6 Easter Yr A

+The collect, what I read at the beginning of our liturgy, is a tone setter. Through this prayer two things are accomplished…first we gather as a community and I, as a representative of the community collect us in worship and, secondly, the collect foreshadows the scriptural theme for the day. Now, sometimes this is fairly far-fetched and I think, while reading it, “what in the world does this have to do with what we’re reading today?”

But more often, like this morning; the Collect sums it up perfectly:

“Pour into our hearts such love towards you that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all we can desire.”

Pour into our hearts such promises that EXCEED all we can desire.

Wow. God pours into our hearts things that surpass anything we could ever want. Anything we could ever think we need.

One commentator puts it this way:

“God is not stingy in revelation but prodigal.”

In other words, when Go shows up, it is usually in a big and prodigious way. In any way, in all ways, in anyone or anything, in everyone and in everything, God is prodigious in God’s revelation.

No better example of God’s prodigious manner of revelation can be found than Jesus. Jesus was a pretty bold way for God to be revealed to the world.

Now this isn’t to say that God didn’t use others for this bold revealing. Giving aged Sarah a child----that was bold.

Choosing a grandson of Pharaoh as a prophet and then bringing a whole people out of slavery and into a land flowing with milk and honey. That’s pretty bold.

Giving Naomi and Ruth a bond which overcame all the social and cultural shame their communities could foist upon them, was bold.

Taking a scrawny shepherd boy with a great ear for music but a questionable ability to lead and making him the father of a long line of leaders and prophets, ending in Jesus himself, was bold.

Choosing a Galilean peasant girl and her stalwart yet otherwise unremarkable carpenter betrothed, as the God bearing couple, was bold.

Having that same young mother be a guide and guardian for God in the flesh, walking with him every step of the way from crib to cross, tomb and upper room, was bold.

God is not stingy in revelation.

But these revelations were a long time ago weren’t they? Of course, I hope you find God revealed among this community and at this altar each and every time you’re here, each and every time you receive the sacrament at this rail.

But the big bawdy “God revealing” we hear about in scripture, we proclaim in our creed we remember in our Eucharist----that doesn’t happen anymore, does it?

Or does it?

Bruce Epperly, United Church of Christ Theologian and author says: God is beyond all we can see or imagine, yet is revealed in all things.

God is beyond all imagery, yet is revealed in all things.

This must be what Jesus meant when, in this morning’s Gospel he says:

I am in God.

You are in me.

I am in you.

Jesus in God, Us in Jesus and Jesus in Us makes one monumental prodigious revelation of Love, doesn’t it? As our morning collect tells us, this revelation can be overwhelming, reaching beyond what our senses can comprehend.

So, if God’s love revealed to us is so overwhelming, so beyond our comprehension the question becomes: will we recognize God when we see God?Ddo we notice the revelation?

Jesus wasn’t recognized. Throughout the year we hear readings of people seemingly incapable of recognizing Him for who he was, unable to hear his message of hope and redemption.

So the challenge for us is twofold:

One ----to strive to recognize God revealed in the world. Sometimes this is easy. On this Memorial Day weekend when we remember all those who have given their lives for our protection---like my own Uncle Robert, killed in the battle of Anzio during WW2 or the 174 US service people killed this year in Afghanistan and Iraq---we see the revelation of God in people who selflessly give their lives for another. Other times God’s revelation is more difficult to recognize. Do you see it when struggling to pay your bills as big business gets break after break, and the rich get richer while those of us in the middle get squeezed…. Or while hearing about our country’s role in clandestine, illegal and immoral activity. Or while watching those we love fall into despair from alcohol and drug abuse, or enduring the pain of abuse from a spouse or a parent or a child.

It’s difficult to see God’s revelation in such situations. It’s easy to give up to say that God isn’t here anymore, that God’s revelation has passed you by. But, and here is the secret, here is the key to God’s boldness in creation, God revealed in others is only part of the equation.

The revelation over which we have complete control, the revelation God has entrusted to each of us is….US.

How is God revealed in you? In Us?

God pours God’s Love into us. ..how do we reflect it…God pours it into us, but it’s our job is to let it overflow, to let it show.

We are God’s revelation in the world. Does the world recognize God in what we do?

Does the world recognize Jesus in us? Does the world recognize us in Jesus?

When we go out into the world, we are reflective of God. We are the instruments of God’s Love. We may reveal God in a quiet steady witness to the world, or in a bodacious and vigorous shouting out to the world, or it a tear-laden lament for the earth, or a rant against torture and terrorism or a simple act of kindness between two neighbors. God’s revelation in and through us takes as many forms as the personalities which fill this church and populate this earth—all we need to do is remember, God is revealed to others through us and God is revealed to us through others.

Jesus said: I am in God. You are in Me And I am in You.

Will we see it? Will we show it? +

Easter 5 Yr A

+But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him…. dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

Today we hear the story of Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian church. Annually Stephen is remembered on Dec 26. Now Christmas time seems like a tough time to commemorate a horrific execution, but it makes sense. We musn’t forget what Christianity is: a radical, counter-cultural movement which, when practiced to its fullest, shakes believers and non -believers to their core. To remember this the day after Christmas, when we commemorate the birth of the biggest social agitator of all time, is actually timely.

Being a Christian means standing up to injustice and intolerance. It means speaking our mind when the dignity of another human being is being violated. It means going against the grain, against the crowd, against popular opinion. Doing this bugs other people—they just want us to stop! They, like Stephen’s tormentors, don’t want to hear it.

Stephen didn’t stop until he was stoned to death. Killed because his message hit at a truth deep within them, a truth they weren’t ready to hear. They covered their ears to block out his voice and when that didn’t work? They killed him. It was a brutal silencing. When someone tells us a truth we’re not ready to hear, we don’t listen. If they persist in talking, and our ignoring them fails, we turn on them. If we aren’t ready to hear we go to great lengths to not listen. If we can’t or won’t tolerate the message, then, as in the case of Jesus, Stephen, Ghandi, Martin Luther King and countless others, they’re silenced forever.

In the spirit of those silenced, our Christian faith demands that, as long as there are needy people in our world, as long as children go without adequate health care, as long as young girls in many countries are denied education, as long as people can’t worship the God of their choosing or love the partner of their desire, or speak their mind without fear of being silenced… as long as the dignity of every human being isn’t being honored then we, as followers of Christ, can’t be satisfied, can’t rest, and must never, ever stop listening, stop hearing. We must hear their cries and we must respond.

This is a tall order and one, which frankly, goes against the cultural norms of society. Anthropologists tell us that since the beginning of society we have gotten something out of having people below us, of having people on the outside looking in.

The theory goes something like this:

We live in fear of being without, of being left out, of being in need and having nothing and no one to care for us. So in striving to NEVER be the one on the outs, the one who’s in need, the one who is vulnerable we look for scapegoats, for people who are “out”, who are less than, who are the “other” . People worse off than us.

After 9/11 when it became clear that we weren’t going to capture Osama Bin Laden in short order, our focus changed to Iraq and to Saddaam Hussein. All sorts of assumptions were made about Saddaam’s intentions and capabilities and soon we were engaged in an all out war to avenge the murder of thousands on 9/11. A murder this man did not commit. Of course he committed plenty of other murders and was a horrific tyrant, but the fact of the matter is that he wasn’t who attacked us on 9/11.

But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were so scared, so rocked to our core so suddenly vulnerable, we had to do something---someone had to pay for what had happened…because only by lashing out, only by an eye for an eye would our fear, our vulnerability, our grief, be relieved.

Why?

Because it’s easier to be mad than to be sad. It’s easier to be mad than to be afraid. It’s just easier to be mad.

When shaken, when nothing makes sense anymore, we look for a scapegoat-- someone or something to receive our sadness, our terror. We do this because living with that sadness, living with that fear is too uncomfortable.

So we off load it on another.

It’s easier to lash out in anger than to settle in and feel deep sadness or to sit with tremendous fear.

But, although we do it all the time, this off loading of our sadness and our terror on another doesn’t work. Because the relief is only temporary. Soon enough something else comes along to shake us, and the cycle begins all over again: We feel vulnerable and we look for someone to victimize someone upon whom we can take out our feelings of anxiety---our sense of dis-ease.

[On a smaller scale, we do this in our daily lives. When feeling pressure at work how often do we pick a fight with our spouse, needing to off load our anxiety we take it out on those closest to us. Not because we want to hurt them, but because we need to relieve the pressure of uncertainty and worry which has built up within us. And for a moment, for a few moments, this may work.]

But what always works, when we let it, what will work forever, is God.

The solution to vulnerability is not bullying, not picking a fight, but to place all the fear, all the sadness, all the vulnerability and yes all the anger—at the foot of the cross.

We forget: we’re NOT IN THIS ALONE. This is the Easter message—God can take it all.

It’s a counter cultural message, which, although hard on our ears, is the quintessential Christian message. We hear it in our liturgy, we hear it in the scripture, we hear it from the pulpit, and today we hear it from the psalmist:

God is our crag and our stronghold. God is the castle that will make us safe. We needn’t cover the vulnerability of sadness and fear with bravado and scapegoating. We needn’t make ourselves feel bigger by picking on the smaller: God is our crag and our stronghold, God is the castle in which we are safe.

The message we’re so resistant to hear is this: God will never be shunned, God will not be ignored, God will not give up until we, finally and forever, listen. God won’t rest until we—all of us, uncover our ears and, once and for all hear. +

Easter 3 Yr. A

+The Road to Emmaus is a great Gospel; I love the imagery of Jesus being revealed in the breaking of the bread. It’s the perfect Gospel to preach on if you believe, like I do, that all sermons should lead to the altar, to communion. Our faith is founded on the belief that we’re strengthened to do the work we’ve been given to do through the revealing of Christ in the Eucharist, that our community is strengthened when we communicate through and in and with Christ.

Since Sunday night, when Osama Bin Laden was found and killed, I've struggled with how to connect this wonderful Gospel about Jesus revealed in the breaking of bread with our nation’s decade long search for some type of climax to the terror of 9/11.

What in the world does Osama Bin Laden have to do with the nourishment we receive through the Eucharist--nourishment we need to go out and do the work God has given us to do? What does Osama Bin Laden have to do with Jesus? Well….everything. You see I think that Osama Bin Laden in general, and our reaction to his death more specifically, has everything to do with our Gospel story today.

[allow me a little poetic license as I re-tell today’s Gospel, with a more modern slant]

As Frank and Jane walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, after joining in the celebration on the White House lawn Sunday night, a stranger comes upon them and asks where they’ve been. Surprised they say, “Are you the only person in Washington—in the whole US—who hasn’t heard? That evildoer, that mass murderer, that horrendous terrorist Osama Bin Laden has been killed! An elite squad of military people acting on intelligence gathered over years of intense interrogation techniques, stormed his hideout, shooting him and several other people earlier this evening. His body’s already been buried at sea. Finally vengeance for the 9/11 attacks! We went to the White House to celebrate, to ‘dance on his grave.’ ”

As they continued to walk, the stranger began to recount world history, not just what’s happened since 9/11—the racial profiling, the anti-Muslim attitudes, the questionable interrogation techniques including torture—but the full history of the United States, the constitution, our foundational beliefs of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; tolerance, fairness and the fact that the United States has, for generations, been the conscience of the world.

The stranger, in a way, was insulting them, shaming them for being jubilant over someone’s death, but they weren’t offended. It was as if this stranger knew they weren’t bad people, just frightened people who’d spent the past ten years learning to live in a new reality where, suddenly, this nation, which had served as a beacon of hope to the world, had been victimized and was vulnerable to further attack. It was as if he knew that when scared, when worried, when sad, when nervous, when out of sorts any of us---all of us----can lose sight of the bigger picture, forgetting that, as Jesus taught us, there’s something greater than an eye for an eye.

Frank and Jane began to think about what this country stands for— freedom for everyone to pursue their dreams---and they realized they weren’t happy a human being had been killed, they were happy that the mastermind of the terror which had afflicted them for the past decade, the man who designed the attacks which changed our world forever, would no longer be able to hurt them, or anyone, ever again. They realized that they were celebrating a life free of terror, not a life snuffed out.

Just about then they arrived home and asked the stranger if he’d like to come in for a midnight snack. With some prodding, he agreed. As they sat around the kitchen table with a pot of tea and some bread, the stranger bowed his head, said a blessing and broke the bread. Immediately they realized that this man wasn’t a stranger, but was Jesus! However, just as suddenly as they realized who he was, he disappeared from sight.

Astonished, they began to rehash the evening’s conversation-- realizing that Jesus hadn’t accompanied them to shame them for their jubilation, nor had he come to join them in their revelry. No, Jesus walked alongside them to remind them that on that very night, [on this very morning], Osama Bin Laden may, very well be, in heaven. Not because what he did is in anyway ok, or in any way understandable, but because he can be redeemed. Because whether you are as far removed from God as Osama Bin Laden or Mohamar Qaddaffi or as close to God as Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King, we are all children of God, capable of great good, capable of great evil and always open to redemption.

Osama Bin Laden was a child of God who strayed far from God, so far that—he didn’t, or couldn’t, find his way back to God in this life--but who, upon his death, was given one more chance to head back toward the light and love of God. Back to God, back to goodness, back to the Child of God he was and is and will always be.

His journey back, if he chooses to take it, will be long and it will be painful, but it is a road that’s open to him, just as it’s open to all of us.

It’s not a comfortable thought is it? I hope we all have the fortitude and the faith to hear it.

I hope I’d have the guts to preach this in front of a congregation full of people who lost loved ones on 9/11. Because if I can’t do that then I haven’t learned a thing in almost 50 years of being a God loving, Christ adoring, Holy Spirit embracing Christian.

The fact of the matter is that being a Christian, following the teachings of Jesus, isn’t easy. It’s difficult to love people, to forgive them, to accept that God is an all loving all forgiving God who doesn’t rejoice in acts of vengeance, who doesn’t consider anyone hopeless and who offers redemption to everyone, no matter how heinous their crimes, no matter how undeserving we may think they are. Walking the walk of Christ can be a tough and confusing journey, but as long as we come to this altar each week, ready to be fed and willing to have our eyes opened, then it’s a journey we all can complete. +