When my brothers and I were growing up on the San Francisco peninsula, our Grandma Maxine came all the way out from Florida to visit us. She taught us two things, how to say the Lord’s Prayer and how to spit watermelon seeds. As she was putting us to bed, she prompted us to say our prayers – but we didn’t know any. “Do you know the Lord’s Prayer?” “No.” “Well, then, I’ll teach you.”
And she did. The next afternoon we were eating watermelon – and she asked us if we knew how to spit watermelon seeds. “No.” “Well, then, I’ll teach you.” She led us over to the edge of the lawn, where my father had just dumped some new fill dirt for the garden. We all stood there, Grandma Maxine and all us boys, spitting watermelon seeds out over the edge of the lawn. Then we went away and forgot all about it. A few weeks later, however, we had watermelon vines growing at the edge of our lawn.
I think it was the start of my brother Dave’s gardening avocation. And I think it planted something in me, as the Lord’s Prayer began to establish itself in my life.
We plant seeds through small deeds – and have them planted in our lives. From simple acts of kindness – or parenting – great things can grow.
Over the years of my life many small seeds have been sown.
Chuck, a kid in my class in elementary school, invited me to come with him to the Good News Club. You got prizes if you memorized Bible verses. I still remember some of them.
In tenth grade my neighbor Adrienne hosted Young Life meetings at her house, so I went to check it out. I was greeted with a warm welcome, and there I learned that I’ve got a friend in Jesus, and I began to accept that gift.
During freshman year in college, my roommate Scott invited me along to a Bible study – and there I met Joe and Deedie, Shannon and Richard and Bruce, all of whom became important nurtures of my growing Christian faith.
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed – which is so small, but grows into something great and sheltering. It grows even behind our backs, while we are not looking – and suddenly there it is looming over us, giving us shade, filled with birds.
I have a problem in my garden. I have two small plants in pots that grew from seed, in one case a volunteer, in the other carefully nurtured from the minuscule. The two little plants are a saguaro and a redwood. In a few hundred years the saguaro could be 40 feet tall and weigh 10,000 pounds. And you know what happens with redwoods.
Trees are like green explosions in slow motion – we may not notice what is really going on because it is happening at a speed and with an elegant silence we do not perceive.
When I left the publishing industry – I had been in the book business since graduating from seminary – I left South Bend Indiana in a freezing rain in February, and drove hundreds of miles across the brown dry crust of the continent until I crested Tehachapi Pass. There for the first time in 2000 miles I saw green, in the great valley spread below me as far as I could see. And when I got to the Sonoma Valley there was mustard flowering between the rows of vines.
Something had been left behind, left in the earth; something, too, had been buried, and then, weeks later, something new began to grow. I did not know what it would look like. I only knew that it was growing.
We may not like the ways things are growing. We are not called to. We are simply called to be faithful, to care for what God planted, and to spread some seeds around.
We are called to grow, not to bend ourselves to others’ liking, but holding to the truth of our making, to grow into the image and likeness of God, into the fullness of the stature of Christ.
This may be hard in today’s church – as I gave this sermon for the first time we heard of the distress of many at General Convention as our bishop-elect was interrogated in confirmation hearings. We want the kingdom to go forward, to spread the good news. As I completed the sermon our archdeacon was waiting in the wings to tell us good news things were also emerging at the convention: Bishop Katharine had just been elected Presiding Bishop.
A few weeks later, I had the chance to thank some one I had meant to thank for years. Amy was a star of Christian music – and then she got a divorce. I thanked here because she did not try to bend herself into the shape others demanded of her, for their approval, but continued to be true to herself. She is still a singer.
Mark 4.26-34
for 6/17/06 12.45pm at Trinity Cathedral Sacramento
And again, for preaching workshop at CDSP, July 19, 2006
JRL
Thursday, April 26, 2007
a handful of raisins
A Handful of Raisins
One of my college professors went on sabbatical in the Holy Land and came back and told us this story. Donald Nicholl and John Thornton, both on sabbatical at Tantur Ecumenical Study Institute outside Jerusalem, went running together. The hills there are hot and dusty, and the paths are covered with that loose gritty dirt that slides under your feet. One morning Donald and John were running pretty fast when they came to a place where the path turned sharply and plunged quickly down a steep slope. They went pell-mell down the path, unable to stop, sliding on that loose soil. As they came precipitously down the hill they passed a group of men, day laborers, toiling up the hill on their way to work. There were three or four of them. John flashed past them, then Donald came through. As he passed the last man in the line, that man reached out his hand and clapped into Donald's palm a handful of raisins. "You look thirsty," he said.
Donald just couldn't stop telling the story. He was greatly impressed by what he saw as the spontaneity of the gesture.
What I am impressed with, as I recollect the story now, is - the man was ready. He was as prepared for that act of spontaneous generosity and sympathetic charity as the grapes are to be picked from the vine when their time is ripe. As the grapes grow on the branch and the branch abides in the vine, so his heart was prepared, making room for the charity of God through faithful and obedient love - which came to fruition when grapes, picked and dried, were passed from one man's hand to another: a handful of raisins for a thirsty stranger.
Consider the Appleseed
What does it mean to 'bear fruit, fruit that will last'? While I was puzzling that out, I picked up a book a friend had recommended, "The Botany of Desire". What I learned is that an apple never "comes true" from seed, that is, the seed never produces a perfect genetic copy of the parent tree-not even close. Grafts, yes, are copies, made by hand when a particular tree's fruit - the Delicious, the Jonathan - is found peculiarly desirable. But apple seedlings each carry their own unique code, and every generation produces millions of new possibilities. Every apple seed is full of surprises - it contains the genetic instructions for a completely new and different apple tree. If not for grafting, every apple in the world would be its own distinct variety. And so it is for each new generation of seedlings.
The botanical term for this variation is "heterozygosity" - and apples have got it, even more than we have. It is the apple's genetic variability, its inescapable wildness, that accounts for its ability to flourish in new climates and places. Wherever in the world apple seeds are planted, new varieties arise, possessing qualities among them that allow apple trees to bloom where they're planted and bear fruit across the world.
In this profligate variegation of fruits, this wildness, is the preservation of the world: each bearing branch and each fruit that grows uniquely embodies the gifts of its making, - just as each of us Christ-bearers brings a new combination of gifts and a new way of embodying the message of God to our own place in the world. The fruit we bear, each one, is a unique contribution to the whole, and carries in it millions of possibilities for the next generation. In combination with the gifts of others, the fruits of our love and obedience produce results beyond our mortal ken - in the kingdom that lasts, that is the reign of God.
Lesslie Newbigin, in his commentary on this gospel, explains that the fruit that lasts, the fruit that we - disciples, friends - are to bear is love manifested in obedience, and obedience manifested in love.
His command is this: "Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:12-13, NIV)
What that would look like we know in full through the death of Jesus on the cross. We know it also through his reflected image in the lives of the saints. Jonathan Daniels was a student at the seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts - his fieldwork parish was Saint Clement's off Broadway in New York City. When the call went out for volunteers to go to Selma to march with Martin Luther King for civil rights, he got on the bus. And he spent the summer in Alabama, working in a voter registration drive. He wrote back to Saint Clement's - I've seen the letter there - explaining what he felt he had to do and what he knew it might cost him: his life. In a small town he was arrested along with his comrades. When they were released on bail, four of them went to enter a local shop. A man with a shotgun met them at the door, and told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a sixteen-year-old student, Ruby Sales. Jonathan pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. He was killed instantly.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
In 1998 Ruby Sales graduated from the Episcopal seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2000 she launched SpiritHouse, a non-profit organization, which aims to achieve a non-violent and just world through exploring the legacy of American violence, racism and sexism.
Love manifested in obedience, and obedience manifested in love, the fruit that lasts, is simply the life of Jesus, the true vine, being made visible in the world. The disciple has only one task, to abide in the vine; the grower does the rest. And the fruit will come, in the fullness of time.
I see that ripeness, that readiness, made manifest in a handful of raisins that Donald Nicholl received on the trail. And I see that readiness in the story of Ruby Sales and Jonathan Daniels, when a more terrible, more final, gift was given. As Jesus in his obedience made manifest the profligate love of God in pouring out his life for the world, so his disciples show forth that love, obeying his command, loving one another, and reproducing that life poured out in the world.
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the abundant love of God, and the fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit, abide with us all. Amen.
Sources:
Jonathan Daniels & Ruby Sales:
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Jonathan_Daniels.htm
http://www.crmvet.org/mem/danielsj.htm
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=607
Lesser Feast and Fasts (Church Publishing, 2003)
Donald Nicholl, recollections from a lecture in Cowell College, Santa Cruz, in the 1970s.
John Thornton, recollections of an interview at Trinity Church, San Francisco, in the 1980s.
Peter Kirkup, conversation, yesterday, about our teacher Donald Nicholl.
The Botany of Desire : A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan (Random House, 2001). [Thanks, Linda.]
The Light Has Come: An Exposition of the Fourth Gospel by Lesslie Newbigin (Eerdmans, 1982)
A sermon on the Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B RCL
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento. May 21, 2006
Holy Eucharist 12:45 p.m.
JRL+
One of my college professors went on sabbatical in the Holy Land and came back and told us this story. Donald Nicholl and John Thornton, both on sabbatical at Tantur Ecumenical Study Institute outside Jerusalem, went running together. The hills there are hot and dusty, and the paths are covered with that loose gritty dirt that slides under your feet. One morning Donald and John were running pretty fast when they came to a place where the path turned sharply and plunged quickly down a steep slope. They went pell-mell down the path, unable to stop, sliding on that loose soil. As they came precipitously down the hill they passed a group of men, day laborers, toiling up the hill on their way to work. There were three or four of them. John flashed past them, then Donald came through. As he passed the last man in the line, that man reached out his hand and clapped into Donald's palm a handful of raisins. "You look thirsty," he said.
Donald just couldn't stop telling the story. He was greatly impressed by what he saw as the spontaneity of the gesture.
What I am impressed with, as I recollect the story now, is - the man was ready. He was as prepared for that act of spontaneous generosity and sympathetic charity as the grapes are to be picked from the vine when their time is ripe. As the grapes grow on the branch and the branch abides in the vine, so his heart was prepared, making room for the charity of God through faithful and obedient love - which came to fruition when grapes, picked and dried, were passed from one man's hand to another: a handful of raisins for a thirsty stranger.
Consider the Appleseed
What does it mean to 'bear fruit, fruit that will last'? While I was puzzling that out, I picked up a book a friend had recommended, "The Botany of Desire". What I learned is that an apple never "comes true" from seed, that is, the seed never produces a perfect genetic copy of the parent tree-not even close. Grafts, yes, are copies, made by hand when a particular tree's fruit - the Delicious, the Jonathan - is found peculiarly desirable. But apple seedlings each carry their own unique code, and every generation produces millions of new possibilities. Every apple seed is full of surprises - it contains the genetic instructions for a completely new and different apple tree. If not for grafting, every apple in the world would be its own distinct variety. And so it is for each new generation of seedlings.
The botanical term for this variation is "heterozygosity" - and apples have got it, even more than we have. It is the apple's genetic variability, its inescapable wildness, that accounts for its ability to flourish in new climates and places. Wherever in the world apple seeds are planted, new varieties arise, possessing qualities among them that allow apple trees to bloom where they're planted and bear fruit across the world.
In this profligate variegation of fruits, this wildness, is the preservation of the world: each bearing branch and each fruit that grows uniquely embodies the gifts of its making, - just as each of us Christ-bearers brings a new combination of gifts and a new way of embodying the message of God to our own place in the world. The fruit we bear, each one, is a unique contribution to the whole, and carries in it millions of possibilities for the next generation. In combination with the gifts of others, the fruits of our love and obedience produce results beyond our mortal ken - in the kingdom that lasts, that is the reign of God.
Lesslie Newbigin, in his commentary on this gospel, explains that the fruit that lasts, the fruit that we - disciples, friends - are to bear is love manifested in obedience, and obedience manifested in love.
His command is this: "Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:12-13, NIV)
What that would look like we know in full through the death of Jesus on the cross. We know it also through his reflected image in the lives of the saints. Jonathan Daniels was a student at the seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts - his fieldwork parish was Saint Clement's off Broadway in New York City. When the call went out for volunteers to go to Selma to march with Martin Luther King for civil rights, he got on the bus. And he spent the summer in Alabama, working in a voter registration drive. He wrote back to Saint Clement's - I've seen the letter there - explaining what he felt he had to do and what he knew it might cost him: his life. In a small town he was arrested along with his comrades. When they were released on bail, four of them went to enter a local shop. A man with a shotgun met them at the door, and told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a sixteen-year-old student, Ruby Sales. Jonathan pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. He was killed instantly.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
In 1998 Ruby Sales graduated from the Episcopal seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2000 she launched SpiritHouse, a non-profit organization, which aims to achieve a non-violent and just world through exploring the legacy of American violence, racism and sexism.
Love manifested in obedience, and obedience manifested in love, the fruit that lasts, is simply the life of Jesus, the true vine, being made visible in the world. The disciple has only one task, to abide in the vine; the grower does the rest. And the fruit will come, in the fullness of time.
I see that ripeness, that readiness, made manifest in a handful of raisins that Donald Nicholl received on the trail. And I see that readiness in the story of Ruby Sales and Jonathan Daniels, when a more terrible, more final, gift was given. As Jesus in his obedience made manifest the profligate love of God in pouring out his life for the world, so his disciples show forth that love, obeying his command, loving one another, and reproducing that life poured out in the world.
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the abundant love of God, and the fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit, abide with us all. Amen.
Sources:
Jonathan Daniels & Ruby Sales:
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Jonathan_Daniels.htm
http://www.crmvet.org/mem/danielsj.htm
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=607
Lesser Feast and Fasts (Church Publishing, 2003)
Donald Nicholl, recollections from a lecture in Cowell College, Santa Cruz, in the 1970s.
John Thornton, recollections of an interview at Trinity Church, San Francisco, in the 1980s.
Peter Kirkup, conversation, yesterday, about our teacher Donald Nicholl.
The Botany of Desire : A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan (Random House, 2001). [Thanks, Linda.]
The Light Has Come: An Exposition of the Fourth Gospel by Lesslie Newbigin (Eerdmans, 1982)
A sermon on the Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B RCL
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento. May 21, 2006
Holy Eucharist 12:45 p.m.
JRL+
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
naked into the night
Notes for a homily on the feast of Saint Mark
A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked. (Mark 14:51-52)
The New Oxford Annotated Bible (1991) notes, at 12.12, that John ... Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas as far as Perga (12.25-13.13; compare also Mk 14.51n.). At 14.51 it notes, "The young man's identity is not disclosed. Perhaps he was sleeping in the house where Jesus ate the Last Supper and rose hastily from bed to follow Jesus to Gethsemane. If the house was that of Mary, the mother of John Mark (where the disciples met at a late date; Acts 12.12), it is possible that the young man was the Evangelist himself.
The New Interpreter's Bible notes, for 14:51-52: Who the young man was and what he represents is the subject of much speculation. Is he connected to the "young man" at the tomb in 16:5? Is the linen cloth he wears connected to the "linen cloth" wrapped around Jesus' body in 15:46? Or is the young man who runs away naked simply the concrete narrative illustration of flight, as Judas is of betrayal and Peter is of denial? Some scholars connect the young man to passages in the Secret Gospel of Mark, mentioned in a disputed letter of Clement of Alexandria, discovered in the 20th century. At 15:37 it notes that John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas (Col 4:10), was an assistant on the first mission (12:25; 13:5), but he returned early to Jerusalem (13:13).
The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Feast of Saint Mark, April 25: Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 2 or 2:7-10; Ephesians 4:7-8,11-16; Mark 1:1-15 or Mark 16:15-20.
Almighty God, by the hand of Mark the evangelist you have given to your Church the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God: We thank you for this witness, and pray that we may be firmly grounded in its truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearABC/HolyDays/Mark.html
James Kiefer, "Mark the Evangelist 25 April NT"
(http://www.missionstclare.com/english/people/apr25.html)
A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked. (Mark 14:51-52)
The New Oxford Annotated Bible (1991) notes, at 12.12, that John ... Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas as far as Perga (12.25-13.13; compare also Mk 14.51n.). At 14.51 it notes, "The young man's identity is not disclosed. Perhaps he was sleeping in the house where Jesus ate the Last Supper and rose hastily from bed to follow Jesus to Gethsemane. If the house was that of Mary, the mother of John Mark (where the disciples met at a late date; Acts 12.12), it is possible that the young man was the Evangelist himself.
The New Interpreter's Bible notes, for 14:51-52: Who the young man was and what he represents is the subject of much speculation. Is he connected to the "young man" at the tomb in 16:5? Is the linen cloth he wears connected to the "linen cloth" wrapped around Jesus' body in 15:46? Or is the young man who runs away naked simply the concrete narrative illustration of flight, as Judas is of betrayal and Peter is of denial? Some scholars connect the young man to passages in the Secret Gospel of Mark, mentioned in a disputed letter of Clement of Alexandria, discovered in the 20th century. At 15:37 it notes that John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas (Col 4:10), was an assistant on the first mission (12:25; 13:5), but he returned early to Jerusalem (13:13).
The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Feast of Saint Mark, April 25: Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 2 or 2:7-10; Ephesians 4:7-8,11-16; Mark 1:1-15 or Mark 16:15-20.
Almighty God, by the hand of Mark the evangelist you have given to your Church the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God: We thank you for this witness, and pray that we may be firmly grounded in its truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearABC/HolyDays/Mark.html
James Kiefer, "Mark the Evangelist 25 April NT"
(http://www.missionstclare.com/english/people/apr25.html)
Sunday, April 22, 2007
joy comes in the morning
Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning. (Psalm 30: 6)
This has been a strange week. It began with a scene of mortal fear: 33 dead in Blacksburg, Virginia.
It continued with Earth Day, a plea for renewal for our whole planet – in the face of real danger.
And the gospel gives us an extraordinary scene.
153 fish. An experience of God’s abundance, a foretaste of the feast that will never end – as Sarah Dylan Breuer puts it – proof that into our world of scarcity, of competition for limited resources, even of active and open warfare for scarce and coveted goods, into this world comes a sign of hope.
Jesus is here, with us, ready to join us at the table he sets before us. Breakfast is ready: are we? Limitless joy, limitless peace and joyful, eternal life are there for us. It is morning; and yet we live in darkness.
We are born free, yet we are everywhere in chains.
The psalmist pulls it all together for us. The fear we can experience, in a setting as mundane, Herbert O’Driscoll points out, as a doctor’s office or the corridors of a medical building, can open a trapdoor into the underworld beneath our feet. Sudden news of mortality grips us.
Like the psalmist we may find ourselves pleading to God, promising, promising anything, if only this cup of sorrow can be taken from our lips.
And then joy comes, like the break of dawn, and our sorrows and fears are gone.
Don’t worry—it’ll all work out, a friend told me (self-mockingly). Revelations says so. And of course that is what John is telling us.
What he shows us is a scene beyond dreams: all of creation, all creatures that ever were or will be, on their knees before the throne of God. And there in front of them, behold, the Lamb of God.
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!
The cost of glory is revealed—vulnerability and sacrifice. What better creature to show us those treasures than a lamb?
Next to this the Gospel scene is mundane, down-to-earth indeed.
After all the breathless tumult and painful striving of Holy Week, and the shocks of Easter, the disciples have scattered like sheep before a storm. Who will gather them together again?
Indeed, after all this craziness, Peter – and who can blame him – says, simply, “I’m going fishing.” And six others say, “We’re going with you.”
When life shatters, it is human to want to return to what we know, to take control. We want to go – back to Galilee, back to what we know, back to what we know how to do, back to normal. But –
Things are never the same.
The guys go fishing all right, but they don’t catch anything. Without Jesus, nothing happens.
Then they do see something normal. A man is on the beach. Breakfast is cooking over a campfire – they can smell that it’s ready.
But before they get ashore, he calls to them: “Put down your nets right there.” Close in to shore, right near him.
They do – and with him suddenly there is abundance beyond belief, beyond need, beyond hope.
Beyond hope, Jesus brings them overflowing grace – the gift of God’s mercy shines into their lives like the first ray of dawn after a long and lonely night.
Weak, wandering, lost – the disciples are gathered in like strayed sheep. Their shepherd is calling to them. They come to anchor.
And then he turns the table around on them. Now, Peter, you are to be the host. The shepherd. Do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I do. Then you look after my sheep.
You, who have shown your own weakness, your own fear, your own folly, you are the best qualified. You know what it is to be lost – and you know what it is to be found.
Feed my sheep.
CEaster3RCL
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Psalm 30
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
Sarah Dylan Breuer, “Living by the Word: Unlimited good”, The Christian Century, Vol. 124, No. 7 (April 3, 2007), p. 19.
Herbert O’Driscoll, The Word Today: Reflections on the Readings of the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 2 (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre), 2001, p. 64-71.
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
April 22, 2007
JRL+
This has been a strange week. It began with a scene of mortal fear: 33 dead in Blacksburg, Virginia.
It continued with Earth Day, a plea for renewal for our whole planet – in the face of real danger.
And the gospel gives us an extraordinary scene.
153 fish. An experience of God’s abundance, a foretaste of the feast that will never end – as Sarah Dylan Breuer puts it – proof that into our world of scarcity, of competition for limited resources, even of active and open warfare for scarce and coveted goods, into this world comes a sign of hope.
Jesus is here, with us, ready to join us at the table he sets before us. Breakfast is ready: are we? Limitless joy, limitless peace and joyful, eternal life are there for us. It is morning; and yet we live in darkness.
We are born free, yet we are everywhere in chains.
The psalmist pulls it all together for us. The fear we can experience, in a setting as mundane, Herbert O’Driscoll points out, as a doctor’s office or the corridors of a medical building, can open a trapdoor into the underworld beneath our feet. Sudden news of mortality grips us.
Like the psalmist we may find ourselves pleading to God, promising, promising anything, if only this cup of sorrow can be taken from our lips.
And then joy comes, like the break of dawn, and our sorrows and fears are gone.
Don’t worry—it’ll all work out, a friend told me (self-mockingly). Revelations says so. And of course that is what John is telling us.
What he shows us is a scene beyond dreams: all of creation, all creatures that ever were or will be, on their knees before the throne of God. And there in front of them, behold, the Lamb of God.
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!
The cost of glory is revealed—vulnerability and sacrifice. What better creature to show us those treasures than a lamb?
Next to this the Gospel scene is mundane, down-to-earth indeed.
After all the breathless tumult and painful striving of Holy Week, and the shocks of Easter, the disciples have scattered like sheep before a storm. Who will gather them together again?
Indeed, after all this craziness, Peter – and who can blame him – says, simply, “I’m going fishing.” And six others say, “We’re going with you.”
When life shatters, it is human to want to return to what we know, to take control. We want to go – back to Galilee, back to what we know, back to what we know how to do, back to normal. But –
Things are never the same.
The guys go fishing all right, but they don’t catch anything. Without Jesus, nothing happens.
Then they do see something normal. A man is on the beach. Breakfast is cooking over a campfire – they can smell that it’s ready.
But before they get ashore, he calls to them: “Put down your nets right there.” Close in to shore, right near him.
They do – and with him suddenly there is abundance beyond belief, beyond need, beyond hope.
Beyond hope, Jesus brings them overflowing grace – the gift of God’s mercy shines into their lives like the first ray of dawn after a long and lonely night.
Weak, wandering, lost – the disciples are gathered in like strayed sheep. Their shepherd is calling to them. They come to anchor.
And then he turns the table around on them. Now, Peter, you are to be the host. The shepherd. Do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I do. Then you look after my sheep.
You, who have shown your own weakness, your own fear, your own folly, you are the best qualified. You know what it is to be lost – and you know what it is to be found.
Feed my sheep.
CEaster3RCL
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Psalm 30
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
Sarah Dylan Breuer, “Living by the Word: Unlimited good”, The Christian Century, Vol. 124, No. 7 (April 3, 2007), p. 19.
Herbert O’Driscoll, The Word Today: Reflections on the Readings of the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 2 (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre), 2001, p. 64-71.
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
April 22, 2007
JRL+
Monday, April 16, 2007
Love is strong as death
Tonight I thought we would have only a short homily, but there are some events in the news that we will have to deal with.
First, though, let me read you this from the Song of Songs:
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned.
Song of Songs, 8:6-7
In the news reports I have read today, most recently from the Washington Post, came word that 33 people had died in shootings at Virginia Tech. It happened early this morning, before school, in a dormitory, and two hours later, in a couple of classrooms. The latest word is that it is over; that the shooter is among the dead. Homicide and suicide, both.
Why? Why would someone do such a thing?
This may be cruel, but let me give you these comments by William Shakespeare:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause…
(HAMLET, Act III, Scene I.)
How do we deal with this, with suffering and death, with hopeless violence?
The Economist (March 24th 2007, page 98) recently printed the obituary of a Buddhist monk, Preah Maha Ghosananda. He was the “Gandhi of Cambodia”. He dedicated his life to bringing reconciliation and harmony back to his war-torn homeland, walking from placed to place through the forest bring a message of peace. “We must find the courage to leave our temples”, Ghosananda insisted, “and enter the suffering-filled temples of human experience.”
The obituary, lovingly written, ends with this quotation, from the Buddha’s Metta Sutta, or Words of Love:
For the pure-hearted one
Having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
Not born again – into this world of suffering. Never again to be subjected to the karmic cycle.
Nicodemus and Jesus had quite another message for us in the gospel we heard tonight (John 3:1-8).
Nicodemus certainly had no thought of reincarnation. He asked an almost comical question: How can a man be born again? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and start over?
Jesus taught him there are no “do-overs”, no going back to the beginning and starting over. You do not need to be born over and over again – you must be born from above.
This is not about the cessation of suffering, but about God with us, suffering alongside us, offering us meaning – and hope, the hope of the resurrection, the hope that may bring comfort tonight to some people in Virginia, in California, in Sacramento.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Holy Eucharist 5:45 p.m.
Acts 4:23-31, Psalm 2:1-9, John 3:1-8
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
JRL+
First, though, let me read you this from the Song of Songs:
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned.
Song of Songs, 8:6-7
In the news reports I have read today, most recently from the Washington Post, came word that 33 people had died in shootings at Virginia Tech. It happened early this morning, before school, in a dormitory, and two hours later, in a couple of classrooms. The latest word is that it is over; that the shooter is among the dead. Homicide and suicide, both.
Why? Why would someone do such a thing?
This may be cruel, but let me give you these comments by William Shakespeare:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause…
(HAMLET, Act III, Scene I.)
How do we deal with this, with suffering and death, with hopeless violence?
The Economist (March 24th 2007, page 98) recently printed the obituary of a Buddhist monk, Preah Maha Ghosananda. He was the “Gandhi of Cambodia”. He dedicated his life to bringing reconciliation and harmony back to his war-torn homeland, walking from placed to place through the forest bring a message of peace. “We must find the courage to leave our temples”, Ghosananda insisted, “and enter the suffering-filled temples of human experience.”
The obituary, lovingly written, ends with this quotation, from the Buddha’s Metta Sutta, or Words of Love:
For the pure-hearted one
Having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
Not born again – into this world of suffering. Never again to be subjected to the karmic cycle.
Nicodemus and Jesus had quite another message for us in the gospel we heard tonight (John 3:1-8).
Nicodemus certainly had no thought of reincarnation. He asked an almost comical question: How can a man be born again? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and start over?
Jesus taught him there are no “do-overs”, no going back to the beginning and starting over. You do not need to be born over and over again – you must be born from above.
This is not about the cessation of suffering, but about God with us, suffering alongside us, offering us meaning – and hope, the hope of the resurrection, the hope that may bring comfort tonight to some people in Virginia, in California, in Sacramento.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Holy Eucharist 5:45 p.m.
Acts 4:23-31, Psalm 2:1-9, John 3:1-8
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
JRL+
Love is strong as death
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned.
Song of Songs, 8:6-7
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned.
Song of Songs, 8:6-7
Thursday, April 12, 2007
the twin
"Have I told you about my twin?" an older man asked me - and told me about the brother he lost when they were just boys.
What we know about Thomas - he was called the Twin. That's about it.
That, and what the Christians in South India will tell you - that he was the founder of their church.
Perhaps he had lost his twin. So he would have already felt the loss of someone dear to him, when Jesus was crucified, and now he has lost the best friend he ever had.
Then he is told that the person is alive. This is news too joyful to believe on hearsay: too piercing to a heart twice broken. And so, he doubts. But then - when he sees Jesus himself - he believes. His affirmation is stronger than anyone has made before: "My Lord and my God."
He took this message, and the hope of the resurrection, far away - from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, as Jesus had charged the apostles.
Remember: an apostle is first of all a witness to the resurrection.
The gospel for Thursday in Easter Week: Luke 24:36b-48
The gospel for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Year C, RCL: John 20:19-31
What we know about Thomas - he was called the Twin. That's about it.
That, and what the Christians in South India will tell you - that he was the founder of their church.
Perhaps he had lost his twin. So he would have already felt the loss of someone dear to him, when Jesus was crucified, and now he has lost the best friend he ever had.
Then he is told that the person is alive. This is news too joyful to believe on hearsay: too piercing to a heart twice broken. And so, he doubts. But then - when he sees Jesus himself - he believes. His affirmation is stronger than anyone has made before: "My Lord and my God."
He took this message, and the hope of the resurrection, far away - from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, as Jesus had charged the apostles.
Remember: an apostle is first of all a witness to the resurrection.
The gospel for Thursday in Easter Week: Luke 24:36b-48
The gospel for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Year C, RCL: John 20:19-31
Saturday, April 7, 2007
The Binding of Isaac
In the name of God, source of all being, eternal Word and Holy Spirit. Amen. Some Muslim friends once invited me to join them in celebrations of the feast of Eid al-Adha, the commemoration of God’s providing the Ram to Abraham as a substitute for his son. I remember watching the sheikh take hold of the lamb, who was indeed as innocent and passive as a lamb led to the slaughter, explaining that he was not slaughtering but sacrificing the animal, then quickly, deftly and quietly cutting its throat. The lamb just as quietly and quickly passed away. He repeated this act with a few more lambs, which various members of the group had dedicated, and then let the rest go. I remember how happy I was to watch the survivors gambol back up into their pasture. And I remember as I watched their brothers being slain, thinking two thoughts: How glad I was that we do not have to do this, and, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Listening to the reading from Genesis, we may wonder: what was Abraham thinking? Where did he get the idea that he should sacrifice his son? That God would want that? What kind of a god would ask this? What kind of a father would think to do it? The surrounding cultures, as I understand it, worshipped gods who did indeed require human sacrifice – just as much as the god of the Aztecs did. The cult of Moloch demanded the burnt offering of the firstborn son. Somehow Abraham got into his head the idea that this may be required even of him – that the God who has led him to the promised land, has given him his son, has promised him uncounted progeny – that somehow this is the same god. All the way up the mountain, Abraham kept faith with God. Believing in the promise he somehow continued to expect the impossible. He laid the firewood on Isaac’s back – like requiring a man to carry his own cross – saying, “God himself will provide the lamb.” Not knowing what would happen, in the fear of God he bound his son, and took up the knife. The angel stayed Abraham’s hand, and showed him the ram in the thicket. I think there is more going on here than the substitution of a sheep for a man. God did not require the death of Isaac. He required his life – that is, that Isaac and all the future and the hope that he represents, belongs to God, not Abraham. This life is not a life to be grasped onto but to be freely accepted as a gift from the willing hand of God. Abraham responds to God’s call in faith, in obedience, yielding all claim to ownership to what is most precious to him – the promise, the future and the hope embodied in Isaac – and he dedicates that beloved Child to God, to God’s purpose, not his own – and it is through the efficacy of this obedience, this act of faith, that Abraham becomes the father of nations – not through heredity but through faith in the love of God. And it is this faith that gives him descendants innumerable. “I will shower blessings on you, I will make your descendants as many as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore.” (Genesis 22.17) Abraham chose obedience. Through his radical obedience, Abraham became the father of our faith, the exemplar of total trust in God. What he was required to yield up, that which was most precious to him, what had to be relinquished to God when God required it, was Isaac’s life – not his death, but his life. The future and the hope that Isaac represented were not for Abraham to own and to master, but for him to trust in God to provide, just as he provided the ram in the thicket on the mount that came to be called, “God provides”. When he set his face toward Jerusalem, Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected, and be killed, and after three days rise again. Jesus chose obedience – he lay his own life down, that very life that was to become the first fruits of the resurrection. Life is not to be grasped to oneself, but to be freely offered in obedience to God. Jesus did not give just his death to God; he gave his life – a life of integrity, of witness, of proclamation. He took up his cross rather than live a life of self-protection. Jesus kept faith with God, proclaiming in word and deed the reign of God’s love, of justice, peace, and forgiveness. He embodied the fullness and image of God’s compassion and love for humankind. Just as Abraham traveled to a distant land ready to sacrifice his beloved son, so Jesus, knowing full well that it might cost his life, traveled up to Jerusalem to give witness to the reign of God. [He took up his cross rather than living a life of self-protection. We participate in the life of Christ, in the proclamation of the kingdom. We receive the life he continues to give to us. By his life we live. His life makes it possible for us to live faithfully, in radical obedience to God, with a future and a hope. To live in faith is costly; God asks a lot of us. Life is full of frightening and painful and hard things. We have this consolation, that Jesus went through this already and goes through this with us –we are not alone, and death is not the end of the story. No place we are ever asked to go – no height nor depth, no hardship or distress, no persecution or famine, no epidemic, no war - can take us away from the love of God. He has been there already. He is there with us. And he will bring us through to the other side. No other thing is required. God’s mercy is full and complete. He takes us from the broken places to wholeness, from the darkness into light; we were lost and are found.] Grace is costly, but the price has been paid in full by God himself. On the cross he made, by his one offering of himself, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, once for all. For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
A sermon for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Sacramento March 12, 2006 Second Sunday in Lent (Year B) BCP Lectionary Readings: Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 16:5-11, Romans 8:31-39, Mark 8:31-38 [Section in brackets was presented at 8am but not 10am service.] The Old Testament lesson for the daily office on Good Friday is the Binding of Isaac.
Sources and inspirations:
William Blake, “Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau”
John Bowker, ed., “The Sacrifice of Isaac”, The Complete Bible Handbook (Dorling Kindersley, 1998), p. 39.
Barbara Crafton, “The Lesson We Have to Preach On”, The Almost Daily eMo, March 9, 2006 (www.geraniumfarm.org)
The Jerusalem Bible, Reader’s Edition (Doubleday, 1968)
The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Søren Kierkegaard, “Eulogy on Abraham”, Fear and Trembling (1843), Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1983) p. 15-23.
Sarah
Jude Siciliano, O.P., “First Impressions” (http://www.opsouth.org/Preachers%20Exchange/firstimpresscurrent.html)
Hugh Talat Halman, “Id al-Adha”, World Book Encyclopedia (2004)
JRL+
A sermon for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Sacramento March 12, 2006 Second Sunday in Lent (Year B) BCP Lectionary Readings: Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 16:5-11, Romans 8:31-39, Mark 8:31-38 [Section in brackets was presented at 8am but not 10am service.] The Old Testament lesson for the daily office on Good Friday is the Binding of Isaac.
Sources and inspirations:
William Blake, “Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau”
John Bowker, ed., “The Sacrifice of Isaac”, The Complete Bible Handbook (Dorling Kindersley, 1998), p. 39.
Barbara Crafton, “The Lesson We Have to Preach On”, The Almost Daily eMo, March 9, 2006 (www.geraniumfarm.org)
The Jerusalem Bible, Reader’s Edition (Doubleday, 1968)
The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Søren Kierkegaard, “Eulogy on Abraham”, Fear and Trembling (1843), Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1983) p. 15-23.
Sarah
Jude Siciliano, O.P., “First Impressions” (http://www.opsouth.org/Preachers%20Exchange/firstimpresscurrent.html)
Hugh Talat Halman, “Id al-Adha”, World Book Encyclopedia (2004)
JRL+
Friday, April 6, 2007
In the Upper Room
Mark 14:17-26
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and
after blessing it…
Baruch attah Adonai
eloheinu melech Ha-olam,
hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth.
… he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this
is my body."
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks…
Baruch Attah Adonai
Eloheinu Melech Ha-olam
Bohrei Peri Hagafen.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine.
… he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will
never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that
day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
He is saying goodbye. He knows where he is going.
Jesus gathers his friends, his family, his household,
in the upper room – this is the abode of peace. From
here he will journey out – eventually alone, totally
abandoned – to where struggle, danger, death abide.
Already this week Jesus has opposed the Imperial
might of Rome, and the enmity of its collaborators,
throwing his body against the wheels of oppression.
Counter-marching against Pilate, he matched the
procurator's military parade with a procession of
peace – as Pilate entered the west gate of the city
armored, at the head of a column of troops, greeted
by the hails of sycophants, Jesus came in peaceful
triumph from the east – riding a path strewn with
palms, cheered by the common folk, on a little burro.
The people thronged about him in the days leading
up to Passover – he taught in the Temple, disputed
the scribes, turned over the tables of the powers that
hold sway in this world.
Then it came time for the Passover. A man carrying
water – a job ordinarily handled by women –
provided signage for where the disciples would meet.
Gathering in the Upper Room for the first time, the
disciples assemble to partake of the Passover meal.
Jesus presides over it. It is an anamnesis, an act of
remembrance that makes the past present. This is
the night unlike any other, the night to remember
how God redeems his people from bondage.
The disciples will gather again, in fifty days' time.
Fifty days from this night unlike any other, seven
weeks from tomorrow, they will return to the Upper
Room. They will gather on Pentecost – [or Shavu'ot,
the feast of weeks. That is] the day to celebrate the
giving of the Torah – the gift that freed God's people
from the chaos of sin, of immorality and idolatry.
But Jesus will not be with them. And that day will not
be the same as it ever was before: for the disciples
are now, on Passover night, encountering a great
mystery.
This is my body, their teacher says to them,
indicating the paschal feast. The bread of affliction,
eaten in bondage: somehow now taking this in, like
taking up the cross, is the path to liberation.
The blood of the lamb that was slain, symbolized by
the wine, now becomes – his blood, his sacrifice,
that we might be redeemed from bondage. In those
days bondage was the oppression of imperial power
– a temptation today, certainly, but only a shadow of
the real hegemony, the power of sin, despair, death.
Jesus takes on the role that only he can – priest and
sacrifice in one (Christ the victim, Christ the priest)
- savior long expected, he has come to set his people free.
This is my Body – he says, taking the paschal bread
in his hand and breaking it: not my body is this, as if
he were a substitute for matzoh.
No, the bread is a foretaste, a trigger for memory.
It comes as a remembrance of things past, and a
promise of things to come, representing and
anticipating the fullness of the providence of God
that comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
In this act of remembrance, everything that came
before, everything that is remembered tonight, he
recapitulates in himself. His own act sums it all up.
He is the fulfillment of the promise – all that came
before was readiness, anticipation - preparation.
This is the culmination:
Now time comes to its consummation,
now the grain is ripe and the harvest can begin.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the earth.
Baruch Attah Adonai
eloheinu melech ha'olam
Borei peri ha'adamah.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Amen.
In the Upper Room
Good Friday 2007
JRL
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and
after blessing it…
Baruch attah Adonai
eloheinu melech Ha-olam,
hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth.
… he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this
is my body."
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks…
Baruch Attah Adonai
Eloheinu Melech Ha-olam
Bohrei Peri Hagafen.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine.
… he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will
never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that
day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
He is saying goodbye. He knows where he is going.
Jesus gathers his friends, his family, his household,
in the upper room – this is the abode of peace. From
here he will journey out – eventually alone, totally
abandoned – to where struggle, danger, death abide.
Already this week Jesus has opposed the Imperial
might of Rome, and the enmity of its collaborators,
throwing his body against the wheels of oppression.
Counter-marching against Pilate, he matched the
procurator's military parade with a procession of
peace – as Pilate entered the west gate of the city
armored, at the head of a column of troops, greeted
by the hails of sycophants, Jesus came in peaceful
triumph from the east – riding a path strewn with
palms, cheered by the common folk, on a little burro.
The people thronged about him in the days leading
up to Passover – he taught in the Temple, disputed
the scribes, turned over the tables of the powers that
hold sway in this world.
Then it came time for the Passover. A man carrying
water – a job ordinarily handled by women –
provided signage for where the disciples would meet.
Gathering in the Upper Room for the first time, the
disciples assemble to partake of the Passover meal.
Jesus presides over it. It is an anamnesis, an act of
remembrance that makes the past present. This is
the night unlike any other, the night to remember
how God redeems his people from bondage.
The disciples will gather again, in fifty days' time.
Fifty days from this night unlike any other, seven
weeks from tomorrow, they will return to the Upper
Room. They will gather on Pentecost – [or Shavu'ot,
the feast of weeks. That is] the day to celebrate the
giving of the Torah – the gift that freed God's people
from the chaos of sin, of immorality and idolatry.
But Jesus will not be with them. And that day will not
be the same as it ever was before: for the disciples
are now, on Passover night, encountering a great
mystery.
This is my body, their teacher says to them,
indicating the paschal feast. The bread of affliction,
eaten in bondage: somehow now taking this in, like
taking up the cross, is the path to liberation.
The blood of the lamb that was slain, symbolized by
the wine, now becomes – his blood, his sacrifice,
that we might be redeemed from bondage. In those
days bondage was the oppression of imperial power
– a temptation today, certainly, but only a shadow of
the real hegemony, the power of sin, despair, death.
Jesus takes on the role that only he can – priest and
sacrifice in one (Christ the victim, Christ the priest)
- savior long expected, he has come to set his people free.
This is my Body – he says, taking the paschal bread
in his hand and breaking it: not my body is this, as if
he were a substitute for matzoh.
No, the bread is a foretaste, a trigger for memory.
It comes as a remembrance of things past, and a
promise of things to come, representing and
anticipating the fullness of the providence of God
that comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
In this act of remembrance, everything that came
before, everything that is remembered tonight, he
recapitulates in himself. His own act sums it all up.
He is the fulfillment of the promise – all that came
before was readiness, anticipation - preparation.
This is the culmination:
Now time comes to its consummation,
now the grain is ripe and the harvest can begin.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the earth.
Baruch Attah Adonai
eloheinu melech ha'olam
Borei peri ha'adamah.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Amen.
In the Upper Room
Good Friday 2007
JRL
in the upper room
Mark 14:17-26
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and
after blessing it...
Baruch attah Adonai
eloheinu melech Ha-olam,
hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth.
... he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this
is my body."
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks...
Baruch Attah Adonai
Eloheinu Melech Ha-olam
Bohrei Peri Hagafen.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine.
... he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will
never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that
day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
He is saying goodbye. He knows where he is going.
Jesus gathers his friends, his family, his household,
in the upper room - this is the abode of peace. From
here he will journey out - eventually alone, totally
abandoned - to where struggle, danger, death abide.
Already this week Jesus has opposed the Imperial
might of Rome, and the enmity of its collaborators,
throwing his body against the wheels of oppression.
Counter-marching against Pilate, he matched the
procurator's military parade with a procession of
peace - as Pilate entered the west gate of the city
armored, at the head of a column of troops, greeted
by the hails of sycophants, Jesus came in peaceful
triumph from the east - riding a path strewn with
palms, cheered by the common folk, on a little burro.
The people thronged about him in the days leading
up to Passover - he taught in the Temple, disputed
the scribes, turned over the tables of the powers that
hold sway in this world.
Then it came time for the Passover. A man carrying
water - a job ordinarily handled by women -
provided signage for where the disciples would meet.
Gathering in the Upper Room for the first time, the
disciples assemble to partake of the Passover meal.
Jesus presides over it. It is an anamnesis, an act of
remembrance that makes the past present. This is
the night unlike any other, the night to remember
how God redeems his people from bondage.
The disciples will gather again, in fifty days' time.
Fifty days from this night unlike any other, seven
weeks from tomorrow, they will return to the Upper
Room. They will gather on Pentecost - [or Shavu'ot,
the feast of weeks. That is] the day to celebrate the
giving of the Torah - the gift that freed God's people
from the chaos of sin, of immorality and idolatry.
But Jesus will not be with them. And that day will not
be the same as it ever was before: for the disciples
are now, on Passover night, encountering a great
mystery.
This is my body, their teacher says to them,
indicating the paschal feast. The bread of affliction,
eaten in bondage: somehow now taking this in, like
taking up the cross, is the path to liberation.
The blood of the lamb that was slain, symbolized by
the wine, now becomes - his blood, his sacrifice,
that we might be redeemed from bondage. In those
days bondage was the oppression of imperial power
- a temptation today, certainly, but only a shadow of
the real hegemony, the power of sin, despair, death.
Jesus takes on the role that only he can - priest and
sacrifice in one (Christ the victim, Christ the priest)
- savior long expected, he has come to set his people free.
This is my Body - he says, taking the paschal bread
in his hand and breaking it: not my body is this, as if
he were a substitute for matzoh.
No, the bread is a foretaste, a trigger for memory.
It comes as a remembrance of things past, and a
promise of things to come, representing and
anticipating the fullness of the providence of God
that comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
In this act of remembrance, everything that came
before, everything that is remembered tonight, he
recapitulates in himself. His own act sums it all up.
He is the fulfillment of the promise - all that came
before was readiness, anticipation - preparation.
This is the culmination:
Now time comes to its consummation,
now the grain is ripe and the harvest can begin.
Baruch Attah Adonai
eloheinu melech ha'olam
Borei peri ha'adamah.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the earth.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Amen.
In the Upper Room
Good Friday 2007
JRL
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and
after blessing it...
Baruch attah Adonai
eloheinu melech Ha-olam,
hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth.
... he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this
is my body."
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks...
Baruch Attah Adonai
Eloheinu Melech Ha-olam
Bohrei Peri Hagafen.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine.
... he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will
never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that
day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
He is saying goodbye. He knows where he is going.
Jesus gathers his friends, his family, his household,
in the upper room - this is the abode of peace. From
here he will journey out - eventually alone, totally
abandoned - to where struggle, danger, death abide.
Already this week Jesus has opposed the Imperial
might of Rome, and the enmity of its collaborators,
throwing his body against the wheels of oppression.
Counter-marching against Pilate, he matched the
procurator's military parade with a procession of
peace - as Pilate entered the west gate of the city
armored, at the head of a column of troops, greeted
by the hails of sycophants, Jesus came in peaceful
triumph from the east - riding a path strewn with
palms, cheered by the common folk, on a little burro.
The people thronged about him in the days leading
up to Passover - he taught in the Temple, disputed
the scribes, turned over the tables of the powers that
hold sway in this world.
Then it came time for the Passover. A man carrying
water - a job ordinarily handled by women -
provided signage for where the disciples would meet.
Gathering in the Upper Room for the first time, the
disciples assemble to partake of the Passover meal.
Jesus presides over it. It is an anamnesis, an act of
remembrance that makes the past present. This is
the night unlike any other, the night to remember
how God redeems his people from bondage.
The disciples will gather again, in fifty days' time.
Fifty days from this night unlike any other, seven
weeks from tomorrow, they will return to the Upper
Room. They will gather on Pentecost - [or Shavu'ot,
the feast of weeks. That is] the day to celebrate the
giving of the Torah - the gift that freed God's people
from the chaos of sin, of immorality and idolatry.
But Jesus will not be with them. And that day will not
be the same as it ever was before: for the disciples
are now, on Passover night, encountering a great
mystery.
This is my body, their teacher says to them,
indicating the paschal feast. The bread of affliction,
eaten in bondage: somehow now taking this in, like
taking up the cross, is the path to liberation.
The blood of the lamb that was slain, symbolized by
the wine, now becomes - his blood, his sacrifice,
that we might be redeemed from bondage. In those
days bondage was the oppression of imperial power
- a temptation today, certainly, but only a shadow of
the real hegemony, the power of sin, despair, death.
Jesus takes on the role that only he can - priest and
sacrifice in one (Christ the victim, Christ the priest)
- savior long expected, he has come to set his people free.
This is my Body - he says, taking the paschal bread
in his hand and breaking it: not my body is this, as if
he were a substitute for matzoh.
No, the bread is a foretaste, a trigger for memory.
It comes as a remembrance of things past, and a
promise of things to come, representing and
anticipating the fullness of the providence of God
that comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
In this act of remembrance, everything that came
before, everything that is remembered tonight, he
recapitulates in himself. His own act sums it all up.
He is the fulfillment of the promise - all that came
before was readiness, anticipation - preparation.
This is the culmination:
Now time comes to its consummation,
now the grain is ripe and the harvest can begin.
Baruch Attah Adonai
eloheinu melech ha'olam
Borei peri ha'adamah.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the earth.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Amen.
In the Upper Room
Good Friday 2007
JRL
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)