The church and rectory, April 2010

Look and See Who's Calling-Easter IV Yr. C

Today’s Gospel reading comes at the tail end of the Good Shepherd discourse in John’s Gospel. We read a section of the Good Shepherd story every year on the 4^th Sunday of Easter, commonly called Good Shepherd Sunday. The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is comforting and the story of how he will never let us stray too far is reassuring. I love the entire Good Shepherd discourse, but one of the most poignant statements in the whole story is in today’s excerpt:

“My sheep hear my voice I know them and they follow me.”

Jesus knows that we can hear His voice. He also knows that just because we can, doesn’t mean we will.

My sheep hear my voice. …but do they, do we recognize it as the voice of God? Do we listen?

Voices are a big part of our identity. When we’re ill, or feeling particularly blue, folks will say, “you don’t sound like yourself.” There is a sound—the tone and tenor of our voice---which is uniquely “ours.”

Several years ago, my voice changed. I had been taking a particular medication for my asthma that made me hoarse. My voice was raspy yet I kept waiting for it to clear up. I thought it was temporary.

It turned out it wasn’t temporary; the steroids in the inhaler had scarred my vocal cords. I was never going to regain my former voice; the raspy, hoarse voice was here to stay.

I don’t think about it much----that is until I speak to someone who hasn’t heard my voice for years and when they do, they don’t recognize me. That’s disconcerting, because we all like to be recognized.

It’s nice when you answer the phone and the person on the other end immediately recognizes that it’s you. Or that you have such a close relationship with a friend you can call them up and say “hi it’s me.”

“It’s me.” They hear us and they recognize us. They hear us AND they know that it’s us.

Our voices identify us.

But hearing and recognizing are two different things aren’t they? People often say, “I hear what you’re saying” to convey that we’re not only physically hearing what it being said, but we’re getting the meaning. Hearing what someone says connotes understanding of the message.

We know the Good Shepherd’s voice…but do we really hear it?

That’s the real issue for the modern Christian isn’t it? It’s recognizing Jesus’ voice amidst all the other voices clamoring for our attention. It’s distinguishing his voice from all the others.

My niece Alyssa has significant hearing loss and when she goes into a room with a lot of noise she can’t distinguish one sound from another. People often try to get her attention by calling out her name, trying to be heard over the din. But that doesn’t work. According to Alyssa when all the voices are blending into one cacophonous mess, she needs to step back and look around so she can SEE who is speaking to her. It isn’t just hearing the voice, it’s seeing who is doing the speaking which allows Alyssa to recognize the voice—to distinguish one voice from another. Calling her name out louder and faster doesn’t help. She needs to step back and look—only then can she fully hear.

When it comes to recognizing the voice of God in our lives, we’re all a little bit hearing impaired, aren’t we? We have many voices competing for our attention---voices telling us it’s a dog eat dog business world, voices telling us that if we are thin enough, stylish enough, hip enough we’ll be happy, voices telling us that the key to success is found in their product… We have the voices of our spouses, the voices of our parents, the voices of our children, the voices of our bosses, our neighbors…all competing with one another---it becomes next to impossible to distinguish one from another.

To really listen to really hear, we need to stop, step back and look around. By slowing everything down, by quieting everything down we are able to see and to hear and recognize the one who really knows us. The one who knows us---warts and all—and still brings us back into the fold. The one who knows each of us by name.

That’s what a Good Shepherd does. A good shepherd knows his sheep. He knows each sheep’s needs. A good shepherd knows the sheep who need gentle prodding, and the one who needs a more deliberate push. A good shepherd knows that some sheep need a stern and authoritative voice while others respond to a sweet beckoning call. A good shepherd knows that some of his sheep will wander off the beaten path getting lost or caught in the bramble, unable to break free.

The Good Shepherd knows that although we hear his voice, we don’t recognize it--we’re too caught up in the bramble of our lives to really hear .

The Good Shepherd understands this. He understands that we’re easily distracted and overwhelmed. The Good Shepherd knows that the bramble of our lives—the pressures of our work, the challenges of our relationships, the worries about money make so much noise we don’t recognize his voice. The Good Shepherd knows that deep down all of us want to hear and heed his voice. But he also knows that to do that-- to hear what he is saying, to recognize his presence in our lives we must stop, step back and look for him, the one who loves us and the one who’ll never let us down.

Because as Alyssa says, “it doesn’t work if [someone] just keep[s] calling out my name. I need to step back [to] see them. “

You see, it’s easy to lose our way, to follow the wrong voice and find ourselves far from home, lost and confused. But when we finally stop and look around, we’ll see the Good Shepherd, and suddenly all the other voices will quiet and we’ll recognize the one who will never let us stay lost, who will never let us wander too far off the path. We’ll hear, we’ll know and we’ll follow the one who sees us safely home, bringing us back into the fold. Amen.

Remembering and Letting Go

The psychotherapist and author Claudia Black once said Forgiving is not forgetting, it’s remembering and letting go. I don’t know if Dr. Black is a Christian, I don’t know how familiar she is with Christian Scripture. I don’t even know if she thinks about Jesus at all, but I have to say that phrase sounds an awful lot like the Jesus we hear in today’s readings.

For the Jesus we meet in our reading from Acts as well as the Jesus who encounters the disciples along the sea of Tiberius in today’s Gospel was not into forgetting.

I think knowing that your followers are being persecuted is not something easily forgotten, nor is having your presumed staunchest supporter desert and deny you. No these are the things one has a tendency to remember….to dwell on…to stew about. But Jesus didn’t remember these things so he could exact revenge. He remembered these things so he could forgive. He remembered the actions of Paul and Peter not to punish them but to redeem them, to equip them to spread the good news far and wide. Jesus forgave: he remembered, he let go and he moved on.

Saul needed a lot of forgiving. He was a zealous persecutor of the new Christian movement and he was hell bent on getting to Damascus to rid that ancient city of it’s Christian elements. Saul wanted nothing more than to squelch this burgeoning sect and their proclamations of a resurrected messiah. But as we all know and just heard, something happens to Saul on that road to Damascus—probably the most famous conversion story of all time—and the resurrected and ascended Jesus calls out to him. Not in anger, not in retribution not even in revenge. No the voice of Jesus calls out to Saul full of remembering and completely willing to let it go. For Jesus knows that giving Saul a new perspective will change everything. Saul becomes Paul, the persecutor becomes the preacher and Paul, never forgetting what he had done in the past, walks boldly into the future, determined to amend his life. Jesus forgave Paul, not by forgetting but by remembering and then moving on. I don’t know if Paul forgave himself, but I do know that Paul didn’t let his past behavior hold him back, he let his remembering of what he was capable of fuel him as he embarked on his new life in Christ. By remembering and letting go, Paul was free to preach the good news from Damascus to Rome. By remembering and letting go Jesus was able to take the destructive evil in the heart of Saul and transform it into the constructive good of Paul.

Forgiving is not forgetting it is remembering and letting go.

When Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed Peter was indignant He was zealous in his proclamation that he would never ever let his teacher down….yet within hours Peter lost all his nerve and denied, abandoned and hurt the one he loved most in the entire world. In a matter of moments Peter, the rock upon which the church was to be built, crumbled into pieces. With three accusations and three denials Peter became a shadow of his former self. But instead of finding someone new, instead of giving up on Peter, instead of letting Peter destroy himself with the self-loathing which haunted him from the moment the cock crowed, the risen Jesus, as he shares breakfast with his friends, asks Simon Peter three exact questions in rapid succession: Simon, son of John do you love me? Simon, son of John do you love me? Simon, son of John do you love me? It’s as if Jesus is saying, Peter I remember and I forgive!

Peter vehemently answers YES I LOVE YOU. But then, just as he is getting hurt and angry with Jesus for doubting him----it hits him, it hits all of us. Jesus isn’t asking for a promise he isn’t asking for an assurance. Jesus is forgiving Peter his betrayal. Jesus is forgiving us our betrayal for Jesus knows that each one of us will deny, each of us will betray, each and every one of us will let Christ down. Yet, in spite of all that, Jesus offers us a chance for redemption. Jesus, remembering all that has been done, simply reminds us that there are sheep to tend and lambs to feed. By remembering and letting go, Jesus is telling Peter, Jesus is telling us, amend your life, dust yourself off, pick yourself up and get on with it, because there are sheep to tend and lambs to feed. There isn’t time to wallow in what has been done or left undone—there is work to be done so Jesus simply asks us to remember, to let go and move on to do what we have been called to do. We are capable of tremendous misdeeds, we are capable of terrible hurt, we are capable of great betrayal but in spite of that, regardless of that --we are called to live a life of redemption, we are called to live a life of renewal we are called to live an Easter life, a life of remembering, a life of forgiving, a life of moving on.

Today on this third Sunday of Easter in the storied parish Church of the Good Shepherd in beautiful Parkside we have a task ahead of us. We have a new life in Christ to proclaim to the world, The journey will not be easy-- We’ll be the Peter of Good Friday and the Peter on the Sea of Tiberius. We’ll be Saul, we’ll be Paul. We’ll disagree, we’ll question, we’ll doubt and we’ll worry. But we’ll also agree, answer, believe and hope. We’ll hurt each other and forgive each other. We’ll remember, we’ll let go and we’ll move on.--because we have sheep to tend and lambs to feed.

Together, illumined by the light of Christ, emboldened by the steadfast love of God and invigorated by the power of the Holy Spirit, The Church of the Good Shepherd will continue to be a beacon for Parkside, North Buffalo and Western New York. So let’s remember all that this place has meant to our community, let’s remember what our Lord and Savior has asked us to do and then let’s get busy. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to begin.

Amen.

My last sermon at St. Paul's.

Thomas gets a bum rap, being labeled as “doubting” Not that he didn’t doubt, but his doubting wasn’t unique—the other disciples doubted too. Thomas’ doubting, as told by John in today’s Gospel, just gets more airtime, being read the second Sunday of Easter every year. But there’s plenty of doubt in the other Gospels. In the 24th Chapter of Luke, when Jesus appears to the others in the locked upper room on Easter night, he asks why “doubt has arisen” in their hearts? In these early days of Easter doubt isn’t the sole property of Thomas.

Doubt isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a human thing.
Doubt isn’t denying, it’s not condemning. It’s a time of bewilderment, a time of question---doubt comes when things aren’t clear---when all the evidence isn’t yet in or all the evidence hasn’t crystallized in our brains yet. Doubt is common when all that we know to be—the order of our world---is shattered.

When I lived and worked as a psychotherapist in suburban Chicago I served on a disaster response team. Our job was to mobilize in natural and human made disasters, being among the first responders to the scene. One Labor Day evening we were called out to a railroad crossing in a nearby village. A last blast of summer festival had been going on and a group of high school kids were hanging out by the railroad crossing when an express Amtrak train came down the track, striking and killing a local high school sophomore. I had the difficult task of informing the girl’s mother of her death. When given the terrible news, the mother calmly looked at me and said, “No that’s impossible, she was at the movies.” In that instance she was denying reality---then it hit her and she fell to the ground, sobbing. For those first few moments, she doubted the message I had delivered. She doubted that anything this horrible could possibly happen, but soon her brain began to assimilate it and the tragic truth became clear.
But it’s not only bad news that can be met with doubt, good news can be equally difficult to fathom.
Whether it’s the people on tv who’ve won the publishers’ clearinghouse, or finding out you’ve gotten the job of your dreams or hearing that the cancer is gone----good news can take some time to sink in.

Doubt buys us time for the joy to fully engage, it buys us time to gird ourselves against the bad.

Doubt gives us time to catch up to the reality of our lives.

And in those first few hours, those first few days following the crucifixion, the reality of the disciples’ life wasn’t pretty. The king they loved they denied, the rulers they feared they defied. It wasn’t a good time to be one of Jesus’ followers…so when they hear from Mary Magdalene that Jesus is alive do they run out looking for him carried by this thrilling and joyous news?
No, they remain paralyzed by their doubt, immobilized by their fear, stuck in their shame. Remember they had abandoned and denied Jesus. They had let him down in his greatest hour of need. And now he was alive? Uh oh. Human nature would dictate that the disciples must have feared that Jesus’ would be MAD. The disciples while thrilled that Jesus was alive, may have had some trepidation about seeing him again. But this time the disciples could not run and hide. For even while huddled behind locked doors, Jesus appears, not in anger or disappointment but in Peace and Love. He doesn’t say How could you? He says Peace Be With You. He doesn’t re-hash their failings of the past week, but commissions them to go out and spread the Good News of Peace to the world. Jesus accepts their failings and loves them. Jesus rejects their fear and loves them. This is radical. This is shocking. This can take some getting used to!
And even though they had heard it hundreds of times before, even though we hear it, week in and week out, this simple message of love peace and forgiveness is really difficult to understand; it can be difficult to accept.

Thomas, along with the other disciples, needed to see the reality of Jesus’ resurrection before they could "get it." Their doubt wasn’t a lack of faith, it wasn’t that they didn’t believe, they just didn’t understand.

Thomas’ doubt bought him time to comprehend all that had happened, so that, when he saw Jesus for himself he could proclaim, “My Lord and My God.” Thomas’ doubt led his faith to a place of understanding. Thomas, given time, Got It.

Today, the emotional roller coaster of Holy Week is over, we’ve proclaimed Christ risen, we’ve shouted Alleluia, we’ve rejoiced in the new light of Christ.
Today we sit back, along with Thomas and the other disciples, fully aware of what we are capable of---killing God in the flesh—and aware of what God is capable of: peace and forgiveness. This astonishing realization of what we can and sometimes do and what God always does, is shocking and takes some getting used too.

So today we begin the process of clearing the doubt from our hearts and minds and embracing the Truth as given to us through Jesus Christ. The truth that we’ve been entrusted with the same task Jesus gave the disciples: to go out into the world seeking and serving Christ in everyone we meet. To offer peace and forgiveness to everyone: those we may not understand, those we may not even like and even those who may scare us. Today, as Jesus sends his disciples out into the world, I am reminded of what brought me through the doors of this Cathedral church nine years ago: the promise that this place offered hospitality healing and hope. It is promise that you fulfilled and a promise I know you will continue to fulfill. It has been a joy to be among you as a parishioner and it has been an honor and privilege to serve you as priest. Thank you.
AMEN.

Easter Vigil 2010

+Some of you have heard me mention that, several years ago, a 9 year old girl asked me why we go through Holy Week every year. After all, she said, we know it works out in the end! Of course we do know how the story ends and tonight we stand at the dramatic and glorious climax of the Holy Week Drama—an empty tomb, a risen Christ—but, as I told that young lady a few years ago---we must walk through the drama of Holy Week each and every year because although the story doesn’t change, we do. We need the reminder, we need the journey. To paraphrase a history professor I had years ago, why does history repeat itself? Because people change. We need the same old story to guide us in the new varied and divergent paths our lives take. We change, God doesn’t. We forget, God remembers. We stray, God remains steady.

And so we journey….from the triumphal march into Jerusalem, to the loneliness and despair of the garden, the bitter trial, the agony of the cross, the silence of death and finally, the joy of resurrection. What a walk!

Tonight we heard the story of salvation. From the first glimmer of new light we heard of God’s saving efforts throughout the ages, from the Red Sea to the dry bones, from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from Gethsemane to Calvary, from life to death and life again.
Tonight we have been given in clear and certain terms: A New Life in Christ. In a few moments, Elijah Michael Cumbo-Burris will, through his baptism, be sealed as Christ’s own forever. And through this sacrament of Baptism each of us will renew our commitment to Christ as well as our commitment to see Christ in all whom we encounter. How easy it is for us to lose our way. How easy it is for us to forget.
So, how does Elijah, as he begins his life in Christ, remember the promise of Easter amidst the inevitability of Holy Week. How do any of us keep an Easter faith in our own personal Holy Weeks, our own moments of doubt, despair loneliness and fear?

Elijah will do well if he remembers the lessons of Holy Week throughout his life. I think we all would do well to remember what we’ve learned through this Holiest of weeks.

Palm Sunday: triumph has different meanings. I don’t think anyone really knew what to expect when Jesus marched into Jerusalem. No doubt many of the disciples thought that in Jerusalem, Jesus would topple the civic and religious structure of the day. I’m not sure any of them thought victory could come from the cross and the tomb. Elijah, don’t expect that the victory of your life will always look how you think it will. Sometimes victory comes swaddled in rags, born in a barn and killed like a common criminal.

Maundy Thursday. It’s important to take time for fellowship. Sit with family and friends—break bread together. The bonds formed over the dinner table are fierce and will hold, come what may. Sometimes, words are not needed. Sometimes those we love simply need someone to sit with them, to bear witness to the pain they are enduring. We can’t take pain away from others, but we can be a silent witness. Elijah, never underestimate the power of your presence.

Good Friday: There will be times when your beliefs will be challenged, when you will be tempted to deny what you believe to be true and right because it isn’t popular or it’s too scary to stand up for what you know to be true. Elijah, stand up for what is right as best you can, and when you falter remember that God stands at the ready, waiting for you—for all of us-- to come home where forgiveness always reigns.

Holy Saturday. Where is God? As Benedictine nun and author Joan Chittister says: “The importance of Holy Saturday lies in its power to bring us to the kind of faith the spiritual masters call “mature.” Holy Saturday faith is not about counting our blessings; it is about dealing with darkness and growing in hope”
Elijah, there will be days when you will feel utterly alone and bereft. Know that deep within that sadness, at the very bottom of the well of loneliness there’s a small still voice weeping with you and for you, sharing in your pain. You may not feel it, but know that it is there and that you can count on it. None of us is ever alone, no matter what.
Easter—the Resurrection— Just as quickly as you find yourself in the depths of despair you will find yourself relieved and released from the pain. Suddenly it will be gone. The sadness will lift and joy will again reign. For as you journey through your Christian life Elijah, you will have ups and down. You’ll have your share of Easter joys and Good Friday losses. But---and this is the most important lesson any of us can take from our Christian journey----Holy week always ends in Easter, Darkness always gives way to light, and sin always loses out to grace and truth and love. Alleluia, Elijah and Alleluia to all of us--The Lord is Risen Indeed!
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