sermonoats

Monday, April 13, 2020

Monday in Easter Week

https://www.magdala.org/

Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." (Mathew 28:9-10)

GO AND TELL: that is what the Risen Jesus says to the women, Mary of Magdala and the other Mary. They are the first to hear and see and tell, in Matthew's Gospel.

GO AND TELL: and they do. The disciples go, as they are told by the women, to await him in Galilee.

"There they will see me" -- this is the refrain, come Easter Week, of a chant at New Camaldoli, for all the Octave of Easter. He has risen as he promised - and he goes ahead of us.

He goes ahead of us. Before anyone else, he is there.

He is there, in Galilee, cooking fish over an open fire on a stone by a lake, with birds and animals swimming by.

He is there in the Resurrection.

He is there in the future.

He is there for us.

http://www.dormitio.net/english/en.places/en.tabgha/t-church/index.html

The Book of Common Prayer, 1662:
Monday in Easter Week. The Collect.

ALMIGHTY God, who through thy only-begotten Son Jesus Chriſt haſt overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlaſting life; We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us, thou doſt put into our minds good desires; so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect, through Jesus Chriſt our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghoſt, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

For the Epistle. ACTS 10. 34-43.

The Gospel. S. LUKE 24. 13-35.

The Book of Common Prayer, 1979.

Monday in Easter Week. The Collect.

Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that we who celebrate with awe the Paschal feast may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Easter Day

And so it begins again. Nothing is the same and all is as it ever was.

     We are not the same. We are changed. We are made new, a new creation, in the Holy Spirit, in God, and in Christ, as we, baptized or renewed in our vows, face the new dawn of Easter. It is a new day.

     God is the same. Ever faithful. Ever triumphant and sorrowful. On the cross, in the grave, and now, raised from the dead, Jesus is Jesus is the one who leads the way. He is the first born of all of us.

     We are a new creation. We are the ones God who created us redeemed and sanctifies and inspires.

     This Easter is like no other and like all to come and all before it.

     As Michael Curry pointed out in his Easter sermon, that first Easter nobody knew it was Easter. Except the Lord, of course.

     As Greg Rickel pointed out in his Easter message, this time is different. It always is and this time it sure is.

     We may learn something. We may learn something for awhile. Things pass, and time. We may forget.

     Or we may not: we may remember what (we who are living then) what this time was like: and how we came together as we were separated. And looked after each other. And waited. For a new day.

***

One morning just before dawn I awoke in the Gloria Hotel near the Jaffa Gate in Old Jerusalem, and laced up my boots and made my way through the city streets to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. I really couldn't tell you what I was looking at, at first. A slab inside the front door. Steep stairs leading upwards. A small round building inside a large rotunda. And steps steeply leading downwards across the way.

     The stairs leading up were leading down from Calvary. The slab was where they laid him. The small round building enclosed the tomb - and the place of resurrection. The steps steeply downwards led to the place that a piece of wood was found, centuries after his death, perhaps a piece of the execution engine upon which his body had been fixed on Good Friday. It was pretty quiet around there at 5:30 a.m.

     Later that day I went back with a large group of pilgrims, who were quickly surrounded by much larger crowds. We slowly made our way up the line and in, in groups of six, inside that small round building. We knelt, three at a time, at the marble slab inside the inside room of that place. I laid my head on the stone. And closed my eyes. And lost time.

     And woke up with a gasp. And wandered out into the relative daylight of the larger room. "This way, Father," the attendant ushered me.

     And that was a new day too.

Easter Day

Early Service.
Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 28:1-10
Psalm 114

Principal Service.

Evening Service.

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Easter Even

Silence. As Joseph and his helpers lower the body of Jesus from its tree on Calvary, carrying it over to the stone slab where it will be lain preparatory to his entombment, as they then help to convey it into the newly offered tomb of Joseph nearby, hand hewn in the rock of the hillside above the city, they speak not a word except whispers, perhaps, of what needs to be done. Then they walk away.

It will be days, and nights, before they recover. They do not expect anything. Except morbid corruption, and possibly rage. For their Lord and our Savior is gone. What we make of this...

It was Thomas of the "doubt" who said, let us go with him, that we may die with him. He had no expectations, when they went to the tomb of Lazarus, that anything would happen to them in Judea but arrest, punishment, torture, and death. And so it proved - for Jesus. And so much more.

In the midst of nothing, when nobody moved, no one spoke, no sound but an errant bird or two, the sighing through the trees of an inordinate wind, that God spoke the word that is silence. Let there be...

And there was new life. Aborning in the stillness. We will not know what it means until it happens.

To us. But we can wait - and pray. And prayer may lead us to a sense of self that is new, that is ready, that can participate in the fullness of new life. Life renewed.

This is the day of sorrow fulfilled and of joy anticipated. And tonight ...

What will be happening, in the midst of the silence of this night, this night no less holy than 24 Dec.?

Something we cannot anticipate, we cannot wait for, that is the promise of God from before all ages. That we do not understand.

Wait for it. Wait.

In the silence.

Peace.

***

The Book of Common Prayer (1662):

Eaſter Even.

The Collect.

GRANT, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son, our Saviour Jesus Chriſt; so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections, we may be buried with him; and that through the grave and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection, for his merits who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle. 1 S. PET. 3. 17. The Gospel. S. MATTH. 27. 57.

The Great Vigil of Easter : Revised Common Lectionary

At The Liturgy of the Word

Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation]
Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 [The Flood]
Genesis 22:1-18 [Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac]
Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea]
Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all]
Baruch 3:9-15, 3:32-4:4 or Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6 [Learn wisdom and live]
Ezekiel 36:24-28 [A new heart and a new spirit]
Ezekiel 37:1-14 [The valley of dry bones]
Zephaniah 3:14-20 [The gathering of God's people]

At The Eucharist

Romans 6:3-11
Psalm 114
Matthew 28:1-10

Ordinary Time

When will be this be over? When can we go back to ordinary time?

In some church Kalendars the seasons after the Feast of Epiphany and the Day of Pentecost are called Ordinary Time. These are the green days, the green seasons, the shorter one in early days of the new year, the later "the long green season" of mostly summer but then on and on into autumn.

But this year, we want to go back to normal. Will we ever?

As priests have noted, including Doyle from St Patrick's Kenwood in her Easter letter, we will be a new people when this is over.

The New Yorker writer David Remnick remarks in April 13th 2020 "Talk of the Town" that "we will greet our friends, face to face, at long-delayed Easter services and Passover Seders."

Not so sure. Some of those face-to-face greetings will happen in the consummation of time.

And we will be changed. That is the Easter promise. We shall all be changed.

We will be a new people. This is going to happen, regardless of the virus or its momentum.

What is going on, beneath the surface happenings of coronavirus shut-down, safe distancing, and two-meter socializing, is a global re-think of who we are. At least that is what the invitation is; the opportunity.

Again, for many of us. Some of us, our choices are limited, indeed tragically.

But we can in aggregate, as a community, begin to think about our society and what we want it to be. And what we want it to do.

Do we want to look out for the elderly? Do we want to begin to call them, relationally, "our elders" instead of the impersonal problem-solving "the seniors"? Do we want to look out for the unfortunate, the undeserving (yes) and the stranger among us?

Do we want them to earn it? Do we really think we can impose that requirement?

In the fraught political days ahead we will ask ourselves new questions.

Perhaps instead of discussing health care in terms of financial responsibilities - who's going to pay for this? who is liable if things go wrong? - but in terms of care: how well are we treating people?

In terms of voting maybe we will ask not how to limit the electorate to the congenial but how to ensure a legitimate plebiscite - including distance voting (absentee ballots and the like) and sensible redistricting.

Who deserves to be at the table may be met with more humility: as we are all welcome at the Lord's table.

JRL+

Friday, April 10, 2020

to provoke unto love

Let us hold faſt the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:23-25, KJV)

Aw, heck. How are we supposed to do that, in a time of physical distancing and pandemic prudence? How can we not forsake the assembling of ourselves together? Well, first of all, we can ... phone each other? pass each other with a greeting on the street? facebook/zoom each other? how come you never write? ... but first of all, we can pray for each other.

Pray for each other: in this way, we are always together; as we always are together, in Christ. We will proclaim the Lord's death until he comes, as the liturgy demands, even as we cannot gather in the same room together. Indeed, we are together as always with those we never see in the same room together: those we meet only in the Eucharist - or in prayer. These include faraway friends of today but includes as well the martyrs of the past and ... our sisters and brothers of the future.

We hold out hope today not for ourselves only, but for those who are to come. When it was that we could not meet in prayer together, we met in our hearts in our minds and much more in our prayer.

That is our legacy and our witness. And our hope.

***

For Good Friday our current lectionary prescribes:
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 10:16-25
or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42
Psalm 22

The Book of Common Prayer, 1662, gives these Readings for Friday before Easter:
The Epistle. Heb. 10. 1. (to v. 25)
The Gospel. S. JOHN 19. 1. (to v. 37)

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Maundy Thursday

May the Lord who served be the one we follow; may the One we serve be honored in our service; may we, as we serve one another, and those we once called stranger, become servants of our Lord.

Traditionally, most years, it is our custom both to wash feet and to share communion on this holy Thursday. But this year that is not to be. Instead, we may well find ourselves returning back to the Word, to the relation of the events of that first Maundy Thursday night as they presage the events of that night and the next morning. That is, the celebratory aspects of the traditional get-together may be overwhelmed by the memory of what is to come: Good Friday.

In the old Book of Common Prayer that was first published in England in 1662, and is still in use in that realm today, the emphasis is on the Passion, in the Gospel of John. The Epistle, granted, is of the Last Supper: and how we use it to proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So the hope is beyond time. And yet it is now.

Somehow in all these events of Holy Week, Easter and Easter Week, we are to see beyond our own difficulties and sorrows, and the sorrows of Jesus and all his loving followers, then and now, to the hope beyond hope that the Resurrection demands. That it imposes on us, if we take it seriously.

Can we? Is that even possible?

Some seek to tell us that in past catastrophes, epidemics, plagues, and the familiar California litany of drought, rainstorm, flood, mudslide, earthquake, and drought again, "nobody helped anybody else, it was every man (sic) for himself." Well, no. I am reminded of those early Christians within the Roman Empire who became known for self less nursing of the sick, in times of famine and plague. And of those in brave London who looked after one another in the years just following the publication of the old prayer book, that is, in the Great Fire and then the Plague that hit that town.

And I think of the self giving (there are the terms self-donative and kenosis, again) of the clergy and people who stayed in the city of Memphis during an outbreak of yellow fever in 1878. They included:

The Martyrs of Memphis: Sisters Constance, Thecla, Ruth, and Frances of the Community of Saint Mary, the Reverend Charles Parsons, and the Reverend Louis Schuyler.

We remember them on September 9th, every year, and this year, perhaps many more days than one.

Serving as relief workers at the Episcopal cathedral of Saint Mary in Memphis amid sweltering heat and scenes of indescribable horror, they gave relief to the sick, comfort to the dying, and homes to the many orphaned children.

See how these Christians are, as Pliny the Younger and other Roman officials wrote in perplexion to Caesar, as they give of themselves, to each other surely, but also to others, even strangers. What shall I do with them?

Flog them if they persevere obstinate. That's one answer. And sure enough, they persisted.

See how they love one another.

But that's not it, not all of it, not by a long shot.

For Jesus died not just to save the people of his own tribe, but that all might find hope and healing and salvation.

I don't think you have to sign up for anything. I don't think you even have to know or care much about him, or certainly not his followers.

Just know that in Christ, in how he died and even more how he lived, God showed that there is hope, death is not the end: that love is strong as death, and when even faith and hope are gone, love endures.

***

Revised Common Lectionary (Episcopal Edition)

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Psalm 116:1, 10-17

***

The Book of Common Prayer, 1662

Thursday before Easter. The Epistle. 1 COR. 11. 17.

The Gospel. S. LUKE 23. 1.

ALMIGHTY and everlaſting God, who of thy tender love towards mankind, haſt sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Chriſt, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility; Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection, through the same Jesus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

***

From Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2008 edition, pages 465-466:

SEPTEMBER 9: THE MARTYRS OF MEMPHIS: CONSTANCE, THECLA, RUTH, FRANCES, CHARLES PARSONS, AND LOUIS SCHUYLER, 1878

In August 1878, yellow fever invaded the city of Memphis, Tennessee for the third time in ten years. By the month’s end, the disease had become epidemic and a quarantine was ordered. While more than 25,000 citizens had fled in terror, nearly 20,000 more remained to face the pestilence. As cases multiplied, death toll averaged 200 people per day. When the worst was over, ninety percent of the people who remained had contracted the fever and more than 5,000 people had died.

In that time of panic and flight, many brave men and women, both lay and ordained, remained at their posts of duty or came as volunteers to assist in spite of the terrible risk. Notable among these heroes were four Episcopal sisters from the Community of Saint Mary, and two of their clergy colleagues, all of whom died while tending to the sick. They have ever since been known as “The Martyrs of Memphis,” as have those of other communions who ministered in Christ’s name during this time of desolation.

The Sisters had come to Memphis in 1873, at Bishop Quintard’s request, to found a school for girls adjacent to St. Mary’s Cathedral. When the 1878 epidemic began, George C. Harris, the cathedral dean, and Sister Constance immediately organized relief work among the stricken. Helping were six of Constance’s fellow Sisters of St. Mary; Sister Clare from St. Margaret’s House, Boston, Massachusetts; the Reverend Charles C. Parsons, Rector of Grace and St. Lazarus Church, Memphis; and the Reverend Louis S. Schuyler, assistant at Holy Innocents, Hoboken, New Jersey. The cathedral group also included three physicians, two of whom were ordained Episcopal priests, the Sisters’ two matrons, and several volunteer nurses from New York.

The cathedral buildings were located in the most infected region of Memphis. Here, amid sweltering heat and scenes of indescribable horror, these men and women of God gave relief to the sick, comfort to the dying, and homes to the many orphaned children. Only two of the workers escaped the fever. Among those who died were Constance, Thecla, Ruth, and Frances, the Reverend Charles Parsons, and the Reverend Louis Schuyler. All six are buried at Elmwood Cemetery. The monument marking the joint grave of Fathers Parsons and Schuyler bears the inscription: “Greater Love Hath No Man.” The high altar in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Memphis, is a memorial to the four Sisters.

(Pliny, Letters 10.96-97. Pliny to the Emperor Trajan. https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html. accessed April 5, 2020.)

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Wednesday in Holy Week: The New Commandment

Isaiah 50:4-9a, Hebrews 12:1-3, John 13:21-32, Psalm 70, Wednesday in Holy Week.

Well if they don't know by now they should surely get it from this. The disciples have enjoyed the hospitality of Jesus at the Table, including his washing of their feet like a servant (διάκονος), and then - if they had been listening - he foretells his own betrayal. And even then he is ready: he tells them what they now need to know. Love one another. Don't forget it.

This is what you need to know, in the days ahead. Not just for you. For everybody.

If you only care about your own survival, you are already dead.

What Jesus gives them, in the new commandment, is the gift they need not for themselves and their personal security - far from it: it is the gift they will exhibit and share, as they bring the light to the world and the message of good news to its people. All of them.

What they will show, in their love for one another, is the way the kingdom of heaven will be. It is a sign, a foretaste, as all the other signs were meant to be, of what is to come. What is to come: what God has promised, and therefore what will be fulfilled.

The way - will it be easy? No. They have trials ahead. But even more, if they can keep this law, they will have the life that cannot be grasped, only given, that is in the hands of the Father to give and the Son to share.

Will they live that life? Will we? In the Spirit's help, God willing, we can and we do.