Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Jesus invites us to follow and serve

When I was young Grandma Maxine came to visit.

She taught us two things on that visit. One was how to spit watermelon seeds. We were eating watermelon, the four boys, out on the back lawn, and she asked, do you know how to spit watermelon seeds? No. Well, let me teach you. She lined us up at the edge of the lawn. Just past it was a place my father had put down rich soil for a new garden. We ate - and got the seeds into our mouths - and we spat.

The seeds launched out into the new soil beyond the lawn's edge - and disappeared. But six weeks later - watermelon. First the vines, then the melons.

The other thing she taught me was the Lord's Prayer. It took a little longer for that to bear fruit.

When bedtime came she was going to put us to bed but first, she said, you must say your prayers. I'd seen Disney cartoons, and movies I suppose, and seen pictures of children kneeling by their beds, so I knew how to kneel and put my hands together - but I had no idea what to say. So then and there Grandma Maxine taught me the Lord's Prayer.

Jesus took his disciples aside and began to teach them what was going to happen. The Son of Man must die and be buried. On the third day he will be raised - but this must happen. What good will it do? Why? And he told them, a grain of wheat must die and enter the earth and disappear. Otherwise it remains a single grain - but this way it bears much fruit. So the Son of Man.

By this means he will become bread from heaven, bread for the world. What are we supposed to do? Follow and serve. How? By taking this bread, becoming bread too. By following him in obedience to the Father, not putting ourselves first - dying to self interest - but putting first the kingdom of heaven.

Let us pray the prayer that Jesus taught all of us...



For Wednesday 28 March 2012, ecumenical service, Lent Together, with three congregations, including St Alban's Episcopal and Bethel Lutheran Church at Edmonds Lutheran Church.

Holden Evening Prayer
Now the green blade riseth...

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Monday, March 26, 2012

Annunciation 2012

Back on the feast of Epiphany we remembered the visit of the magi to the Holy Family, and the gifts they bring: Gold for the king, Frankincense for the priest, Myrrh for the sacrifice. There is, I submit, one more gift - for us to offer: Praise for the Living One.

Right in the middle of Lent we encounter a part of the Nativity story, nine months before Christmas Day. Raymond Brown, the Roman Catholic biblical scholar, taught that the gospels actually were written beginning with the passion narrative - proceeding through Holy Week, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and then on around to the Birth narratives.

The birth narratives begin with the visit of the angel to Zechariah, announcing the coming birth of John. Then the focus shifts to a younger woman, cousin of Elizabeth. It is Mary. The angel comes to Mary – and hails her as full of grace: she is to bear a son, who is to be the Messiah.

Mary accepts the burden of birth and the destiny of motherhood to the Messiah, Conception to Assumption, somehow knowing that she must not count her child as hers to keep, but must let go of him, dedicate him to the Lord, as Samuel's mother Hannah dedicated him, knowing he will go from her.

Mary, mother of Jesus, takes this task on herself, knowingly, as God's servant, because she knew that he, her child to be, was sent to set the people free: that at last God's promise to redeem Israel would bear fruit in the fullness of time, and that that fulfillment was coming very soon, and was beginning to happen, quickening even now in her.

The Word would indeed ripen in her own womb. She would bear forth upon the world he who would himself bear the pain of the world.

Like Hannah's son Samuel, Jesus the Son of Mary is one consecrated, set apart for service to the Lord, as a thanksgiving offering to the Lord. Samuel is the prophet who brought justice to Israel, and yet he points beyond himself - to Saul, first, then to David, to David's son Solomon, and ultimately to Jesus.

In the birth story of Samuel, Hannah his mother rejoices that God has remembered the forgotten, and will bring relief to the poor. “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God,” she sings (1 Samuel 2:1-10).

In the birth story of Jesus, Mary his mother rejoices that God remembers the forgotten and brings relief to the poor. (Luke 1:46-55) And in our prayers, even daily, we join in her song, the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, Canticle 15 in the Book of Common Prayer: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...”

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The long strange journey of Lent is almost over –

The long strange journey of Lent is almost over –
but its destination is not of this world.
It lies beyond time, in eternity.

We do not know much about life in eternity.
What clues we have come, mostly, from Jesus –
from his own stories of the kingdom of
God to come on earth as it is in heaven, and
from the accounts in the New Testament,
of experiences of his presence after
his resurrection. What we glimpse of
the resurrected life we will come to
know through him –
But only surely in his own presence.
Until that encounter becomes real to us,
we live in the shadow of not knowing.

Peace be with you, he says to the disciples, as he
becomes present among them,
in the upper room where they
have gathered again after his death.

Peace be with you, he says to them,
as they absorb the living presence of
the one before them – there he is
among them: the resurrection
is real.

                                    Hello boys!
Got anything to eat? he greets them,
on another occasion. They seem to have
come to an end of their own resources
when he shows up, cooking breakfast
for them, there on the beach.
                                    Come to me. Come and eat.

Perhaps that is a clue to the mystery
What we hear is an invitation
what we see is a meal –
the Lord sets the Table,
the Lord invites us to eat
as in heaven
may it be on earth.
                                    Amen.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

an acceptable sacrifice

Notes on the psalm for the Fifth Sunday of Lent.

Of today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 51:2-23, Daniel N. Schowalter writes:

Coming at the end of Lent, this responsive reading from Psalm 51 offers a multitude of images that unite the modern Christian with the ancient people of Israel.  It also makes a connection back to the beginning of Lent, since this is one of the choices for responsive reading on Ash Wednesday.  Just as the congregation pauses at the beginning of Lent to ask for cleansing as we enter this time of reflection and growth, we do so once again as we face the prospect of Holy Week followed by Easter. We ask to be washed [cleansed of our sins], we confess our transgressions, we recognize our sinful nature, we look for joy and gladness, and we ask God for a clean heart with the words of Jeremiah's new covenant [Jeremiah 31:31-34] still ringing in our ears. Help us to find a sacrifice that is acceptable, and prepare us for the re-establishment of the Holy City. 
  
Rast, Harold W., ed. New Proclamation, Year B, 2005-2006, Advent Through Holy Week. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. 194.

2012 March 25
Fifth Sunday in Lent

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Monday, March 19, 2012

Passion

The passion of the Head of the Church must be the passion of its members. 

But what was the passion of Christ? What was he passionate about? And why? 

And how are we to participate?

Christ died once for all for our salvation, on a particular date in human
history. His death, as the writer of the letter to the Hebrews insists, is a
unique and unrepeatable event. But this event, like his incarnation and his
resurrection, which are also events in the stream of history, transcends
history: it is one day and every day. Every day is both Good Friday and Easter
Day, because Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection are present to us every
day. It is hard to comprehend so much eternal reality in a single day, and it
is not surprising that the first Christians should, almost from the beginning,
have celebrated the mystery of the Lord’s passion on a particular day, the
weekly anniversary of his resurrection.Over time, an annual cycle of
commemoration was laid over the rhythm of the week. This provided the
Church with a way of meditating deeply on the successive episodes of
Christ’s saving life and death, from his conception in Mary’s womb, through
his death and resurrection, to his ascension to his place at the right hand of
the Father and the descent of the Holy Spirit promised by him. Other kinds
of Christian commemoration have been added to the Christian year –
originally, those of the apostles and martyrs, who had in a distinctive way
witnessed to the passion of Christ.

The liturgical year thus provides a structure for the Church’s collective
memory, a way of consecrating our human experience of time in the
celebration of God’s work – in Christ and in human beings made holy
through Christ – a work which is both unrepeatably in time and
incomprehensibly beyond time. It asserts a Christian understanding of time
as a context of God’s grace, against the world’s purely functional reckoning
of time. This act of Christian remembering has proved, over time, to have an
extraordinary depth. Through the structuring of our Christian memory, the
past is able to come into our present, in a process of anamnesis (only weakly
translated by our English ‘remembrance’):

Paschal Lamb, thine Offering, finished
once for all when thou wast slain,
in its fullness undiminished
shall for evermore remain.
(G. H. Bourne)

This powerfully creative remembering has deep roots in Jewish tradition,
and especially in the Passover meal. The shared preparation and consumption
of this meal is a memorial action (zikkaron; cf Exodus 12.14 and 13.9), through
which God’s redemptive power in the past act of the Exodus can be freshly
experienced in the present.

The rhythm of the Church’s times and seasons also affects those who take
part in them. It is one of the primary ways in which Christians learn, and
are strengthened in their grasp of, the story of Christ – just as Jesus himself
was familiar with the Jewish festivals, and with the way that the annual
remembrance of Passover shaped the identity of the chosen people. One
of the essential features of this educative remembering is that we imagine
ourselves, in our act of worship, to experience events in the past as present
reality or future hope.We speak naturally at Advent of looking forward to
the birth of the Christ-child, and we experience the joy of his birth as a
present reality, though we know in our minds that it is an event in the past.

(Times and Seasons. London: Church House Publishing, 2006. 1.)

Easter is a season

Easter is a season, not just a day.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Lent 2012

The Joy of the Cross-ward Path

An invitation to a journey lies at the heart of Lent – a pilgrimage to places we could not choose to go, a journey into Christ, in Christ, and with Christ; a path that leads up to Jerusalem to the procession of the Palms and the Passion of Holy Week, and onward from Cross to glory.

We are invited onto a path of joy that looks at first like sorrow – and certainly contains it – but contains within it a larger purpose and a future with hope beyond hope.

In faith we walk with Jesus this Lent. Each week we learn more about his invitation:

5. Jesus invites us to follow and serve – and this invitation he extends to all who seek him.  

This Lent we are looking at these themes of deep celebration – of joy found in following and in serving, always looking to Jesus as the source of salvation and the founder of our faith.

How will you take up this invitation? Join us on Lenten Sundays and Wednesdays, as we explore these themes, and seek together what it means to live in the joy of the journey on the cross-ward way of Christ.

Themes are drawn from Bread for the World 2012 Lenten Prayers for Hungry People 
(http://www.bread.org/help/church/worship/lent/2012-lenten-table-tents.pdf)

Jesus is lifted up for our salvation

In the name of God, source of all being, incarnate Word, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our family car was a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air station wagon, turquoise and cream. We boys rode in the back seat. My parents rode in the front. Looking over the driver’s shoulder I could see out through the windshield to the front hood of the car. There in the middle of it was a hood ornament, or as I called it, “the aimer”. I figured when you drove you steered the car using the aimer as kind of a front sight, like the one on the front of a rifle. With it you could steer your way down the road to where you were going.

It acted as a sign, pointing the way. I never mistook it for the road or for our destination. In fact, I knew where we were going: our cousins’ house, for a family visit and a vacation. “Are we there yet?”

The people of Israel, it seems, sometimes mistook the sign for the thing it was pointing to – or looked another way entirely. They had lost their way in the wilderness, at least morally. Moses and the Lord had led them out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt. They were ‘under the cloud’ – the pillar of cloud that guided them by day – and they were being led by Moses, and the Lord, through the desert. They complained a lot, though.

They murmured. In fact today’s lesson records Murmur Number Five. And this time they complained, not only about Moses, but also about the Lord – and that was not going to work.

“We have NO FOOD and NO WATER and we detest THIS MISERABLE FOOD!”

They had water from the rock – and manna, food from Heaven. But – no thanks. 

And so – something happened. They were afflicted – and they were convicted.

With snakes they were afflicted; of sin they were convicted.

Since everything comes from God, the good and the bad, they must have reasoned, God sent even the snakes – even the punishment that came to them. And that is how they took it, as an affliction that recalled them to their senses. They repented. “We have sinned against you and against God,” they said to Moses. Now save us already!

And then a strange thing happened. God told Moses to make an image of the very thing that had been killing them – the engine of their affliction – and put it up where everybody could see it, and everyone who was bitten who turned and looked at it would be saved.

Look to the snake on the pole and you will be saved. A strange sign, indeed: but what does it point to?

It points to – we discover – something stranger yet: the innocent person who took upon himself the sins of us all, who was lifted up on a cross – the most excruciating of devices for punitive humiliation and tortuous death, and thereby – by that very means – became the source of our salvation.

If we look to Christ – if we trust him, believe in him, put our faith in him – we find our way to life.

The wanderers in the desert had received their freedom. They had water from the rock. They had bread from heaven. And they had healing of this strange affliction.

We, who were wandering in the wilderness of sin, have been given our freedom – we have been released from our own captivity to the follies and destructive behaviors that kept us from God. God has sustained us; everything we have, all we need to live, is a gift of God. And we have received salvation – healing from more than sickness of the body, we have received healing and wholeness of our souls, our inward life.

God has given us eternal life. It is life in its fullness. It is life in right relationship to God, to nature, to each other, and to our selves. It is life that comes to completion in Christ; that finds its fulfillment in the presence of the Lord.

Jesus, whom everyone knew was innocent, nevertheless gave himself up – gave his life over – as a testimony and a witness to the truth – the truth of God’s love for humankind.

And so he was lifted up – raised up, onto the cross at Calvary, and raised up, into the new life in the resurrection – and in this dying and in this rising was the saving of the world.

If we look to Christ – if we trust him, believe in him, put our faith in him – we find our way to life.

This good news came to the people of Ireland in a strange way – a godly way.

A young patrician, a teenager from a prosperous family of Roman Britons, was spending his time by the seaside, at a waterfront property of his family, convenient to the coast – and convenient for pirates. Irish rovers came across the sea and stole him away, kidnapped him, and made him a slave. They sold him on, to a farmer in Ireland.

Young Patrick, as he came to be called, found himself tending cattle on the backside of beyond, way over on the west coast of this distant and foreign island.
And that is how he spent his teenage years. They were teenage years – formative years – but not his only formation for adulthood, for he found his way to freedom, and to a spiritual re-formation.

Patrick first found his way to physical freedom. He walked out, somehow, away from his master, and escaped across Ireland and the sea. He journeyed far, into France, and there he found a spiritual freedom. He encountered a spiritual master, Martin of Tours, founder of a monastery and a movement. Martin took him in and taught him the Christian way – the way of the Cross.

Patrick learned from Martin – and gained a blessing that he was meant to share. For Patrick had a dream – not a daydream, but a vision: he was being called back, across the sea, to bring the good news of the freedom of the spirit, the gospel of God, to the very people who had enslaved his body. And he answered the call.

Rough-hewn and mystical, Patrick was the perfect apostle to bring the good news to the Celtic peoples. He returned to Ireland. And he did something there that was much more significant than any legendary miracle.

Legends like driving all the snakes from Ireland. (There were not snakes in Ireland to begin with.) The point is not what he drove out; the point is what he brought in.

He brought into Ireland and to its people the good news that in Christ was to be found their completion, their wholeness, and their salvation. He brought the gospel to a people that had been enslaved by greed, ignorance and sin, a people lost in darkness. He brought to them the light of Christ.

And they in turn became a light to the world. From the Celtic lands, from the people he taught the gospel, came in time a series of monastic missionaries, adventurers on the seas of the world, who sought holiness and brought salvation to the people they encountered, all across the continent of Europe.

The learned monks of Ireland, in the centuries following Patrick’s mission, studied and shared the great gifts of civilization – and beyond civilization they brought the saving news of Jesus Christ.

Patrick never drove the snakes out of Ireland. What he drove out, under the Master’s guidance, was the fear and the ignorance that kept the Irish people in bondage to sin.

What the Lord did in Ireland through Patrick and all the Irish saints to follow was to establish an outpost of courage, hope, generosity, and freedom; a beacon that shone across Europe with the light of Christ.

What God brings to us to day is the good news of salvation: we look to the Cross – for salvation, for Jesus was lifted up so that we, and all people, may receive the gift of life.

And what calls us today is the mission of the kingdom. We carry with us into our world, our place and time, to those around us, those we know already and those we must seek out, the message of hope and the means of salvation, the abundant grace that is found in the Cross of Christ.

O God, who made the world and made it good, and who redeemed the world you made when we had fallen into sin and wandered far from your purpose for our lives, you who redeemed Patrick from bondage, sending him on a mission as your apostle of freedom, compassion, and grace, so bless your servants here with courage and hospitality, generosity and faith, that your spirit may abide in the hearts of this congregation and that this church may be to your world a beacon of hope and a light of your salvation. Amen.

BLent4, Fourth Sunday in Lent, Numbers 21:4-9, Ephesians 2:1-10,
John 3:14-21, Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22.


JRL+

Look to Jesus for salvation

In the name of God, source of all being, incarnate Word, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our family car was a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air station wagon, turquoise and cream. We boys rode in the back seat. My parents rode in the front. Looking over the driver’s shoulder I could see out through the windshield to the front hood of the car. There in the middle of it was a hood ornament, or as I called it, “the aimer”. 

I figured when you drove you steered the car using the aimer as kind of a front sight, like the one on the front of a rifle. With it you could steer your way down the road to where you were going.

It acted as a sign, pointing the way. I never mistook it for the road or for our destination. In fact, I knew where we were going: our cousins’ house, for a family visit and a vacation. “Are we there yet?”

The people of Israel, it seems, sometimes mistook the sign for the thing it was pointing to – or looked another way entirely. They had lost their way in the wilderness, at least morally. Moses and the Lord had led them out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt. They were ‘under the cloud’ – the pillar of cloud that guided them by day – and they were being led by Moses, and the Lord, through the desert. They complained a lot, though.

They murmured. In fact today’s lesson records Murmur Number Five. And this time they complained, not only about Moses, but also about the Lord – and that was not going to work.

“We have NO FOOD and NO WATER and we detest THIS MISERABLE FOOD!”

They had water from the rock – and manna, food from Heaven. But – no thanks. 

And so – something happened. They were afflicted – and they were convicted.

With snakes they were afflicted; of sin they were convicted.

Since everything comes from God, the good and the bad, they must have reasoned, God sent even the snakes – even the punishment that came to them. And that is how they took it, as an affliction that recalled them to their senses. They repented. “We have sinned against you and against God,” they said to Moses. Now save us already!

And then a strange thing happened. God told Moses to make an image of the very thing that had been killing them – the engine of their affliction – and put it up where everybody could see it, and everyone who was bitten who turned and looked at it would be saved.

Look to the snake on the pole and you will be saved. A strange sign, indeed: but what does it point to?

It points to – we discover – something stranger yet: the innocent person who took upon himself the sins of us all, who was lifted up on a cross – the most excruciating of devices for punitive humiliation and tortuous death, and thereby – by that very means – became the source of our salvation.

If we look to Christ – if we trust him, believe in him, put our faith in him – we find our way to life.

The wanderers in the desert had received their freedom. They had water from the rock. They had bread from heaven. And they had healing of this strange affliction.

We, who were wandering in the wilderness of sin, have been given our freedom – we have been released from our own captivity to the follies and destructive behaviors that kept us from God. God has sustained us; everything we have, all we need to live, is a gift of God. And we have received salvation – healing from more than sickness of the body, we have received healing and wholeness of our souls, our inward life.

God has given us eternal life. It is life in its fullness. It is life in right relationship to God, to nature, to each other, and to our selves. It is life that comes to completion in Christ; that finds its fulfillment in the presence of the Lord.

Jesus, whom everyone knew was innocent, nevertheless gave himself up – gave his life over – as a testimony and a witness to the truth – the truth of God’s love for humankind.

And so he was lifted up – raised up, onto the cross at Calvary, and raised up, into the new life in the resurrection – and in this dying and in this rising was the saving of the world.

If we look to Christ – if we trust him, believe in him, put our faith in him – we find our way to life.

What God brings to us to day is the good news of salvation: we look to the Cross – for salvation, for Jesus was lifted up so that we, and all people, may receive the gift of life.

And what calls us today is the mission of the kingdom, the message of hope. 

May we carry with us into our world, our place and time, 
to those far away and to those around us, 
those we know already and those we must seek out, 
the message of hope and the means of salvation, 
the abundant grace that is found in the Cross of Christ.
   
JRL+

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Patrick

The good news came to the people of Ireland in a strange way – a godly way.

A young patrician, a teenager from a prosperous family of Roman Britons, was spending his time by the seaside, at a waterfront property of his family, convenient to the coast – and convenient for pirates. Irish rovers came across the sea and stole him away, kidnapped him, and made him a slave. They sold him on, to a farmer in Ireland.

Young Patrick, as he came to be called, found himself tending cattle on the backside of beyond, way over on the west coast of this distant and foreign island.
And that is how he spent his teenage years. They were teenage years – formative years – but not his only formation for adulthood, for he found his way to freedom, and to a spiritual re-formation.

Patrick first found his way to physical freedom. He walked out, somehow, away from his master, and escaped across Ireland and the sea. He journeyed far, into France, and there he found a spiritual freedom. He encountered a spiritual master, Martin of Tours, founder of a monastery and a movement. Martin took him in and taught him the Christian way – the way of the Cross.

Patrick learned from Martin – and gained a blessing that he was meant to share. For Patrick had a dream – not a daydream, but a vision: he was being called back, across the sea, to bring the good news of the freedom of the spirit, the gospel of God, to the very people who had enslaved his body. And he answered the call.

Rough-hewn and mystical, Patrick was the perfect apostle to bring the good news to the Celtic peoples. He returned to Ireland. And he did something there that was much more significant than any legendary miracle.

Legends like driving all the snakes from Ireland. (There were not snakes in Ireland to begin with.) The point is not what he drove out; the point is what he brought in.

He brought into Ireland and to its people the good news that in Christ was to be found their completion, their wholeness, and their salvation. He brought the gospel to a people that had been enslaved by greed, ignorance and sin, a people lost in darkness. He brought to them the light of Christ.

And they in turn became a light to the world. From the Celtic lands, from the people he taught the gospel, came in time a series of monastic missionaries, adventurers on the seas of the world, who sought holiness and brought salvation to the people they encountered, all across the continent of Europe.

The learned monks of Ireland, in the centuries following Patrick’s mission, studied and shared the great gifts of civilization – and beyond civilization they brought the saving news of Jesus Christ.

Patrick never drove the snakes out of Ireland. What he drove out, under the Master’s guidance, was the fear and the ignorance that kept the Irish people in bondage to sin.

What the Lord did in Ireland through Patrick and all the Irish saints to follow was to establish an outpost of courage, hope, generosity, and freedom; a beacon that shone across Europe with the light of Christ.

What God brings to us today is the good news of salvation: we look to the Cross – for salvation, for Jesus was lifted up so that we, and all people, may receive the gift of life.

And what calls us today is the mission of the kingdom. We carry with us into our world, our place and time, to those around us, those we know already and those we must seek out, the message of hope and the means of salvation, the abundant grace that is found in the Cross of Christ.

O God, who made the world and made it good, and who redeemed the world you made when we had fallen into sin and wandered far from your purpose for our lives, you who redeemed Patrick from bondage, sending him on a mission as your apostle of freedom, compassion, and grace, so bless your servants here with courage and hospitality, generosity and faith, that your spirit may abide in the hearts of this congregation and that this church may be to your world a beacon of hope and a light of your salvation. Amen.

JRL+

Thursday, March 15, 2012

How is the Spirit moving in Edmonds?

How is the Spirit moving in Edmonds? Or: What is God doing in Edmonds? Or even: What is God's will for Edmonds?

That seems to be the big question for any church in Edmonds, certainly for Saint Alban's Church.

The second question is, how are we to respond to and participate in that movement of the Spirit?

Within that, we look at our particular charisms - our gifts from the Spirit we have to offer - and see how we can participate in the movement of the Spirit in our midst. We take part in that movement because we are creatures of God's delight - God's beloved children. Our mutual delight is the joy of the Lord. We are here, in part, to share that delight and offer that joy to one another and to the world.

How are we called to do so? What is God's collective purpose for gathering us as people of the good news here in the community we and others call home? And how are we to live out our ministry as baptized Christians in this time and place, both personally and collectively, as the body of Christ?

Our baptismal vows, which we renew on major baptismal feasts, give us a clue:

Celebrant  Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and
               fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the
               prayers?
People        I will, with God's help.

Celebrant  Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever
               you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
People        I will, with God's help.

Celebrant  Will you proclaim by word and example the Good
              News of God in Christ?
People        I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant  Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving
               your neighbor as yourself?
People        I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant  Will you strive for justice and peace among all people,
               and respect the dignity of every human being?
People        I will, with God's help.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Reading for Passion

We often choose a study book for Lent. This year, during Holy Week, my personal devotions will be guided by The Cross and the Colliery by N. T. Wright (London: SPCK, 2007).*
Bishop Wright offers a sermon cycle on the themes of each day of Holy Week, from the Passion to Easter. In his sermon at the Eucharist on Palm Sunday, he suggests the figure of a four-part harmony to explain how we should see the Scriptures - and ourselves, in light of it.
  1. The melody:  the story of Jesus from Palm Sunday to Good Friday.
  2. The bass line:  underlying the gospel theme, the story of the love of God the creator for his suffering world, the Old Testament. 
  3. The tenor:  the story of our own world, our own community.
  4. And the alto part:  your own personal story.
So: the Gospel story, the Old Testament story, the story of our whole community, and the stories of our individual personal experiences: each of these is an essential part in the harmony we sing together as we embark on the pilgrim way of Lent. And it is the song we sing as we approach Jerusalem in Holy Week, bearing at first palm branches and human hopes, as we progress through the events of the greatest week on the Christian calendar, from Palm Sunday through the days and nights of the week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and at last the new beginning, Easter morning.




*published in the US as Christians at the Cross: Finding Hope in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus (Ijamsville, MD: The Word Among Us, 2007)


The shortest ending of Mark


And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid. (Mark 16:8, rsv)

The shock must have been great. Greater than the shock of any day before. They stood before the empty tomb.  And they knew. They knew it was true. He was not there. He had gone before. He had gone before them, into the night. And through it, and beyond it. He had gone into the morning of a new day. The day he promised. The day he told them about. The day of the Lord. It was his day. And it was theirs. They did not know what to do with it. They did, they did know, they knew some things: they knew to go and tell every body all about it. They knew to proclaim it from the rooftops. They knew: they were women. What did they know? Who would believe them? What were they, after all? Who were they to know, to tell, the terrible secret? (He was alive.)

He was alive and everything must change. Everything must be different from now on. They ran down the street. No one knew. No one but them. But soon, that would be different too. As the day begins. Early morning sounds began to rustle around them as they hurried home. Ordinary sounds, the sounds of the first day of the week. The first day. You said it, brother. The first day of everything. What would finally happen was in the future. This was the hinge point – or just past it.

Wasn’t the shift really something that had come in the dark of the night, after the full moon had come and gone? Just a day before?

After the Passover, after all the noise, the sounds too loud for human ear, after the violence, came the quiet— the quiet, the mourning. Saturday. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. It was the Sabbath: nothing worked that day. Nothing and nobody. He was gone. For ever. And then. They went on the morning of the first day of the week. Not just morning yet, perhaps not even dawn, as they began to leave their separate homes and go out. When they met in the street, you could just tell a black thread from a white, if you held them up together before your eyes, or a friend’s eyes.

And very early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen.

It was day. But what would it bring? They went. And they saw. They saw nothing where something should have been. And they knew. It was all over. And it was just beginning. What would the future bring? All they knew was it was a future with hope. But it was a wrenching, strange future, and one being born in hard labor. What had happened was beyond human hope. Beyond the wreckage of their lives, ones they knew. (He was alive.)

He was not there. What are you doing here? What are you looking for? Whom do you seek? We seek Jesus. And will you find him here? Will you find him in the morning, where the stone has been rolled away, and the tomb is empty? Where the gardener’s helper’s discarded cloak has gone missing? Some one needed it. Some one went away. And where he has gone, you should follow. Into the future. The future with hope. A hope in what has begun to be fulfilled. (He is risen.)

The beginning of the new world – a world where God raises from the dead, makes alive again – or better, makes new – what calls us into being ourselves. (The Lord is risen.)

He is risen indeed.

The end is where we start from. —T. S. Eliot

On my bookcase is a paperback New Testament. It was the first part of a new translation and when my great-grandfather got his copy, he wrote the date inside: Dec. 21, 1948. There was something slightly controversial about this translation, the Revised Standard Version. It was in contemporary English, modern English, and it contained the best modern scholarship of its time. So in the text it gave the shortest ending of Mark. The Gospel of Mark, the translators determined, may originally have just ended like this:

And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.

Back up a sentence or two. The women had come to the tomb, where Jesus was laid, on the first day of the week. They came with spices, to anoint him. But they asked each other: Who will roll away the stone that covers the mouth of the tomb? Only to find: it was already rolled back. Inside they found a young man sitting, all dressed in white.

“Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.”

So they knew what to do, what to say.

And it terrified them.


For the Gospel Grapevine, parish newsletter of Saint Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds, Wash., April 2012

JRL+

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Easter Invitation



This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.


Dear Beloved Children of God:

Easter is the day for which we have waited, the day of the resurrection of the Lord; let us be glad and rejoice in the salvation he brings. We celebrate together at the end of Holy Week, at the end of Lent, at the end of waiting. We have waited long to see this day.

This is the day we celebrate: the Lord, our God, has vanquished death. He is triumphant, trampling down death with death. He brings life to all – and this life he brings in abundance.

Come celebrate with us this wonderful day – let even the night shine with the glory of the Lord's resurrection. This is good news for all people – the Lord brings life!

Our Easter Sunday celebrations include a traditional service at eight o’clock, and a more contemporary, family-oriented service at 10:30 in the morning.

Following the second service is the Easter Egg Hunt! All children are invited.

Be with us – and celebrate this joyous morning. And when you go forth from this place, take with you the good news, the news of the resurrection and life that are found in Christ Jesus.


You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.


         Faithfully,



         The Rev. John Leech
         Priest and Rector

         Easter 2012



StAlbansEdmonds.org



Jesus calls us to true worship


What is that man doing over there? When you go to a house of worship there are certain things you come to expect: in Jerusalem that would include going up to the Temple Mount and in through the Court of the Gentiles. There you could begin to pray – or you could buy a pigeon or two doves or cattle or sheep – everything you need for a sacrifice. You could change your money. A coin with Caesar’s head on it could not be accepted. For temple offerings you need shekels. So that is what you come to expect: a busy market, a marketplace of prayers… perhaps – a marketplace of souls?

But our souls are not for sale. And neither is God’s grace. The Ten Commandments were sure things – but they were not magic strings. They did not compel God to mercy. They were a way of keeping the covenant, of keeping the promise of the relationship with God. That relationship heated up on Sinai with the words Moses heard from God, words we heard today in the first reading.

“I am the Lord your God” – there is no other; I am the One – “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

And in the house of prayer which the Temple was meant to be, this liberation from bondage, the end of slavery, was to be remembered and celebrated. So the commandments were to be observed – pointing beyond themselves to a relationship.

Keeping the commandments was a way of acting out the relationship, of showing with your body what you meant with your mind.

But the day would come, the prophets said, when money would no longer change hands in the courtyard, when birds and beasts would not turn the place into the courtyard of a caravanserai, the common yard of an inn – a fairground of the soul.

That is what Jesus was doing, proclaiming by his action the end of business as usual in the Temple.

But they asked him for a sign. Where are your credentials? What gives you the right?

And he replied with a riddle: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Are you nuts, buddy? No – he is more than a prophet.

Up till now the Jews worshipped at the Temple. But that time is passing.

A new day is dawning, the day when true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth – when the presence of God is sought not in a place but in a person – the person of Jesus Christ – and when we seek the Lord we will do it by saying we wish to see Jesus.

But where shall we see Jesus now? How shall we seek him out? Seek him where he wills to be found:

Seek him where he wills to be found. Seek him where he reveals himself. Seek him where he said you could see him and serve him. Serve him in the least of these.

Serve him so that when the naked are clothed and the hungry are fed and the sick and in prison are visited and the jubilee year of God is proclaimed, and when we speak up for the captives, saying, FREE THEM, that all will know that God is present in the world, at work through the body of Christ which is his church.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart and the actions of my hands, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. 

Christ is our sanctuary


From the Promenade on Brooklyn Heights, you can look out across New York Harbor. You can see Liberty Island, Governor’s Island, and Staten Island. You can look right across the East River to Manhattan Island. And if you stand in the right spot you can look right up Wall Street to where it ends at Broadway. There’s a church at the end of it, at the west end of Wall Street.

It’s an Episcopal church, the Parish of Trinity Church in the City of New York. If you were to take the subway over there and walk up the hill from the stop near the East River, you would pass a number of large office buildings. On your right you would come to Federal Hall, where Congress met, in early days. On the left, then, down a side street would be the New York Stock Exchange. And still, ahead of you, would be the church.

Scamper across Broadway and through the iron gates that stand open all day. Around you are the graves of the churchyard, an old statue and a memorial to the prisoners of war who died in confinement during the Revolution.

Go into the church. It’s old, a hundred and fifty years old. The parish is twice that age; this is their third building.

What is in it? Cows and ducks? No, there are no ducks. No cows. No sheep. No goats. No pigeons or doves (usually). This is a house of prayer.

It is not a marketplace. Imagine if it were. Imagine if all the bulls of Wall Street and all the bulls of Pamplona were to run in here. Imagine cows, sheep, and pigeons. Imagine a stockyard, in full auction mode. Imagine the noise. Imagine – the mess.

Imagine buying and selling; money changing hands.

Imagine – your disgust.

Picture Jesus – walking into the room.

He is not afraid. He knows what to do.

He drives out the sheep and the cattle, and, turning on the bankers and brokers, he upsets their trading tables. He orders the birds to be taken away. He says:

This is not an auction yard! This is a house of prayer!

In the first century, in the Temple of Herod the Great, this is what Jesus did.

The people there knew what he was doing. He is doing what a prophet out of the Old Testament would do. He acts. He acts in a way that tells you God is present – and active in the world.

What, though, are his credentials? Who is he to play the prophet? Can he show me a sign? I’ll be willing to believe him if he does. Maybe.

He answers with a riddle. “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

He will take this – where the presence of God is felt, the ‘thin place’ where human beings could come close to God – and he will restore it from annihilation?

How can that possibly happen? The great temple of Herod had been under construction since before he was born!

And yet – he did it. He did raise up the Temple.

But he raised a new Temple – one not made of human hands.


“If all else fails, read the directions”

In the book of Exodus, chapter 20, we hear the words Moses heard on Sinai: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”

God is God. There is no other. There is not another way to approach God or relate to God except as God. He will not settle for anything less; he is the One.

Psalm 19 brings out the bright side of the covenant, the relationship of trust and faithfulness we have with God. The law, like the sun, rejoices the heart, illuminates the mind, and revives the soul. The God who made us has entered into relationship with us.

The law, the promise, is the way of life that works.

It is perfect, it revives the soul; it is sure, it gives wisdom; it is just, it rejoices the heart; it is clear, it gives light; it is clean, it endures forever: it is true and righteous all together.

But the Law points beyond itself – to relationship. And that relationship is fulfilled ultimately in nothing less that the presence of God incarnate in Jesus.

What kind of presence would you expect the Creator of the universe to have, if God could be present among us? Would it not be wisdom, power and might, all the time and everywhere, unmistakable? But somehow God chooses to show greatness and glory in a way surpassing human categories.

At his weakest and most vulnerable, at his most powerless and foolish, we are meant to see, God is still stronger, surer, mightier, and more full of wisdom, than any human possibility.

God comes to us, to a world in need, not as hero conqueror, a sign maker and wonder worker, a prophet of manifest greatness; God comes to us in a simple, humble man, the son of an ordinary family. And in that apparent weakness is incredible strength.

God comes to us, to a planet in shadow, where truth is less valued than knowledge, expertise than truth, and cleverness than charity; and he comes, simply, astoundingly, to the least of us, and calls him Brother.

And then he will take the extraordinary step – he will allow the Temple of his body to be destroyed. He will give his life for us. He will take on himself all our loss, all our grief, all our sorrow; and he will give us – joy.

What happened to the Temple of Herod? It was destroyed, and razed to the foundation stones. The Romans took care of that, under Vespasian and Titus.

What lived was a Temple of the Holy Spirit, a temple of flesh and breath, of heart and mind and strength. What was raised was Jesus himself. Jesus the Christ himself became the ‘thin place’ where human beings could come close to God. To feel the presence of God, seek Jesus.

Seek him where he wills to be found. Seek him where he reveals himself. Seek him where he said you could see him and serve him. Serve him in the least of these.

Serve him so that when the naked are clothed and the hungry are fed and the sick and in prison are visited and the jubilee year of God is proclaimed, and when we speak up for the captives, saying, FREE THEM, that all will know that God is present in the world, at work through the body of Christ which is his church.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart and the actions of my hands, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. 

Saturday, March 10, 2012

A blessed event, announced in the middle of Lent ...

Back on the feast of Epiphany we remembered the visit of the magi to the Holy Family, and the gifts they bring: Gold for the king, Frankincense for the priest, Myrrh for the sacrifice. There is, I submit, one more gift - for us to offer: Praise for the Living One.

Right in the middle of Lent we encounter a part of the Nativity story, nine months before Christmas Day. Raymond Brown, the Roman Catholic biblical scholar, taught that the gospels actually were written beginning with the passion narrative - proceeding through Holy Week, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and then on around to the Birth narratives.

The birth narratives begin with the visit of the angel to Zechariah, announcing the coming birth of John. Then the focus shifts to a younger woman, cousin of Elizabeth. It is Mary. The angel comes to Mary – and hails her as full of grace: she is to bear a son, who is to be the Messiah.

Mary accepts the burden of birth and the destiny of motherhood to the Messiah, Conception to Assumption, somehow knowing that she must not count her child as hers to keep, but must let go of him, dedicate him to the Lord, as Samuel's mother Hannah dedicated him, knowing he will go from her.

Mary, mother of Jesus, takes this task on herself, knowingly, as God's servant, because she knew that he, her child to be, was sent to set the people free: that at last God's promise to redeem Israel would bear fruit in the fullness of time, and that that fulfillment was coming very soon, and was beginning to happen, quickening even now in her.

The Word would indeed ripen in her own womb. She would bear forth upon the world he who would himself bear the pain of the world.

Like Hannah's son Samuel, Jesus the Son of Mary is one consecrated, set apart for service to the Lord, as a thanksgiving offering to the Lord. Samuel is the prophet who brought justice to Israel, and yet he points beyond himself - to Saul, first, then to David, to David's son Solomon, and ultimately to Jesus.

In the birth story of Samuel, Hannah his mother rejoices that God has remembered the forgotten, and will bring relief to the poor. “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God,” she sings (1 Samuel 2:1-10).

In the birth story of Jesus, Mary his mother rejoices that God remembers the forgotten and brings relief to the poor. (Luke 1:46-55) And in our prayers, even daily, we join in her song, the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, Canticle 15 in the Book of Common Prayer: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...”

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Anunciation 2012 (March 25)

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Saturday, March 3, 2012

Jesus invites us to take up the cross

Jesus invites us to take up the cross  

It is when I am not sure that I feel God the most, said my friend.

It is when the path is darkest that I’m sure the light is there.

It is when I let go that I receive.

It is when I stop guarding myself from God, when I start trusting God, when I step out in faith, into the night, that I find my way.

That I find – his way.

It is not really my way at all; it is his.

If you would follow me, you must deny your self – your life, your inmost being; you must take up your cross and prepare to die with me; you must follow me.

But! You are the Messiah. What is going on here? 

It is necessary…

Is it? 

Get behind me, Tempter! For your thoughts are not God’s thoughts nor your ways God’s way: if you try to preserve your self you will lose your self, if you lose your self, you will gain life.

It is when I am not sure that I feel God the most. 

It is when I let go and trust, 
when there is nothing to turn to, 
and no light on the way, 
that I know I am homeward bound.

There is a breath in the midst of the darkness, 
in the absence a pregnant pause:  he is listening; 
the world is listening, it knows he is coming.

It is when I find no purpose inside myself, 
and no hidden inner resource, 
that I am most thrown back upon God, who is faithful. 

When the promise is impossible, then it is kept.

When I no longer try to keep it to myself, I fully receive it.

I am most receptive to God’s leading, when I am least sure of my own.

When I am not sure where to go, what to do, where he wants me to go, what he wants me to do, 
it is then that I feel God the most.

It is when he is absent that I know he is here. 

It is when I give up my self, preserving my own life, my way, 
that I find my way, gain my life, and receive my self.

(When I am most fully myself is when I am least full of myself!)

When I chose this passage from Genesis 17 for an ordination anniversary Eucharist, last summer, I was remembering the promise: I will make you ancestor of a multitude – of many who receive the blessing, who share in the faith; who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.  

Abram and Sarai are newly called in to covenant as parents of the promise, as parents of the faithful. They are faith-parents to faith-children; those who live in faith all are their descendants.

Our children are children of faith,
Our legacy is a legacy of hope,
Our mission is a mission of love.

The mission is the message: faith and trust and hope abide; and end in love, as they began – in Christ, in the bearing of the cross, love’s redeeming work is done.



Jesus invites us to take up the cross.
Second Sunday in Lent * March 4, 2012 
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38


Jesus invites us to become his true disciples: to take up the cross and follow him

Lenten Themes 2012


1. Jesus calls us to repent and believe in the good news.
2. Jesus invites us to become his true disciples: to take up the cross and follow him.
3. Jesus calls us to true worship.
4. Jesus is lifted up for our salvation: we look to the cross for salvation.
5. Jesus invites us to follow and serve – and this invitation he extends to all who seek him. 

Ash Wednesday * February 22, 2012 
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Week 1. Jesus calls us to repent and believe in the good news.
First Sunday in Lent * February 26, 2012 
Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

Week 2. Jesus invites us to take up the cross.
Second Sunday in Lent * March 4, 2012 
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

Week 3. Jesus calls us to true worship.
Third Sunday in Lent * March 11, 2012
Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22

Week 4. Jesus is lifted up for our salvation.
Fourth Sunday in Lent * March 18, 2012
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21

Week 5. Jesus invites us to follow and serve.
Fifth Sunday in Lent * March 25, 2012 
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33

Palm Sunday * April 1, 2012
Liturgy of the Palms 
Mark 11:1-11
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Liturgy of the Word 
Isaiah 50:4-9a 
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
The Passion Gospel
Mark 14:1—15:47

Maundy Thursday * April 5, 2012 
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17 
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Good Friday * April 6, 2012
Isaiah 52:13—53:12
Psalm 22
Hebrews 10:16-25
John 18:1—19:42