.

And instead of domination, we have freedom. We rise with Christ when we allow God to free us from everything that enslaves us, when we stop bowing down to modern-day material idols, and when we stop dominating others to ensure our own freedom.

Every time we choose life and light and hope and trust and grace and freedom, we resonate with the reality of Christ’s risen-ness. We leave the things Jesus lured to the cross where they belong – in the emptiness of the tomb. We become little pockets of Easter, outposts of the resurrection, beacons of true reality based on today’s proclamation: Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

*Art: Detail from “Harbingers of the Resurrection” by Nikolai Ge (1867)

Too Close

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment

Homily for Good Friday || April 18, 2014 || The Passion According to John

goodfriday2014‘When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.’

“It is finished.” The clock has run out. The game is over. The final whistle has blown. It is finished. The end. Jesus releases the last ragged gasp of hard-fought breath. His mother and his beloved friend look up in time to see his body sag. A moment ago his spent muscles had been holding him up, keeping him from suffocating, but now…the nails keep his body pinned in place, another victim of Rome’s desire to turn execution into demonstration.

Imagine yourself standing with his mother and friend. The horror of witnessing his torture has already cleared the contents of your stomach. You’ve retched multiple times since, but with only bile as a result. You bit back bile of a different sort when the soldiers divided his clothes between them. You wanted to let them have it, to excoriate them for their cold-hearted avarice, but they have swords and spears, and all you have is your ragged faith in a dying man. You hear his last words: “It is finished.” And in that moment, those are the only words in existence. Nothing he said before enters your mind – certainly nothing about rising again on the third day. In that moment, “It is finished,” are the final words anyone will ever speak. They truly are the end.

After all, how could they mean anything else? He said he was “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” But his way led him to this horrible destination. His words of truth were suffocated out of him. His life ended. As we dwell here at the foot of the cross on this Good Friday, we hear those words, we hear the finality in them. “It is finished.” Full stop.

If you touch him now, you know his body will be unnaturally cold. Death is too close.

Even though it’s midday, thick clouds blot out the sun. Darkness is too close.

As his breath fled him, any last bastion of hope fled you. Despair is too close.

Fear. Shame. Domination. All of them, too close.

And as the weight of all the powers of evil and separation come careening toward Golgotha, as they bear down on you, as they crush you like they crushed him, those three words mutate in your mind, become gangrenous. It is finished. We lost.

And yet. The faintest ember of hope glimmers beneath the ash of your extinguished fire.

What if? The sun is still there behind the clouds, still warming the earth with its light, whether or not you can see it.

And yet what if all of this was a trap? What if Jesus, unwilling to risk anyone else, offered himself as the bait? What if Jesus positioned himself high on that cross so the powers of death and darkness and despair and fear and shame and domination could get a good view of him? Could not resist such a juicy target. What if Jesus knew what he was doing all along? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Was his sacrifice a way to draw his enemies out, to draw them to him, to nail them to the cross with him? If so, no wonder they’re too close. No wonder you feel the crushing weight of the powers of evil careening toward Golgotha.

The words kindle again within you. It is finished.

Could he?

Could he possibly have meant something else?

In those final moments, did he know his plan had worked? Could he feel death and darkness and all the rest scuttling around his cross? Inching closer? Triggering his trap?

It is finished. No. Not the end.

It is accomplished. It is completed. My work is fulfilled. No. Not the end. This is but the middle of the story.

*Art: Detail from “Crucifixion” by Nikolai Ge (1831-94)

A New Dream

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Homily for Maundy Thursday || April 17, 2014 || John 13

MaundyThurs2014Imagine with me the Apostle Peter at night in his prison cell in Rome near the end of his life.

It all happened so long ago. Thirty years or more now. And yet sometimes – like tonight – I wake up in the cold wee hours of the morning gasping for air because my dreams drag me back to that week. One moment, I’m being suffocated by the crowds pressing in on me, buffeting me, shouting for blood. The next I awake in my prison cell, take in great swallows of stale air.

My cellmate – another follower rounded up here in Rome like I was – he says, “You were shouting in your sleep again.”

“What was I shouting?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

“Something like, ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ ” he says.

Yes, of course. The same old dream. I always wake up when the rooster crows.

Why can’t I dream of the happier times? Lugging the huge catch of fish onto the beach. Talking with Jesus around the campfire. Sharing a meal with him in our hideout in Jerusalem.

“Perhaps you still feel guilty,” my cellmate says. “We’ve all heard the story: how you denied you knew Jesus when he needed you most.”

“But Jesus forgave me,” I say. “I told him I loved him. He gave me a mission to feed his sheep. He knew I couldn’t live with myself, so he told me to live for him instead…And I have…”

My voice trails off. I used to give this defense with more fire.

“He might have forgiven you.” My cellmate again. “But have you truly accepted his forgiveness? Have you ever forgiven yourself?”

I want to say, “yes.” I want this fellow in my cell to know that I am one of Jesus’ most fervent followers, that I remember everything he ever taught, that I apply it constantly to my life. But it’s all a lie. A front I put on so others will be encouraged. If they knew the doubts that assail my hearts, they’d be less eager to follow, I tell myself. I do follow, but…fervently?

His question lingers in the stale air: “Have you ever forgiven yourself?” I want to say, “yes,” but something about the dank prison cell drags the truth out of me instead. Must be the hardness of the floor, the right angles of the walls, the smoothness of the stones. In Rome, even the prison cells are plumb. “No,” I say. The word rebounds off the wall. The echo indicts me.

Silence replaces the echo, and we listen to each other breathing in the dark. “I’d always heard you were stubborn, Peter,” says my cellmate. “But that forgiveness. That love of his. It was a free gift. You didn’t need to earn it. Your denial didn’t make you unworthy of it. Do you not see that?”

A recent convert, this one. I can always tell by their zeal. This one is mouthier than most.

He presses on. “It’s the footwashing all over again.”

“The what?”

“The night before Jesus went to his death on the cross. We’ve all heard that story, too. Jesus knew he was going to God and so he wanted to show you all the importance of service. Of love. The fact that service and love are really the same thing. So he took off his robe, got down on his knees, and washed the feet of his friends.”

“I remember. I was there.”

“But…but when he got to your feet, you didn’t want them washed. You didn’t feel worthy of that either.”

This I have to answer. “He just looked so small,” I say. “Crawling on his knees, pushing the wash basin before him. It felt so wrong for him to humble himself like that for my sake. His humility made me feel even more unworthy.”

More silence. Again, the truth tumbles out.

“It still does.”

And what does my cellmate do? He starts to sing:

“Being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death–
even death on a cross.

“I heard that the day I was arrested,” he says. “We sang it at a gathering.”

“So?”

“It says Jesus humbled himself and became obedient. Don’t you see, Peter? How can I, who is so new to the Way, be the one to teach you this, you who have the keys to the kingdom? Humility and obedience go together.”

I shift on my cot. I don’t want to hear this, but his voice has taken on a new tone, one I remember Jesus using: excitement and insight mixing together to form revelation. I sit up and feel the hairs raise on the back of my neck.

“When he washed your feet he demonstrated humble service. And what did he do next?”

“He told us to love each other.”

“No. He commanded you to love each other. It wasn’t a request. Jesus gave you a direct order, a new commandment. To obey you had to love. To show love you had to serve humbly. To serve humbly you had to obey – to listen deeply for his call and act on it. I found my church – my new family – because I watched them loving each other, serving each other, and I knew I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to follow Jesus’ commandment.”

“And yet here you are, in prison with me.”

“I believe I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I’m supposed to do.”

“And what exactly is that?”

He takes a deep breath. “Helping Peter find a new dream.”

I grunt my derision, but the memory of the rooster crowing still hovers behind my eyes. I’m listening, in spite of myself.

“Look,” he presses. “You can dismiss everything I say as the ravings of convert’s zeal. But just because I’m new doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Those words you said in fear that night still haunt you. Let them go. Tell me now. Say it aloud. Say you know him.”

His words awaken the same ones in me. I open my mouth. My voice catches in my throat. But I force them out. “I do know the man.”

“Say it again.”

“I do know him.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s here in this cell. I hear him speaking through you.”

“What is he commanding?”

“He wants me to let go, to let his forgiveness wash me clean, to release my stubbornness and pride, to hear and obey.”

“ To hear and obey. To love and serve in humility?”

“That is his command. Loving and serving. The command and the gift, both at the same time.”

He reaches across the divide between our cots and grasps my hand. I can feel his blood pulsing. And for the first time in God knows how long, I feel the fire blaze in me again. He squeezes my hand and holds it fast. “Peter, my friend, there’s your new dream.”

*Art: detail from “Columbus in Prison” by Thomas Eakins (1844-1916)

A Passion Primer

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Sermon for Sunday, April 13, 2014 || Passion/Palm Sunday, Year A || Matthew 26:31–27:54

Passion2014If you’ve spent any length of time in the Episcopal Church, you know the sermon comes after the Gospel reading. But because of the nature of our Gospel reading today, I hope you will allow me to flip that convention around. The Passion Gospel we will read in a few moments has the lyric substance of an epic poem; the depth of one of the works of a Russian master – Dostoyevsky, say; and the emotional weight of the entire book of Psalms: all in the space of an average magazine article. So rather than preaching after we listen to the performance of this momentous work of faith and story-telling, I thought I’d talk with you now, before we listen. I plan, in the next few minutes, to give you something of a listening guide: a few keys to listening faithfully, and a few things to listen for.

Before we begin the reading, I invite you (during the silence/hymn) to acknowledge all the things that are clamoring for attention in your mind: the sports practice after the service, the spring break vacation that needs packing for, the unpaid bills, the house that’s still on the market, the impending surgery, papers that are due, deadlines at work. Acknowledge each thing and then gently push it aside; breathe it away for the time being. Clear a space within; within your mind, within your heart. And invite God to fill that space with the truth of Christ’s Passion.

Also before we begin reading, just a note for our performance practice today. I will be narrating, Craig will be reading the parts of Jesus and Peter, and Sarah will be reading the parts of everyone else. That is, except for the place in the story when Pontius Pilate addresses the crowd. That part is yours. I know many people feel uncomfortable voicing this part. Saying, “Let him be crucified,” feels like the worst kind of betrayal. Speaking aloud those words always causes a deep sorrow to well up in me, and I bet many of you feel it, too.

Even so, I hope you will still say the words when it comes to your turn. I know they are hard to voice, painful to say aloud, but they are also necessary. Cathartic, even. Saying those words today – “Let him be crucified” – allows us to give voice to a year’s worth of our own sin, our own willful separations from God, both small and great. In those four words, we identify with the jealous leaders who brought Jesus to the Roman officials. We confess our complicity in this sad desire to separate ourselves from the source of grace and healing. We say those words today. We live with them rattling around in the hollowness inside us this week. As they reverberate within, their echo is like a mirror held up to our willful separation. We see ourselves for the lonely, despairing people our choices often make of us. For a week, we live with those words on our lips. Then, a week from today, we replace them with fresh words of praise, with shouts of triumph, with good news about God’s eternal embrace heralded by Christ’s resurrection.

Before we move on to our proclamation of Christ’s Passion, here are a few things I invite you to listen for. First, listen for things you might never have heard in this reading no matter how many times you’ve listened to it. Small things like Jesus’ own non-violence; Simon Peter’s weeping; Judas’s repentance; the warning of Pilate’s wife; the service of the unnamed person who gave Jesus wine to drink; the final witness of the Roman centurion.

Second, notice how often Matthew, our Gospel writer, puts truth on the lips of those in charge of Jesus’ execution. When Pilate washes his hands of Jesus’ death, the rioting crowd responds, “His blood be on us and on our children!” And in a way, it is – not as evidence of murder, but as a cleansing agent, as a way of removing the very sin the rioting crowd is committing. We are “washed in the blood of the lamb.” Notice also the soldiers who hail Jesus as king. They do it in mocking, as a despicable game, but even so they speak the truth. Notice finally, the words of the chief priests as Jesus hangs from the cross, also said in cruel jest. These words include, “He trusts in God.” This trust is independent of their desire for corroboration of that trust. This trust is Jesus’ own brand, which goes well beyond saving his broken body and finds its home on the other side of Easter.

After you empty yourself to allow God to fill you with the witness of Christ’s passion, and while you are listening for those small details Matthew gives us, I invite you to enter the story yourself. Taste the tang of fear in the air. Feel the crush of bodies clamoring for blood. Listen to the jeers. See Jesus standing silently, absorbing the cruelty of the world in order to bring it with him to the cross in order for its power to die.

And as you stand with Jesus’ enemies, here them speak the truth unbeknownst to themselves. Allow that ironic truth to well up within you. And believe. Set your heart on the one who went willingly to torture and death. Set your heart on the one who suffered for us. Set your heart on the one who died on the cross. Because he has set his heart on you.

*Art: detail from “Christ Nailed to the Cross” by William Blake (c.1803)

The Language of Embrace

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Sermon for Sunday, April 6, 2014 || Lent 5A || John 11:1-44

goingtobethanyThe prayers have all been prayed. The farewells to the deceased have all been said. The dirt has been cast on the shining, glossy coffin. The low murmur of voices mingles with the whisper of the wind through the long, cemetery grass. The new widow rises from the velvet-covered folding chair, the triangle of the blue field and white stars of the American flag peeking out from under her arm. A line of black-clad people forms, and they begin to file past her. You watch her receive with grace each well-meant, but well-worn sentiment. You join the line, and soon it’s your turn. You grasp her hand in both of yours and wait for the words to come.

I’m sure each of us has been in this position. Some of us have also been on the other side of it. Sometimes words tumble out before we have a chance to catch them, to measure them, to reflect on how they will be heard. Other times, we have no words, and we trust that the fervent squeeze of the hand or an embrace will communicate what we want to say. Most times, the language of embrace is more potent and effective than the language of words.

In today’s Gospel reading, we have the opportunity to listen in as Jesus and Martha converse near the grave of her brother Lazarus. They’ve both lost someone: Martha, a brother; Jesus, a friend. Indeed, the Gospel doesn’t describe too many individuals specifically as ones Jesus loved, but Lazarus is among the honored few.

Martha speaks first: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” We could interpret Martha’s first words as an accusation or as a statement of faith. More than likely, they are (as is so often the case) a combination of the two. Since her sister Mary echoes these same words a few verses later, we can assume Martha and Mary had spoken them to each other in the four days since Lazarus died. “If Jesus had been here, Lazarus would still be alive,” they might have whispered to each other. And then I imagine, “Why didn’t he come?” And then, “I heard he’s on his way,” followed shortly by, “What took him so long!”

In any case, Martha says these words to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” At first, Jesus responds with what sounds like an empty, stock answer to a grieving person: “Your brother will rise again.” Such a statement had probably reached the status of well-worn platitude in that time, considering a large portion of Jewish society believed in a final resurrection. Judging by her next words, Martha certainly takes Jesus’ statement in this clichéd manner. I imagine her hanging her head when she says, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

But here’s where Jesus changes the rules of the standard funereal conversation. He stretches out his hand, places it on Martha’s cheek, gently raises her head so their eyes meet. “I AM the resurrection and the life,” he says. And for those few words his voice rings like a well-struck bell, and the truth of them resounds deep within Martha’s soul. I AM the resurrection and the life.

You may recall last week, we discussed how frequently Jesus employs this sentence structure in the Gospel According to John. When he states I AM, he reaches back to the conversation between Moses and God at the burning bush. Moses asks God for God’s name, and God replies, “I AM WHO I AM.” When Jesus echoes these words in the Gospel, he reveals a piece of his own divine identity.

“I AM the resurrection.” By taking resurrection into his very identity, Jesus proclaims to Martha and to us that his business is always remaining in life-giving relationships. Yes, death occurs. But death is not final. Yes, life ends. But new life – life in some superlative form – emerges because of the power of the promise of Christ’s resurrection. I do not know what this new life looks. I cannot describe it to you. But because Jesus says, “I AM the resurrection,” I believe he will be there, continuing to call us into full and complete relationship with him. Only then, in the power of the resurrection, we will truly be able to reciprocate and join him in that full and complete relationship.

Martha understands the truth of the promise of this relationship. Notice how she answers Jesus’ next question. He asks: “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Here Martha replies in the affirmative, but she answers a different question than the one Jesus asked: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming in the world.” By saying she believes in him, Martha affirms her relationship with Jesus. And Jesus, unwilling to let such a relationship ever end, offers her the gift of resurrection. Our belief in Jesus affirms our desire to remain in relationship with him. His gift of resurrection affirms his desire to remain in relationship with us.

So the promise of resurrection, which Jesus builds into his very identity, is the promise of eternal relationship with God. And that sounds like a pretty good definition of heaven. In their conversation near the grave of Lazarus, Martha and Jesus reaffirm their desire to be together. Their words are a verbal embrace that points to the eternal embrace promised by the power of the resurrection.

And so we return to the windswept cemetery, to the widow holding the crisply folded American flag, to the receiving line filing past. It’s your turn. You grasp her hand in both of yours and wait for the words to come. And you remember Jesus’ conversation with Martha. You remember Jesus’ promise to remain in life-giving relationships with all who desire them. You remember his resurrection proclaims this triumphant promise.

And you realize that Christ is already calling you into such a life-giving relationship. You don’t have to wait for your own death for such a relationship to begin. You can practice it everyday in your interactions with other people as you speak words of life and grace and blessing to them, as you discover the presence of Christ in them, as you seek to deepen your relationships with them.

You open your mouth to speak to the widow, but no words come. And so you resort to the language of embrace to communicate this desire to demonstrate how important your relationship with the widow is to you. You put your arms around her, and now your mouth is by her ear. Now something prompts you to speak. “I love you,” you whisper. That’s all you need say, if you say anything at all.

*Art: Detail from “Maria, sister of Lazarus,meets Jesus who is going to their house” by Nickolai Ge, 1864.

Echoing “I Am”

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Sermon for Sunday, March 30, 2014 || Lent 4A || John 9:1-41

blindmanelgreco“Let me see some I.D.”

“Yessir.”

I have had this exchange a handful of times with police officers and one very friendly Texas state trooper. They, of course, want my driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance so they can go back to their cars and run me through their databases looking for past infractions while I’m sweating through my palms and my stomach feels like I just swallowed several gallons of quick-dry cement and my mind is racing in compound-complex run-on sentences such as this one. A warning. Yes, officer. Yessir, no more rolling stops. Yessir. Thank you. You too.

But the words they use are telling: “Let me see some I.D.” Some identification. Really, they just want my name and some corroboration that the picture next to the name matches my appearance. They ask for my identity, and all I give them is a plastic card with my name on it. Date of birth. Address. Sex. Height. Eye color. The fact that I’m an organ donor.

But there’s so much more to my identity than the information listed on that plastic card. I’m a husband and a son and a brother and a priest and a writer and a guitarist and a board game enthusiast. And I’m a follower of Jesus. In fact, my identification card has no room for the most important pieces of my identity. The relationships we hold dear, the values we live by, the priorities that shape us – these are the markers of our true identities.

In our Gospel reading today, we hear the story of a man who discovers and proclaims his true identity. Jesus heals this man, but the miraculous granting of sight is only part of the story. The truly extraordinary aspect of his healing is his ownership of an identity he always had, but which was hidden within him.

Jesus sends the man to the pool of Siloam to wash, and this man, who was blind from birth, comes back able to see. Do you remember what happens next? His neighbors don’t recognize him! Now, he hasn’t put on weight or grown a big bushy beard or dyed his hair. Nothing cosmetic has changed about him. And yet these people, who have presumably lived near him his entire life, can’t decide if he’s the guy they always saw on the street corner begging. All they ever saw was his blindness; they never looked deeper to see the identity of the man beneath his physical challenge. And since others’ impressions of us tend to shape our identity, I bet the man himself had stopped looking deep within himself, too.

That is, until Jesus heals him. He returns home, and when his neighbors ask him if he’s the blind street corner beggar, he says, “I am.” Now, we’d be hard-pressed to find two more important and impactful words in the entire Gospel according to John. Jesus says these two little words all the time: I am the bread of life. I am the good shepherd. I am the light of the world. I am; don’t be afraid. I am. I am. I am.

These are magic words in the Gospel. Mystical words. These two little words, “I am,” transport us all the way back to Mount Horeb, to a man exiled from his home in Egypt, to a bush ablaze with flame, to an encounter with the Creator-of-all-that-is. Near the end of their conversation, Moses asks God what God’s name is. “I AM WHO I AM,” responds God. “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

When Jesus echoes God’s “I am” in the Gospel according to John, he reveals his divine identity in small pieces, pieces small enough for us to digest over the course of a lifetime. Jesus’ echoes God’s “I am.” And the man who was formerly blind echoes Jesus’ “I am.” Thus, the man reveals his discovery of Jesus’ identity within himself. Jesus heals him in order that he might take on this identity that he always had buried deep inside, but which had never come to light.

After discovering Jesus’ identity within himself, he can’t help but proclaim it. Even as the religious officials hound him about the details of his story, he sticks to the truth and proclaims Jesus’ healing presence in his life. No threat, no argument, no earthly authority can take away this new identity he has discovered within himself, this new identity as a follower of Christ.

But what of us? What of our identities? We may have never washed in the special pool of Siloam, but we have washed. We have washed in the waters of baptism. We may never have had mud spread on our eyes, but we have been marked as Christ’s own forever. Our baptism into Christ’s body reveals an identity we’ve always had, an ability to echo Jesus’ “I am” with one of our own. The act of baptism marks and celebrates our identity as followers of Jesus Christ.

Each of us has this identity within us. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. But if you’re anything like me, the times when this piece of my identity rises to the surface are few and far between. Other pieces of my identity take charge, and “follower of Jesus” sinks down the list. But if I’m honest with myself, if I listen for the whispered invitation of Christ in my depths, I hear him beckoning me, I see his radiance shining within. And God’s promise resonates in my bones: seek God first, own your identity as Christ’s follower, and each other piece of your identity will find a snug fit, properly ordered so that you can experience the abundance of life, so that your default nature is one of service and love, so that you may invite others into the brilliance of the Light of World each day of your life.

Promoting “Follower of Jesus” up the list of pieces of our identities takes commitment. “Husband” wouldn’t be high on my list if I weren’t whole-heartedly committed to my marriage. “Writer” wouldn’t be high up there if I didn’t write every single day. “Follower of Jesus” trends upwards when we commit to praying daily, serving the least of those around us, dwelling deeply in God’s word, and cultivating an awareness of God’s presence in our lives. As this season of Lent marches toward Easter, dedicate yourselves to owning your identity as followers of Jesus. Like the man born blind, hear Jesus’ divine identity echo within you. Look yourself in the mirror and say aloud: “I am. I am a beloved child of God. I am a follower of Jesus Christ.”

This is and always will be the primary piece of our identities, whether or not we put it at the top of the list. God created us to be God’s beloved, and following Jesus Christ leads us to embrace God as our beloved. This is our true identity. This is what the card we hand to the police officer should say. To begin to own this identity, I invite you to sit down and write out a list of all the pieces of your identity. Order those pieces from most to least important. Be honest where you slot in “Follower of Jesus.” Does it make the Top 10? Top 5? When you’re done, recommit yourself to partnering with God to move “Follower of Jesus” up just one slot. Just one. Baby steps here. Over time and with God’s help, move it up the list. Notice how your life changes. Notice how you change the lives of those around you. Own your true identity and shine with the Light of the World.

*Art: Detail from “Christ Healing the Blind Man” by El Greco (1560)