WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: JESUS OF NAZARETH

JESUS OF NAZARETH

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE!

It is Holy Cross Day in the Church Calendar and that got me to thinking about Jesus: dead or alive. It got me to thinking about my dearest loved ones: dead or alive. Ultimately it gets me to thinking about all of us: dead or alive. 

This past week, I went to visit some dear friends in the Cleveland area where I served as a parish priest from 1983-1990. We were all younger then and I baptized a slew of babies there including Bob and Cathy’s triplets. There were weddings and burials by the score as well and it was during my time there that we designed and installed a columbarium. 

As it turns out one of the members of that congregation is very sick now and is much older, well into his 90’s. Not an easy time of it for him. And Cathy has suffered a massive stroke too. And I couldn’t let the time come and go without a visit to both of them and some other family and friends.

As I drove the more than 600 miles between home and Cleveland I became aware of the fact that it was a journey that united many memories, many places, and many people. My life is and has been an abundant one. I thought of my Toronto years, mom, HK as we called my step father, my brother Jim, school chums, Seminary days, and then of course my life at Epiphany, Euclid, where Cindy and I lived and our children were young. There were the hundreds and thousands of miles along I-90 and the New York State Thruway.

It was a journey that required many prayers, and a sense that God is with us in and through every mile. As God is with Don and his family and friends, and as God is with Cathy and her family and friends. It is a journey that requires many, many prayers.

In today’s Epistle, St. Paul reflects on the quarrels that are necessary in parish life and then in soaring language elevates the playing field to what is ultimately true for all of us. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

I remember very well being at Epiphany and the joys and sorrows of being there. It was there that I discovered how to manage a “New Member Ministry” paradigm that gave much life to that congregation. It was while I was there that I discovered that I was bi-polar, and none of us really knew how to handle mental illness at the time. 

Jesus got us though all that and has brought us to this new day. I wondered as many of us might, how many times are we to forgive one another? Shall we forgive shall we say 7 times? You know the answer to that one, “NO! You shall forgive seventy times seven. I know that today’s translation says seventy seven times…but the point is the same; the essence of spirituality is Forgiveness. It is in the nature of a full and abundant life that Jesus intends for us that we will live lives that are forgiven and forgiving at the same time. As today’s Gospel makes clear, in the same way that the King generously forgives his servant, so too that servant is under the same moral mandate to forgive the one who owed him a fraction of his former debt. 

When I served at the Church of the Epiphany, in Euclid, Ohio, I began every Sunday morning celebrating the Eucharist in the Chapel. Over the altar in that Chapel there was a Christus Rex, for me the most beautiful Christus Rex I have ever seen. 

The Christus Rex pictures Jesus in his Risen Glory, on a cross, crowned in victory and robed in glory. This is how the Early Church pictured Jesus. Not on a crucifix in agony and in death, as the church of the high middle ages imagined him, not an empty wooden cross as much of the Reformed Church sees him…but as the Risen One in Glory…the one who rose victorious over sin and death. 

This is how I picture Jesus. Cindy and I had a chance to visit Epiphany this week while we were in Euclid. We got a chance to meet the new priest. I took some photographs of the church, a very beautiful Colonial building. And then of course I went to the chapel. Four candles were lit on the altar there, and the Christus Rex stood out by the candle light on a typical cloudy Cleveland day. I snapped a few shots of the cross with Jesus crowned in Glory robed in a chasuble of the resurrection. 

How interesting that this is how the early church pictured Jesus. Mind you they were closer to the reality of the Risen One than we are. They were with him on the night he washed their feet and instituted the Eucharist as that meal designed to make him known to us for all time. He told us this one simple thing; love one another! They saw the trial and crucifixion and watched him die. The women went to the tomb on that first Easter morning and discovered it was empty.  Lo and behold the gardener Mary saw was not there to trim the trees but to pierce through what we thought was the power of sin and death. They saw him in the upper room. Even Thomas touched the wounds on his hands and side. My Lord, and my God, he said!

He is alive. No matter how many baptisms, weddings, hospital calls, or funerals I did at Epiphany, I came to the altar on Sunday morning and smiled with the joy of faith when I saw that Christus Rex, the Risen Christ in Glory.

I wanted then what I want now. Jesus: Dead or Alive. Or perhaps more precisely, I want Jesus Dead and Alive. As he lives a life like he lives so I too want to live like him. As he dies a death like he dies, so too I want to die with him. As he rises from all the power that sin and death has in life so too I want to rise with him. This is why I am a Christian. Don and Cathy are struggling with their challenges just now in this life, as we all are. They have decided to dedicate their lives to Jesus. You and I have decided to dedicate our lives to Jesus. 

I have a Facebook friend in California who refers to himself as a devout Episcopalian. Funny, I thought, you don’t see that turn of phrase on Facebook very often, but it pleased me when I saw it. Last week I invited you all to become pillars of the church as you prepare to greet your new priest. As of yesterday we have a new Bishop too! Lets be pillars of the church for our new priest and our new bishop and for one another.

Above all let’s be pillars of the Church for Jesus, the Risen One, the Christus Rex as we greet with joy this feast day of the Holy Cross. The world is still waiting for peace and justice. The world cannot have either until it too gets to know something about the Love of God that we meet in Jesus, the Law of God as we have received it from Moses, or the Mercy of God as we know about it from the Holy Koran. The world cannot have Peace with Justice until we all learn to love and respect one another. As a boy I had to pray for the Queen of England in the Anglican Church of Canada for 11 long years. This was a challenge for a kid born and brought up in Boston. But I grew to love and respect the folks in Canada. They gave me a very good education and universal singly payer health care beginning in 1967. 

The time came for Cindy and me to leave Cleveland early on Friday morning. We had a long day ahead of us. I thank God for our love. We have our best visits during those long, long rides. We dream our dreams, hope our hopes, and call to mind our memories. 

We also say our prayers for Don and Cathy. We visited Ward and Suzie and their daughter Abbey and her new baby boy Elliot while we were there. What a joy! There is much to think about as the ribbon of highway stretched out before us. And so I always come back to a prayer that sustained me lo these many years. 

Come Lord Jesus and be our Companion along the way. Kindle our hearts and awaken Joy, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and in the Breaking of the Bread. Come Lord Jesus. Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

A Matter of Life and Death

We have read too much of drug overdoses and teen suicide in these past few weeks. The words that follow are an attempt to reach our hearts with God's invitation to Life.

A Matter of Life and Death

It never comes at a convenient time. John Lennon is reputed to have said; “Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.”

It was getting on toward late evening and I was settling in for a pleasant and restful read with a good book. That’s when one of our teen “members”, I use the word member advisedly, came to the door. His face revealed the panic he was in. He told me he was on a bad trip. He had taken some drugs. He told me his heart was pounding and he was scared to death he’d die. So we got into the car and I drove him to the Emergency Room at the Charleston Area Medical Center in the heart of the capitol city of West Virginia. It seemed like it took forever to make the half hour trip. I confess to you that I may have exceeded the speed limit along the way, but given the young man’s state of agitation, I felt that it might indeed be a matter of life and death.

The Emergency room was full of your normal quota of fallout from urban violence, a knife wound here, a gun shot casualty there, some sick with the flu, others milling about impatient with the time it always takes to be seen by someone. As it turns out we had some priority given the nature of the issue, and after the gunshot and knife wound, we were ushered into an examination room. Even then it took a while for some blood tests, and an EKG to tell the doctor what steps needed to be taken to deal with the young man’s ordeal.

The crisis passed on its own as luck would have it. The Doctor did come into the exam room and he seemed quite serious. He told Christopher that he was a lucky man this time. Moreover, he said he was playing with fire, as a number of his friends were. I had dealings with a number of teens from that congregation and community. Given the fact that our own children were at the same age, our social circles often brought these young to my attention. When they had their scrapes with the law they often came to me. They knew that the church was a salvage operation for them. I often spoke of forgiveness and salvation. And the “gang” even came to church on some of the high holy days and heard the message of salvation. Still they liked to push the envelope and see what they could get away with. As it turns out most of them made it. But there were a few tragic casualties along the way.

On the way back from the hospital, there was an awkward silence. After allowing the awkwardness to build some, I told Christopher what I have tried to tell all teens along the way; “There are only two ways to live: the way that leads to life, and the way that leads to death. Which way makes sense to you?” His answer was a rather quiet and penitent “life”. What I tried to tell these teens I try to tell us all: there are only two ways to live; the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death.

This is the essence of the Deuteronomic Law Code that Moses tried to teach the people during his farewell discourses. In the Book of Deuteronomy he reviews the amazing history of the Exodus event and of how God gave the people freedom. With this freedom, however, came a God given Law. This Law is the way that leads to life and prosperity. Disobedience of the Law leads to death and adversity. Near the end of today’s lesson, Moses repeats himself in no uncertain terms; “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.” ~Deuteronomy 30:19 

This is how I spoke to Christopher. How hard I worked to reach his soul. I cannot begin to describe the joy I felt when he and about a dozen of his friends came to Christmas Eve services later that year. They were probably not all entirely in a state of sobriety, but all but one are still with us. There was the one I lost along the way. No matter what I said, no matter what I did, no matter how hard he tried, somehow the demons got to him. And now, he is in God’s hands, too soon he’s in God’s hands in the everlasting habitations.

This is what makes the message of the Gospel so urgent in my heart and mind and soul. There are only two ways: the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death.

Jesus engages us in the Sermon on the Mount with similar choices. In his teachings on killing and anger, adultery and divorce, swearing and oaths, he spoke of the old way and the way of God. In his approach to the ancient Laws of Moses, he delves into the heart of things. “You have heard that it was said of old”. Moses cut you a deal. Not so with Jesus. He goes to the heart of the matter. It is not just the matter of killing, it is more to the matter of holding onto the anger you harbor in your hearts. Guess who that’s killing? It is not just the matter of adultery, it is more to the heart of the matter of how you even look at one another. As to the matter of divorce, we know that Jesus had high standards, and that the only exception he cut for his absolute standard was for the woman actually caught in the very act of adultery. But that’s another sermon. Even then in the matter of swearing and oaths Jesus held out for the simplicity of “Yes” and “No”.

There really are just two ways to live. It is interesting to note that the earliest record we have of a written Christian document is what scholars call “The Didache”. You can look it up online. The word “Didache” means the teachings, and in this case the teachings of the apostles. The Didache was used by the early church in the Teaching of converts to Christianity especially the among young and the teens of the community. It applied to us all, but in our youth we tend to be more intense in how we look at life issues. The matter of teen suicide is so disquieting. So many of our young live rudderless lives and are so vulnerable to the demons that attack the radiant beauty of youth. That’s why it is a matter of some urgency that we impress upon one another how central a role the church’s teaching plays in the formation of Christian character. This is the way to life; Love God and Love one another!

And he opening line of the Didache? Yes, you guessed it; "There are two ways, one of life and one of death, but a great difference between the two ways." The Didache goes on to spell it out. But in my confirmation classes I ask our young to spell it out in our historic and cultural context. As a rule, drugs comes out number one. Sex comes a close second. Education comes next. After all the misuse of drugs can kill you. Teen pregnancy can alter you plans for you life significantly. Education or the lack of it can spell out the difference in what vocational choices will be open to you. Our young people are not dumb. 

They know the stakes. We all know that the games we play in life we play for keeps. That’s why we read the wisdom of the ages in the Holy Writings. We glean from them so much wisdom for our lives. But foundational and fundamental to all life’s lessons is the choices we all make; the choice to follow the way that leads to life or the way that leads to death.

St Paul recognizes in his first letter to the Christian community in Corinth that there is a tendency to become a bit factious. There were those who belonged to the party of Paul and others who belonged to the party of Apollos. Partisanship as you no doubt know is nothing new in the conduct of human affairs. Partisanship can become deleterious to the building up of the Body of Christ. We, the church, are called to be Jesus to one another. Paul always points to Christ as the beginning and the ending of our unity with God and one another. This is the way that leads to life. For as long as we live according to the flesh there is jealousy and quarreling. But as spiritual people we look well beyond partisanship. As Paul puts it; “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building.” ~I Corinthians 3:9. 

Yes, there are just two ways: The Way that leads to Life and the way that leads to death. May God give us Grace to walk The Way that Leads to Eternal Life.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr Paul.

Want to Know God?

Listen to the Silence

It really is that simple. If you want to know God, listen to the Silence.

Not preachers.

Not televangelists.

Not even the local parish priest.

But listen to your own heart

In silence

Before you fall asleep

Perfectly still

Listen

I learned this as a boy. 

When my father died at Christmas. I was merely 8 years old. And when I cried myself to sleep at night; night after night; all I heard was silence. This went on for 18 months when one bright sunny summer day on the way home from church, I picked a solitary leaf off from behind a chain link fence, a single solitary leaf from off a city hedge.

As I pressed my thumbnail into the leaf and the life blood of that leaf left its green chlorophyl there for me to see, that's when I heard something in my heart that said; "Don't you know there's a special place in my heart for your dad?"

There were no voices. No sounds. Still there was but a profound silence.

But now I was able to give voice to the Silence.

Notice there that I have capitalized the word "Silence".

I spoke out loud what the Silence spoke to my heart; "Don't you know there's a special place in my heart for your dad?"

When he died there were some uncharitable words for my dad. There had been a divorce. Distant cousins who were "Christian" said my dad couldn't go to heaven because my dad did not go to church.

Thankfully, my family wasn't particularly religious, so they told me not to pay attention to them. Still, it was tough to discover that my dad was never coming home again. Tougher still to wonder if I'd even get to see him in the life to come. I began to think that "Christians" could be mean. 

They still can be.

So then I ran home to my grandmother to ask her;

"Ma, is there a God?"

"Yes," she said, "of course there is".

"Ma, is there a heaven?"

Somewhat irritated, after all there were mouths to be fed and mealtime was hardly a good time for theology. But still, she answered; "Yes, of course there is".

So now I pressed my luck. With a note of authority, I asked her;

"Ma, is my daddy there?"

I knew what she thought of my dad. More than once she said it was the Irish that ruined Boston. Furthermore, the thought of an Englishwoman spending an eternity with an Irishman must have given her pause, but then she did the unforgettable one act that changed my life; she knelt down and she folded my head into the nape of her neck and it is as though I can still smell her hair as I write this story and she said; 

"Of course he is".

My heart leapt for joy now at night as I poured out my soul to the Silence.

Now the Silence became a Presence I could talk to.

I learned that the Presence had a name;

God.

I learned that the Presence had a Holy Name;

Jesus

I learned that the Presence filled me with the Holy Wisdom from on High and was called;

The Holy Spirit

God came to life for me in the Silence, where I still meet God night after night and day after day.

And so it was that I gave my life to the Holy Trinity.

Not a doctrine but a living dynamic within the Silence I have come to know and love as the Living God.

It was then that I decided to become a Parish Priest so that I could share this message with all who yearned to hear it and many who didn't. 

Gay or straight, black or white, male or female, rich or poor....we are ALL ONE IN CHRIST!

So if you want to know God, listen to the Silence. 

Listen closely to the profound Silence.

In the Silence God will speak to you and say;

"Don't you know there's a special place in my heart for You!"

Fr. Paul

Jesus, Judgement, The Nation & the Poor

The Judgment Seat of Christ

And The Poor

When you enter the great west doors of the Gothic Cathedrals of France,  and God willing, that’s exactly where some of us will be in a few short weeks, you will be greeted with a scene of the Last Judgment above those massive portals. It is a dramatic scene; with Jesus seated on the Throne of his Glory separating the sheep from the goats; the sheep rejoicing to be embraced by the love of God, the goats separated and to be in torment forever!

It is a sobering scene. As the throngs of faithful enter these great cathedrals, we cannot help but be reminded that as God is our Judge, so Christ is our Advocate. But it is that manner in which Jesus makes his judgments that makes all the difference.

This is how Jesus judges the nations of the earth.

Tell me if you will, what are these great sculptures about? On what scripture passage are they based? I was fascinated by the lectures describing the sculpture and the architecture of the cathedrals that this one critical piece of information is not mentioned.

If we remember how Jesus began his ministry in his own home town, we will remember that he said; 

“I have come to bring good news to the poor”.

~Luke 4:18

Then at the end of his ministry we hear these words; 

‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’ 

~Matthew 25:31ff

So important is this passage to our understanding of the Judgement of Christ, that it has become carved into the very entryway to the great Cathedrals of Europe.

How then does Jesus judge the nations? Obviously on the basis of how well or how badly we treat the poor. It is easy to forget this one simple fact. Somehow we got the message over the centuries that Judgment involved matters involving someone’s notion of sin. Somehow the sins became defined as mere personal habits; good ones as well as bad ones. And indeed the care and love of the self is one of the great challenges facing each and every one of us, and will continue to be up until the last day of our time on this planet.

But what I find fascinating is that this did not appear to be the primary concern of Jesus. All we have to do is look at what Jesus did. He went to all the towns and villages of Galilee and beyond. There he taught all who would listen to him. He sought out the poor, the sick, the outcast, as well as the rich and common folk like ourselves. He treated them all alike; with the abundant love of God and with the power of his healing touch. 

There is no doubt though that the biblical witness stands in clear solidarity with the poor and the sick and those who are dying or even dead. Just look at the two stories we have before us today in our lectionary cycle.

In the lesson from the First Book of Kings we have a story of the prophet Elijah, a figure in the biblical narrative that prefigures Jesus in many ways. He comes at the behest of God to Zarephath and meets a poor widow there and asks her to bring him something to eat. The poor thing was in the process of gathering a few sticks so she could go home, feed her son, and since this was to be their last morsel of food and oil, they must then prepare to die. But the prophet Elijah said, no feed me first and I promise that your jar of meal and your jug of oil will not give out. And so it was. 

Then her son died, and the widow’s lamentation would rise to God in the ears of the prophet and with exquisite pathos she says; “What have you against me you man of God that you would bring my sin to remembrance and cause the death of my son?” The prophet revives the woman’s son and then we are all left to wonder at the power and grace of God in making provision for us both in our poverty and even at the hour of our death.

Likewise in the story of Jesus with the widow of Nain; the crowd in the village; no doubt a crowd of rich and poor and just plain common folk were all in a state of agitation over the death of the widow’s son. Again how cruel! That God would take a child from his mother. Jesus cautions them all not to be afraid and armed with the power of God, revives the young man. While cautioned not to, fear seized the crowd again because it was clear to them all that a prophet had arisen among them and God’s grace and God’s power was given to the poor widow and her son.

Thus from these two stories, and much more, we learn of God’s concern for the poor. In fact the word “poor” occurs in the scriptures 213 times. The Judgment of Christ as presented in Christian Art on the great west doors of the Cathedrals of France is a reference to this great concern of God in the person of Jesus; “Insofar as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it to me.”

The nations are held in judgment. So are we all. But it is not about trivial matters of of sin. Everyone here is in recovery in one way or another from some kind of personal “thorn in the flesh”. And for these matters I am convinced we are forgiven particularly when we confess our sins, negligences, and offenses before God.

What causes Jesus the greater animus when it comes to our Judgment, is how we treat those who are in need; the poor, the elderly, the young, and all those vulnerable in our midst.

It is not the fashion in France, Europe or even among our own countrymen to go to church as was once a matter of course. I believe that is because we may have forgotten to “be” the church for the sake of the world. Many had forgotten what the sculpture on the great west doors of those cathedrals referred to.


It has been said that during one of the many famines in France, Marie Antoinette is reputed to have said “Qu’ils mangent le brioche”; “let them eat cake”. The callous sentiment helped to inspire the French Revolution and the rejection of the Monarchy, and the uprising of the peasants. How far France had come from the glorious times of Charlemagne when a somewhat fairer distribution of wealth assured that at least, the poor would not starve to death. The monarchy had come a very long way, from a time when the welfare of the people was paramount to a time when the people starved at the doorway to the Palace at Versailles.

Now we can read the Bible for ourselves. We can now see the biblical concern for the poverty of the widows and their children, we know of the compassion of God for the death of their children, we know of God’s abundant power to provide for us both in our poverty, in our illnesses and even in our death.

The nation and the world we live in is now is filled with poverty, injustice and warfare. It is our sacred mission to speak frankly to this nation and to this world about the suffering of God’s people. We must tend to the poor, heal the sick, bring justice to the oppressed, and peace where there is warfare and violence. Not an easy task, I’ll grant you.

It was not an easy task for Paul and the early church as they travelled the world over to bring the Gospel of Peace to a war torn world, and a world that ground up the poor at the hands of the oppressor’s rod. The church confronted Rome and all the powers and principalities of the time to speak up for “the least of these”. 

This is now the challenge facing us. When the church regains its sense of mission again, to bring Good News to the Poor as was the mission of Jesus, then we will become the salty presence we must be for the sake of the world. We must issue this challenge to the church, the nation and to the world.

I can hardly wait to see for myself the great west doors of the Cathedrals of France. There, Jesus is waiting on us, seated on the Throne of his Glory. He is our Advocate and our Judge. Time is short, lets get on with it. We’ve go work to do! 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr. Paul