Would You Take a $20

Would You Take a $20

Suppose I hold up this relatively new $20 dollar bill, and ask how many of you would be glad to take it? Would you? If it were a $100 dollar bill you'd take it in a heartbeat! Suppose I were to crumple it up in my hands, would you still be willing to take it? Suppose I sully it in dirt and grime, how about then? Would you still take it? And if I were to toss it disdainfully on the ground and stomp on it and treat it as shamefully as I could, what would it be worth to you then?

Anybody?

Yes, it is still worth $20.

Some of you might be horrified at such treatment of legal tender. I was when I first heard the story. Something innately within me cried out for respect of legal tender. 

So then, what about you? How much do you suppose you are worth? Especially in the eyes of God? Suppose you are crumpled up by misfortune? Suppose you are dirty, grimy and sullied by sin of your own doing or somebody else’s? Suppose you are stomped on by oppression and shamefully mistreated at home or in the workplace or anywhere else; how much are you worth then in the eyes of God?

Exactly! Your value is not diminished in the least in the eyes of God whatever becomes of you. 

In Jesus’ campaign speech, or what we more commonly call the Sermon on the Mount, he was fond of saying this: “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” ~Matthew 6:26 

In this same speech or sermon at the very outset, he blessed the poor and those who mourn, the meek and those who hunger for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers, and he blessed also those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. He repeats the essence of this message in what biblical scholars refer to as the Sermon on the Plain which you can read in Luke 6:17-49. Because the essence of the message occurs in different places, many scholars suppose that Jesus went back to these themes time and again as he made his way around Galillee. 

What price then does God put on your head? Of how much value then are you? Can you put a price tag on a human life? your own or anybody else’s?

It is one of the mysteries of the Gospel that your life is worth as much as the life of the Savior. God gives his life for you in the person of Jesus. You are worth dying for. God will give his life for you. God did give his life for you in the person of Jesus. 

The Psalmist says "worship God in the beauty of holiness." What does it mean for us to "worship" God? Interestingly enough, if we look at the word “worship” in the dictionary, we learn that it is both a noun and a verb. As a noun it can be described as a feeling of reverence to God or to anything or to anyone that is sacred. Typically, worship comes with a set of rites and rituals to help us recognize that which is sacred and holy. As a verb, worship is the act of rendering reverence and homage to God or to something or someone who is holy. 

You see, when we come together week by week to worship God, we ascribe to God the Glory and Honor that is due God’s Name. We recognize God's worth to us. God's value is infinite, absolute, the ultimate worthiness of our lives. But what of your value as part and parcel in the act of worship? To me this is the key to our worship. We learn in these songs we sing, in these Holy Writings we listen to week by week, even on occasion, in a decent sermon or two, and above all in the sacrament; that God’s life has been and is being given for us in order that we might learn not of God’s worth alone, but our own as well. For insofar as God's worth is infinite, absolute and the ultimate reality of life, so too we come to discover the same of ourselves. 

In today’s first lesson, what upsets Elijah and this whole business of the prophets of Baal is that the folks had gone off to worship graven images. They had forgotten God. They actually had forgotten much more than what can be understood merely to be a petulant and jealous God. No, there is much more to this contest between the prophets of Baal and Elijah than a bit of trickery as to who could make the carcass of a bull ignite in flames. 

What had happened is that the folks had forgotten their own worth in the eyes of God. For what really matters to God is that we understand our worth to God as much as God’s worth to us. Instead off we go chasing after some graven image or another time and again throughout our history.

In our own time, what is the object of our worship? What is our bottom dollar? In colloquial idiom we call it The Almighty Dollar as if it were a god to us. Take a good look at Wall Street; you may notice that there is a bull ensconced there and there are those whose greed and love of money reaches such an extent that the bull of Wall Street becomes an idol and an object of worship to many. I needn’t point out to you that at the bottom of the crash of 1929 or 2008 was greed gone wild. Time and again we need to learn and relearn that such misdirected worship will always come crashing down upon itself. 

In today’s Epistle, Paul notices a similar phenomenon. Have the folks forgotten the Gospel so soon? Are they chasing after other gods so quickly. Has the Gospel message become so quickly confused with the secularism of their time?

And what of today’s Gospel? It seems appropriate that a soldier comes to the fore on Memorial Day weekend. Jesus is astonished at his faith. In fact the entire Gospel passage is astonishing. This particular soldier has a profound respect for the Jewish People. That’s unusual right there. An occupation force is more likely to despise the people and the place it occupies and vice versa. But not so here. In fact, this particular Centurion was instrumental in building the Synagogue. Therefore both the Jewish elders and the Centurion have a profound respect and admiration for one another. For this particular Centurion, the slave who was sick was of deep value to him. The people were of value. Even their God was of value to him. And more than that Jesus was of value. He knew that as he gave orders to his soldiers, so too, all Jesus had to do was give the word. 

This is astonishing! Jesus said that nowhere in all of Israel had he seen such faith. Here was a man who understood what it meant to worship. Worship led him to value people, even if they were slaves, or a foreign people who worshipped a foreign God. For this particular Centurion people were of much more value than the whole pantheon of Roman gods. Nowhere had Jesus seen such faith. 

This soldier got it. This is what Jesus had come to teach us; "Love one another."

How astonishing indeed! Think of the foreigner in your life. Think of the slave and the poor and how well they are treated and spoken of. Think of those who worship God differently than we do. How well do we honor “the other” in our time and in our nation? 

Our lives are of immeasurable value to God. All lives do; domestic and foreign. However crumpled, sullied by sin or stomped on by oppression and violence, in the eyes of God we all remain of infinite value.

The Psalmist wants us to “sing a New Song to God”.

The Psalmist wants us to “worship the God in the beauty of holiness.” For then we shall see the beauty of holiness.

Then we shall see the holiness of all God's people.

"Sing to God a new Song!"

In the Name of God, the most holy, undivided and everlasting Trinity.

Mother's Day: Call it an Intervention!

Ascensiontide & Mother's Day

It is Ascension Sunday and we celebrate this day the fact that Jesus has ascended to the right hand of God on high to become our Advocate and Judge. Isn't that a curious juxtaposition of words. How curious that these two words are set together so as to open for us a means to maintain an Honest to God creative tension. Jesus, at one and the same time an Advocate for us for the forgiveness of our sins, and Judge to keep us accountable to God and ourselves for our behaviors. As we read in the Book of Revelation; "See, I am coming soon, my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work." Thanks be to God. 

Happy Mother's Day. I do hope that there is an appropriate amount of fussing and flowers and dinners today in honor of those among us who give so much that we might know life, and love and joy. There will be some of that in our family, I can assure you. Having said that, I must tell you that my mom could be a feisty and ferocious woman. We did have our difficult moments. But she also gave me much to be thankful for including some backbone. Indeed, the apple does not fall far from the tree and I too can have my own feisty and ferocious moments. 

She loved us in her own way. I remember one day in particular, when I was still very young. I was venturing out on the rocks in Gloucester, and didn't realize how slippery those rocks could be. She called out for me to return, and I pretended not to hear her and continued further out on the rocks. She hollered out to me using my full name for emphasis in a way that indicated she was becoming somewhat irritated. I ignored her. And then my foot met one of those slippery spots which was as slick as grease. My feet went out from under. me, I went flying, and landed on my back. The impact knocked the wind out of me. When I looked up, there she was reaching out to me to carry me back to safety. She used some colorful language which I also learned from other members of my working class family in Somerville. It was an intervention that I shall never forget.

I learned that unconditional love and intervention have a direct relationship to one another.

May is the month of the Mother of Jesus especially so among our sisters and brothers in the Roman tradition. The example of of the Holy Family; Jesus, Mary and Joseph is exemplary as we take note of Mother's Day and that dimension of the human and Godly character that seeks to nurture and care and love. This dimension of our Journey to God is indeed worth noting and celebrating.

It is not surprising then that we see judgment and advocacy, and unconditional love and intervention as proclaimed this day as being two side of the very same coin. 

We love our children unconditionally, of course. But what do we do when we see them on a course of self-destruction? Shrug our shoulders as if there is nothing we can do until they hit bottom? Or do we put ourselves at risk and venture out on the rocks to snatch them out of the jaws of danger?

We live in an increasingly secular world. There are those who accuse us of holding onto "The God Delusion" as Richard Dawkins, the famous contemporary atheist calls it. It is a world that believes it can go it alone. That also includes many of our children. For so many we are children of science to the exclusion of any notion of God.

The problem of holding to such a notion is that it is simply not true. It is the greater delusion by far to think we can go it alone; either without God or without one another. As John Donne, the famous English metaphysical poet and Anglican clergyman once noted; 

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 

own were; any man's death diminishes me, 

because I am involved in mankind. 

And therefore never send to know for whom 

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

We discover time and again that we cannot go it alone. Even those of us who do believe in God, we need to learn every single day of our lives how urgent a matter it is to be Honest to God with ourselves and one another. 

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Albert Einstein once observed that "religion without science is blind" how true, but he went on to say "science without religion is lame". Interesting statement! Imagine looking at the wonder of the universe either in its immensity or at its most minute, without a reverence for the creation. What emptiness!

No, the Scientific method requires of us the curiosity and rigorous honesty to ask the right questions. It is not a pursuit of all the answers as much as it is the pursuit of framing the right questions. 

The same can be said of our Spirituality. For more than a quarter of a century, I have been keeping a journal in order to explore the inner mystery of my attempt to love God, love my neighbor and love myself. There are no easy answers. But it is not the answers that help me as much as the ability to frame up the questions. 

For me the search for inner truth, relational truth, scientific truth and Godly truth are all of the same sacred quest. It is the search for the Truth itself that is at the root of our deepest yearning; As Jesus said; "You shall know the Truth and the Truth that shall make you free". ~John 8:32

Call it an intervention; It is into this world that the Child is born.

God's Name is "Love". Love is much more than warmth. It is Honest to God Truth. You know that Jesus was a truth teller. Being honest brought him into conflict often particularly with the religious authorities of the day. Pharisees, Sadduccees, Scribes, and Doctors of the Law often found themselves in conflict with Jesus.

This God business is a matter the Joy of Jesus. It is also a matter of life and death folks, Honest to God!

I believe that without God, we set ourselves up for all kinds of sin. The human being is created to know and to love God. We are called into Covenant with God. To ignore this one central fact of our very creation is to put ourselves into great and immediate peril. 

This wonderful little story of Paul and Silas in Philippi in Macedonia is a case in point. They cured a fortune teller and seeing their hope of financial gain disappear, the folks conjured up some charges and Paul and Silas ended up in jail. The ensuing earthquake led the jailer to see himself in immediate peril and Paul then told him not to harm himself. The jailer then understood where he stood with God and declared "What must I do to be saved?" 

Paul tells him; "Believe on the Lord Jesus." There is more to belief than a few syllables. Belief is the fruit of that earth shattering realization that our entire being depends on an encounter with the living God. Baptism is a good beginning but it is only a beginning for each and all of us. Daily we turn to God. Moment by moment we set the compass of our lives to True North, Honest to God. 

Without salvation, we find ourselves subject to the sinful nature of a world that seeks to destroy us. Conflict, violence, hatred, bigotry, oppression and injustice are just the beginning of our sinful nature. We are also subject to the self destructive tendencies human nature is prone to. We may not always take the word sin seriously. We do so at our own peril.

What must we do to be saved? Believe. But when you believe put your heart and soul into it! Jesus the One Ascended to the Right hand of God is both our Advocate and Judge, thanks be to God. On this Mother's Day may our hearts be filled with all the fullness of God. 

In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity.

Fr Paul. 

Next: Good Shepherd, Reading

Greetings in the Name of God!

If the Paul the Apostle had a vision calling him over to Macedonia, then  Paul the parish priest had an email and a phone call inviting him to come on over to Reading to help out with you folks. I do hope I can be of some service to you while I am here. And so it is that on the first day of May in the year of our Lord 2016, we introduce ourselves to one another. As I wondered how to do so I thought perhaps I’d use something Biblical since that is always a good beginning, something theological since that only seems to make sense, and something personal since it always helps to put flesh and bones on our thoughts and prayers as we come to know one another.

First then, on to the Biblical.

Jesus said to Judas, not Iscariot, I hasten to add; "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them.” This is the example that Jesus sets for us. “Love one another as I have loved you.” And so, let me introduce myself to you by saying, I will love you exactly as you are and whoever you become along the way. This is how Jesus wants it. This is what God has had in mind all along. And moreover, as a church we are coming to discover that there are no exceptions to the essence and centrality of this proclamation. We are to love one another exactly as we are and whoever we become. In this journey, in this pilgrimage we call life, the core of the Gospel proclamation is set into the center of the human heart with these words of Jesus; “Love one another!”

That being the case within our faith communities we discover yet another dimension of the Gospel. And Jesus says as much in today's Gospel, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”

Having said this to you, I do not mean to make the proclamation sound glib or facile. You and I both know how difficult and challenging it is to live out the mandate of the Gospel in family or in faith community. For the truth is that we do find ourselves in conflict with some regularity. And there are times when this Peace of which Jesus speaks seems elusive and somewhat beyond our grasp. It is indeed a Peace that passes all understanding.

Which bring me to the second part of my self introduction.

Think for instance of what we have been through, indeed what we are going through culturally among the nations of the earth, within this nation and indeed within this church. Just in my lifetime I can name the struggles;
1. The struggle for Civil Rights.
2. Gender equality
 4. Prayer Book revision
3. Inclusivity of the LGBTQ community and marriage equality.
4. Class and economic disparity.

Every one of these struggles is an ongoing one. The church and the culture around is immersed gridlock. Instead of recognizing that God will bear us up on Eagle's wings, to soar as we are intended and destined to do, we deny either the left or the right wing it's right to even exist. No bird can fly, let alone soar without both wings.

Ultimately the biblical and theological reference I come back to time and again is from the Gospel of Paul the Apostle is in his letter to the Christians in Galatia in the third chapter and in the 28th verse; “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Ultimately our biblical and theological pilgrimage must bring us to The Cross and the Crown of Jesus. You will remember that when Jesus entered Jerusalem in great triumph, and he was greeted with joy by those who sang “Hosanna to the Living God. Blessed is he who come in the Name of the Lord, Hosanna in the Highest!” Events took a sudden turn after this greeting. For Jesus entered the Temple precincts and found the money changers and dealers in pigeons and rather unceremoniously overturned their tables and said “My house shall be a house of prayer for all people, but you have made it a den of robbers”.

I found something interesting about this passage when I looked it up. For when Jesus says; “My house shall be a house of prayer for all people”, he was actually quoting a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, which he often did. Isaiah was in fact, the most frequently quoted of all the prophets. In this case, when he confronted the dealers in sacrificial commodities, Jesus was not impressed with their approach to sanctification. It was only money, and the weightier issues of justice were far from their minds.

Some day, maybe even today, when you have a moment or two, read the passage from the 56th Chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah.  Foreigners and Eunuchs wonder where they stood with God. Foreigners always have had a difficult time among the majority. There has often been an unpleasantness and an unwelcome dimension between natives and those born elsewhere. Likewise Eunuchs, those whose sexual identity was certainly ambiguous; whether physically or functionally so, there have always been folks among us who do not fit into the convenience of the male/female category. Jesus refers to this passage then when he confronted the Temple merchants.

From Isaiah 56:
“Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
   ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’;
and do not let the eunuch say,
   ‘I am just a dry tree.’
For thus says the Lord:
To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
   who choose the things that please me
   and hold fast my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls,
   a monument and a name
   better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
   that shall not be cut off.
And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
   to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
   and to be his servants,
all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,
   and hold fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
   and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices
   will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
   for all peoples.”

Yes indeed, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people”. This is how the Episcopal Church and her congregations increasingly see themselves. Over the great west doors of the National Cathedral in Washington; since the very day it was built, these very words proclaim this vision.

So you see, I am under the very mandate of Jesus when I say to you “I will love you whoever you and and whoever you become.”  I hope I can live up to that noble proclamation as we live into our unfolding relationship.

And then thirdly, allow me to introduce myself to you with this vignette from my family.

One very hot and humid summer’s night while I was serving a church in West Virginia, my youngest son and I sat outside being honest with each other the way families need to be from time to time. He was feeling awkward, I could tell. There was something he needed to tell me but he was reluctant to say what it was for fear of how I might take it. After all, we were in West Virginia where families, schools and churches easily rejected people for the very reason he needed to tell me. He knew I often spoke about my unconditional love for him and for all people. But…

So I said; “Michael, what is it?”
There was a long delay.
Finally he told me. There were tears in his eyes, and his voice quavered with anxiety.
“Dad I’m gay”.
I confess, I din’t see that one coming. I wondered how he knew. He was still quite young. I wondered if somebody had “turned him that way.” But there he was. My own flesh and blood. I kinda wished he’d get married, settle down, have kids, because I think I’d make a fabulous grandfather. I wondered how Cindy would take the news. It did take time for us to get used to the idea. But my son sat there beside his father and he was teetering on the edge of love and rejection. It was then that God gave me the grace to say; “Michael, I love you exactly as you are, and I will love you whoever you become.” We embraced. We shed a few tears.

There was never a question in our home about the love. And there never will be. We will always work our the particulars of our salvation under the authority of the Gospel. Because Jesus loves us all whoever we are and whoever we become. This is how I seek to introduce myself to you: with the unconditional love of God. And so it is, that this I can say; “I will love you exactly as you are and whoever you become"

In the Name of God; the Most Holy, Undivided , and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Easter Surprise!

Easter Surprise!

Happy Easter!

Good morning to you all. And welcome once more to St. John's and especially to Tom Ferguson your new rector, to Shannon his wife, and to Malcolm their son. Please know of our prayers for you as you settle in to your new home, school, community and life here at St John's. You are among friends here. I pray that the bonds of faith and affection will build among you as you extend your arms of welcome on this glad Easter Day. 

Now then, on to what I call the "Easter Surprise!" My mother and step father, God rest their souls and may peace be upon them, never understood why I wanted to be a parish priest. She, Pauline was her name, was a fiery, feisty, and ferocious spirit, who was capable of making life a bit testy from time to time. He, Homer Kershner, "HK", we called him, was a no nonsense engineer of German stock and temperament and often rather flat footedly told me; "There may be a God but as to eternal life, when you're dead you're dead". I was fond of saying to him; "HK, For living with my mother, you're going to heaven whether you want to or not!".

I believe we are all in for quite a surprise! That's what Easter day is all about: the Surprise of God! Even for those of us who believe. After all, when the women came to the tomb they found it empty. Imagine! Grave robbers they supposed! In the "nothing is holy" department, can anything beat that? "We don't know where they have laid him", they said. So off they ran in a panic to report the indignity to the disciples who then came running back in return. 

Mary asked the one she supposed to be the gardener. "Where have you laid him?" She did not recognize him at first. But when he said her name, there came the recognition that changed everything forever and for everyone. "Rabbouni!", she cried, which means teacher. She ran off and told the others "I have seen Jesus!"

We are all in for quite a surprise. We are all children of a modern skepticism borne of a secular credo whose faith is built around a denial of so much of what we take as sacred. So much so, that sometimes, we find ourselves skeptical of the most foundational of beliefs in our own credo.

When we face the suffering and death of our loved ones, for instance, we sometimes fail to point one another to heaven. We sometimes fail to comfort one another with psalms, stories of scripture, hymns of praise. Sometimes we are so riveted in the suffering and in the death of a loved one that we may fail to point to the beyond and the within of heaven. At the very least we know we love one another. So then, remember the love. That's the key to heaven both here and now as well as beyond the grave. 

This is the essential surprise of Easter. This is the incarnate love of God as lived out in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Love of God was born to us in a Manger and all of heaven and Earth sang. He lived and taught among us. He healed our sicknesses in body, mind and spirit. His love reached out to the poor and the outcast, even to the lepers, the prostitutes and the tax collectors. It was a quite a band of loved ones who followed him. Peter realized that God shows no partiality in his words to us in today's first lesson. We know that right here at St John's, don't we? Eventually the rest of the Anglican Communion will figure that out too! The flesh and blood Love of God came to the Temple and found it defiled by an exclusive crowd of money changers and he overturned their tables and the confrontation between God's Love and the religious authorities of the day was such that he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death upon a cross. 

In this Holy Week, we have walked the way of the Cross with this Holy One who is the Wondrous Love of God made flesh and blood. And on this day we mark the Amazing Grace and Surprise of his Victory over Sin and Death.

It is easy to loose sight of the central Proclamation of the Easter Message. The skepticism of our modern age questions the fact of eternal life which you and I have discovered in the here and now of our Baptismal Covenant. Some think that the last words in life are death, destruction and despair. 

As the Easter People we know that the Resurrection of Jesus breaks in upon us with the eternal life that forgiveness and resurrection promises. We come to the Empty Tomb of our lives again and again. We may think it is very much the end of it all, but when we peer inside, when we have the courage to run off in panic and tell our fiends about the hopelessness of it all, when we shed our tears and pour out our hearts in despair, someone like a common gardener will appear and speak our name. Then we recognize Jesus. We see him for who he is not just in himself but in the faces and lives of everyone around us. 

Jesus is not a philosophy or even a theology. Jesus is a person. He is an event. And He is risen! He is the central event of our faith. For as long as there is life there is hope. And even when there is no life there still is hope, for as today's Epistle puts it; "The last enemy to be destroyed is death".

Oh yes, you are all in for quite a surprise. Those who go about life as if there is no God and those who in the Name of God commit one kind of violence or another against God's people, those whose greed or self centeredness forget the poor, those who think they can destroy the beauty and the majesty of God's creation; boy, are they and we in for a surprise.

For the trumpet shall sound, thank you brass section, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. Wake up! Not so sure even now? Don't think so? You'll see. How do you think I know such a thing? It is because I know the Love of God made flesh and blood in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord. And so do you! 

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!

And now finally Cindy and I must say our last "Goodbye". As you welcome Fr Tom, Shannon and Malcolm at the back of the church, Cindy and I will pack up the car and be on our way over the Sagamore Bridge hopefully for the last time for a while. We said our "goodbyes" last week. Say your hellos today and greet your new rector and his family.

Please know that the word "goodbye" derives its meaning from an older expression in English which means "God be with you". For the sake of brevity that turn of phrase over time became shortened. The first known use of the shortened form "Goodbye" dates from 1580. The word is a prayer, you see. It is and will always be our prayer that God be with you. Likewise we ask your prayers for us as we journey on.

Ah yes, you are in for many surprises and so are we. As we journey on through life, we don't know what's on the next page, thanks be to God. But we do know this, God is always there in the dying and in the resurrection of it all. And so as the Good Book says "May God watch over your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for ever more." ~Psalm 121:8

In the Name of God, the most holy, undivided and everlasting Trinity. 

Amen.

Fr Paul. 

What Wondrous Love!

A meditation for Holy Week. History is what history does as Forest Gump might probably say. Look what it did to Jesus. Now look what it did to folks in Belgium. History goes on. In the very midst of history there is Jesus and the Wondrous Love of God.

What Wondrous Love is This!

What Wondrous Love!

The Passion Narrative tells the story of one of the most poignant moments in the Christian Year. We are all familiar with the reality the Cross points us toward. At one point or another we've all been there. We've all done that. If you haven't yet. You will. No one escapes the inevitable.

Our share in the suffering of Jesus on the cross; is it about fear and terror? Or is it rather about God's Wondrous Love and the gift of faith?

The Passion Narrative explores the emotional, physical, and spiritual exhaustion of the Disciples at the very moment that Jesus found himself in the constancy of prayer. Yes, I know about that. 

There is the abandonment Jesus experienced as the Disciples distanced themselves from the dangers that Jesus faced with the authorities. Yes, we know about that. 

Who of us wants to deal with the ugliness of hate and arrogance which now is so prevalent in our public life? Many of us are just quiet about it, since if we say anything, we'll only make matters worse. 

Then there is the blaming of those we consider the guilty parties. God knows that there are portions of the Church who have done enough of that down through the ages. Recently at a basketball game in suburban Boston a jeering crowd was       all too willing to blame Jewish kids for the crucifixion of Jesus. Oh for God's sake!

The Passion Narrative moves us in profound ways, because, in one way or another we share in the suffering of Jesus at one time or another in life. As we embrace our share in that suffering, allow me to invite you to embrace the reality of Christ's suffering not so much with the terrors that suffering of necessity inspires, but with yet another dimension; the dimension of faith. How shall we find anything redemptive in the suffering we face for ourselves or others?

Allow me to suggest, if I might, the notion of that Wondrous Love we know not only as God makes vividly clear in Jesus, but in the lives of our loved ones as well as ourselves.

Forgive me if you've heard me tell this story before, but I need to tell it from time to time for the benefit of my own soul's health.

Many years ago, I was summoned to the bedside of a woman from the Church of Mar Thoma. At the time I didn't even know what the Church of Mar Thoma was. It was only later I learned that we, the Episcopal Chruch share full communion with this Church reputed to have been founded by St. Thomas, Apostle to the Church in South India. Whether all that is true or not was hardly the point at the time. 

I was a priest. I got the call and off I went to the hospital. The room was filled with family. They were all from Madras in South India. I was introduced to the mother. When she saw me her eyes were filled with the recognition of what was happening. It was a look I shall never forget. I was relatively new to all this at the time.

But that family taught me something that has helped me ever since. They kept the vigil with their mom. They read favorite and familiar passages of scripture and psalms to comfort their mother. They sang familiar  children's hymns such as she had taught them when they were all young. As she loved her children when she dandled them upon her knee, so now the children loved their mother many years later in a hospital room as the inescapable and inevitable moment approached. 

The eldest brother explained to me that their mom and dad had impressed upon the children the importance of education. Now all grown, the children were doctors, executives, educators and professionals of various sorts in America and the dreams of the parents were now fulfilled by the children in a hospital room in the near suburban Cleveland city of Euclid, Ohio. 

As the end approached, I read the service from the Book of Common Prayer; "Ministration at the Time of Death".

When the moment came, the eldest daughter exclaimed something I shall never forget; "Look, there goes Momee into heaven!" At that moment the brothers, sisters, family and friends all looked up into heaven as if it were suspended somewhere over the mother's bed, there was a paroxysm of grief. They embraced one another and such was the relief and the love in that room that I found myself filled with faith in a way that I had seldom experienced it before. 

What Wondrous Love is This!

To be filled with such faith at a moment like this is come to understand our Share in the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ that even when we feel physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted, or alone and abandoned, or even angry perhaps with guilt, fear or horror, above all of these realities, we share in the suffering of Jesus on the cross and there is this Wondrous Love that triumphs over all.

Such is the Mystery of Passion Sunday and the Events of Holy Week. We know that this is not defeat, that "our lives are not set in a night of gloom but amid the splendors of God's everlasting day."

What Wondrous Love is This indeed! 

In the Name of God, the most holy, undivided, and everlasting Trinity. 

Amen.

Fr Paul

The Only Constant

The Only Constant

The Collect of the Day uses the turn of phrase; "that among the swift and varied changes of this life, our hearts may be surely fixed where true joys are to be found." If ever there were a fact of life that would be it! Life goes by so quickly. As my grandmother always said the older we get, the faster time goes by. That's why we stop today to notice something that doesn't change, that place in our hearts and souls where true joys are indeed to be found.

For Christians the world over the signature moment down through the ages is the moment we celebrate week in and week out: it is the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is a living reminder that the Risen Christ is always among us. It is a reminder of that moment when Jesus and his disciples gathered in the upper room and broke bread together and after supper shared in the drinking of the common cup. Here we are two thousand years later doing the exact same thing as Jesus and his disciples often did and most particularly on that night before he died for us.

Something happened that caught our attention in the person and life of Jesus. Who, I wonder is this Jesus of Nazareth, for you, for me and for us? At the very least, he is the healer, the teacher, the one who goes to the outcast. He is the one who suffers and dies that others may live.

For Mary, Jesus was the one who touched her life and made her understand how much God loved her. God touched her life again the day he raised Lazarus from the dead. And here in today's Gospel Mary touches Jesus' life when she anoints his feet with very costly perfumes. 

The fact that Jesus allows this to happen seems somewhat over the top for the one who went out among the poor and the outcast, Mary herself being one of those questionable sorts Jesus reached out to. Such was her love and affection for Jesus that she extravagantly and intimately expressed that devotion by washing his feet with her hair. She offended Judas we're told. He thought that the money could have been spent among the poor. Mind you, the Gospeller notes parenthetically that he really didn't care about the poor. In fact there were questions about how honestly he handled the common purse which he held on behalf of the disciples.

We are told that the Passover was approaching. They were at the home of Lazarus; the one Jesus raised from the dead. Good Lord, here he is throwing a dinner party for Jesus in Bethany just a stone's throw from Jerusalem. Jesus told these people that he was going up to Jerusalem where he would be killed by the religious and  state authorities. They didn't really want to face the facts. For them the swift and varied changes of this life were very much upon them. So preoccupied were they with their lives that they really could not notice that the love of God as fixed in Jesus was the only true constant joy in their lives. The love of God and his power over sin and death was about to be revealed. But they were too busy to notice. I suspect the same is true for us much of the time. After all, the stresses and strains of modern life are very much upon us.

Such were the swift and varied events leading up to the cross; that they were hardly able to notice that the one thing that remains unchanged and unchanging is his love, his enduring, forgiving and reconciling love. I suspect that Mary had an inkling into this enduring truth. It was because of what Mary saw in Jesus that she washed his feet with her hair. She wanted Jesus to know how much she loved him. 

The Holy Eucharist is a sign of this love. It is a love that goes both ways; God's love made known to us in Jesus and our love made known to Jesus and to one another in the breaking of the bread. 

You will notice that the breaking of the bread takes a prominent place in the Eucharistic drama. The breaking of the bread is the liturgical act in the Eucharist that recognizes that we are all broken in one way or another and yet we are all healed as well by the ever fixed, constant and eternal love of Jesus Christ our Lord. Our relationships with God are broken as are our relationships with one another.

The breaking of this bread allows us share in the love of God even in the midst of all the swift and varied changes of our history. The breaking of this bread allows us all to "forget what lies behind and to strain forward to what lies ahead, as we all press on toward the prize of the heavenly call of God that we have heard in Jesus Christ our Lord". That's how Paul puts it in today's Epistle. And that's why we break this bread. That's why we drink this cup. The grace of this Eucharist gives us the wherewithal to press on.

Jesus becomes present to us in this meal, as does his love for us. Here we can come to the altar rail and pour out our hearts. We can share our fears and ourworries with God. We can share our gratitude and our thanksgiving. We can express our hopes and our joys. We can offer ourselves to God for the purposes of God in our lives. We can kneel there and ask God, what do you have in mind for me next? God know's I ask that question at this altar in these last few weeks I have with you here at St. John's. Here at this altar rail we can be reconciled to God and to one another.

The breaking of this bread reminds us too that we are all one family on this day, whatever else anyone can say, today we are one family under God. And we can thank Julia Caroline Whte for making this day possible. It's not just your family that is gathered here. It is all of God's family. You are very special to us today. This is a very special day for you but not you alone. This is a special day for all of us. Sorry for centering you out Julia, but it is you who make this day so very special indeed. Thank you.

We admit you this day to the Eucharistic Fellowship of the Church. This is the one fixed unchanged and unchanging fact of our life. You will have heard it said time and again: 

"Christ has died. 

Christ is Risen.

  Christ will come again." 

That's it! This is the very core of our faith. The unchanged and unchanging fact of faith. And our very lives remain fixed on this one fact. Empires come and empires go, but the Risen Christ remains true and fixed in our hearts. It is there with the Risen Christ that true joys are to be found. Fix your hearts there. Nothing can ever change that one fact, because nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yes, the Apostle Paul said that too. 

I want to extend a special welcome to your family gathered here today, and welcome back everyone in the family to this very special moment in your life and in the life of this congregation. We welcome you all because we believe that God is about to do something new here. God is about to touch Julia's heart in a whole new way. Do you not perceive it? 

In today's first lesson the prophet Isaiah insists;

"Do not remember the former things,

or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"

As that applies to me, so too it applies to us all.

Do you not perceive it? At every moment of our lives, God is about to do something new.

Julia, as you come to the altar rail today with your family, may God's spirit touch you in a very special kind of way.

I feel so privileged that you have asked me to do this particular thing today for you and your family. It pleases me to know that such is the bond of affection that we share that we can also share this moment.

Ah but something else is about to happen within a few short weeks. I wish I could be part of it. But alas God wants me to move on to something else. I'm not at all sure what that something else is right now but I do know God wants something more out of me. God is nowhere near done with me yet. I will take a few weeks off to watch the tide come in and go out from my perch on my porch in Lynn. But as sure as there are varied and swift changes afoot in life at large, so too there are swift and varied changes afoot in my life as well and it is the Living God who is stirring within me, and not just me but all of us.

I hasten to add that I will not be able to come back when I leave. Just ask Fr McGin about that one. When your new rector comes he will be your new rector. Fr Paul and Fr John will both be part of your history. And that's just the way it is. If you want, you can come and visit me in Lynn, or meet me in Boston and we can have a bite to eat for lunch or I can take you on my nickel tour of the city. But we cannot talk St John's church business. We can only talk about our friendship and our shared journey in Christ. That's where our true joys are to be found and we can always talk about that.

That's just one of the facts of life in all the swift and varied changes that come and go. There are many joys and God knows some sadness, and pain in all this too.

But for today, we celebrate this moment, this one joyous, unforgettable and glorious moment. Julia we admit you to the fellowship of this Holy Eucharist here and for all times and in all places. The one universal constant source of joy in all our lives: 

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again.

In the Name of God, the most holy, undivided and eternal Trinity.

Amen.

Fr Paul