Third Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 8, Year C
June 30, 2019
The Rev’d Charles Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church

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

When I lived in France working as a missionary, my boss and his wife were an American couple named Scott and Mentanna.  In one of our many discussions about the faith, the topic of “freedom” came up.  “For Freedom, Christ has set us free,” St. Paul said to the Galatians in our epistle lesson.  What does this Christian freedom mean?  Doesn’t freedom mean that I get to do whatever I want to do? How can we be free and still have rules to follow?  Mentanna had a small dog named Gidget, and being Parisians who lived in a sixth-floor apartment, they had to walk Gidget around four times per day.  She liked to use Gidget as an analogy about Christian freedom.  “When we lived in Texas,” she said, “we had a back yard with a fence.  Gidget wanted badly to get beyond the fence, but clearly, we didn’t think that was best for her.  Was she truly free in the backyard being able to run and play and bark at dogs that pass by, or was the fence preventing her from being truly free?  The fact of the matter is this: she may have thought that removing the fence would make her truly free, but she would have run out into the street and been hit by a car in no time.  God’s freedom always involves boundaries for our own protection.”

My concept of Christian freedom was shaken a bit when we got our little 30 pound rescue dog named Jake.  We already had a doggy door into the back yard, but quickly became concerned when we’d heard Jake barking at passersby…from the front porch.  It turns out that Jake has absolutely no problem climbing metal fences. 

 We’ve had him for 6 years, and still can’t trust him in the back yard by himself.  I was reminded of the story of Gidget and the fence, and wondered if Jake’s jail-breaking activities made him any more free than Gidget was. 

“For Freedom, Christ has set us free.” What is Christian freedom?  Is it permission to do whatever we like?  From what is it that we are freed? 

St. Paul tells the Galatians to “Live by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”  He’s not using the term “flesh” throughout this passage in a negative way, as if the human body is inherently sinful or evil.  Rather, “flesh” is often Paul’s shorthand for self-centered living as opposed to God-centered living.[1]  He seems to be asking the impossible of us: to resist “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, and carousing”…and if that didn’t cover it, “and things like these.”  Works of the flesh aren’t just material things, they’re spiritual too: “idolatry and sorcery.” 

How in the world are we supposed to resist these and all the other self-centered behaviors?  How are we to instead bear the fruit of the Spirit which is love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  Not by trying really hard, not by pulling ourselves up by our boot straps…but instead by relying on the Holy Spirit.

“Live by the Spirit,” Paul says, “and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”  Living by the spirit means recognizing that I’ve committed to a new way of life, living for the other rather than for myself.  Living by the Spirit means recognizing that I’ve committed to living a life of spiritual discipline that includes daily prayer, contemplation, serving others, receiving the Sacraments, and so on. This life of spiritual discipline is somewhat like training for a marathon.  You start out by running perhaps a mile each day, then two, then six, and then ultimately all 26 miles. The more and more we spiritually train, the more and more spiritual habits we form that ultimately change not only our behaviors, but our desires.

The desires of the flesh lead us to self-centered action.  Wanting sexual intimacy, we pursue fornication; wanting contact with God, we pursue idols; wanting joy, we party too hard.  The freedom we have in Christ should lead us to rely on the Holy Spirit who can help us train for the spiritual marathon that has been set before us.

So, to circle back, yes, in a sense, Christian freedom means we get to do whatever we want.  But by choosing to follow Christ and submitting to the Holy Spirit, what we want…changes.  Training for the spiritual marathon transforms our desires and we want something different.  It is as if God’s grace changes our taste buds.  The spiritual cravings we have are no longer for the selfish things on the Paul’s naughty list, but instead, we crave to love God and our neighbor.

Let’s talk about Paul’s naughty list.  There isn’t anything particularly special or serious about this list of sins, rather it’s a list representing the various sorts of selfish actions human beings are prone to do.  I’ve heard sermons that try to analyze this list of sinful activity and make arguments about what each one means, but that really isn’t a helpful exercise because it’s missing Paul’s point entirely.  This isn’t an exhaustive list of things to avoid, it’s simply a small portion of the self-centered things that human beings often do.

It is tempting to use our freedom in Christ as an excuse to self-indulge. Paul reminds the Galatians not to use their freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 

This is what it means to “live by the Spirit.”  Either you say yes to the desires of the flesh and exhibit selfish unrighteous behavior, or, by God’s grace, you say yes to the Holy Spirit and display loving, self-sacrificial righteous behavior.  This is a choice we have to make over and over again in our lives.  It’s a choice that we won’t escape, no matter how hard we try, until we die.  It’s the way of life we committed to at our baptism.  And despite our desires being changed over time as we form healthy spiritual habits, despite the fact that we desperately want to live by the Spirit…we will sometimes listen to that old menace, our Old Self, the one who had the selfish desires.  When we are hungry and presented with two pieces of fruit: one, a selfish desire of the flesh, and the other, a fruit of the Spirit, we will remember how good the first piece of fruit used to taste.  And we’ll eat it, despite knowing that it will make us sick, for the memory of the delicious taste sometimes seems overpowering.  When we do, until the day we die, there is always the opportunity to choose to live by the Spirit in the next moment, even if in the previous moment we’ve gratified the desires of the flesh.  For in the Lord there is mercy and forgiveness, and and despite the bump in the road in our spiritual training, we continue with perseverance running the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.[2] 

Friends, no matter what we’ve done in life, no matter how ashamed we are, no matter how tempting the first piece of fruit is, let us strive to live by the Spirit.  For we who belong to Jesus have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”  Let us exercise self-control and put the needs of others ahead of our own needs.  Let us do the training needed to run the spiritual marathon, spending time in prayer daily, reading the Scripture, serving those around us in need, and regularly receiving God’s grace in the Sacraments of the Church.  As St. Paul says, let us, through love, become slaves to one another.  For in so doing, we find the greatest freedom we will ever know.  Amen.

[1] David Lyon Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 187.

[2] Hebrews 12:1-2.

Corpus Christi
The Rev’d Charles Everson
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
June 23, 2019
 
Those of you who were raised in a Protestant tradition can relate to me when I say that I was intrigued by all of the ritual and peculiar practices in the Episcopal Church.  And so many of the strange things are made even more peculiar by being referred to by a Latin name.

For example, I remember the first time I learned about the existence of the piscina.  The piscina is a special sink that drains into the earth instead of the sewer.  In some of the older churches in Europe, it’s a niche in a stone wall close to the altar, but in modern places like ours, it’s a metal sink that looks like every other sink, connected by a pipe called a sacrarium in Latin that leads directly to the ground.   A piscina is primarily used for washing the communion vessels after Mass.  Why do we need a special sink with a special drain with Latin names?  For two reasons: first, the communion vessels have been consecrated (formally set apart) by a bishop for holy use, but more importantly, because there are remaining particles of consecrated bread and wine left on the vessels. 

While theologians have been fighting about precisely what happens to the bread and wine at Holy Communion – and how it happens – the bottom line is that we believe in the “real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist”, a doctrine that leads us to reverently consume the leftovers after Mass, and that further leads us to treat even the most minute particles of the consecrated elements with utmost reverence.

In the upper room so many years ago when Jesus said, “This is my body”, he didn’t say “This has or will become my body” nor “This symbolizes my body.”  He says, “This is my body.” 

And in today’s gospel lesson from John, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life…I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  Those listening to him got confused and asked, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” To which Jesus responds, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life…for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”  It is hard not to hear Eucharistic overtones in this passage.
The Episcopal Church’s catechism says that the Eucharist is the inward and spiritual grace of the Body and Blood of Christ given to us in the outward and visible signs of bread and wine.    This is the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  And despite what my former Baptist friends and colleagues may think, the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist has been believed by Christians since the very beginning.  Even a cursory review of the early Church Fathers reveals a deep and universal belief that the that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, with many of the Fathers referring to the consecrated elements as the same flesh and blood that suffered and died on the cross.

It was not until the early Middle Ages that the Church felt the need to further define how the change occurred.  Like many dogmatic statements throughout the centuries, the formal doctrine of transubstantiation was formulated in response to a French theologian who, in short, denied the doctrine of the Real Presence.  This notion of transubstantiation restated the doctrine of the Real Presence, which is fine, but it but went further in trying to explain how the change happens by superimposing Greek philosophical terms like “substance” and “accident” onto Christian theology.  There had never been a need to even talk about how the change happened, and this overreaction on the part of the Church helped contribute to the schism that happened a few hundred years later.  Since then, theologians have been fighting about precisely how it happens, but in my view, they’ve continued a discussion that continues to be unnecessary and unhelpful.  In the opening hymn, we sang these words, speaking about the Jesus in the Eucharist: “Thou art here, we ask not how.”  

Around the same time that the doctrine of transubstantiation was defined, today’s feast of Corpus Christi – the body and blood of Christ – became widespread.  It grew out of Maundy Thursday which we celebrated nine weeks ago.  On that day, the Church celebrates the institution of the Holy Eucharist in that upper room so long ago.  But Maundy Thursday also commemorates the institution of the priesthood, and Jesus’s washing of his disciples’ feet, making it quite the busy liturgy.  Because the Eucharist can easily get lost in all of the hustle and bustle of the Maundy Thursday, and in conjunction with an increasing number of the faithful being devoted to the Eucharist in a special way, there began to be calls for a special feast solely focused on the Eucharist, and the feast of Corpus Christi was instituted throughout the whole Western church in 1264 A.D.

Fast forward to the Protestant Reformation a few hundred years later.  Corpus Christi was abolished in England.  Why? Because Corpus Christi had come to represent all of the excesses of medieval Catholicism that disgusted folks like Martin Luther and Thomas Cramner.  Many churches celebrated a procession after Mass on this day in which the Blessed Sacrament is placed in a monstrance and carried by the priest under a tent throughout the neighborhood.  To give you a feel for the Reformers’ view on Eucharistic exposition, all I have to do is quote Article XXV from 39 Articles of Religion, the original doctrinal statement of the Reformed English Church: “The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them.”  Or how about this from Article XXVIII: “Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.”

Remember that the Articles of Religion were formulated in a time when yes, there were Eucharistic processions, but practically speaking, lay people weren’t allowed to receive communion except for a few times a year.  The average Christian’s Eucharistic piety was not about receiving the body and blood of Christ for his or her redemption, it was all about gazing upon it – when the priest elevated the host and the chalice during the Eucharistic prayer, and at moments when the sacrament was exposed in a monstrance.  The Reformers responded by saying, no, the primary purpose of communion is to eat it, as Christ commanded us to do, but they may have overreacted a bit in response to the Roman excesses of the day.  And despite claiming that they never change their minds on matters of doctrine, sometimes Rome comes around to our position on things.  In 1971, the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission reached agreement on Eucharistic doctrine, relegating the term “transubstantiation” to a footnote, in which it is said to affirm the fact of the ‘mysterious and radical change’ rather than to explain how the change takes place.[1]

On Maundy Thursday, the joy of commemorating the institution of the Eucharist is overshadowed by what we all know will happen the next day: the Lord’s awful death on that tree at Calvary.  It is meet and right for us to rediscover the baby that the Reformers threw out with the bathwater when they abolished this great feast of Corpus Christi.  And as much fun as a Eucharistic procession around downtown Kansas City sounds, we’ll have to wait until next year, for the canopy or tent we have is in ill-repair and is a bit too somber.  Next year’s procession will be grand!

In the meantime, let us rejoice in the great gift God has given us in the Holy Eucharist in which the inward and spiritual grace of the Body and Blood of Christ is given to us in the outward and visible signs of bread and wine.  Let us sing hymns of gladness, and wear the finest vestments, and use the gold communion vessels.  Let us revel in the mystery of what we’re about to behold at this altar – that God would use ordinary creatures of bread and wine to join us with all the saints in heaven and on earth in the eternal banquet of love which began on the hill at Calvary and continues each time we obey Christ’s commandment to “do this in remembrance of me.”  Let us give thanks to God that while we may struggle with the mysteriousness nature of the change that happens, in the bread and the wine we are made one body with Christ, that he may dwell in us, and we in him. And as we gaze upon the elements at the elevations in a moment, let us join with St. Thomas Aquinas in proclaiming these words which the schola will sing at the offertory: “Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, having truly suffered, sacrificed on the cross for mankind, from whose pierced side water and blood flowed: be for us a foretaste in the trial of death!  O sweet Jesus, O holy Jesus, O Jesus, son of Mary, have mercy on me.”  And let our pious gazing upon our Lord in the bread and the wine make us yearn to receive Him just as the deer yearns for streams of water.  Amen.


[1] F.. L. Cross and E.. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1637.

Pentecost Day
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
Isaiah 6:1-13, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
June 9, 2019

The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.

When I think of Pentecost Day, I immediately think of the scene as Luke describes it in the book of Acts with the tongues of fire and the and the early Christians being given the ability to speak in other languages. 

The apostle John’s version of Pentecost is quite different.  Instead of large crowds and what appeared to be drunken behavior, we get the intimacy of Jesus’s final moments with his disciples.  These are the same disciples who followed him during his ministry on earth only to be devastated by his execution at Calvary.  While they were overjoyed to discover that he rose from the dead three days later, his post-resurrection appearances were confusing to them, and ultimately, when Jesus ascended into heaven 40 days after Easter, they were faced with this question: What happens when Jesus is no longer around?  Will we ever get to experience his presence again, or will we be left all alone?

The opening line in this scene is Philip prompting Jesus to “show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”  Just before this passage, Jesus tells the disciples that he’s going to the Father and about his desire to take them with him.  Thomas interrupts Jesus to ask him how they can “know the way” to where he is going, and Jesus responds, “I am the way, and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you know me, you will know my Father also.  From now on you do know him and have seen him.”[1]

So, we shouldn’t be surprised at Jesus’ rebuke of Philip’s somewhat silly request.  I mean, Jesus had just explained all of this.  But he uses Philip’s prompting to go deeper by describing his relationship with God the Father.  This relationship might be described as a “mutual indwelling.”[2]  “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”  John uses this mutual indwelling between Jesus and the Father as a window – an icon – into how God will relate to the community of faith we call the church. 
We could spend a lot of time getting into the nuance of Trinitarian theology, but let’s just cut to the chase about the nature of this relationship: Jesus promises his fledgling church that he will not leave them orphaned.  In the King James translation, which you will hear the choir sing in a moment, he says, “I will not leave you comfortless,” one of the most beautiful promises in all of Scripture.  This term “comfortless” or “orphaned” signifies the lack of parents and the unconditional love that good parents exhibit toward their children.[3]  Jesus says, “I will give you another Comforter, the Holy Spirit…you know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

Just as Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him, so is the Holy Spirit in the Church and the Church in the Holy Spirit.  To this fragile community of new Christians, these words were words of balm and peace.  No, he would not leave them comfortless.  Through the Spirit, they would have constant, eternal access to Jesus, and to the Father.

Thanks be to God, the nature of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the church isn’t left up to our imagination.  Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will remind them of all that he said to them.  The Spirit doesn’t teach new truths, or do things differently than Jesus did.  The presence of the Comforter brings Jesus to mind, and it is Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life. The Holy Spirit quite simply points us to Jesus.[4]

Over the past two years, I’ve told you all many stories about my time as a Southern Baptist minister – some several times, I’m sure! – but I think this story might be new to this pulpit.  The pastor at the little country church where I served as music minister in college didn’t have much theological education under his belt.  His sermons were very similar week after week, but unlike most Southern Baptists, he paced back and forth and got very worked up emotionally…especially when talking about the Holy Spirit.  Bro. James liked to refer to the “Holy Ghost” like we do in our liturgy, but unlike what you’re experiencing right now, mentions of the Holy Ghost were usually accompanied by fist waving…like this.  One day, he and I were talking, and I brought up some area in my life where I was struggling and asked him to pray for me.  During his prayer, he began to “speak in tongues.”  I won’t try to imitate what he was doing, but I was awfully confused and felt uneasy…almost eerily afraid.  These utterances coming out of his mouth were strange.  It sounded like he was repeating himself over and over again in some sort of simple language I’d never heard, but with a repetitive cadence that was quite frankly creepy.  I remember thinking, “Is this what the early Christians sounded like on the day of Pentecost when others thought they may have been drunk?”   I never felt like my question was answered satisfactorily until I came to St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City.  One of our members who isn’t here today and thus can’t defend himself came out of the Charismatic Movement and demonstrated to me how he was taught to speak in tongues.  I mean, it was almost exactly the same thing that I heard that day in 2001 in rural Arkansas, but this time, the person “speaking in tongues” explained the vocal and nasal inflections needed to make these particular sounds.  We would need at least an hour to dive in to the merits of the theology behind speaking in tongues, but I want to point out what St. Paul said to the Corinthians at the end of his discourse on speaking in tongues: “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.”[5]

After announcing the coming of the Holy Spirit to his disciples, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

The peace that Jesus is talking about isn’t the opposite of war.  He’s not talking about a peaceful moment in the mountains, or the peace that one might feel after drinking a few glasses of wine.  Jesus is talking about a deeply rooted peace that comes when you humble yourself before God and say, “I’m a sinner in need of redemption.  I can’t do this alone.  I need to be in community with other people who feel this way too.”  Jesus is talking about a peace that only comes when you allow yourself to recognize that despite all of your flaws, despite your desire to sin and your repeated decisions to commit sins, despite the fact that you’ve failed to love God and keep his commandments…despite all of that, you allow yourself to recognize that you’ve been unconditionally forgiven.  That you are loved. This is the peace that comes when you view yourself the way God views you – as the Beloved.  

The catechism in our prayer book poses the question, “How do we recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives?”  “We recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit when we confess Jesus Christ as Lord and are brought into love and harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation.”[6]  This is the peace that Jesus left with his disciples.  He promised that he would not leave them comfortless.  And he fulfilled that promise by giving them the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.  God longs for each of us to see ourselves like he sees us: sinners in need of redemption, but ultimately, completely and totally loved by God despite all of our faults.  He longs for us to be in love and harmony with Him, with other people, and even with all of creation.  And he longs to give us that peace that the world cannot give by pouring out his grace on his Church – even here at 13th and Holmes in the year 2019.

In a moment, God’s grace – God’s unearned and undeserved favor toward us – will be poured out by the power of the Holy Spirit on this altar in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.  As a community of believers, we will offer and present ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a living sacrifice to God. And of his great mercy, God will fill us with his grace and make us one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.[7] 

Of course, there’s a rich irony in the contrast between the outpouring of the Spirit in the craziness of that first Pentecost Day, and the orderliness of the Spirit’s outpouring at a Solemn High Mass in a Gothic church with exquisite music and liturgy.  This irony highlights the fact that while we are sure that Holy Spirit works through the Sacraments of the Church, she is not constrained by them. 

Friends, this Pentecost Day, let us pray for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on this community – St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.  By the power of the Spirit, let us confess Jesus Christ as Lord and be brought into love and harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation. Let us recommit ourselves to coming together as a community to faithfully receive God’s love outpoured for us in the Sacraments of the Church day in and day out, and let us open our hearts and minds to how the Holy Spirit may be at work around us in unexpected ways.  In the words of our closing hymn, let us pray that the Spirit’s flame may break out within us, fire our hearts and clear our sight, till white-hot in God’s possession, we, too, set the world alight.[8]  Amen.

[1] John 14:1-7.

[2] David Lyon Bartlett, and Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, 29.

[3] https://biblehub.com/topical/c/comfortless.htm

[4] This paragraph is largely from Bartlett 22, Theological Perspective.

[5] 1 Cor 14:33, KJV.

[6] BCP 852.

[7] BCP 336.

[8] Michael Hewett, Praise the Spirit in Creation.  The Hymnal 1982 #506.

Easter VI
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
Revelation 21:10-22:5
May 26, 2019

The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.

We’ve been working through John’s fantastical vision in the book of Revelation, and today we hear the end of the vision.  Last week, John told us that he saw from afar the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven.  And now, we get to hear at least a bit about what he saw when the Spirit carried him away to show him this city.  It’s a pity that the lectionary authors cut out most of chapter 21, for it is in these missing verses that John describes the city itself.  Beyond the sheer beauty of it, this city is chock-full of symbolism.  The city shone with the radiance of a very rare jewel and had a great, high wall with 12 gates, and at the gates 12 angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the 12 tribes of Israel.  This wall has 12 foundations, and on them are the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.  The number 12 represents wholeness or completeness.  Then, John describes the measurements of the city which are also symbolic.  It is a perfect, symmetrical cube, lined by walls built of jasper, with the city being pure gold, clear as glass.  The foundations of the walls are adorned with every jewel (12 of them, of course), with streets of gold.  This four-walled, perfectly symmetrical city in all of its beauty – this New Jerusalem represents the Church.

Then John commented that there was no temple in the city.  Whether Revelation was written before or after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD is a matter of debate, but in any case, the idea that the New Jerusalem had no Temple had to be mind boggling for the original audience, especially for Jewish Christians.  For the Temple was necessary for the priests to offer up sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people, and this most holy rite could only be done in the Temple.  The measurements of the city specifically symbolize the Holy of Holies, the part of the Temple where only the high priest could enter, and even then, only once per year. In the New Jerusalem, this atoning work is no longer necessary, for the Lamb that was slain has atoned for our sins once and for all.  The city itself is a new temple, the Church, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.  No longer are the deepest parts of the faith reserved for the 1%. No longer are people excluded from the inner sanctum of holiness. In this new temple, the prophets and the apostles point us toward Jesus, and each of us is a living stone that makes up a part of the temple.[1] 

Finally, we hear John describe this beautiful scene of the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God through the middle of the street.  This water brings life – the “tree of life”, in fact, which takes us back to the Garden of Eden.  If you remember, the inhabitants of Eden – Adam and Eve – were created to live eternally, but they were told, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.”[2]  We know how that turned out for them, and for us.  Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate a piece of fruit from that tree –traditionally depicted as an apple – and they became subject to evil and death and everything that comes with that.  Because they chose to eat it, Adam and Eve lived lives full of suffering and pain.  And they died.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

John sees a new tree in this vision.  In the New Jerusalem, the tree of life has all kinds of fruit growing on it, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.  There are no restrictions on what we can eat.  The fruit of the first tree didn’t fulfill humanity’s hunger, but the fruit of the new one certainly does. 

Many of you choristers, and perhaps a few other liturgical music nerds, know the choral piece from Lessons and Carols called Jesus Christ the Apple Tree [3].  We are so used to hearing the Choir of Kings College, Cambridge sing it year after year at Christmas, typically beginning with the boys of the choir singing the first verse in unison. But it is verse three of this carol that comes to mind:
 
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all: but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the apple tree.
 
I’ve looked for happiness in all sorts of things.  I’ve looked for happiness in my banking career, in academic success, and in several different types of sin, some of which are inappropriate for the pulpit.  I’ve eaten of the forbidden fruit.  It doesn’t satisfy.  John is telling us that in the new Jerusalem, the river of life will feed the tree of life which will give us fruit that will not only sustain us, it will bring perfect and complete healing.  Despite knowing that the fruit from the new tree will satisfy my every longing, I sometimes choose to eat the apple from the first tree.  When I choose the apple – when I choose to disregard God’s will and seek my own pleasure – I am not satisfied.  Maybe for a while, but not in the end.  When I instead turn to Jesus, I find what I’ve been seeking.  Happiness, yes.  But not happy as in “bliss.”  A better word is “wholeness.”  Completeness. 

Now that I’ve eaten something that satisfies my hunger, I have to admit, I get sad when I see my co-workers, and friends, and family eating the proverbial apple.  I want to tell them that it’s a trick…that eating the apple won’t make them full.  They won’t get what they expected.  I want to tell them that there’s another option.  There’s another tree that is like the one they see.  But this tree is renewed and restored.  Eating the fruit of this tree unfortunately won’t take away the deceiving power the first tree has over them, for that apple will still seem luscious and tasty and satisfying.  But in the words of that 18th century carol, this new fruit “makes my soul to thrive, it keeps my dying faith alive.  Which makes my soul in haste to be with Jesus Christ the apple tree.”

It’s no accident that the lectionary authors paired the end of John’s vision with the first lesson from Acts when we heard of Paul’s vision that led him to Philippi to a river to share the Good News with a woman named Lydia.  When we hear about Paul’s missionary journeys, it’s easy to think, “But Paul was extraordinary.  He was called to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles, and no one has been called in such a way since.  I wasn’t called to be a missionary!  I work for a local bank.  Paul’s missionary stories don’t relate much to my everyday life.”

The story of Paul sharing the Good News with Lydia is just as applicable to you and me as it is to someone called to be a full-time missionary.  Before he encountered Jesus Christ, Paul hated Christianity and all it stood for.  Upon encountering Christ on that road to Damascus, he realized that his entire understanding of God was wrong.  Paul realized that the apple from the old tree didn’t satisfy.  He tasted of the fruit of the tree of life in the New Jerusalem and was satisfied, and he felt compelled to share that Good News with everyone.

As is always the case, it wasn’t Paul’s convincing arguments that won Lydia over.  Luke tells us that the Lord opened Lydia’s heart to listen eagerly to what Paul said.  You and I can describe the new Jerusalem in all its beauty, and the new tree, and the new fruit, and all that it has meant to us.  We can do all of that, but unless the Lord opens the other person’s heart, it’s all for naught.  The call to share the love of God in Christ with those around us is first a call to pray for them, and then it’s a call to share our story in word and deed. 

Friends, the city of God is no longer reserved for a particular race or tribe or language or culture.  The city of God is for all people, and by the power of the Spirit, we are called to invite all who would hear to drink from the springs of the water of life and eat of the fruit of the tree of life.

[1] Same Old Song podcast, Mockingbird ministries.  https://www.mbird.com/podcasts/

[2] Genesis 2:16-17

[3] https://hymnary.org/text/the_tree_of_life_my_soul_hath_seen

Easter V
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
The Rev’d Charles Everson
Revelation 21:1-6
May 19, 2019

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