Easter V
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
Revelation 21:1-6
May 19, 2019
 
St. John’s heavenly vision continues in the lesson we heard from Revelation.  Same as last week, it seems to be focused on unrealistic, heavenly things far, far away from our existence.

John saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away.  He is describing his vision using imagery that he and every other good Jew knew all too well as found in the latter part of the book of Isaiah.  Isaiah quotes the Lord God, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.”[1]  Isaiah wrote these words to the Hebrew people after they’d spent nearly 70 years in exile – in slavery – in Babylon.  When the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple along with it in 587 BC, their entire worldview was utterly and completely turned upside down.  The Temple was literally the center of the universe for the Hebrew people.  It was their central bank, a sort of flea market if you will, but most importantly, they believed that Yahweh, their god, actually resided there.  Within the Temple, the Holy of Holies was where God physically dwelt amongst them.  Along with Jerusalem and the Temple, the Babylonian captivity ended the monarchy in Israel despite the fact that God had promised that the Davidic line would be established and maintained forever. 
 
It isn’t really possible for us as 21st century Americans to even begin to fathom how devastating the sack of Jerusalem was to the Hebrews.  9/11 doesn’t even come close. And to top it off, the Hebrews were then ripped from their homes and hauled off into exile. In 538 BC, Persia overtook Babylon and the Hebrews were allowed to begin to come home. But they came home to a Jerusalem in shambles.  Their world was upside down and there was no hope for the future.
For the Hebrews, the Temple was the center of creation, and God’s promise of a new heaven and a new earth was nothing other than a promise of an entirely new creation.   In John’s vision of this new creation, he says, “the sea was no more.”  This sea refers to the primordial chaos of creation in the book of Genesis, out of which evil continually threatens to undo the goodness of God’s creation.[2]  This passage, from the end of the Bible, returns to the ancient images of the creation stories from Genesis.  No more evil, no more chaos, no more shame, no more death.

Yes, like last week, the message is that there is hope in the midst of despair.  The orderliness of creation that was turned to chaos by sin will finally be renewed and restored.  But it won’t be restored exactly to what it was.  It will look different.  In Genesis, paradise is not in a city, but in a garden.  When Cain kills his brother Abel, he’s banished to a city.  The new heavens and the new earth aren’t symbolized by a garden, but rather by a holy city.  And cities are full of people and culture and food and resources.  And unlike most cities, this one includes a river and trees and ample water.  This isn’t unrealistic, heavenly imagery that is solely focused on things far, far away from our world.  The new creation will be communal, filled with fellowship with other people, with plenty of resources to provide for our every need. 

This blessed city, this heavenly Jerusalem, came down out of heaven from God.  Then, John heard a loud voice proclaim that the “home of God is among mortals.”  The word translated as home in Greek is the word “tabernacle,” and the word “dwell” is the verb form of the same word.  “See, the tabernacle of God is among mortals.  He will tabernacle with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.”  For the original Hebrew audience, the word tabernacle brought to mind the stories not only of the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem, but even further back, of the portable tent where God dwelt physically with the Israelites under Moses in the wilderness.  

Quite simply, in this scene, heaven descends to earth.  The new heaven and the new earth is the place where God is, and where humans are fully united with God.  Unlike in our St. Peter-at-the-pearly gates cartoons and memes, heaven and earth are not separate, unrelated realities.  John notes earlier in the book of Revelation that heaven and earth have an open door between them in the present age, and that events in heaven can determine the course of human events, and vice versa. Satan’s expulsion from heaven comes as a result of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead (12:5,7), and the same fallen angels work their revenge on the saints of God.  In the present age, then, there is a strong connection between the world above and the world below.  Last week’s heavenly scene from chapter 7 of the great multitude from all peoples standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, worshipping God with the angels and the four living creatures – this scene reveals the strongest connection of all between heaven and earth: the liturgy of the one holy catholic and apostolic church.[3]

“See, the tabernacle of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.”

This word tabernacle is the same word we use in the church today for that box above the altar in which we keep consecrated bread. The altar party, and many of you genuflect or bow before sitting down, or when you pass in front of the Tabernacle. Why do we do this?  Because this box, this work of human hands, contains within it the very God who created all things and is renewing all things.  In this box is found the One who humbled himself to share in our humanity in order that we might be re-united with God in this world and the next.  

A little over a month ago, you and I and the whole world watched in horror as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burned.  Fr. Fournier, the chaplain of the Paris Fire Brigade, risked his life to go into the burning cathedral to rescue the relic believed to be the Crown of Thorns Jesus wore at his crucifixion, but more importantly, to rescue the Blessed Sacrament – the consecrated bread in the tabernacle. 

Since then, some have been surprised – maybe even shocked – that so many people showed such deep emotion for a building made by human hands when so many people are suffering in the world. And some have decried the amount of money already raised to rebuild it. And some, I’m sure, have thought that it’s ridiculous for a man to risk his life to save a piece of bread.
The Archbishop of Paris said these words in a sermon shortly after the fire:

"We must ask why Notre Dame was constructed. Why this human genius? Because they could have done something functional. It's far more than functional. And why? Because what is honored there is absolutely splendid, that's what we believe. And if you want to ask the real question, what jewel is this jewel box for? It's not for the Crown of Thorns, you know? It's for a piece of bread. It's astonishing. How can one construct such a work of art for a piece of bread? That piece of bread is the Body of Christ. And that endures. Nobody will ever be able to destroy it."
​
John heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.”  Amen.


[1] Isaiah 65:17, NRSV.

[2] David Lyon Bartlett, and Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.  Kindle edition, location 15336, quoting Ps. 74:13-14; Isa 27:1.

[3] Most of this paragraph comes from ibid 15331.

Easter VI
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
Revelation 7:9-17

The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.
 
I’m not sure about you, but when I hear passages from the book of Revelation, I’m emotionally  moved…sometimes to tears…at the beauty of his description of the vision he sees.  And I’m usually comforted in some way.  And yet, the supposedly intelligent part of me thinks, “This isn’t real.  It’s a fantastical vision that can’t possibly be describing something real.”

The book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature.  Apocalyptic literature is a genre of writing, like historical narrative or poetry or Law or a letter.  It was popular in post-exilic Jewish culture and among early Christians.  As a genre, apocalyptic literature details the author’s visions, usually delivered by an angel, and the vision is usually of some heavenly scene in what seems like an alternate universe.  This isn’t a genre of literature that exists in 2019 in English, making it all the more difficult for us to interpret.  Muddying the waters even more is the tendency amongst certain evangelicals to interpret John’s Revelation literally, resulting in book and movie series like Left Behind which portray events in John’s vision as predictions of events that will happen in the future.  Apocalyptic literature is not 20th century journalism, nor is it meant to predict specific events that will happen in our world at some future date.  Reading Revelation in one hand and the New York Times in the other, trying to find correlations between the two, is quite frankly dangerous and is missing the entire point. 
But that doesn’t make the book of Revelation any less real. 

At this point in his vision, John sees a great multitude of people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages robed in white worshipping the Lamb of God.  Their clothing was made white by being washed in the blood of the Lamb.  The white garments represent the purity and cleanliness that comes from our baptism, a symbol that persisted for centuries as new Christians were baptized in a simple, white alb like this one.

These white-robed worshippers had just come out of the “great ordeal”.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it’s God’s job to keep us and our loved ones safe from all harm.  On the contrary, John’s vision shows us that pain and suffering are inherently part of the Christian life.  These worshippers not only underwent a great ordeal, they are in need of shelter.  They have known hunger and thirst and scorching heat.  They have tears in their eyes.  In other words, they are not immune to human suffering.[1]

And neither are we immune to suffering.  Sometimes, we may think that our entire life is one “great ordeal,” to use John’s words.  Whether it’s the burden of caring for a loved one who cannot care for themselves, or trying to pay all your bills on a shoestring budget, or dealing with a frightening medical diagnosis with a bleak outcome, you and I suffer in a multitude of ways each and every day. 

During these great fifty days of Easter, the Church shouts from the rooftops that our Lord Jesus Christ has won the victory over suffering and evil and death by his resurrection from the dead.  At Easter, the Passover Lamb was sacrificed for us, and at our baptism, our souls were marked like the doorposts of the Hebrew people at the first Passover. And while the Resurrection of Jesus doesn’t mean that our suffering ends right now, by the message of an angel, we are given a foretaste of that day when all our suffering will end:

They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.[2]

What hope!  What balm for the soul when we suffer! And thanks be to God, this hope is made tangible to us today in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.  St. John Paul II, speaking of this heavenly vision in Revelation, once said,
This luminous image of the heavenly glory is anticipated in the Liturgy of the Church. Those who celebrate it here, live already in some way, beyond the signs, in the heavenly liturgy, where the celebration is totally communion and feast. It is in this eternal liturgy that the Spirit and the Church make us participate, when we celebrate the mystery of salvation in the sacraments.[3]

          Friends, it is in the sacraments of the Church that we are given the sustenance we need to continue to faithfully follow our Lord in the midst of our suffering.
​
John’s vision is not meant to be taken literally, but that makes it no less real.  In his bodily resurrection at Easter, Jesus Christ defeated suffering and evil and death once and for all.   We will not fully see the culmination of this great victory on this side of the grave, but we are given a foretaste of that heavenly banquet in this bread and this cup.  What hope!  As you receive the pledge of your salvation at the altar rail today, know that one day, God will guide you to the springs of the water of life, and he will wipe every tear from your eyes.  Amen.


[1] David Lyon Bartlett, and Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.  Kindle edition, location 14590 of 18450.

[2] Vs. 15-17.

[3] http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2014/12/the-book-of-revelation-guide-to.html#.XNcIVY5KjD4.  He was actually speaking of a similar scene in Revelation 5 which is somewhat of a sister passage to this one, but I didn’t want to take the time in the actual sermon to explain that.

The Third Sunday of Easter
The Rev’d Charles Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Acts 9:1-20
May 5, 2019

The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.
 
Have you ever been asked this question: “Are you saved?”  This question usually is posed by an evangelical Christian who is trying to ascertain if you’ve invited Jesus to come into your heart and save your soul.  Because in their way of thinking, that’s the prayer that seals-the-deal.  It’s called The Sinner’s Prayer.  Once you pray that prayer, heaven is guaranteed.  All is well and there is no further reason to fear damnation to the fiery pains of hell. 
 
If you haven’t been asked this question, just come down to 14th and Main downtown sometime over the lunch hour and you’ll hear one of those street preachers with a megaphone.  He not only asks this question, he denounces every group of people he doesn’t like.  If you come to try to hear him, you might just see me in street clothes scurrying to lunch with noise-cancelling headphones on.
 
Many evangelical Christians describe with genuine emotion what they felt when they prayed the Sinner’s Prayer.  And no, I’m not lumping them in with the annoying street preacher – most evangelicals tell their story sincerely and without demonstrating hate toward others.  They remember the time they invited Jesus to come into their hearts and be their Lord – they remember truly feeling different.
 
It’s almost as if they think the dramatic story of St. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus that we heard this morning is the norm.
 
I say St. Paul because that’s how we refer to him now, but Paul was no saint.  [By the way, Saul was his name in Hebrew, and Paul was simply the transliteration of this name in Latin].  Whether it’s Saul or Paul, he was no saint.  He had just taken an active part in the stoning of Stephen, the first deacon in the church.  He was a religious leader who had just actively participated in a ritualistic and barbaric execution of someone for his religious beliefs, and then continued to persecute others who believed like Stephen did.  We hear Jesus say to him on the road to Damascus, ““Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  He asked, “Who are you, Lord?”  The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” 
 
At this point, Saul hadn’t made a choice to stop persecuting Christians.  He hadn’t decided to confess his sins and repent.  God chose him while he was still actively living an evil life.  God met him where he was.  We see this approach all throughout Scripture.  God called Matthew while he was still a corrupt tax collector.  He called Peter – the future leader of the disciples and arguably the most prominent leader in the early church – when he was a simple fisherman.  And he called Paul, a notorious murderer who hated Christianity and all that it stood for.  Our Lord meets people where they are.  He doesn’t wait until they’ve cleaned themselves up, he meets them where they are when they least expect it.
 
When Paul gets up off the ground after this encounter, he’s suddenly blind.  Jesus then comes to Ananias in a vision and asks him to lay his hands on Paul so that he might regain his sight.  Ananias’s response is understandable: he’s hesitant as he’s heard of the evil Saul had done to the saints in Jerusalem.  But Jesus responds to his hesitation, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before the Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.  I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”  After being blind for three days, his sight is restored, and he is baptized.  Saul, a notorious sinner, dies with Christ and is then reborn with him in the waters of baptism.  We know from the rest of the biblical record that Paul’s future will indeed be filled with both joy and suffering for the sake of Christ.
 
How would Paul have answered the question, “Are you saved?”  According to New Testament scholar Bishop N.T. Wright, the only explicit account we have of Paul referring to what happened to him on the Road to Damascus is this from his letter to the Galatians:
 
“But [when] God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles…[1]
 
Paul says nothing about repentance and faith, and certainly nothing about praying a specific prayer and finding his heart being strangely warmed.  Paul’s re-telling of his initial conversion story is this: through God’s grace, he stopped persecuting the church and began announcing the Good News of Jesus Christ to the nations.[2] 
 
When this Southern Baptist boy began rubbing shoulders with Christians from the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, I quickly learned that most Christians don’t have a dramatic, heart-warming conversion experience.  In fact, many folks in the church are hesitant to tell others how they came to faith in Christ because they feel ashamed that their story isn’t as flashy and exciting and emotional as the person next to them in the pew. 
 
Thanks be to God, St. Paul’s experience shows us that God meets us where we are, and usually, when we least expect it.  Sometimes that’s in the midst of notorious evil living; sometimes it’s in the doldrums of a seemingly boring life filled with work, eat, TV, repeat; and sometimes, it’s in the midst of loneliness and despair.  No matter where Christ meets us, it is through God’s grace given to us in baptism that we are called to follow Him and proclaim the Good News of his salvation to the world. 
 
When someone asks me today, “Are you saved?”, my short response is, “"I have been saved; I am being saved; and I will be saved."  For despite having received God’s grace at baptism, I am desperately in need of the same grace each and every day in order to follow Christ and share his love with the other people I encounter. It is through the Christian disciplines of prayer and contemplation and service and the like…it is through sinning, repenting, and receiving God’s unconditional forgiveness that we are continually being saved.  It is by receiving the Sacraments of the Church day-in-and-day-out that, in St. Paul’s words, “all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”[3]
 
Friends, it isn’t enough to invite Jesus into your heart and be done with it.  A simple prayer, no matter how sincere you are when you pray it, won’t make you spiritually invincible to the forces of evil and death.  From a technical standpoint, Christian salvation begins with baptism and is fulfilled at death.  But God has revealed his son Jesus Christ to each of you in different ways in your lives, and your story – your spiritual journey is no less valid than mine.  
 
Let us pray that God will open our eyes, as he opened St. Paul’s, to the saving power of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  When Jesus meets us where we are, let us respond as Paul did by choosing to follow him wherever he may lead, even into suffering for his sake.  And empowered by God’s grace, let us tell our story of how we came to faith in Jesus Christ to those around us in love – boldly and without shame.  Amen.
 


[1] Galatians 1:15-17, NRSV.

[2] N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2013), 1421.

[3] 2 Corinthians 3:17, NRSV.

Easter Day
The Rev’d Charles Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
April 21, 2019

​The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.
 
Like many of you, I spend far too much of my life on my phone.  I’m part of a group text message string that includes about 10 of my friends, most of whom are not religious.  Beyond scheduling happy hours and birthday celebrations, we generally use this medium for snarky memes or silly jokes to make each other laugh.  A couple of years ago, my phone buzzed on Easter Sunday, and when I looked down, it said, “Happy Zombie Jesus Day!”  One of the other persons on the text string texted me separately, concerned that I might be offended.  Of course, the friend who sent the silly message knew I wouldn’t be offended, not because I believe Jesus is a Zombie, but because he and I have had long talks about what Christians believe about Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, and that ultimately, he can’t bring himself to believe that a human being could rise from the dead.
 
I mean, I get it.  Generally, people don’t rise from the dead.
 
But here we are.  It’s Easter Sunday, and we’re here celebrating the Feast of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, like we do every year.  And like every other Easter Sunday, we hear about Jesus’s resurrection from several different Scripture lessons, from different authors with different perspectives.
 
From John’s gospel, we hear of Mary Magdelene’s utter despair upon finding the empty tomb.  “What happened?  Did someone steal my Lord’s body,” she may have asked herself.  Her despair is turned to joy upon seeing her risen Lord.  She initially thought he was the gardener, meaning she recognized him as a living, breathing human being with a real body that can be touched.
 
In the epistle lesson, Paul connects Christ’s resurrection theologically with Adam, the first human being.  He says, “But in fact Christ has been raised form the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.  For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”
 
And in the reading from Acts, we hear the apostle Peter, the disciple whom Jesus loved, testify to what he saw.  He said, “God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”  It’s no accident that Peter emphasizes the fact that he’s giving an eyewitness account, and it’s also no accident that he points out that Jesus ate and drank with his disciples after he rose from the dead.  Neither spirits nor zombies eat and drink.  Peter was emphasizing the historicity and the physicality of Jesus’ resurrected body.

Often, we tell ourselves that we no longer believe in such legends because we know better, because everything we have learned about the world has taught is that such stories cannot be true, and because we are educated and sophisticated people who will not be manipulated by tales that the church uses to get us to do as we are told.  Often, we no longer buy into such foolishness. But it might also be true that we no longer pay attention to such things because we have stopped believing that the resurrection of Jesus at Easter has much impact on our lives.  We have lost track of the meaning of the Resurrection.  And this means that we have also given up on the idea that God could protect and save his people; that he is leading us to salvation; and that He who rose from the dead is our hope that tomorrow will be different from all our yesterdays.[1]

Peter’s proclaims the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection simply yet powerfully: God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit when he was baptized by John the Baptist.  He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed.  He was put to death on that awful tree, but God raised him on the third day.  Everyone who believes in him is forgiven of sin.
​
But before Peter says all of this, he realizes something new about the God he’d been serving: God does not show partiality or favor.   Rather, God offers salvation and healing to all people.  In Peter’s understanding, Jesus’s message had only been for the Jews.  But now he’s realized that God loves everyone  - even those who aren’t Jewish – unconditionally and extravagantly.  For Peter, this was more than just a nice theological idea that made him feel good.  God’s impartiality forced him to actively change how he lived his life.  He sought out the Gentiles, even though it was unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile.  He actively sought peace with them.
 
And that is the focus of Peter’s message: “the good news of peace through Jesus Christ.”[2]  This peace that Jesus brings to humanity is an active, reconciling kind of peace.  Through his death on the cross, Jesus restored peace between God and humanity.  And this peace between God and mankind makes possible peace between human beings. 
 
Oh, how our world today needs this peace!  The polarization of our society seems to grow and grow. Republican vs. Democrat, Protestant vs. Catholic, rich vs. poor, white vs. black, and so on.  I have a friend who has not spoken to his parents since the last presidential election, for he and they cannot stand to be in the same room as one another.  Friends, Jesus’s resurrection from the dead has the power to bring peace between divided peoples.  His unconditional love is not only for you, but for you and you and you, and even me.  His love is so great that it cannot be contained by political or religious or socio-economic boundaries.  Whatever group of people you dislike the most…God loves them just as much as he loves you.
 
On Easter Day, we are reminded of the historicity of Jesus’s physical resurrection from the dead.  He wasn’t an undead, reanimated corpse – he wasn’t a zombie –  his actual body was raised from the dead. As we will sing after communion, “Had Christ, that once was slain, never burst his three-day prison, our faith had been in vain.”[3]
 
Let us rejoice, friends, for our faith is not in vain.  For Christ is risen, making peace between God and humanity, and extending love and forgiveness to anyone who will receive it.  Anyone, for God shows no partiality or favor.  No matter how unworthy you may feel, no matter the awful things you’ve done in your life, no matter, God loves you. 
 
Let us be renewed and refreshed this morning with the joy of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  Let us leave this place believing that He who rose from the dead is our hope that tomorrow will be different from all our yesterdays.  For by his glorious resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ ushered in the peace that passes all understanding.  Peace for our souls, peace among divided peoples, and peace for the world.  Amen.


[1] Adapted from a sermon preached by Fr. Sean Mullin, rector of St. Mark’s, Philadelphia.  http://www.saintmarksphiladelphia.org/sermons/2019/4/19/the-sparrow-the-crown-amp-the-thorns

[2] Acts 10:36, NIV.

[3] Hymn 192, Hymnal 1982, “This Joyful Eastertide.”

Maundy Thursday
Luke 22:7-30
The Rev’d Charles Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
April 18, 2019

The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.
 
Tonight, the mystery begins.  Tonight, we begin a three-day-long liturgy the Church calls the Paschal Triduum filled with a stark contrast between deep sorrow and unfathomable joy.  As we begin this intense time, from the book of Exodus, we heard Nancy read to us what is essentially a liturgical customary for the preparation of the Jewish Passover meal. 
 
Around 1,300 years before Christ, the Jews were slaves in Egypt.  God raised up Moses as their leader, and the Passover marked the beginning of Israel’s exodus out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.  God commanded each Israelite household to slaughter a spotless Lamb.  The instructions are quite detailed, just as any good liturgical customary is.  “Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs.”  It reminds me of the some of the fussy liturgical customaries we use around here, such as “The organ is silent and the bells do not ring from the end of the Gloria on Maundy Thursday until the Gloria at the Great Easter Vigil.” (This is why you’ll hear us use a wooden clacker instead of the bells later in the service.). At the Passover, the head of the household was to smear some of the blood of the lamb on their doorposts as a signal to God that he should “pass over” their houses when he destroyed the firstborn of the Egyptians, thus paving the way for their escape back to Israel.  The passage ends with, “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you.  You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”[1]
 
Thirteen hundred years later, as good Jews, our Lord and his disciples kept the feast in their time.  Jesus tells his disciples that he “eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,” and his disciples would have immediately recognized a play on words: the Greek word Passover (pascha) and the verb “to suffer” (pascho) are almost identical.  In the story of the Last Supper, Jesus foretells his own suffering that will happen tomorrow on the cross, and links his own Passion with the Jewish Passover.  Just as Israel was delivered from the bonds of slavery in Egypt and sent into the land of promise by the Passover, so is the Church delivered from the bonds of sin and death into an everlasting life with God in the Passion of our Lord on Good Friday. 
 
Jesus goes on to say to his disciples that “he will not eat it [the Passover, that is] until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” In some ancient manuscripts, it is recorded that he says “he will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God,” as if he’s celebrating the Passover in that moment in the Last Supper.  Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross is the fulfillment of the Jewish Passover.  And tonight, as we celebrate the Eucharist, we reenact the fulfilled Passover in this great sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.   In the Passover, a lamb is sacrificed to give God’s chosen people what they need to avoid the devastating effects of God’s judgment.  At times throughout the year during the liturgy, we sing, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us!  Therefore let us keep the feast!”  Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we are united to the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. It is through Jesus’s sacrifice that we are brought into the Promised Land and freed from the bonds of sin and death. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we are joined with each Eucharistic celebration throughout history and each future Eucharist that is to come, along with all of the saints who have ever come to the altar rail throughout history and those who will in the future. 
 
So, let us celebrate the fulfillment of this festival just as our ancestors did in Egypt so long ago.  But before we do, we will observe another ritual that has been around since at least the year 694: the washing of the feet.  In John’s gospel, just before the Passover, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.  Peter initially responds, “You will never wash my feet,” utterly appalled at the thought of his Master washing his feet.  In washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus takes the place of servant to his own servants.  Beyond inverting the image of leadership, Jesus performs a very intimate act in this moment.  Exposing one’s feet to another was just as unusual in the 1st century as it is in our culture.  In my home parish, I always remember some of the ladies going to get pedicures before Mass on Maundy Thursday.  I mean, I get their urge to gussy up their feet so as not to gross out the priest, but I wonder if they’re missing the point entirely.  In this humble act of service, Jesus is modeling what the Christian life is all about: just as he washed his disciples’ feet, so are they to go and do likewise.  For “servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.”[2]   He then continues, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
 
Despite his having experienced this intimate moment with his Lord, we will hear tomorrow that Peter proceeds to deny his Lord three times.  He’s not the only one – Judas not only denies him, he betrays him.  But there’s a significant difference between Peter and Judas which Pope Benedict XVI explores in his book, “Jesus of Nazareth.”  For Peter, there is true mourning and sorrow, as Peter’s eyes meet our Lord’s after denying even knowing Jesus three times. Peter—who was full of brash confidence—has now come face to face with his own weakness and inconstancy. And this confrontation with the truth hurts. But Peter’s mourning—while painful—brings him to the truth and ultimately repentance. For Pope Benedict, the key difference between Peter and Judas here is that unlike Judas’s desolate despair, Peter’s mourning includes a glimmer of hope and a sense of God’s infinite mercy. And this gives Peter the chance to start over.  Moved by God’s grace and having come face to face with his own weakness, now he is ready to let God work through him in an even more powerful way. Benedict writes: “Struck by the Lord’s gaze, Peter bursts into healing tears that plow up the soil of his soul. He begins anew and is himself renewed”.[3]
 
Let us remember the feast of the Passover tonight recognizing our own weakness, but with a glimmer of hope.  For we will need that hope to get us through the long hours of Good Friday when our Lord’s suffering is almost unbearable, and death and despair seem be the final word.  Let the glimmer of hope given to us in this Holy Feast give us the strength we need to serve others in Christ’s name – to love one another, just as He has loved us.
 


[1] Verse 14.

[2] John 13:14.

[3] https://biblestudyforcatholics.com/mourning-judas-vs-mourning-peter/

​Palm/Passion Sunday, Year C
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
Luke 19:28-40, Phil 2:5-11, Luke 23:1-49
April 14, 2019

​The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.
 
We begin this holiest of weeks with a joyful procession, even when it’s cloudy and chilly outside!  Our procession with palms is meant to re-enact in some way Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, though I have to say, I’m glad that we don’t include an actual donkey in our re-enactment as they tend to leave “presents” along the path that would be difficult to dodge.  (Also, note this year that Luke’s re-telling of this story doesn’t include palms.  We cheated and used palms anyway.)   Luke, just like the other three gospel writers, puts his particular spin on this scene.  His focus can be seen in verse 37 when “the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice…saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!””  In this joyful proclamation, we hear echoes of Luke’s telling of the Christmas story in chapter 2 in which a multitude of angels appeared and sang, “Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace goodwill towards men.”    
 
So is peace found on earth…or in heaven?
 
The answer to this question is dependent upon which king you choose to serve.
 
Will you serve Caesar or will you serve Christ?  Caesar’s kingdom is based on domination and ruthless power, the kind of kingship Jesus refused when he was tempted in the wilderness.  God’s kingdom is based on justice, mercy, and love.[1]
 
To which kingdom do you belong?  The kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of this world?  The kingdom of this world with all of its hate and war and conflict and suffering led by self-serving leaders?  Or the kingdom of heaven, where the first shall be last and the last shall be first… where there is no death, neither sorrow nor crying, but the fulness of joy? 
 
St. Paul’s beautiful hymn we heard from his letter to the Philippians reveals the type of king that Jesus truly is: a self-less king who took the form of a slave and humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.  His humiliation lead to his exaltation.  His death led to life. Jesus submitted himself to death the same way he had submitted himself to everything else that made him fully human.[2]
 
Paul calls us to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus.  Someday, you and I will also be called to be obedient to death, just as he did.  But today, we are free as Jesus was to decide how to orient our lives: inwardly, to serve our own selfish desires, or outwardly, to serve God and other people.
 
And then, after Paul’s hymn, we heard Luke’s Passion narrative, and again we hear of this conflict between the kingdom of earth and the kingdom of heaven.  The assembly accused Jesus before Pilate, the governor of Roman province of Judea, saying that Jesus was perverting their nation, forbidding them to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he’s a king.[3]  Pilate, representing the Emperor, finds no reason to convict him.  He then tries to pawn him off on the Roman governor of Galilee, Jesus’s hometown, and Herod, too, didn’t find him guilty and sent him back to Pilate.  Finally, Pilate declares that Jesus will be released.  But the crowd was having none of it.  They finally convince the representative of the earthly king to execute the heavenly king for crimes he didn’t commit.
 
To which kingdom do you belong?  The kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of this world?
 
Right now, you and I are living in the tension between the two.  Every human being is held captive by the aftereffects of the sins of our first parents, and we can’t escape this world without dying.  But by our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have been grafted in to God’s family.  By going down into the water, we renounced our citizenship of the kingdom of this world, and by rising again, we received new citizenship in God’s kingdom. 
 
On Palm/Passion Sunday, we are reminded that despite the fact that we live in this world, we are not of this world.  In a sense, we are living in a strange and foreign land where our allegiance to the true king is mocked and scorned and rejected.
 
Jesus entered Jerusalem to these cries: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”  He left Jerusalem having been executed as a criminal, convicted of crimes against the state he didn’t commit, and the crowds who gathered there for his execution returned home beating their breasts in utter despair.  For the king of the universe was dead, killed by the human authorities of this world. 
 
Why did he die?
 
To bring peace, in both heaven and on earth. 
 
Jesus Christ stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to his Father’s will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.
 
But the peace that he brought to us in his death will not be brought to completion until Easter. Today, in the cycle of the church year, we enter into a time of intense sadness.  The peace that we long for and know will ultimately come isn’t here quite yet.  For now, we are left in sorrow, for it seems that the rulers and principalities of this world have defeated and killed our Lord.  Despite knowing how the story ends, the Church invites us to walk with Jesus this week on his long journey of suffering.  The Church invites us to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus.  To follow our Lord in his obedience to death, even death on a cross.
 
In a moment, as he’s preparing the table for communion, Deacon Gerry will quietly perform an ancient part of the liturgy that has been around since at least the year 150 AD.  He will place a single drop of water in the chalice of wine and say quietly under his breath, "By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity."  The water represents humanity, and the wine represents Christ, and in the comingling of the two elements, they become inseparable.  Let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus, that we may share in his divinity just as he shared in our humanity.
 


[1] David Lyon Bartlett, and Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.  Kindle edition, location 5243 of 18450.

[2] Ibid 5819.

[3] Luke 23:1-3.

The Third Sunday in Lent
1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
March 24, 2019

​The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.

When I first sat down with these lessons, I wasn’t all that inspired by Paul’s fear-provoking message to the Corinthians, nor was I thrilled about the idea of unpacking Jesus’s statement “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”  I have a feeling that many Episcopal parishes will hear sermons about Moses and the burning bush today.  But we are in the season of Lent, so we may as well suffer through some of this difficult biblical material together. 

It’s no surprise that this epistle lesson from 1 Corinthians is used during Lent.  In the early church, Lent was a time of preparation for those desiring to be baptized, and the scholars who compiled the new lectionary have brought back in the baptismal focus in the lessons used during Lent. In this passage, Paul spoke to the church at Corinth, a church with all sorts of division and strife going on.  Some of its members were falling back into paganism, the church was at risk of splitting into three groups loyal to three different leaders, and bad moral decisions among the members were causing big problems.  In other words, the church at Corinth was a hot mess. As they were Jewish Christians, Paul starts with a story about their Jewish ancestors.  He told them that despite being “baptized into Moses” – despite being passing through the sea and under the cloud, despite eating the spiritual food and drink that God provided them, they were still struck down in the wilderness.  These Jewish Christians viewed this “baptism into Moses” – their Jewish ancestry – as a birthright.  A privilege.  “Since God brought us out of the desert, he should provide for us,” they thought.  And yet, God wasn’t pleased with them, and they were struck down.

Paul then gives the Corinthians a list of things not to do lest they get struck down like their ancestors did.  Don’t indulge in sexual immorality, don’t put Christ to the test, don’t complain.  Don’t worship idols like your ancestors did.  For if you do, you’ll share in a similar fate as they did.  The key to all of this is in verse twelve: “If you think you’re standing, watch out that you do not fall.”

Some of our brothers and sisters in Christ in other denominations, and maybe even some of you believe in that the Bible teaches a doctrine called “eternal security,” or “once saved, always saved.”  The idea is that since there is nothing a sinner can do to earn salvation, there is nothing a saved person can do to lose it. The moment a person “accepts Jesus,” they claim, her salvation is secured, and she faces no risk of ever losing it.  Back in my Southern Baptist days, I remember thinking at times, “I’m saved.  Nothing I do can separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ.  It’s all about grace, not about works.”  These are all true statements, but back in those days, I had a tendency to take them to their logical conclusion and view my own salvation as a birthright.  A privilege.  Because I was “saved,” I felt immune to bad things happening to me as God would protect me.  I suppose I felt spiritually invincible.

But God’s grace isn’t a license to sit around and eat bonbons all day.  Paul’s warns us today, “If you think you’re standing, watch out that you do not fall.”  The Church today is full of human beings who fall into the same patterns, both individually and as a group, as our ancestors at Corinth.  The Hebrews thought their birthright – their Jewish ancestry – would shield them from God’s punishment, and we, too, sometimes think that our baptisms shield us from God’s punishment.  Paul reminds to watch out lest we fall.

In Luke chapter 13, Jesus is given two historical scenarios when horrible things happened, and he’s asked whether those horrible things happen to them because the people involved were worse sinners than others.  Were these two groups of people being punished for their sins?  Jesus answers both scenarios in exactly the same way, and in both cases, he ignores the details, and gives a precise and clear answer.  He says, “No, but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” 
Jesus isn’t saying that unless you stop all the bad things you’re doing, you’ll go to hell.  He wouldn’t have told the Church at Corinth, “If you would only stop indulging in sexual immorality, and putting Christ to the test, and complaining, you’d be spared from destruction.”  I’m not going to give you a formula – a list of sins to avoid so that you can avoid hell.  Repentance is not about stopping cussing and telling white lies at work, it’s about changing your perspective about what is real.[1]  It’s about choosing to believe that the values and priorities of God’s kingdom are more important than those of our culture.  Repentance is choosing to be open to seeing how God is at work in the world rather than being overly focused on our own desires.  Repentance is knowing that we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under God’s table, but that despite our unworthiness, he is the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.  Repentance is knowing that when bad things happen to people, it’s not because they sinned too much.  God’s favor doesn’t work like that.  There is no such thing as karma in God’s economy of salvation.  Frankly, if God doled out judgment and curses according to our sinfulness, you and I would be in dire straits.

The two historical scenarios that Jesus hears about – the untimely deaths of the Galileans and the people crushed by the tower at Siloam – remind us that it is not wise to put off repentance.  The time to change our perspective about the nature of reality is now.  Jesus underscores this urgency in the parable of the Fruitless Fig Tree.  The man’s fig tree had been planted for three years, but despite his having tended to it appropriately, it bore no fruit.  Three years should have been plenty of time!  His gardener responds by asking the man to be extravagant – perhaps even wasteful – by giving him another year with the fig tree, despite its lack of results.  He proposes digging around it and fertilizing it with manure. St. Gregory the Great, in one of his homilies on Jesus’ parables, says that the manure in this story represents our sin.  He said, “So the tree is fertilized when we awaken our conscience with the memory of our own perverse doings.” In other words, sin is……manure, but when sin is turned to repentance, it is spiritual fertilizer.[2]
​
Lent is the time to fertilize our souls for the upcoming harvest.  It’s a time to forsake our idols and recognize that we cannot earn God’s favor, no matter how hard we try.  It’s a time to be careful that when we think we’re standing, we should watch lest we fall.  Lent is a time when we dig deep into the spiritual disciplines of the Church and gradually, day after day, with God’s help, train ourselves to be attentive to the inbreaking of God’s kingdom around us.  During Lent, our Lord bids us to return to our baptismal roots and allow our repentance to fertilize our souls as we prepare for the great harvest at Easter.


[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1116

[2] The quote is from St. Gregory the Great, homily 31, and the exegetical outcome is from a private Facebook post by Mimi Dupree on 3/25/2019.

​The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
Luke 9:28-36
March 3, 2019

​The audio recording of this sermon can be found here. 

When I tell someone that I need to work on a sermon, I often hear this in reply: “Just pull out an old sermon.  No one will ever know.”  Of course, I respond, “Sermons are tailored to a specific time and context as well as a specific audience.  Repeating a sermon doesn’t work too well.”  Also we have a three-year lectionary, so only certain feasts have identical Scripture readings every year.  The Last Sunday after the Epiphany focuses on the Transfiguration of Christ, and while the lessons differ from year to year, the story is essentially the same.  With the impending snow storm yesterday, I have to admit, I was a bit tempted.
 
So I opened my sermon from last year from the Last Sunday after the Epiphany.  It was February 11th, three weeks after Fr. Patrick left to go to his new assignment in Wisconsin.  I talked about the raw emotion that Peter, James and John must have felt when they went up the mountain and they saw Jesus transfigured before them in dazzling white.  I described a few mountain-top experiences I’d had in my life, and made this passing comment, and I quote, “I’m not an emotional guy – crying isn’t something that I do very often.”
 
I literally laughed out loud and how utterly false that statement is.  As any of the acolytes who can see my face during everything that goes on up here would tell you… I can hardly get through the Eucharistic Prayer without fighting to hold in a tear!  But last year, I clearly felt that I could say that I rarely cry with integrity.
 
What has changed in a year’s time?
 
This time last year, I felt a lot of anxiety.  Both the Vestry and I were uncertain of whether the bishop would allow a priest who had only been ordained a little over a year to lead the oldest parish in the diocese, a parish that hasn’t been able to make its full assessment payments to the diocese in years.  Was I even cut out for this work?  Let’s just say that I had more than one sleepless night.  As the months went by, I think I began to realize that it was doing neither me nor you any good to be anxious about things we can’t control.  Maybe I realized that I should practice what I preach when I say “Trust in the Lord.” 
 
Another thing that’s changed over past year is that I’ve generally gotten to know you and you’ve gotten to know me.  Between weddings and funerals, baptisms confirmation classes, and time spent in coffee hour, text messages and phone calls, hospital visits and drinks at the bar and lunches in downtown Kansas City over my bank lunch hour – we’ve generally gotten to know one another.  So, in a sense, it may be that I’m just more willing to admit to you that I cry now that I’m comfortable with you.
 
One more giant change that happened overnight was the liturgical workload.  I mean, I knew what the service schedule of this parish looked like on paper last year, but it didn’t hit me until a few weeks ago when I had to turn in my annual report to the bishop.  In 2017 – year before last – I celebrated 39 Masses and preached 29 sermons.  In 2018, I celebrated 132 Masses and preached 111 sermons.  Preaching a sermon, particularly on a Sunday, generally means spending several hours with a Bible and perhaps study materials each week.  And celebrating that many Masses meant that had consumed our Lord sacramentally more frequently and regularly than ever before.
 
Serving as your priest over the past year has resulted in some mandatory time on the mountaintop.
 
But as anyone who watches the news knows all too well, forced mountaintop experiences aren’t always tied to positive outcomes.  There are many church leaders – bishops, priests, deacons, Protestant ministers, lay leaders – who spend a lot of time with Jesus in all of his dazzling brightness on the top of the spiritual mountain, but then come back down to the valley and do awful, horrible things. 
 
The truth of the matter is this: in order to be able to spend lots of time on the mountaintop in Jesus’s transfigured presence without self-destructing, one must be grounded in the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian faith.  People don’t generally live on mountaintops – Peter’s suggestion to build dwelling places on that mountain must have sounded awfully silly.  We climb mountains, we spend a bit of time there, but we come back down and spend the vast majority of our lives in the valley. 
 
It is no accident that the Church has us read this text just before Lent begins.  We are about to enter a specific and intentionally valley – the desert with Jesus as he is tempted in every way, and ultimately prepare for the sorrow and suffering that is to come on Good Friday.  During Lent, we focus not only on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but spiritual disciplines in general. The more and more time we spend with the Lord in everyday, habitual spiritual practices like praying Morning and Evening Prayer, receiving Holy Communion regularly, perhaps even digging deep into the recesses of our souls and making a private confession – the more time we spend with the Lord and in community with one another, the more we long for the spiritual mountaintop experiences, and the more likely it is we can withstand being in Jesus’s dazzling white transfigured presence without self-destructing.  The more we practice the basic spiritual disciplines, the more aware we are of the Lord’s presence in and around us.  And then, without even realizing it, we slowly find ourselves being more attuned to the Holy Spirit’s movement around us, and we’re more equipped to join with Her in bringing reconciliation and healing and wholeness to a lost and broken world.
 
The past year here at St. Mary’s has been one of the best years of my life.  For the reasons I’ve mentioned, and probably many reasons I can’t even name, I feel comfortable admitting to you and to myself that I’m a cry-er.  As we enter into this new phase in our relationship with one another, I also need to admit something else to you: I sometimes struggle with the daily spiritual disciplines I ask you to engage in.  When I ask you, “How is Lent going for you?”, beyond giving me a hopefully authentic response, I am asking you to ask me the very same question.  Frankly, I need the accountability, and sometimes you need to see a bit more authenticity from me. 
 
As we enter into Lent, and as we enter into this new relationship with one another as priest and congregation, let us re-commit ourselves to following Jesus Christ together.  Let us recommit ourselves to daily putting our baptism – to daily dying to self and being raised to newness of life.  Let us recommit ourselves to intentionally developing good spiritual habits in the grittiness of everyday life, and let us recommit ourselves to keep coming back to this place with this church family to receive God’s unconditional grace and love in the bread and the wine – to receive the strength we need to say yes to the Lord when we feel alone in the valley.  Amen.