Richard Liantonio
04/28/2019

The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.
 
Our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles sets the stage for today’s entire service, and indeed for the next six weeks: St. Peter exclaims: “The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.” While Easter Day past us seven days ago, the celebration of Easter and the resurrection of Jesus Christ continues for 50 days, seven full weeks, all the way until Pentecost. God has raised up Jesus who had been killed. There has been a great reversal, a great overturning, a great undoing. Death is the most certain and stable fixture of natural human existence, the great enemy of insatiable appetite, who ultimately devours all life, from whose jaws no one escapes. Death steals from us everything we love, being a constant source of sorrow and grief. This great enemy has now been shown to be vulnerable, conquerable, and indeed their destruction reversible. Jesus has burst his three-day prison of death, re-entering the realm of life, light, love, and joy.

Surprisingly, the announcement of this great reversal of life over death in Christ was not popular with the political and religious leaders. The religious leaders shouted, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.” Why the great objection to this message of hope, rebirth, and renewal? One reason is because death, the great and invariable constant of human experience, has suddenly become vulnerable, movable, and even removable. Therefore certain structures of human experience less certain than death, such as political, religious, and social hierarchies, have that much more become destabilized. And that unsettles the people perched at the the top of those hierarchies.
 
Our Psalm for today, Psalm 118, continues this theme of reversal, though having become a part of Jewish worship well before Jesus walked on the earth. There is a surge of triumphant joy at the beginning of the portion we heard: “There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of the righteous,” because God “has become my salvation.” In the preceding section, the Psalmist describes their situation of distress: enemies “hem me in, they hem me in on every side…They swarm about me like bees; they blaze like a fire of thorns…I was pressed so hard that I almost fell, but the LORD came to my help.” Though it looked like all hope was lost, the Psalmist makes a defiant declaration: “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD.” They experienced such a profound and great deliverance, it was almost like being brought back from the dead.
 
Our third reading is from the book of Revelation, a wild, kaleidoscopic, apocalyptic narrative describing the spiritual conflict between Christ’s rulership and kingdoms of this world. And the message to the world’s empires is this: your peace is rooted in violence and bloodshed, your prosperity is grounded on exploitation, your justice is a perversion, your freedom is an authoritarian deception. The kingdoms of this world are a counterfeit and farce in the light of Christ’s reign of liberating and life-giving love—where suffering is alleviated, nations are reconciled, every person is endowed with sacred worth, and tears are wiped away from all faces.
 
In verse five of chapter one we are told Jesus Christ is “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” To be first implies a sequence. To be firstborn from among the dead means to be the first of many siblings who will experience the resurrection to eternal aliveness. St. Paul uses a similar expression when he calls Christ the “first fruits of those who have died” (1 Cor. 15:20). Christ’s rising from the dead is the first fruits in a sequence of actions that comprise a single harvest. Jewish expectation around the time of Jesus, as described for example in the Book of Daniel, did not conceive of isolated and individual resurrections. Rather the resurrection was part of a single complex event where the regeneration of life, the restoration of all things, and the renewal of all creation was experienced by the faithful all together at the end of time. At Easter we announce Christ is the firstborn in that resurrection event that has already begun. Christ is the firstfruits of a single harvest that has already begun— “the first-fruits of the holy harvest field, which will all its full abundance at his second coming yield.” But the radical, radical proclamation in this verse is that this complex event of regeneration, restoration and renewal has already begun in the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is not only for some time in the distant future. It begins now.
 
There is a line in the prayer book funeral service: “In the midst of life, we are in death.” This captures the truth that even while we are still alive before we die, we experience within us and around us the ravages of sin and death. During Easter we celebrate the inversion: “In the midst of death we are in life.” In the midst of a world marred by death, while living among the kingdoms and empires of the world marked by violence, exploitation, injustice, and oppression—in the midst of death, we are in life, through our union with the Christ who is himself the resurrection and the life. Through Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, the whole creation cries, “I shall not die, but live!” With Easter faith we boldly confess that the entire world will be renewed, and that renewal has already begun in Christ’s resurrection. And it continues through the Church who is the body of the resurrected Christ.
 
Theologian Jürgen Moltmann describes it this way: “those who believe that in Christ the redeemer is already present, and those who sense in themselves the first signs of the life of God's Spirit, know that in fact true life does already exist in the midst of the life that is false. The future has already begun. The conflict between the rising sun and the departing shadows of the night is already being fought out. There is already a struggle for justice against injustice, and a protest of life against the forces of death.”[1]
 
 In our Gospel reading we find the disciples the evening after Jesus rose from the dead. Yet they are experiencing nothing of the renewed and restored life of resurrection. In their minds Jesus is still dead and we see them exhibiting three features:
1)      Negative emotions
2)      Disengagement
3)      Loss of meaning[2]
 
1)      Negative emotions—they are full of despair, fear and anxiety, despairing the loss of Jesus, anxious for their future, fearful of their lives, hiding from the same powers of injustice that killed Jesus.
2)      Disengagement—they are detached in their own enclosure, cut off from the outside world behind locked doors, engaged in no tasks other than self-preservation
3)      Loss of meaning—before Jesus died, the disciples believed they were part of something bigger than themselves. They experienced solidarity in serving a larger purpose, in contributing to a larger cause. Now there was nothing. Just themselves and the walls around them.
 
And while the disciples were huddled behind locked doors, experiencing negative emotions, disengagement, and loss of meaning, “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” Having believed Jesus was still dead, the resurrected Christ appears bodily before them. People often marvel that Jesus here apparently either walked through the wall, or teleported into the room. But what happens next is much more significant: “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. When he had said this, he breathed into them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” As God sent Jesus to effect a great reversal, to inaugurate the resurrection, the restoration of all things, and the renewal of the whole creation, in the same way Jesus now sends us. In the midst of death, we experience life—and are sent to bring life. In a world of violence, exploitation, injustice, and oppression, we are sent to bring peace, equity, justice, and liberation. And in doing so, we experience our own liberation. We awaken to the positive emotions of love and joy that come from whole-hearted engagement in tasks that enrich the lives of others. And when we engage in these tasks together—in partnership with one another, we find both the relationships and sense of purpose that give life meaning.
 
In this endeavour we are not sent empty-handed. Jesus breathes into the disciples the Holy Spirit. The same spirit that hovered over the waters when God brought forth creation in Genesis 1, the same Spirit that God breathed into the first humans in Genesis 2 to make them alive, and the same Spirit that God sent to raise Jesus Christ from the dead (Romans 8:9-11) is sent to live in and through us. When we receive the Holy Spirit in Baptism and are renewed by the Spirit in Confirmation we receive into ourselves the very power that reanimates life, that reinvigorates hope, that renews this suffering world. And when we come to the Altar at Holy Communion, we receive into ourselves and become united with Jesus Christ who has been raised from the dead and inaugurates in himself the renewal of all creation. We begin to experience liberation from the dominating grip of negative emotions, the paralysing disengagement, and the loss of meaning that so plague our age. We find courage to have hope and joy in the face of life’s challenges. We find courage to emerge from behind self-preservation to engage in significant tasks and risky endeavours. We find courage to discover meaning beyond the narrow confines of our own self-interest—to give ourselves to a larger purpose—to join with God in the renewal and restoration of life that began in Christ and continues in and through us, the Body of Christ.
 
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

​[1] Jurgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997).

[2] Martin E.P. Seligman, Flourish (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012)

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.”

The Easter sermon of John Chrysostom (circa 400 AD)

​An audio recording can be found here.

​Are there any who are devout lovers of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.

To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.
Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!

First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hell when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

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.

Mary as Model: Simple Adoration as Lenten Devotion (John 12.1-8)
Fourth Sunday in Lent at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City
Isaac Petty

The audio recording of this sermon can be found here.
 
There are several Marys in the Bible who can serve as models for us. We have the Blessed Virgin, for whom this parish is named [and sidebar: I probably don’t have to say much about what she did … (or what she didn’t do) … but if you want to know more, see Fr. Charles after the Mass]; Okay, where were we? Oh yes – Marys. There’s also Mary Magdalene, one of the first evangelists of the Resurrection; and there are others, including Mary of Bethany, whom we encounter in today’s Gospel passage. We know very little about Mary of Bethany, but we know that she and Martha were sisters of Lazarus, the one who died and was brought back to life by Jesus. Actually, that story of the raising of Lazarus is the only place in Scripture where we get to hear this Mary’s words. In John 11, the chapter preceding today’s reading, we get this verse: “When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’” (Jn 11.32 NRSV).

Probably the most notable time we encounter this Mary in the Gospel accounts is when Jesus visits Mary and her sister Martha. There, too, Mary is at Jesus’s feet, although this time she is simply listening to Jesus’s teaching while her sister Martha is busy being the **hostess with the mostest.** Jesus even says “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10.41b-42 NRSV).

In today’s lesson, Mary is at Jesus’s feet yet again, but this time she is anointing those feet with expensive perfume and wiping them with her hair. This time, instead of Martha being mad at Mary for not helping her serve Jesus, we have a recognized disciple being so taken with greed that he misses her devotion. To read from the lesson at verse four: “Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray [Jesus]) {John always layers on the details for us}, [Judas] said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for [a year’s wages] and the money given to the poor?’” (Jn 12.4-5 NRSV, edited). I love that John also gives us a note of explanation next. Verse six: “[Judas] said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it” (Jn 12.6 NRSV).

The tie of Judas’ greed probably brings up the story of Jesus’s crucifixion for many of us – and if not, then I hope my comment helps bring Christ’s Passion into view here. In this Lenten journey, the lectionary passages remind us that we are journeying with Jesus to Jerusalem. A few verses before today’s reading, we hear “Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves” (Jn 11.55 NRSV) and today’s passage begins “Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany…” (Jn 12.1 NRSV). Christ’s Passion and Resurrection should be heard in terms of the Jewish Passover, where Jesus celebrated with his disciples and instituted a different way of gathering for the religious feast – developing into the Eucharist we know today. The journey to the feast – for Jesus, to the feast of Passover, and to us, to the greatest feast of Easter – is a journey of preparation; of self-denial; of purification; of devotion.

Our trek with Jesus to the Cross, even as people with Resurrection hope, is a calling to greater devotion to Jesus – to move away from self-centered desires and to practice the simplicity of sitting at Jesus’s feet. Like Martha, we may get so busy in doing work for Jesus that we forget to simply adore of Him. Instead, even the seemingly most religious among us, devout disciples of Jesus, can begin to miss the devotion of other people – of disciples who aren’t recognized as such. Judas was filled with vile contempt and didn’t see the point of Mary’s devotion. So, reading from the lesson: “Jesus said ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me’” (Jn 12.7-8 NRSV).

While giving of what we have to the poor and picking up pious slack is meet and right so to do in the Lenten season (as well as year-round, I might add), we must also recognize the importance of simply sitting at Jesus’s feet and being transformed by his teaching. In the growth toward simplicity and adoration, we have an exemplary model in Mary of Bethany. Here, we are called by one with no words to devotion – a short sermon where Mary is recognized as less of a disciple and isn’t even recorded speaking, yet her simple devotion speaks to us in a voiceless sermon all these centuries later. When Matthew and Mark tell of this event in their Gospel accounts, they close with one more line from Jesus: “Truly I tell you, wherever this [gospel] is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her” (Mt 26.13 & Mk 14.9 NRSV, edited).
Sermons may be short, such as this one on a busy Sunday, but no sermon of any length compares to the message of Mary’s simple devotion to Jesus. As we continue in this Lenten journey to shape the whole of our Christian lives, may we remember the call to simple devotion at the feet of Christ, ignoring distractions, staying strong against our self-seeking habits, and allowing ourselves to be discipled in such a way as to preach a voiceless sermon through our simple devotion. Amen.  

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 Second Sunday in Lent 
St. Mary's Episcopal Church 
Mr. David Wilcox 
Genesis 15:1-12,17-18, Phil. 3:17-4:1
​March 17, 2019

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

      In today’s old testament lesson, we enter into the story of Abram, who would later be renamed as Abraham…you know the one “Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham…” You’ll have to excuse my horrendous attempt at singing, but every time I think of Abraham, I hear that song in my head and I can’t help but sing or hum along(so I suppose that Sunday school did its job!) If you’re not familiar with the story it begins a few chapters before we enter it today, in Genesis 12. God appears to Abram in a dream and calls him to leave his homeland of Ur with all his family and possessions and to follow Him. He calls him to begin a great journey to a land far away which God says that he will give to him and his descendants…I should also point out that at this point in the story, Father Abraham isn’t a father and he has no sons, so, God’s promise of descendants and a land to call their own must have seemed outlandish. But, Abram stepped out in faith and began the journey. All God asked of Abram is that he trust him. And, that’s where we pick up today.

​     You see in today’s reading Abram has been on this journey for a little while now and he still has no descendants, and he wasn’t a young man, and his lovely wife wasn’t any younger. Abram was having a bit of a hard time doing what God had asked and trusting in what he told him…you might even say understandably so. This Unknown force who didn’t have a body had appeared in a dream and told Abram to leave all he had ever known to follow him down an unknown path…It’s a bit crazy if we think about it. Abram  had such a hard time trusting God that he’d even created a backup plan, he’d made a will, so to speak and he had entrusted all he had not to the descendants that God promised, but to Eleazar of Damascus…so when God appears to Abram in his dream he begins with the most frequently heard passage in the scripture “do not be afraid” God then goes on, not to scold Abram for his failure but to remind him of his promise. Abram believes and this is accounted to him as righteousness. As a sign of his promise God creates a covenant with Abram, (It’s the bit with all the animals being chopped in two) in which he is mirroring a practice in which two kings would enter into a covenant with one another. The greater King would cut the animals in two and the lesser King would walk through them. In doing so these two kings were recognizing that if the lesser King broke their end of the covenant the greater King would do to the lesser what he had done to those animals.  But, in this covenant between God and Abram is different, Abram is asleep and God promises that even if Abram(and his descendants) fail to uphold their end of the bargain God won’t punish him will fulfill the covenant himself. Abraham’s journey wasn’t an easy one and there were many trials that he had to endure, there were many times he failed to do what God called him to do but in the end God fulfilled his promise delivered Abraham to the promised land.

   I wanted to go through the trouble of summing up Abraham’s story because in a way Abraham’s story is our story, for, ever since God called Abram out of Ur so many years ago, he has called all who would know him to journey with him as well. We both as a group are his children and heirs spiritually, and as individuals. Each one of us is called by God to leave behind our homeland, our identities, and old selves and to follow him into an unbelievable promise. Like Abraham we are called to embark on a journey which is risky, costly and takes an unbelievable amount of trust.

    All our journeys started at different points in our lives. For some it started as an infant in the waters of baptism, for others it started later in life you felt prompted to explore faith and came to know Jesus. For some the journey has been relatively straightforward and easy, and for others it has been long and winding embracing much pain and adversity. For many there may have been times when the journey no longer seemed worth it. And, for all of us at one point our another there are things in our life that keep us from focusing on the journey, things that cause us to veer  off the path and lose sight of God who is our guide, and sometimes we may even encounter things which make us give up on the journey for a time.  When we fail in these ways it may seem like there is no hope and that we are lost forever. And, if we walked this journey on our own that might be true. God knows that we are dust and that all of our efforts will fail without his assistance.

    God’s covenant with Abraham, his promise that he would fulfill both his own part and ours was accomplished in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and it is through faith in him that we are able to continue in our journey in spite of our failures. When we fall away Jesus is waiting at the side of the road telling us not to fear for he has gone before us and he will walk beside us no matter what the journey will bring and all we have to do is keep getting up and trying again.

   In this Lenten season, the Church invites us to continue with renewed vigor our Journey to God, following in the footsteps of Jesus. And she gives us good and helpful tools for the journey, prayer fasting and alms-giving. But, too often we look to these as ends in themselves and fall into the delusion that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and that these tools can help us overcome those things that hold us back, too often we let ourselves be tricked into believing we can save ourselves. In the epistle to the Philippians St. Paul warns us to beware of the enemies of the cross, those who are of the world and would tell us that we can do it on our own. So, in this Lenten season, I want to encourage you to use the tools the church has given and let them point you towards your brokenness and your need for a savior, But I also want to invite you to take time to simply be and to rest on the promise of God that he will do all that is needed and all we have to do is believe.
   
​In just a few moments as we receive Holy Communion, we will be given food for the journey and as we do I invite you to thank God for the gift of Jesus Christ, without whom we could never reach the journey’s end.