Return of the prodigal son — or father?

This is a reflection I offered on my Morning Prayer stream this morning — on Facebook.

There is not a story in the Bible that I have spent more time with than the story of the prodigal son.  Soon after I was born again in 1985, I found a spiritual director.  He gave me two things: the daily office, Morning and Evening prayer; and “The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest, author and theologian.  Every time I look at the story I find something new and compelling.  It was the same with Henri.  He wrote the book after finding Rembrandt’s painting of the Prodigal Son in a Hermitage in St. Petersburg – Russia.  He spent over four hours sitting in front of the painting and left his day job teaching at Harvard University to join a community that provided a home to people with mental handicaps, L’Arche, in Trosley France. 

Back to today’s Gospel story.  Many think “prodigal” means “rebellious” or “runaway.”  Prodigal means “wastefully extravagant” and “lavishly generous.”   We’re familiar with the prodigal son, the son who squanders his father’s wealth in wasteful extravagance.  But many bible commentators speak of the prodigal father, the father who is lavishly generous with his young son who wishes he was dead.  The father is also lavishly generous with his elder son: “…all that is mine is yours.”`

In his book, Henri Nouwen invites you and me to choose which character we are in the story: the rebellious younger son, the prodigal father, or the resentful older son.  Nouwen wrote the book not many years before he died.  He found himself in all the characters in the story, but nearing the end himself, he hopes he has become the Father: “As the Father, I have to believe that all the human heart desires can be found at home…I have to know that, indeed, my youth is over and that playing youthful games is nothing but a ridiculous attempt to cover up the truth that I am old and close to death…real fulfillment can only come from welcoming home those who have been hurt and wounded in their life’s journey, and loving them with a love that asks or expects nothing in return.

https://fb.watch/kT78maoT_U/

Morning Prayer Rite II, Wednesday, May 10, 2023 with the Rev. Rich Wilson

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Easter Vigil Sermon, Mark’s Resurrection Story

“How does this short gospel, the Good News, end with the women – the only ones left – afraid to too tell anyone about their encounter with an empty tomb and an  angel?  Don’t be afraid, don’t squirm, Jesus Christ is Risen Today.  Alleluia!” From my Easter Vigil Sermon, 2021

The Gospel reading for Easter Vigil, 2021, Mark 16:1-8

The Resurrection of Jesus

16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ² And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. ³ They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” ⁴ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. ⁵ As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. ⁶ But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. ⁷ But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” ⁸ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.^[a]

I always just take the sermon assignments my Priest allows me: this time I volunteered – the Great Vigil of Easter.  Jesus Christ is Risen Today. Alleluia.  Look around.  It doesn’t get any better than this, does it?  So I looked at the gospel.  The end of the Gospel of Mark.  Check.  It’s a short Gospel. Check.  I see the women.  Check. I often find a theme for a sermon at the end of the gospel, so I checked out the last verse.  “…they (the women) went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.  The End.  Where’s that, in Jesus Christ is risen today?  No problem.  I go to my beloved Professor, teacher of the only graduate level classes I’ve ever taken, Dr. Bob McClure, one of St. Richard’s resident Bible scholars.  He taught a two year class on the Gospel of Mark, and he certainly wasn’t just using material from the 16 chapters in Mark – you can read the whole gospel in two hours.  So I email him with a closeted plea for help.  You know what he said?  “As you know, I love Mark. As long as you don’t make me squirm by reading one of the others…”  Well, you’ve already heard the ending of Mark, but here’s the  first verse  – remember Mark was the first of the four Gospels, written in 65-75 CE, as many as 15 years before the next gospel, Matthew.  Chapter 1, verse 1: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  How does this short gospel, the Good News, end with the women – the only ones left – afraid to too tell anyone about their encounter with an empty tomb and an  angel?  Don’t be afraid, don’t squirm, Jesus Christ is Risen Today.  Alleluia!

Let’s look first at the main characters, other than Jesus, in Mark’s entire gospel.  They don’t appear in our gospel reading today, the 16^th chapter.  They don’t even appear in the previous chapter of Mark, chapter 15.  The last time we saw a disciple was at the end of Chapter 14 when Peter broke down and wept after denying Jesus three times.  Where are the disciples?  Some commentators believe they just went home.  Mark doesn’t really tell us if they did, but the disciples certainly aren’t anywhere to be found after the last night of Jesus’ life and Peter’s denial.  Some believe Mark’s gospel to be “precisely parallel” to an ancient text called the Gospel of Peter.  From that text: “Now it was the final day of the Unleavened Bread; and many went out returning to their home since the feast was over. But we twelve disciples of the Lord were weeping and sorrowful; and each one, sorrowful because of what had come to pass, departed to his home. But I, Simon Peter, and my brother Andrew, having taken our nets, went off to the sea.”  What we know from Mark, for sure, is that, during the Last Supper, perhaps only hours before Peter’s denial, Mark has Jesus telling his disciples: “But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”  This will form the testimony of the angel in today’s reading.  We also know that the women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome must have told someone about their encounter with the empty tomb and the angel – how else would their story be in today’s Gospel.  So now, let’s take a look at the women.  They’re actually in today’s gospel.

The women are the last of Jesus’ faithful followers still around after the last day of Jesus’ life, despite the apparent failure of his mission.  They want to anoint his body; but remember that Jesus has already been anointed by an unknown woman in Mark chapter 14 – remember the “men” giving her a hard time? Jesus rebuked them: “She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.”  The women in today’s gospel have been with Jesus at his crucifixion – looking on from a distance – and burial, the men nowhere to be found – but they too are human, like the men.  One commentator wonders if Mark uses this short, rather abrupt ending, to “point out the gulf between the power of God, and the powerlessness of human beings.”  Mark’s gospel was written for the community in which Mark lived, a community of human beings who had not yet come to terms with the idea of a “crucified Messiah.”  Perhaps the terror, amazement, and silence of the women is reflective of the community from which it was born.  Which brings us – to us; what do we powerless human beings do with Mark’s stark resurrection story.

You remember Paul’s letter the Romans that was just read?  Paul is about as “human” as man can get.  He was, at least in his own eyes, the supreme Pharisee, persecuting Jesus and his followers; he was even a murderer of Christians – until Jesus the Christ personally converted him, on the road to Damascus, long after the women ran away.  But Jesus used Paul to communicate the Good News at least a decade before Mark wrote his early gospel.  I know that because the only other master’s level class I’ve taken was Dr. McClure’s class on Paul’s letter to the Romans.  I remember the joy Bob had at having two fledging deacons, Shelley Gilchrist and I, sitting at his feet – for what, a year of Wednesday mornings?  Maybe he felt Shelley and I had to do Romans, before we’d be ready for the wonder and awe of Mark.  I don’t know how much Mark knew about Paul, or Paul knew about Mark, but both men leave out quite a bit of material found in the three, later, gospels.  In Paul’s letters, and Mark’s gospel, here’s no infancy narrative; no sermon on the mount; no foot washing on Maundy Thursday; nothing about what Jesus actually said to the Good Thief on the cross, St. Dismas ; no “it is finished” at the end.  But I think both evangelists end up in the same place – you just heard Paul say: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”  The women were witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus – of course they were terrified, amazed and afraid.  So was Paul when he was struck blind by Jesus.  And so are we, if we really take in the empty tomb and the angel’s testimony.

Pam Menke shared a song by David Haas during our Lenten series called “The Promise of Ashes.”  Here’s the last verse and refrain:

I am the Word that leads all to freedom.

I am the peace the world cannot give.

I will call your name, embracing all your pain, stand up now walk and live.

Do not be afraid I am with you.

I have called you each by name.

Come and follow me.

I will bring you home.

I love you and you are mine.

The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Alleluia!  Christ is Risen.

A Good Shepherd Sunday sermon

John 10:22-30

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

Praise God we’re not still in suspense like the Jews in today’s Gospel about who Jesus is.  You may remember at the Christmas Eve Vigil, only five months ago, we processed into church and we stopped – right back there; then we proclaimed the beginning of John’s Gospel.  That took the suspense out of everything for us.  Listen again to John’s Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

We know Jesus is the Word; we know Jesus is the Messiah.

But in today’s Gospel from John, ten chapters later, the Jews are in suspense, and the evangelist John isn’t being particularly helpful.  John has Jesus launching into the Good Shepherd story, and now the Jews are ready to stone or arrest Jesus.

It’s Good Shepherd Sunday, and Jesus is speaking to the Jews in a voice only his sheep can understand and the Jews just don’t, no, they can’t get it.  Today’s Gospel is 22 verses into the tenth chapter of John, and Jesus has been provoking the Jews since verse one.  They’re not only in suspense, they think “He has a demon and is out of his mind.”

Actually, today’s Good Shepherd gospel is the conclusion of John’s portrayal of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.  You may remember that the church uses the Revised Common Lectionary for its’ appointed scripture readings each week, using a three year cycle, to present the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in three successive years, sprinkling in some material from John’s gospel each year.  So this year, we get the end of the Good Shepherd narrative from John.  Last year on Good Shepherd Sunday, we got middle of the story, the year before, the beginning.  Those are pretty long intermissions in the in the story, so let me highlight Acts 1 and 2.

• There’s only one Good Shepherd – the rest are “thieves and bandits.”
• There’s only one way into the sheepfold – through the Good Shepherd, the Gate.
• There is abundant life in the sheepfold.
• The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, and the Father loves him because he lays down his life for his sheep.
• There are lost sheep to be brought into the flock – there will be one flock, one Shepherd.

In Act 3 of today’s gospel, Jesus finally and plainly answers the skeptical Jews: You don’t believe I’m the Messiah because you aren’t my sheep – yet.  Then Jesus tells them the great promise of life in the sheepfold: the sheep are not only in the hands of the Good Shepherd, they are in the hands of the Father; they will have “eternal life;” and no one can “snatch” the sheep out of the hands of the Good Shepherd and the Father…because “the Father and I are one.”  Game over.

I think we need an earthy Good Shepherd story in the midst of John’s soaring gospel  – and John provides just that; but, perhaps just as important, we need Good Shepherd experiences in our life to anchor the story.  If you think about it, I think you’ll find you have, or have had, some Good Shepherd’s in your life…I hope you have.  Here’s one of my best Good Shepherd experiences.

George is Kathie and my youngest son – and George has a Good Shepherd.  Ken Leonard is a high school Hall of Fame football coach back in Illinois, and Kathie and I became convinced the only way we would ever get George – who was a really good football player, and a really bad student – through high school, was to get him in Coach Leonard’s program – a football program that included activity in groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.  Coach not only got George through High School, he helped George get his first job after he earned his Associates Degree – a degree the counselor we had taken George to during High School said George could never complete.  The Coach, and Kathie and I, believed differently.  I gave a makeshift framed picture of the Good Shepherd to Coach Leonard after George’s High School graduation 15 years ago.  More recently, I replaced that picture with a Good Shepherd Icon that Bill Platt wrote – the image of Jesus carrying the lost sheep over His shoulder.  The Good Shepherd in today’s Gospel lives on in Good Shepherd’s like Ken Leonard – and women and men like you, doing God’s work in your flock.

So you do know…there is no suspense in the sheepfold.  In John’s Christmas Gospel we hear that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  We believe Jesus is the Messiah.   In today’s Gospel, we hear our Shepherd’s voice and know that we are safe, for all eternity.  In last week’s Gospel, we heard Jesus tell Peter, “Feed my sheep.” In a few minutes, we will be fed by the Good Shepherd – in our Eucharistic meal.  That’s when we really become “one Shepherd, one flock.”

But if you want see even more Good Shepherd’s work this morning…as you leave church…step just into our Memorial Garden.  It’s a beautifully serene place to contemplate life in the sheepfold.  As you let the work of our Good Shepherd Gardner, Janice Elsheimer, sink in, look to the right and you’ll see the tomato plant I saw her watering the other day.  She didn’t plant it, we don’t really know how it got there – well I guess we really do – it just appeared one day…but now, Janice is tending it…just like a Good Shepherd would…food for your soul, food for your body.  Praise God…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary, Thomas Merton and Maternal Love

I wrote this (actually Thomas Merton did) a few months before my mother died, a little over six years ago.  I don’t get many hits on this blog, but by far this is the most popular — even today.  

Yesterday was the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Mother of God into heaven. I’m not surprised that this feast is a difficult one for my non-Catholic sisters and brothers to understand; I am a little surprised that this may be a difficult concept for Catholic’s like me.  I’ve posted below an article I found by Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk Catholic writer and mystic.  Here’s an exerpt.

They imagine, and sometimes we can understand their reasons for doing so, that Catholics treat the Blessed Virgin as an almost divine being in her own right, as if she had some glory, some power, some majesty of her own that placed her on a level with Christ Himself.  They regard the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a kind of apotheosis (elevation to divine status) placed in the Redemption would seem to be equal to that of her Son. But this is all completely contrary to the true mind of the Catholic Church.

So how does this misconception about the Blessed Virgin miss the true mind of the Catholic Church?

It forgets that Mary’s chief glory is in her nothingness, in the fact of being the “Handmaid of the Lord,” as one who in becoming the Mother of God acted simply in loving submission to His command, in the pure obedience of faith

In Evening Prayer, every time I pray the Gospel Canticle of Mary, or the Magnificat, I can’t help but feel the Virgin Mary’s soul soar as she responds to her cousin Elizabeth’s loud cry, Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb – Luke 1: 42.  As I pray the Magnificat, I can’t hide from Mary’s humility before God, her praise not of what she has been chosen to do, but what God has done for her.  From Luke 1: 46-49:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my spirit rejoices in God my savior.

For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness;

behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.

The Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

 As Merton puts it, The glory of Mary is purely and simply the glory of God in her. and she, like anyone else, can say that she has nothing that she has not received from Him through Christ.

I grew up in a time that most of the Catholics I knew did, as Merton suggests, treat Mary more as Blessed Virgin, almost divine being in her own right.  And I’m proud to say I still know many who may, well, lean in that direction.  The best example may be my Mom.  And you know what?  If I can grow old with half the faith and grace she has, not just while she continually prays the rosary for all of us, but all the time; I’ll die a happy man.  Some of that’s my love of many of our older Catholic traditions and ways, more of it is because I see it working in Mom and the many like her who seem to have so much more faith than I, women and men.  But here’s one more thing from Merton about Mary…and mothers, wives, sisters, aunts, nieces and men who aren’t afraid of their feminine side.

In all the great mystery of Mary, then, one thing remains most clear: that of herself she is nothing, and that God has for our sakes delighted to manifest His glory and His love in her.

It is because she is, of all the saints, the most perfectly poor and the most perfectly hidden, the one who has absolutely nothing whatever that she attempts to possess as her own, that she can most fully communicate to the rest of us the grace of the infinitely selfless God.

…all our sanctity depends on her maternal love. The ones she desires to share the joy of her own poverty and simplicity, the ones whom she wills to be hidden as she is hidden, are the ones who share her closeness to God.

There Jesus Goes Again

Today’s Gospel (Mark 9: 42-48)

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.  If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.  And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell.  And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

Some of you may remember a political debate 40 years ago between President Jimmy Carter and Governor Ronald Reagan.  President Carter took issue with Governor Reagan’s position on, of all things, national health insurance; future President Reagan then threw out one of the best political one liners of all time.  Do any of you remember the Gipper shaking his head, smiling at President Carter, and then saying…“There you go again.”

Well, in today’s Gospel, here Jesus goes again.  If you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea – a millstone would look a lot like 3,000 pound stone collar. If your hand, or your foot, causes you to stumble – cut it off.  If your eye causes you to stumble – tear (or pluck) it out.  It would be better to be maimed than to have two hands and go to hell.  It would be better to be lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.  There Jesus goes again.

Even earlier in his political career, the saintly Jimmy Carter famously said: “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust.  I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”  Do you think Jesus told President Carter that it would be better for him to pluck out one of his eyes?  I didn’t have time this week to go to Plains, Georgia, and ask our 93 year old former President that question, maybe at one of his famous bible studies – so I’ll just hazard a guess as to his response: I think he’d say, “Obviously not.”

Actually I didn’t have to guess.  I just went to the St. Richard’s theological library and looked it up.  Dr. N.T. Wright, Bible scholar and popular author, says this: “Virtually all readers agree that these commands are not to be taken literally.”  Praise God.  But then, why are they there?  Dr. Wright offers two explanations: discipleship is difficult and demands sacrifice…and… there is a war on.  God is at work in the world, but so are the forces of evil.  Jesus warns us of the urgency of our situation, and the stakes involved – eternal life, life in the kingdom of God, the reign of God.  For Jesus, in today’s Gospel, It’s all about not stumbling.  In the case of the “little ones who believe in me” Jesus is speaking not of little children but new Christian believers – so, He says, it is better for us, the mature believers, to drown in a stone collar than to place a stumbling block in their path to eternal life.  For us, the mature ones, there is the same urgency not to stumble so as to avoid the fires of hell – to do whatever it takes to gain eternal life and enter the kingdom of God.

Pistol Pete Maravich, the all-time NCAA men’s basketball scoring leader (before there was even such a thing as a 3 pointer) and NBA star, was a moppy haired, basketball showman – perhaps the greatest creative offensive talent in basketball history.  At 35 years of age, after retirement from the NBA and a number of years of wild living and heavy drinking, Pistol Pete finally found happiness in Christ.  At 40 he was on fire for the Lord.  A well-known Christian child psychologist had Pete on his morning radio show, and after the interview they adjourned to the gym for a pick-up game of basketball.  Pete told the psychologist that he had experienced pain in his shoulder for over a year, but that now he felt great…  Those would be his last words.  A few minutes later, Pistol Pete Maravich collapsed on the gym floor and died of a previously undetected congenital heart defect.   The Christian child psychologist went home later that day and said this to his 17 year old son: “Ryan, what happened to Pete wasn’t an isolated event. This is the human condition. This is all of us. It will happen to me some day.  Pete Maravich didn’t have an opportunity to speak with his family one last time. But I want to tell you, be there. On resurrection morning, be there. I will be looking for you then. Nothing else matters. Be there.”

I think this is the urgency Jesus wants us to see when He uses our hands, feet, and, yes, our eyes to illustrate the urgency of the spiritual warfare we are engaged in as Disciples of Christ.  Urgency is my word.  But in the first Chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Mark uses a different word – immediate – to illustrate his sense of urgency.  You’ll remember Jesus passing along the Sea of Galilee looking for fishers of men.  He’s looking for men with experience in nets, the nets they used to fish…for fish; Jesus is looking for men with experience in “casting” and “mending” those nets. Men like Simon, Andrew, James and John.  And when Jesus finds them, He “immediately” calls them – and “immediately” they leave nets, fathers, boats, their hired hands – who knows what else – to follow Jesus.  There’s immediacy to being a Disciple of Christ; and in today’s Gospel from Mark 9, that’s what Jesus wants us to see.  The Gospel story today is about “being there” on resurrection morning, it’s about the urgency and immediacy of getting into the kingdom of God, and making reasonable sacrifices to remove any stumbling blocks in our path to eternal life.  For our Christian psychologist, and his son, “resurrection morning” is the only thing that matters.

But, just as important as “resurrection morning”…is “this morning.”  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says: “…the kingdom of God is among you” – within you, this morning.  Cynthia Bourgeault says “you don’t die into the kingdom of God, you awaken into it.”  Historian Diana Butler Bass writes, “for all the complexity of primitive Christianity, a startling idea runs through early records of faith: Christianity seems to have succeeded because it transformed the lives of people in a chaotic world.  In the early church, Christianity was not so much about doctrines or eternal salvation, but about how to live a better life here and now within the ‘Reign of God.’  So, the urgency is not just about having a grand evacuation plan from this world to the next – as important as that is; the urgency is also to live in the kingdom of God in our midst.

We’ll do that – hopefully with urgency and immediacy – when we receive the body and blood of Jesus in a few minutes.  We’ll do it at the end of this service when the Peace we have exchanged in this sacred space bursts through those doors to our coffee hour, and into the world.

There we go again…

 

 

 

Eucharist: feed on that for the rest of your life

Metaphor is a figure of speech that makes an implicit, implied, or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated, but which share some common characteristics.

Let me give you an example.  Let’s say I wanted to communicate to you that a woman, Helen, is grieving the loss of her child.  I could just state the facts literally: “Helen is grieving over the death of her child.”  Or I could try to communicate the same fact in a way that may convey a deeper meaning about Helen’s grief: “Helen is drowning in a sea of grief.”  That paints a different picture doesn’t it?  Obviously Helen isn’t drowning in the sea, but with the metaphor, you know more vividly the grief Helen is experiencing.  Most of the time in religious language there is more going on than just stating the facts can communicate.

The word metaphor comes from the Greek and means “to carry across” – to carry a meaning (a word, a phrase, a story) across – in order to carry us across.   Richard Rohr continues: “All religious language is metaphor by necessity. It’s always pointing toward this Mystery that you don’t know – until you have experienced it. Without the experience, the metaphors largely remain empty.   The metaphors religions use are usually true, (like in today’s Gospel), but we too often defend (and argue about) the words instead of seeking the experience itself. Thomas Merton once said that when you hear Jesus say that you must “eat my flesh and drink my blood” you are supposed to stop breathing for a few minutes. Instead, we just argue about it.”

Have I told you lately how much I love being a deacon at St. Richard’s?  One of the reasons is I get a few months in-between my sermons to prepare – and I’ve been arguing with myself about what the words in today’s Gospel mean since April.  Jesus tells the Jews, including his disciples, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  And the argument is on.  “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  And rather than patiently explaining all this to the Jews, or his disciples, Jesus literally doubles down: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Now Jesus brings drinking blood into his teaching, knowing full well that drinking blood is particularly offensive to Jews.  The argument will continue into next week’s Gospel, when even his disciples will enter into the complaining: “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”  The arguing and complaining will culminate with many of Jesus’ disciples turning away from Him, and Jesus will ask the 12 “chosen” disciples, “Do you also wish to go away?”

When I first read these Gospels in April my first thought was that Jesus was using these words quite literally – after all, He seems willing to let his 12 disciples walk away over them.  But that isn’t what the Lord, with a little help from my friends, showed me.

We’ve been mired in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel for four Sunday’s now – almost as long as it takes to study a few bible verses in a St. Richard’s Bible Study led by Alison, Bob McClure, or Jim Christoph.  We are getting closer to the end, but what do we do with these stark, even confrontational words of Jesus?  Do we take them literally?  Or, is the language of metaphor big enough, and true enough, to help us begin to get our head around the mystery of eating the flesh, and drinking the blood, of our Savior Jesus Christ?

When you heard the Gospel today, and Jesus said you have to eat his flesh and drink his blood, did you hear that literally?  Was Jesus asking us to become cannibals or vampires?  When he said he was the “living bread come down from heaven” did you think he had come down literally as a loaf of bread, a part of the food group we call “Grains?”  I hope you didn’t.  Jesus was using, as he often did, metaphor to communicate a deeper meaning to us about what we’ve come to call Eucharist – another word from the Greek meaning “thanksgiving.” Eucharist is the sacramental, principal act of Christian worship; Christ’s body and blood are really present as we receive them, celebrating Christ’s presence in our gathered Eucharistic community – that’s us.  Praise God.

Any good nutritionist will tell you “you are what you eat;” but 1600 years ago St. Augustine, trying to explain Eucharist, played the big metaphor, the big truth card when he said: “Eat it and know who you are.”  Augustine wasn’t talking about the nutrients in food that literally provide the foundation of the structure, function, and integrity of every little cell in your body – literally “who you are.”  He’s talking about who you become in Christ after eating his body and blood.

Mahatma Gandhi said: “There are so many hungry people in the world that God could only come into the world in the form of food.”  Gandhi is not talking literally about food, at least not the food that perishes; he’s talking about the food that does not perish, he’s talking about the food that endures for eternal life – the food provided by the Son of Man.  We too are the hungry people in the world that Gandhi spoke of.  We too are the five thousand Jesus feeds in Mark 6.  I’ve been taught that the consecration of the Eucharist is not complete until we actually get up, walk down the aisle, and receive the body and blood, the real presence of Jesus.  Our attendance, our hunger, our participation is required for the transformation to be complete.  It is as we physically experience the Eucharist each week, that the metaphor becomes more and more real to us.

So far this morning we’ve praised the Lord in song, heard God’s word proclaimed, begun to listened to a sermon — and in a few minutes, we’ll say what we believe, we’ll pray for all the sisters and brothers, we’ll ask the Lord for forgiveness…and then we’ll get to the heart of the matter.  Our priest, Harry, will consecrate our gifts of bread and wine, and they will become the real presence of Jesus – when we receive the body and blood at communion – “that He may dwell in us, and we in Him.”  As Jesus says: “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread…will live forever.”

Feed on that for the rest of your eternal life.

 

 

 

 

 

The Best View

From a 2014 Theological Reflection for my Clinical Pastoral Education class.

I’m sitting in my 35 year old recliner watching the Illinois River flow north.  The sun has just come up and it’s easy to see it calmly rolling the wrong way.  There is a 16 mph wind from the southeast.  I know there are only a few rivers that flow south to north in the United States; and the Illinois isn’t one of them.  I have been on one of them, the St. John’s River in central and northern Florida.  The St. John’s is a backwater stream, fed by swamps and marshes starting southeast of Orlando, and beginning a “lazy,” meandering flow north to Jacksonville and the Atlantic Ocean.  I’ve seen alligators and manatees (sometimes known as sea cows) while boating up the river, the manatees protected from boaters like me by numerous no wake zones.

If I just let my boat drift on the St. John’s, we will lazily float north.  If I were out on the Illinois right now, I’d see the top of the water deceptively flowing north while the current grabs me and lets me know once again that I can’t really see who’s really in charge.

²⁷ At noon Elijah started making fun of them: “Pray louder! He is a god! Maybe he is day-dreaming or relieving himself, or perhaps he’s gone off on a trip! Or maybe he’s sleeping, and you’ve got to wake him up!” ²⁸ So the prophets prayed louder and cut themselves with knives and daggers, according to their ritual, until blood flowed. ²⁹ They kept on ranting and raving until the middle of the afternoon; but no answer came, not a sound was heard.  1 Kings 18:27-29

Elijah is at his best this day; looks like he’s in charge.  “The worst troublemaker in Israel” confronts King Ahab in 1 Kings 18.  “Now order all the people of Israel to meet me at Mount Carmel. Bring along the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the goddess Asherah who are supported by Queen Jezebel.”  Apparently Queen Jezebel is omitted from the invitation.

You know the story.  Elijah not only confronts, he humiliates; and ultimately kills the 450 prophets of Baal.

All this bravado and victory lasts only until King Ahab can run home, ahead of the coming storm, and tell Queen Jezebel “everything Elijah had done.”  It takes only two more sentences in 1 Kings 19 to turn Elijah’s thrill of victory into the agony of defeat, and he is afraid and on the run.  Now who’s in charge?

That’s how quickly it happens to me too.  One minute, in a boat on a river, I can clearly see the river current flowing north, the next minute the real current grabs me, and I’m on the run in a different direction.

Just over 40 days later, Elijah makes it to Sinai, the holy mountain, and spends the night in a cave.  Then, suddenly, the Lord speaks to him.  “Elijah, what are you doing here?”

Elijah tells the story that the Lord already knows, and the Lord responds.

¹¹ “Go out and stand before me on top of the mountain,” the Lord said to him. Then the Lord passed by and sent a furious wind that split the hills and shattered the rocks—but the Lord was not in the wind. The wind stopped blowing, and then there was an earthquake—but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake there was a fire—but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the soft whisper of a voice. 

1 Kings 19:11-12

Elijah comes out of the cave, covers his face with his “cloak,” and he hears the “soft whisper” of the voice; again, “Elijah, what are you doing here?”  Once more Elijah tells the story that the Lord already knows, and the Lord sends him back, but reinforced and not alone.  It has taken just over a 40 day journey, a “furious wind,” an earthquake, and a fire, but Elijah finally hears enough to know who’s really in charge, and he’s ready to return, armed with only a promise.

It’s so easy for me to see and think I know what’s going on, who’s in charge; and like Elijah, I’m quick to act on that first look, and do it with “bravado.”   One of my teachers speaks of “third eye seeing.”

The third man saw the sunset, knowing and enjoying all that the first and the second men did. But in his ability to progress from seeing to explaining to “tasting,” he also remained in awe before an underlying mystery, coherence, and spaciousness that connected him with everything else. He used his third eye, which is the full goal of all seeing and all knowing. This was the best.

I’m a “second eye” seer; I appreciate the beauty of seeing, but I also love to think it through, to understand it, maybe even be able to explain it.  That works pretty well most of the time; but then I run into Jezebel.  I see her, I think I understand her, and then, like Elijah, I get scared and run away.  Eventually, God will break through.  It doesn’t usually take 40 days, a “furious wind,” an earthquake, or a fire, but it takes a while.

You can really see the waves and whitecaps on the Illinois River when the barge comes into view, travelling south, its’ bow breaking through the waves and whitecaps.  Now as the massive barge battles the northern flow of the top of the river, your first eye sees that the river is flowing the wrong way – it is a good view; your second eye sees and appreciates what that looks like, but understands the current that runs ever south beneath the waves and whitecaps – this is a better view; can I use my third eye to “remain in awe before the underlying mystery, coherence, and spaciousness that” connects everything, the beauty of the waves and whitecaps flowing the wrong way, majesty of the barge, the power of the wind and the current?  This will be the best view, perhaps like Elijah’s view on Sinai.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Believing…

(This is a sermon from this time last year for one of my homiletic classes).

As a hospital chaplain, I worked extensively with patients and their families in Hospice.  All of the time, we believed that our patient would soon die; most of the time, they did.  Early in my work I found a wonderful little prayer book that included today’s Gospel passage (John, Jesus raises Lazarus) among its prayers for the dying or dead.  At first, I didn’t think this passage would work.  Most often when I was called to Hospice, a patient was “actively” dying; we all knew Jesus was probably not going to save our patient, much less raise her from the dead.  Why would I tell a story about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead to a family whose loved one was about to die?   But for some reason, one day I used it.

Picture this.  My patient is not responsive.  We’re circled around her bed, touching her and each other wherever we can.  Can you remember the times you’ve been in that circle?  I start reading the opening of the Lazarus passage.  Martha is telling Jesus that if He’d have been there her brother would not have died, and then Martha responds to Jesus with a textbook answer from our faith: “I know Lazarus will rise in the resurrection, on the last day.” In the hospital room most of us in the circle are familiar with Martha’s statement of faith – but somehow that is not enough for us right now.  How could any prayer or Scripture be enough?  Thank God it is not enough for Jesus either, so He continues, perhaps speaking as directly to you and me, as He did to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life.  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?  Back in the circle around our dying patient, without fail, at least one of us in the circle will respond with Martha – “Yes.”  “Yes Lord I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”  And that’s all it takes.  Just one “Yes.”  I’m pretty sure most of us don’t really understands what we’ve said “Yes” to, but I believe with all my heart that any “Yes” is enough – because when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, He knows that at that precise moment, we are truly ready for something far beyond ourselves to believe in.  And that is what this story is about.  Believing.

When Jesus hears that Lazarus, the one he loves is ill, he tells his disciples: “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it.”  Jesus will now wait two days before he decides to travel back to Judea, to Bethany, near Jerusalem, where Lazarus, Martha, and Mary live.  “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.  But let us go to him.”  This is a hard statement.  But from the start of this story Jesus is primarily focused on glorifying God and the belief, or unbelief, of the disciples, rather than death of Lazarus.  This is hard for us – especially poor Martha.

Jesus has now arrived in Bethany; Martha rushes out to meet him. You remember Martha.  She’s the one who is always busy taking care of everybody and everything else while sister Mary sits quietly at the feet of Jesus.  Imagine the scene as Martha approaches Jesus.  “Lazarus, my brother, is dead!  I can’t even get Mary to come out of the house!  And those professional Jewish mourners, wailing and eating – and you know who is feeding and cleaning up after them!  Where have you been for the last four days?  Didn’t you get my message?”  It is sooooo hard for Martha, and us – until the Master is standing right in front of you.  Even the hard charging, bustling Martha finally pauses just long enough to say “Yes” to her Savior.

But the moment won’t last long, and Jesus knows that.  In fact He weeps over it.  Jesus eventually gets to see Martha’s sister Mary, Mary who had previously anointed him with perfume, and wiped His feet with her hair; Mary, who is now weeping, consumed by a deep and profound grief – the grief we all feel when we’re in that circle around the death bed of a loved one.  It is so hard that Jesus weeps.  He even weeps over the Jews who follow Mary out to Him – but Jesus is also “greatly disturbed.”  Was he disturbed by fact that the consequence of sin is death?  Was he disturbed by the sheer volume of the Jewish expression of grief, especially the wailing?  We don’t know for sure.  We do know that in our grief we are like Jesus: “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”  Just like Jesus’ disciples, Martha and Mary, and Jewish mourners, we just don’t understand – and perhaps that is exactly why Jesus has come to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead

In Jesus’ final exchange with Martha, and if we’re honest, with each of us, can’t you just picture Jesus shaking his head as we caution him against removing the stone from Lazarus’ tomb, as we remind the Son of God that Lazarus is four days dead, and “already there is a stench”?  It is so hard for us – but, praise God, Jesus is sooooo  patient.  Jesus finally convinces us to remove the stone, stench and all – again we finally say “Yes”; and now Jesus is finally ready to invoke His Father in heaven: “Father, I thank you for having heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”  Lazarus – this is a story about Lazarus, isn’t it? – Lazarus walks out of the tomb and Jesus says, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

I wonder who really got “unbound” that day.  Certainly Lazarus did.  But what about Martha and Mary?  What about the disciples, and the “crowd” Jesus petitions his Father about?  What about you and I, in the circle around our loved one’s bed, after we’ve joined Martha in her grief-filled “Yes” to the Jesus question: “do you believe this?”  Maybe the story isn’t just about Lazarus being raised from the dead, unbound by Jesus the Christ.  Maybe the story isn’t just about our loved one dying in our circle of love – after all, she is finally going home, isn’t she?  Maybe it’s about all of us saying “Yes,” believing, so that even in the face of in death, Jesus can unbind us too.

Mortality, Treasure, Heart: my Ash Wednesday sermon

Mortality…Treasure…Heart.  Where and how can we mortals find our treasure and heart this Lenten season…

Mortality.  One year ago, on Ash Wednesday, I wrote my Ember Day letter to the bishop.  Once I became a “Postulant” for ordination to the diaconate, I was required to write a letter to the bishop on each of four “Ember” Days in the church year.  Ash Wednesday is an Ember Day, so is Pentecost.  So one year ago this day I wrote the bishop.  The only reason I remember writing the letter was that I found it a few months later as I prepared my Pentecost letter.  That’s because last year, the day after Ash Wednesday, Kathie and I flew to Chicago for our granddaughter’s State Basketball Tournament; and I suffered a cardiac arrest.  I have no memory of flying to Chicago that day.  I have no memory of Ash Wednesday last year.  But I do have a much greater sense of my mortality today, on this Ash Wednesday.  Don’t we all have our own story that grounds us in our mortality?

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of our 40 days of preparation for Easter; and the ashes we will receive, are, according to the Book of Common Prayer, a “sign of penitence and a reminder of mortality.”  In the book of Genesis (19) we are told: …By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  And as we just heard in Psalm 103: For God knows how we were made; God remembers that we are dust.  On this Ash Wednesday we remember, and we will be marked with ashes, by our mortality.

Treasure.  In today’s Gospel Matthew tells us:  Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust^[ consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.  We hear on the news every day about “break-ins” and other crimes. Well, we have breaking news for you; you’re in the Situation Room with Wolf, whoops, not Wolf Blitzer, but with St. Cyprian.

St. Cyprian was a bishop and martyr just 250 years after the death of Jesus Christ –and I’ve just been handed a great piece of reporting from him.

The true state of affairs is this.  (The Emperor) Valerian has issued an edict to the Senate to the effect that bishops, presbyters and deacons shall suffer the death penalty without delay.

Saint Sixtus II, bishop of the Church of Rome (the Pope), was arrested while celebrating the sacred liturgy in the year 257 by order of the Emperor.   He was put to death with four deacons.  And four days later, another deacon, Saint Lawrence, became a martyr of the same persecution.  (My middle name is Lawrence.)

But Valerian wasn’t just after bishops, presbyters and deacons.  He was after Christian Senators, distinguished men and members of the equestrian class, Ladies of the upper class, even members of the imperial staff.  St. Cyprian’s message in the midst of all this?  Let all our people (all Christians…you) fix their minds not on death but rather on immortality; let them commit themselves to the Lord in complete faith and unflinching courage and make their confession with joy rather than in fear, knowing that in this contest the soldiers of God and Christ are not slain but rather win their crowns.

Now St. Lawrence was one of seven deacons in charge of the “purse” from which they took care of the poor, the sick, and the needy.  It is said that after the death of the Pope, Lawrence gave them the rest of the money in the “purse.”  He even sold expensive vessels in order to give more money away.  When ordered by the Prefect of Rome, a greedy pagan, to deliver the church’s treasure, he gathered together the city’s poor, needy and sick and presented them to the Prefect.  Deacon Lawrence said: This is the Church’s treasure!

For this, Lawrence suffered a slow, agonizing death – he was slowly roasted on an iron grill over a fire.

So how do we store treasures in heaven?  For St. Lawrence, it was selling all of the churches worldly goods and distributing all the money to those in need – talk about redistributing wealth.

For us, we may hear a call to a greater piety, perhaps to give alms, pray, and fast.  In today’s Gospel, though, Matthew is more concerned with how we practice our “piety”.  He tells us: …when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  So do it, but don’t look like you’re doing it.

Psalm 103 mentions a few of the “rewards” or “benefits” – treasures – God wants to give us as we secretly practice our piety:  justice, mercy, healing, redemption, compassion, kindness – but we can’t tell anybody how we got them!    Most important?  God removes our sins as far as the (which way is east?) east is from the west.    So all of our “rewards” and “benefits” from God, are the kinds of “treasure” Matthew advises us to store in heaven.  Certainly they aren’t the kind of treasure that can be consumed by moths or rust, nor can a thief break in and steal them.

Heart.  Perhaps the most important thing is now that we’ve found our treasure…we’ve also found our heart.  As Matthew says today, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Which brings us back to the Old Testament reading from the Prophet Joel: “…even now, says the lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; rend your hearts not your clothing.

Here’s what Fr. Richard Rohr says about Joel:

The prophet Joel poetically and dramatically tells us “to rend our hearts and not our garments,” revealing an early Jewish movement toward interiority and purification of one’s real motivation (Repeat).   No one will ever be able to ask such an enlightened people, “Where is their God?” Such a God will be obvious and victorious—through and in peoples’ changed hearts and lives.

“Enlightened people,” this God who created you mortal, who provides you with rewards, benefits –treasure, this God whom you rend your heart to  this Lenten season is “obvious and victorious”… precisely in you.

In today’s reading from 2 Corinthians, we find more treasure: Paul speaks of ⁶purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love…  As you prepare to receive your ashes, and more importantly, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, may I offer treasure from Paul, found in his letter to the Philippians – a few more things you might consider offering the Lord this Lenten season.

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!  ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  ⁸ Finally, sisters and brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

These too are treasures we mortals can store in heaven – and “Yes,” there we will find our heart.  Amen.