Where are We in God's Story?

Feast of Ascension (transferred)

2015 Annual Meeting

5/17/15

Acts 1:1-11

Ephesians 1:15-23

Luke 24:44-53

This morning we come together and celebrate the Feast of the Ascension.  Ascension to God being the final sign to those disciples that truly, this Jesus is God’s son.  It marks the end of one story and the beginning of another.  And interestingly enough, we just heard the story twice, from two different books, told in two different ways.

From our reading in Acts: “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning” (1:1) Let’s start there,  “In the first book” – what’s the first book?  Josh, can’t answer.  Luke – the gospel of Luke.  We are pretty sure that the same author wrote both books and there are several reasons why, but an obvious clue is in how they both begin.

Luke 1, verse 1, “Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us….I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus.”

Theophilus – theo, means God – philia means friend.  Friend of God.  Now perhaps the author was writing this for a particular person named Theophilus – but probably not.  More likely, given the style of the times, is that it is a term of endearment towards the reader.  Oh, you want to hear the story of Jesus – well, you must be a friend of God.  Theophilus is you – and me. 

When you think about it, it is a story, more so than a person that we follow.  I never met Jesus.  I don’t think any of you have.  We believe in the truths of the stories. Stories like we heard today that point towards something we can’t describe any other way.

So why don’t all the stories harmonize? Why would the same author tell the same story twice and in two different way?  In Acts – the Ascension takes place 40 days after the resurrection.  In Luke – Jesus ascends maybe three days later – a little while after they’ve been to the empty tomb.  Why don’t the stories add up?

Well a little something about the author of Luke-Acts that I think is important for us to know.  He clearly believed in the power of a good story.  Because the people he wrote the gospel for, those early gentile followers of Christ, needed one. Most of Luke’s audience, we think, weren’t Jewish.  They did not know the story of God that fills the whole of the Hebrew Bible.

And lots of those stories doesn’t add up either. Adam and Eve – the garden, stories of Creation – and there isn’t one version, but 2

Noah and the flood and rainbow – great story – made into a movie – and is there one version?  Nope – there’s 2!

And the list goes on – Abraham and Sarah – Moses – burning bushes – calf idols – tablets on mountains – Elijah, Elisha – Solomon, Bathsheba, David, Samuel, Ruth – on and on and on.  Story after story of people and persons – doing what?  Making sense of their experience in the context of a relationship with God.

And of course you know that all the stories in the Old Testament – and the New for that matter – are what you could call revisionist history.   Written after the fact – sometimes presented as eyewitness accounts – but written after the fact.   I don’t mean it in a negative way – I mean – its narrative theology.  It’s trying to articulate and share the truth of God through how we interpret individual human experiences and through generations of social movement.

The author of Luke-Acts knew the new experiences of Jesus’ followers needed to find their truth in an ongoing narrative.  Which is why no gospel has better stories than Luke.  How was Christ born in Luke?  Doesn’t just appear like in Mark or John – but there are angels and shepherds – there is Mary’s cousin Elizabeth who she runs to greet and they hug and sing – there is Simeon, Elizabeth’s husband, who is rendered speechless in the temple when he doubts, Zechariah, Anna – so many more characters and sub plots. You see any movie, watch any pageant – it’s based on Luke’s version because it conveys the most human drama of Jesus’ story.

So it’s not all that surprising that Luke dramatically portrays the Ascension twice.  In Luke it’s the end of Jesus’ story which leads to the beginning of ours.  But why aren’t the facts of the stories the same – wouldn’t that help our belief in something as fantastical as a person being lifted into the heavens?

Who would you say makes the greatest documentaries – the greatest stories of our more recent history?  Ken Burns.  Civil War, Baseball, Lincoln, The Dust Bowl, The Roosevelts.  He’s has defined the genre for our time as to how we tell the story of our history.  Why are his films so good? 

Ken Burns says, good stories, one that speak truth, don’t add up.  1 and 1 equaling two, that’s not a story, it’s a fact.  A genuine story about 1 and 1 equaling 3

Love, God, reason – whatever you call it – the whole of the story is greater than the sum of the facts.

Abraham Lincoln wins the Civil War, and decides to go to the theater – that’s a good story.

When Thomas Jefferson says – We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal – he owned 100 human beings and never saw the contradiction, never say the hypocrisy, never saw fit in his lifetime to free any one of them – that’s a good story.  Good people who are flawed, villains who aren’t entirely bad - that’s a good story.

Truth, Burns said, is a byproduct of the best of our stories.   And yet – there are many different kinds of truths.  (Ken Burns: On Story, vimeo.com/40972394)

In one version of today’s story – Jesus ascends 40 days after the resurrection.  In the other – 3 days later.  Both numbers have significance that you know and I don’t need to explain (or ask me later).  The story needs to connect to the Old and the New – because the truth of the story is that Jesus is literally God.  Did he literally ascend?  Does that matter?  In your life experience – have you come to faith because 1 and 1 equal 2? Or because of those times when something totally unexpected happens and you find that 1 and 1 equal 3?

So here’s my report – we’ve had another good year at Good Shepherd.  When you read and hear about what we’ve done – and where we are – we are engaged with creating a sanctuary for God and God’s people – many of us are committed to working towards systemic change around poverty and trying to deepen relationships in our community.  We offer classes and Christian education for young and old alike.  We walk with people through baptisms and funerals and joys and sorrows of all kinds.  We pray.  We know how to put on a great party – and enjoy getting together to eat, drink and be merry.

But the story of our times is that church as we traditionally think of it, is being called to change.  The latest Pew Research study of this week has (www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/) – that we’ve heard about in headline after headline with the news that people continue to leave the church in droves, especially the millennials among us. 

Even while we are a country where 70% of us say we are Christian.  Clearly then, we are a country of Christians who do not go to a church.  And I think that’s because traditional church is no longer what people want.

We don’t want institutional hierarchy to tell us how to behave and what doctrine to believe.  We want the truths in stories, our stories. And we want to be belong to communities where we can tell our story.  Where we can hear the stories of others – and find the truths that resonate between us.

Let me talk about how this specifically played out for me this year.  Maybe some of you – I imagine many of you – knew that this year the vestry and I were considering a change to our Sunday worship schedule.  I was – and stress was – of the strong belief that changing when we worship on Sundays might bring the suburban families that surround us flocking through our doors.

But mostly I thought, maybe finally we as a community can stop having a conversation that has been going on since long before I came: which service schedule is the “best” one, the “right” one.  

So after a year of meetings, conversations and discernment it finally dawned on me, “There is no best one!  There is no right one! And actually changing our service schedule right now does not resonate with scripture story truth.”

Listen to what the disciples as Jesus as he ascends, after all this time with him, they are still fixated on knowing the “right” answer, the fix to their problems, “Jesus, please tell us, when is the time when the kingdom will be restored? (Acts 1:6)” When is the time the problems will be fixed?  And Jesus, surely dumbfounded that they are still so focused on quick fixes – replies, stop asking that question!

Simply changing the times we worship on Sunday we will not restore us to perfection. All it will do is ensure we spend more time debating what the “best” service schedule is. And most of our answers are based on our own personal preferences, what works best for me and my family.  Which is fair enough, its how we make most of our decisions. 

But my friends, faith communities that focus on those questions are exactly the places that people not going to church label “religious, but not spiritual.”  And spiritual is what people today are longing for.

Before Jesus ascended he tells us – spend all our time spreading the good news (Lk 24:47).  Which is the truth at the heart of every single story of scripture.  Every single story of scripture can be boiled down to a story of forgiveness and restoration.

Individuals are forgiven and restored to wholeness within themselves and within communities.  And that is what people are longing to hear.  Those are the stories people are longing to tell.  All the spiritual but not religious – which is the fastest rising label in our very Christian country – want to connect their spirit with the spirit of truth!  We find the truth in our stories.  We are called to create community that makes space for that to happen.

The Rev. John Grainger, 2^nd rector of this community preached that The Church of the Good Shepherd can never confuse the busyness of being church with being and sharing the story of Christ outside our walls.  (A. Machen, A Big Little Church on a Hill, 2000) That is what we are called to do.  That is our mission and our reason for being.  That is what enables each of us to draw ever closer to the grace of God that we are blessed with each and every day. 

So – as a community that is always looking forward – that is always following a Savior who did things that didn’t add up.  So let’s have committees and meetings and ministries that focus on the truth of the story. Let’s find more ways to look at our own holy narratives – share the forgiveness and restoration that we’ve experienced in our lives with one another.  And let’s invite people to be a part of our story.  Amen.

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks, Rector

A Church that Shows Our Scars

The Sixth Sunday After Easter, Year B
The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs
Acts 10:44-48

I spent this past weekend at the Two-Hundred and Thirty-First Annual Convention of the Diocese of Maryland. Diocesan Convention is important, but whenever I mentioned to any of you last week that I was going to convention, you all said the same thing: "I'm sorry." I can understand why convention has the reputation it does. When the whole diocese gets together at events like Convention, we like to make ourselves feel important. We pull out the pomp and circumstance and Robert’s Rules of Order, and we pass resolutions in an attempt to make ourselves feel relevant. Statistically, fewer and fewer people come to Episcopal churches—or any churches, for that matter—each year, but you wouldn’t know that at a diocesan convention, because we are so busy saying very important things using proper parliamentary procedure. It’s a collective exercise in refusing to be be vulnerable or face hard realities.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on diocesan convention, though, because our reading from the Acts of the Apostles this morning is about a time when Peter refused to be vulnerable. Now you wouldn’t know that from the reading, because the lectionary only gives us five verses of a story that takes an entire chapter of Acts to tell. It starts like this: an angel appears to a man named Cornelius and tells him to send messengers to a man named Peter, who will come and preach the Gospel to him. This is unusual, because Cornelius is a Roman centurion, a gentile. Up until this point, Peter and the other apostles have only preached to other Jews. But Cornelius sends messengers to Peter.

Right before the messengers arrive, Peter has a vision where a voice from heaven tells him to kill and eat some non-kosher animals. Peter refuses, because he has kept kosher his entire life, and in keeping kosher, he dedicates his life to serving God. The voice tells him not to call unclean what God has made clean, but Peter refuses two more times before Cornelius’ messengers arrive. When they do show up, Peter invites them into the house and is a gracious host. He’s happy to be a host, because it means that he’s in charge.He agrees to go with these men to meet Cornelius. But when he gets to Cornelius’ house, Peter suddenly has second thoughts about being a guest. He tells Cornelius, “You know, I really shouldn’t be here.” He’s right—observant Jews weren’t supposed to go into gentiles’ houses and eat gentiles’ food. But Peter suddenly remembers the vision, and he laughs and says, “But God has told me not to call you unclean.” With a little prompting, Peter begins to preach to Cornelius and Cornelius’ family and friends, beginning his sermon, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” However, the rest of the sermon is about how Jesus came to preach good news to the  children of Israel, and the children of Israel alone. Peter doesn’t ever say that gentiles are acceptable to God.

This, for the record, is where our reading finally begins. The Holy Spirit interrupts Peter’s sermon and falls upon Cornelius and his family and friends, who begin to prophesy and speak in tongues, just like the apostles did on the Day of Pentecost. Peter has to admit that God finds gentiles acceptable, which he’s said plenty of times already, but doesn’t seem to have really believed. So Cornelius and his family are baptized, and Peter finally agrees to be their guest. He gives up control and accepts hospitality, rather than giving it.

For Peter, just like for us, being vulnerable is hard. It’s threatening. Personal confession, it is so much easier for me to offer to pray for you, than to have you offer to pray for me. That would require me to be vulnerable, to be ministered to, rather than to minister. That would upset the stable boundaries that I depend on, boundaries that are demonstrated and enforced by the collar I wear every day. But guess what? God didn’t make those boundaries. We did. God isn’t the one who cares about those boundaries. God wants us to be vulnerable, open to the new things that Holy Spirit is doing among us.

For all we attempted at convention to focus on our own importance as a diocese, rather than being honest and vulnerable, moments of vulnerability crept in. This year, the Rev. Becca Stevens delivered the keynote address to the Convention. Becca is the founder of Magdalene House and Thistle Farms, an amazing ministry based in Nashville, Tennessee that provides housing, training, and jobs for women who have been victims of human trafficking and struggle with addiction. Becca gave this wonderful keynote address, and afterword took questions from the floor. I always groan when questions come from the floor at Convention, because they’re rarely questions; they’re attempts to prove how much smarter the speaker is than everyone else. But this year, a delegate stood up and asked “Do you have resources in California?” He went on to admit that his daughter who lived in California was in active addiction and living on the streets. It was a moment of profound vulnerability, the kind you don’t often see in church. Bishop Sutton stopped everything and lead us in prayer for this man and his daughter, remembering them by name before God. As I look back on this past weekend, that was the moment when we were most truly what the church is called to be. It wasn’t when we debated resolutions. It was when we recognized the gift of vulnerability that was given to us, and met a beloved child of God in the midst of real need.

As wonderful as it is when the church ministers to the vulnerable, I think what’s even more necessary is for us, as a church, to be vulnerable. In our story from Acts, we are not Cornelius. We are Peter, the safe religious insider who is sure he has all the answers. But he doesn’t. We don’t. Only God has all of the answers, and we aren’t God.

What would it cost us to be vulnerable? What would it cost us to become a community where we all can admit our flaws? What would it cost us to respond to one another with grace in the face of imperfection? What would it cost us to lay aside our obsessions with perfection?

Make no mistake, it will cost us something. It cost Peter something to become vulnerable. He had to lay aside his old certainties to follow the Holy Spirit. We will too. But in the face of the need that exists in our city, in our world, what else can we do?

Even after his resurrection, Christ still bears the scars of the crucifixion. Why do we believe that we, who follow Jesus, have to hide ours?

Amen.

Christians are Called to Get At the Roots

Fifth Sunday in Easter
Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches…abide in me, and my words abide in you.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.  John 15:5ff

The well-known theologian Karl Barth of the early 20th century said this – The Christian who wants to know God in their lives simply has one thing to do each day, read the bible and read the newspaper.

Personally I prefer doing that when the news is at a distance.  When the gospel imperative to love neighbor as self refers more to neighbors far away – than neighbors 15 minutes south by car.  Because as the religious authorities who explained to Pontius Pilate why Jesus should be killed said – the gospel he’s proclaiming stirs the people up!  Jesus came proclaiming a new economy, God’s economy that decried the status quo, made people uncomfortable, and stirred things up!  Jesus wanted people to change their lives, change the world – bring in the reign of God.  And 2,000 years later the message is only relevant if we continue to get stirred up when we hear the words of scripture as we hear the news of our world.

I was on a plane yesterday because I’ve been at Camp Allen outside of Houston, Texas for a church conference.  Invite, Welcome, Connect – basically about the thing we have a lot of conferences about these days – how to grow the church.  Anyway, coming home on the plane I watched the CBS Evening News on my phone.  The lead story was yesterday’s protests in Baltimore.  Protests expected to be a repeat of Monday but instead were peaceful.  The newscaster said it was almost celebratory because the city had charged the officers who arrested Freddie Gray.  The feeling being then that we’d reached some kind of resolution – at least for the time being.  The news likes resolutions for the time being.

At my conference, Bishop Andy Doyle of the Diocese of Texas, opened his key note with a quote from Henry Melville, not the author but an 19th century Anglican priest:

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

What’s life-changing and uncomfortable about the good news of Christ is that Jesus asks us, those who follow him to see the effects and then grapple with the causes.

We just prayed the words of our psalmist – the poor shall eat and be satisfied for Kingship belongs to the Lord.  That’s not true in Baltimore, or in Texas, or cities and rural communities throughout our country.  Perhaps fibers connect us to one another – but we believe we are branches connected to a vine.  What’s challenging and liberating for the Christian is to examine and prune those things in our lives and in our hearts and minds that keep us from seeing and tackling the root causes of cultures of criminality that lead to cultures of police brutality.

Jesus says, abide in me…as I abide in you.  Jesus doesn’t say – abide in me, or else your cut off!  Jesus doesn’t say – abide in me and if you don’t get it right all the time, I’m done with you.  No.  Jesus says – abide in me, for I already abide in you.  Jesus is here – with us – right now – resurrected life – to like Philip in our story from Acts – encouraging us to cast out fear and go down that wilderness road.

When I was around 10 both my parents worked in Manhattan and we lived on Long Island – the north shore of Long Island which is NY speak for a place very much like Ruxton.  I loved days when I got to go into work with them – go into the city, stop at the deli for breakfast, tall office buildings, fancy office phones (I’ve always loved an office – such order!)  And I always got to stay up late because we never left the city until after 6 or even 7pm.

One night we were getting on the Long Island Expressway (LIE) via the Triborough Bridge – and I had a Jesus inspired epiphany.  “Mom, Dad – I know how we can solve the homeless problem in the city!”  (The New York of the 80s was very different than the New York of today)  How about all the homeless people simply line up on the bridge, and everyone driving home can simply pick up one or two people with them.  They’ll come home with them, get dinner, spend the night, and then in the morning – they can just get a ride back into the city!”  Perfect, I thought!  And note my cultural conditioning at 10 was assuming everyone had a house like us, big enough to accommodate unexpected hospitality.
My parents smiled, I guess, I was in the backseat – that’s a nice idea, Arianne.

The older I get – the longer I’m a mom – the more I am struck by the similarities of why Jesus said, blessed are the children.  Kid logic works in God’s kingdom.

Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches if you will keep my commandments you will abide in my love.  What is the commandment – simply this - love one another as I have loved you.  We call this Agape Love – the all-inclusive neighbor love we celebrate in the feast at that altar.  Yesterday Bishop Doyle in his keynote basically told us – we can’t!  We can’t house the homeless, as Jesus would – we’re not there yet. And we, Christians today, use the impossibility that confronts us to keep ourselves from entering into relationship.  We do Agape Love at a distance. I love my neighbor – over there.  Yeah, I love you – just stay over there – don’t come into my world, don’t turn my life upside down.

So what is the love we can get to – you all already know there are 4 kinds of love referred to in the gospels. If Jesus commands us to love, what’s the love we can actually practice that will cut away the assumptions, and cultural conditionings, and fears that fill all our hearts?

Philia - friendship love? Jesus talks about that – no one has greater love than this but to lay down one’s life for their friends.  The problem with that though is that we don’t choose friends like Jesus did.  Jesus befriended anyone who wanted to be his friend – the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes.  That’s not how I make friends.  My way has been – hey, I like you!  Yeah, we have similar interests – hey, you don’t threaten me – sure great – let’s be friends!  I’m joking, kind of.  I choose my friends – I’d do almost anything for them – that close circle of people – but that’s it – it’s a close and closed circle.  The way you and I do friendship – it’s exclusive – it’s not everyone.

Well – what about eros love – that’s in the bible.  Yeah….no.  First of all we don’t talk about eros love in church ok – maybe, maybe in premarital counseling.  But eros love – that’s really exclusive – and if it isn’t well – that’s a whole ‘nother problem – and I’m not going to talk about it today.

So friendship (philia) love – exclusive – eros love – very exclusive – agape love – its what we’re called to – but – as we prayed in our opening collect we know that love needs to be perfected in us if we were to really and truly follow.  But there is the fourth kind of love Paul describes to help Christian communities – affection (storges in Greek) – love one another with mutual affection he says in Romans (12:10).  It is the love whereby you approach and treat every human being with mutuality and respect.  It’s what Philip is doing in the story we hear from Acts.

What might that mean for us – as a community that prays to live the way, the truth and the life?  As a community blessed with resources and means and networks of mutual support?  What would life-changing love practices of affection look like for us?

Well – we’d have Blue Jean Sunday here.  It’s great we strengthen our relationships working on our beautiful campus.  But could we take Blue Jean Sunday downtown?  Down a wilderness road to other places our care is needed?

What would it look like here?  We’d collect spaghetti sauce and food for Assistance Center of Towson Churches (ACTC) – that’s good, but my friend’s that is “at a distance love!” What if more of us spent time at ACTC – meeting the mothers and fathers and children who are served by that center.  We’d listen and get to know the people who use ACTC.  And we’d maybe even get stirred up to address the causes that bring them there.

We do this when we go to Habitat in Sandtown or Govins, Paul’s Place in Pigtown – when we go down wilderness roads of Baltimore to be in relationship with the faces of poverty, the children in poverty in communities that are bereft of so many of the resources we have. One by one, group by group, committee by committee, we can do that.  We are called to do that.  It’s terrifying because it’s life changing.  It’s challenging to face the enormous disparities in economies and education north and south of Gittings Avenue – but we believe we abide in God!  We believe God’s love casts out fear.  The simple steps of mutual affection move hearts towards making real our psalmist prayer - that the poor would eat and be satisfied.  Every week we pray, And now father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do – Jesus left this work of love to us.

We are the branches.  Jesus is the vine.  God is the root – deep down in the ground of eternal time.  What seems impossible for us is never impossible for God.  From this morning’s epistle - “Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.  The commandment we have from him is this – those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

We are called to read the bible and read the newspaper – and get at the roots of what our problems are.  Stir the people up – and do the life changing and liberating work of making real the resurrected Christ we say we believe in and say we follow into the wilderness roads of our time – here and now.

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks

Practice the Ways of the Shepherd

The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


Do any of you know what a dharma talk is?  It’s from the Buddhist tradition – and it means teaching.  It’s basically the Buddhist version of a Christian sermon.  Not too long ago, I was listening to a dharma talk via podcast (Zencast.org) about knowing.  What is knowing?  What does it mean to know something?   That word appears several times in our readings and prayers this morning, so what does it mean in those contexts.  And do we assume since we’re the ones gathered in church that we are also the ones ‘in the know’ when it comes to God?  

Well here’s the story – Steve and Sally lived together in an apartment and one night Steve said to Sally, “hey, let’s invite my mom over for dinner!”

“Really?” Sally said. “Ok, that’s fine by me – let’s say Tuesday”

Steve calls his mom,  “Hey mom!  What are you doing on Tuesday?  I was wondering if you wanted to come over and have dinner with me and my roommate Sally?”

“Honey.”  Steve’s mom replied, “Don’t you mean your girlfriend? I’d love to come over for dinner I’ve been dying to meet her.”

“Mom, I’ve told you 100x!  Sally is not my girlfriend.  She’s my roommate!”

“Ok, ok, Steve – whatever you say – I’d love to accept your invitation for Tuesday and join you and your ROOMMATE for dinner.”

So – it’s Tuesday – Steve and Sally make pork chops – it’s delicious – they have a lovely time.  About a week later Sally says to Steve – have you seen the spatula lately?  Steve says, what are you talking about?  The spatula, Sally says, this is going to sound totally weird but the last time I saw the spatula was when your mom came over for dinner – could you just ask her about it?  “Are you saying you think my mom stole the spatula?”  “Just saying I haven’t seen it since then.”  “Fine, I’ll ask her.”

“Mom – hey.  This is going to sound totally crazy, but I have to ask you – any chance you took our spatula?  Take it?  Don’t be ridiculous I didn’t take it.  But I can tell you this.  If you and Sally really were just roommates you’d both know exactly where that spatula is – just like I know exactly what is going on between the two of you.   So, why don’t you and your girlfriend go into her room, look under her pillow, and get your spatula.

When you know something you know it, right?  (Mother’s possibly being even being more in the know than the rest of us)  But that’s the “truth” of the story is that knowing is intuitive, it’s in the gut.  It’s that Supreme Court justice quote from decades ago – I can’t always define it, but I know it when I see it.

This morning we hear Jesus say, “I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me.”  We hear in the epistle – supposedly written by the same person who wrote John’s gospel – “We know love by this that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”

And together we opened our service by praying – Grant, O God, that when we hear Jesus’ voice we may know him who calls each of us by name and follow where he leads.”

So how do we know the voice of the Good Shepherd when we hear it?  My personal and shared experiences lead me to believe that most of us, most of the time – would like to know a lot more.  Most of the time we’d like to hear a much louder voice, with crystal clear directions telling us what to do, when to do it, how to do it and who to do it with.  So what is this knowing that God is asking us to follow?

John’s gospel – and John’s letter – are both so…what’s the word…nice, digestible, easily taken in.  Our images of the Good Shepherd are always with Jesus – a blonde haired, blue-eyed (yet somehow Middle Eastern) Jesus – cradling a baby sheep in his arm with some more gathered around his feet.  And John’s letter – with its – little children, beloved, let us love one another.  It sounds so easy – almost trite – as if all there is to being a Christian is simply getting along, being nice and always, above all, being in agreement.

That’s not what’s happening in the context of either scripture passage.  Both the gospel and the letter were written to communities of the world, communities deeply divided over the issues of their time.  When, I ask you, has there ever been a time when a community (especially a faith community) was all of one mind for very long?  People were fighting – viciously – over the age old question (specifics aren’t really necessary) of who was right.  Who was in the right group, who was doing the right things, who was believing the right things?  Who were the ones really in the know?

And in the gospel and letter – the writer tries to get the listeners to rise above the immediate conflict – encourages the group, and individuals, to see a bigger picture, take a longer view, particularly one that sees past their own needs towards the needs of the wider group.  The writers don’t specifically describe the problems (although the wolf and hired hands of the gospel imply not everyone in the current flock is really in it for the long haul) – the writers direct our gaze away from the problem towards the answer.  Towards the one who says I AM the Good Shepherd.  Just like he said, I AM the Bread of Life.  I AM the Light of the World.  I AM the Vine.

I AM the way, the truth and the life.  Both readings point, not to the problem, not telling them what to do so much as how – look to the way, look to the truth, look to Jesus to know what to do.

Josh quipped, not too long ago, in a sermon about when you don’t know the answer to something in church – just say, Jesus.  If we don’t “know” the voice of God in our lives – if we’re struggling to hear the call, the direction, the answer to a problem we face – if we are struggling to know what to do – the Good Shepherd really does provide some concrete direction.

I AM the light of the world – which choice shines light on the issues, the reality of a situation?  Which path is about letting light in – versus keeping myself or others in the dark?

I AM the Bread of Life – I AM the Resurrection – which action leads to new life?  What words, lead to restoration and reconciliation – what feeds literally and what feeds healthy relationships between people?

I think the knowing that we hear about today – is partly intuitive – but it is also something we chose to strengthen through practice.  That’s why scripture is a living text.  For the human stories – including Christ’s – tell the story again and again – of broken relationships, broken people, broken communities being restored – being reconciled – being brought to new life – through the words and actions – of ordinary people trying to follow the voice that leads to life.

But sometimes our personal situations are too much.  Presently our city’s situation, as we join the long list of cities struggling with systemic issues in our stratified society seem so overwhelming we might believe there is nothing we can do.   But one other scripture this morning points to practical knowledge for us.  Psalm 23 – that well-known psalm – written by someone on a journey – who describes complete trust in God’s presence – complete trust that no matter what – God walks with us through the worst we could ever know.

God is there when we feel surrounded by those who don’t like us.  And God wants us to know – that God will find a way to lead us to restoration, to rest and healing.  God wants us to know – that goodness and mercy are before and behind us always.  God wants us to know that we abide in God and God abides in us – forever and forever and forever.

If we practice that knowing, if we pray that knowing – as often and as faithfully as we can – we will know the voice of the Good Shepherd wherever we may go.  Amen.

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks

The Heart of the Gospel

The Second Sunday after Easter, Year B
1 John 1:1-2:2
The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 

This is the heart of the Gospel. If you asked someone to pick one verse of the Bible to sum the whole thing up, most people would probably pick John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. If you asked me, though, I’d pick 1 John 2:1, the verse I just quoted from our epistle this morning.

The author of 1 John wrote this book, which isn’t, technically, a letter, sometime between the end of the first century and the beginning of the second.He’s writing as the first generation of Christians—the apostles and others who had actually seen Jesus—were dying, and this book is addressed to people who had never met Jesus Christ, people like us. He’s eager to assure them that Jesus was a real person, and more than just a person, but God Incarnate, the Word of Life. He wants this new generation of Christians to know that he met Jesus, saw him, heard him, touched him. But more than that, he wants them to know what it means to be a Christian. And so he says, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 

The Christian life is lived between those two poles: between pursuing holiness and receiving forgiveness when we fall short. It may seem strange to talk of sin during Eastertide, after all, in our worship services, we don’t include a confession of sin during the Great Fifty Days of Easter because during this season we are celebrating that, by his death, Christ has destroyed death and broken sin’s power over us. Christ has put away all our sins, so to help us remember this, we take fifty days to omit confession. But Eastertide is the time when we dwell on the deep truths of the Christian faith, and the author of 1 John is talking about what it means to be saved.

For John, being saved is not something that happens at one instant in time—at baptism or when we accept Christ as our Lord and savior. Salvation is a process, a way of life. It means walking in the light of God, just as Jesus walked in the light. John gives us three clues as to what this looks like. First, we cannot claim to follow Jesus while walking in darkness. We have to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. We actually have to be pursuing holiness, attempting as best we can to live as Jesus lived. Second, we are lying to ourselves if we claim to be sinless. Pursuing holiness does not mean that we have to be perfect, but it does mean that we have to be honest with ourselves. Third, if we claim to be sinless, we make God a liar. The Gospel, the Good News of God in Christ, is the story of how God saved us from slavery to sin. If we claim to be sinless, we’re essentially saying that we don’t need saving, which God says we do.

These three clues about salvation boil down to what John says in 1 John 2:1: I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.  But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. That’s also, for the record, what we say in our Baptismal Covenant. We’re asked: Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? And we say: I will, with God’s help.

That’s refreshingly honest to me. Our promise isn’t that we are going to do this on our own. It presumes that we’re going to need God’s help even to repent. But it also presumes that God will always give us that help. That presumption is based on 1 John’s promise.  The sense of the Greek that the author actually wrote is when someone sins, not if. When we fall short, because we will, Christ will intercede for us, and not for us alone, but for the whole world. In fact, Christ is already interceding for us, because in Christ sin has been done away with. My sins, your sins, the sins we haven’t even committed yet. It’s all gone, done away with by Christ once for all upon the hard wood of the cross.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to an atheist acquaintance about Christianity. It was right after Ash Wednesday, and he remarked that he couldn’t understand why Christians loved groveling in our sin, our sense of being unworthy. He saw it as perversely neurotic. I told him that I didn’t see it that way. I still done. I find Christianity refreshingly honest, because it makes it okay for me to admit that I am not perfect. There aren’t that many places in our culture today where you can say that. We’re driven by performance. We’re told that you have to get things right. We judge one another harshly. In Jesus Christ, I find the courage I need to admit that I fall short. I find grace as Jesus picks me up when I stumble. I find the strength I need to admit that I am not perfect, and that is okay.

The Gospel is the opposite of moralism. The reason we can’t claim to be sinless is because that is another form of walking in  darkness. When we claim to be perfect, we are claiming to be God, because only God is perfect. There is freedom in admitting that we are not God. There is freedom in admitting our imperfection. That is what the Gospel is about. This is why Jesus calls it a message of release to the captives. We are held captive by our own need to be perfect.

Pursue holiness. Strive to be like Jesus. Receive forgiveness when you inevitably fall short. Begin anew. Practice resurrection, preparing for the day when everything shall be made new by God, including us. That is the Gospel.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Amen.

No Way to Run a Resurrection

Easter Day, Year B

Mark 16:1-8

The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs

Let’s be honest: Who here thought that our Gospel reading this morning ended strangely? Dare I say inappropriately? You came here this morning to hear about the Risen Christ, and Mark offers you… nothing. That’s the central feature of Mark’s resurrection story: an empty tomb. Nothing. That’s also what Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary and Salome say—nothing. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Isn’t that a bit unsatisfying? Anti-climactic?

You’re not alone if you’re thinking that. Our earliest and best copies of Mark’s Gospel end where our reading did this morning, but two other people—known to us as Matthew and Luke—found this ending so inappropriate that they wrote their own gospels. Later, people added stories taken from Matthew and Luke to the end of their copies of Mark, so that the Risen Jesus meets with the disciples in Galilee. But Mark never wrote those stories. He just ends his gospel with an empty tomb and terrified women.

In a way, I think that’s true to life. Mark doesn’t end things neatly for us because life doesn’t end neatly. There’s no fairy-tale ending for us this morning because that would ring false. None of us were there that first Easter morning. None of us saw the Risen Christ or put our fingers in his nail-scarred hands. Mark, and Mark alone of all the Gospels, places us in the same position as the first witnesses of the resurrection. They don’t see Jesus, either. All any of us have to go on is an empty tomb and a promise.

That’s no way to run a resurrection. If I’d have been in charge that day, I would have paraded Jesus around Jerusalem. I’d have shown him off to the crowds gathered there to celebrate the Passover. I’d have taken him to the Chief Priests and to Pilate, just to rub their noses in their failure. I’d have made sure that as many people as possible saw Jesus, so there could be no doubt that he had risen. But I wasn’t in charge, and that’s the point of Mark’s Gospel.

Christ’s resurrection is not about God overwhelming all our doubts with unassailable proof of God’s existence. No, Christ’s resurrection is instead the ultimate sign of God’s faithfulness in the face of our unfaithfulness.

Mark is the Gospel where the disciples always get it wrong. They are always misunderstanding the parables Jesus tells, or missing the point of what he’s talking about. One time, Jesus tells his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees—by which he meant their teaching. Mark tells us that the disciples thought he said this because they’d forgotten to buy bread. Another time Jesus predicts that he will die and be raised on the third day. Right after he says that, James and John raise their hands and ask, “When you become king, can we be number two and number three in your kingdom?”

The disciples don’t understand Jesus’ message. It’s no surprise that by the end of Good Friday, Peter and the other disciples have fled. Only the women are left. Only Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and Salome. We might hope that they’ll do better, but they don’t expect to find the Risen Christ on Sunday morning. They’re bringing spices to a tomb to anoint a dead body. They don’t get it, either. They flee, too.

But Christ is in Galilee, waiting all the same. That’s what the young man at the tomb promises. That’s what Jesus himself promised, before he went to Jerusalem, “After I am raised, you will see me in Galilee.” The disciples didn’t understand, but Jesus is faithful and goes to Galilee all the same.

The miracle of Easter is that in the face of all of these human failings, Jesus is still faithful. Jesus still wants to be in relationship the disciples, even Peter, and with all of us. Who could blame Jesus if he’d come back angry and ready to punish the people who’d crucified him or the disciples who deserted him?  But he didn’t. He doesn’t. The relationship holds. Jesus proves that he is faithful, even when we are not.

By human standards, this is no way to run a resurrection. The fact is, however, that the message of the cross and the empty tomb is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved it is the power of God. God’s ways are not our ways. That is the good news of Easter. The good news of Jesus Christ is that it doesn’t depend on us. It doesn’t depend on us getting it right or being faithful or even, honestly, believing. It all depends on Jesus, who is faithful for us.

This is no way to run a resurrection. This is the only way to run a resurrection. We don’t have proof, but we have a promise. Christ is going before us. Christ will meet us on the way. If you want to find Christ today, don’t come to church (even though I’m happy that you are here today, and hope that you’ll come back). If you want to find Jesus, go out those doors and meet the Risen Christ in the world. He’s there, waiting faithfully. So, let us go forth from this place today proclaiming: Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Good Friday Meditation: Here I am

Good Friday
Genesis 22:1-14; Hebrews 10:16-25
Psalm 22; John 18:1-19:42


Here we are, again.  As we read this gospel year in and year out – as we move through these liturgical seasons, these always the same but always different services in holy week, I find myself wondering what are we supposed to be feeling?

On Palm Sunday we do much of what we do on Good Friday.  We read the passion gospel (today John, last Sunday Mark).  But we do the liturgy of the palms first.  We hear that story of triumphal entry, we wave our palm branches, and we walk inside singing one of the most royal sounding processionals we have – all glory, laud and honor to thee redeemer king!  We settle into our pews – or chairs – and do what we do – the readings, the psalms.  And finally – the gospel as drama – (as we just did) with all of us taking part in the proclamation of Jesus being betrayed – condemned – denied.

And, following that, naturally, the mood of the service shifts.  We are talking about death, and a brutal one at that.  And on Palm Sunday we end our service not with our usual joy-filled processional that leads us out into the world, but quietly we sing – O sacred head sore wounded (at 9am) – or Were you there when they crucified my Lord.  And, with that one especially, a fair number of people cry.  And many people come up to me later to share that it was a meaningful service.  A very moving service.

So I wonder – what is it that we are being moved by or towards?  On days like today, days like Palm Sunday?  We are a resurrected people, are we not – what is the point of feeling sorrowful on this day we call good?

Let’s back up and take a look at our earlier story of sacrifice – the one God was moved to stop.  Abraham doesn’t seem to be feeling anything in this infamous story about his son from Genesis. Another pretty horrific story – God’s testing Abraham in this way.  But we don’t hear him protest or weep or even question what’s being asked of him.  He sounds almost robotic in his replies.

Here I am.  Stay here.  The Lord will provide.  Does he even feel anything?

Well, let’s cut him some slack.  I’m guessing Abraham is exhausted.  If we take Genesis at its word – then at this point – Abraham is 100 years old!  Whatever the exact age, he’s at the end of his life.  And by the time this “test” comes – life, as it tends to do – has already tested Abraham many times over.

Abraham left his homeland.  Made a covenant with God and set out into unknown territory.  He argued with God.  For the sake of saving the city of Sodom he set himself between them and the Almighty.  I won’t take us through all that Abraham endured – but Isaac wasn’t Abraham’s first son.  First there was Ishmael.  His mother, Hagar, a slave in Abraham’s household bore him a son.  And Sarah his wife, who then bore Isaac, wanted Ishmael out of the picture. Sarah tells Abraham to sacrifice Hagar and Ishmael by sending them into the desert where it is assumed by all, they would die.

That event takes place just prior to this one – and there we read – Abraham was greatly distressed.  No, this story with Isaac is not the first time Abraham has been tested, not by any means.  He has already been through this and it was agonizing.  But the example Abraham gives us time and time again in the story of his life – is faith, trust.  Abraham never stops walking.  He never stops believing in that promise God made at the beginning.  And indeed an angel appears to Hagar and God does provide.  Although it isn’t made clear in the text if Abraham knows what becomes of Ishmael.

So maybe at this point, with Isaac Abraham is spent.  It’s not that he doesn’t feel – it’s that he’s moved beyond the emotional level.  It is not that he isn’t terrified of what is being asked of him.  He does ask the men with him to stay back and wait with the donkey.  Doesn’t that indicate he can’t bear the thought of what those men are about to see?

And it doesn’t matter what they would see, anyway.  God sees.  God knows what surrounds Abraham’s heart. Take your son, God says, your only son, whom you love.  Love.  Love is the sacrifice God requires.  Burnt offerings mean nothing to you – says the psalmist, long before this story of Abraham was written.  A broken and contrite heart O Lord, you will not despise (51:17).

It is Love that God is asking Abraham to give.  And it seems to me – when people get to that self-giving love – people like Abraham, like Jesus, like Nelson Mandela, like Mother Teresa, like Martin Luther King, like all those who have gone before us, known and unknown, who gave themselves for the sake of others – when people get to that level of love – they have their eyes so firmly set on the prize that power radiates from them.  For they are abiding in the power of love, the power of God.

And Abraham’s simple response exhibits the fearless strength of the only thing any of us actually have to give God – Here I am.

When God calls Moses from the burning bush – he replies simply – Here I am.
When God asks Isaiah, who shall I send to the people – Isaiah replies, Here I am, Lord
When the angel appears before Mary to ask if she will bear the child of God – she replies – Here I am Lord.

(Perhaps if Peter had started – with Here I am – instead of jumping to false bravado – that would have given him the strength he needed to stand with Jesus.  But – at least he gets there, eventually.)

We do Palm Sundays and Good Fridays in this way so that we put ourselves in the story.  To ask ourselves – where am I right now turning away from God, from the suffering I do not want to see in my life, in my world?  Where do I need to say, Here I am, Lord.  Where do I need to embrace my humanity – the humanity Jesus shared – to connect all humanity?   Because to say – Here I am – is to bear witness and to partner, like all those prophets, in the power of God.

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

We are not here to bemoan the sacrifice of Jesus – because Jesus is still alive!  If the sacrifice is just a one-time act – there is no meaning to it – it is finite – it has no power.  The Love holds the power.  The Love that propels Jesus to nonviolent resistance.  The Love that allows Abraham to withhold nothing from the God he trusts could never wound him.

It is the crazy, foolish and irrational wisdom of Love that is lasting and infinite and eternal.  Therein lies the power to move mountains, and peoples, and change societies and histories.

God knows Abraham bears that Love.  God knows Jesus is that Love.  God sees all of us – struggle with the many tests life brings. Sometimes, with God’s help we are able to faithfully say, Here I am, Lord.  And sometimes we find we don’t have the power.

So – to get back to my own question – I wrestle with liturgy that has us feeling to maudlin on Palm Sunday or Good Friday.  It is not the intention of the church to create a funeral for Jesus.  It is the intention of the church to re-create the power of this story in our lives right now.  We are a resurrected people – who in Christ’s example see the power we all have of saying – Here I am.

Where are you?  And does the emotion we feel on this day – move you, me, us – to try and faithfully utter these words in our lives right now?  For the one who is calling you is faithful.  The one who is calling you is alive.  The one who is calling you is Love.

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks