Go. Tell. Easter Sunday, 2019

The Women Went. They Saw. They Told. They Believed. Easter Sunday 2019

+Alleluia He Is Risen!

Alleluia He is Alive!

Alleluia the strife is o’er!

Alleluia, Easter has come again!

 “So what?” 

“So What” is the response of most people in the world. The mystery of the incarnation, the miracles of Jesus’ ministry, the laments of Lent, the emotional journey through Holy Week holds little or no meaning for a great portion of the world. Heck, relatively few Episcopalians attend Holy Week services. Most people prefer the new life of resurrection without going through the agony of Maundy Thursday, the despair of Good Friday and the emptiness of Holy Saturday.

 So, so what….what do these shouts of Alleluia REALLY mean? What does this account of events over 2000 years ago in a land half way across the globe mean for us, here, in 2019 In Buffalo NY?  At St. Matthew’s Church?

What DOES it all mean?

 Well, to understand—I mean to really wrestle with this question--- we need to look back. Back to that breaking dawn 2000 years ago, on a hill just outside of town, when Mary Magdalene—so long misunderstood and misrepresented---screwed up her courage and went to finish the anointing she began three days before…for the very least she could do for this man she loved, this God she revered, this leader she followed, was to give him a proper burial.

 And so, through the lightening sky of the First Easter morn, she walks out of town and up Calvary’s hill to The Tomb.

 It was a foolish mission—after all, the tomb had been sealed—she’d watched Joseph of Arimathea roll the stone himself. But Mary soldiered on, not because this made sense, but because she was compelled, driven, drawn to that tomb—against all common sense, against all reasonableness, against all propriety,

Mary went.

Mary saw.

Mary told.

And yes, Mary believed.

 THIS is what it all means. This is what we’re called to do. It’s in this—the emulating of Mary of Magdala—where we find the meaning of these alleluias, the meaning of this Easter Sunday come again:

The women believed. All the Mary’s did—you see in all of the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection one thing is clear: the men—Peter, James, John and countless others fled.

They left. They ran. They denied. They hid.

They even betrayed.

But the women—Mary, the mother, Mary of Magdala, Joanna, Mary Clopas, Salome and others unnamed, stayed. From the foot of the cross to the mouth of the tomb, they stayed. They watched, they waited, they wondered.

They believed.

These women did what women have been doing for millennia: they did what needed to be done.

They did what needed to be done while the men argued, betrayed and denied.

The women? They took care of business.

Just as we should.

  You see, that’s the meaning for us, here in 2019 in Buffalo NY in this church on this Easter morning:  we need to take care of business; the business of the empty tomb.

We need to follow the mandate Jesus gave us around the dinner table on that very first Holy Thursday—we are to do unto others as Jesus did unto us: we are to Love as we have been Loved.

 You see, the empty tomb isn’t about a miraculous resurrection.

The empty tomb is about going and telling, going and doing, going and being.

Jesus tells Mary—“don’t hold onto me: go and tell my brothers”—

Go and Tell. Go and Show. Go and Believe.

 So, my friends, I have news for you: Easter isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.

By virtue of Jesus’ death and resurrection, by virtue of our Lord’s mandate to love others as we’ve been loved, we must follow Mary’s example.

We must go and see.

We must believe and tell.

We must do what needs to be done:

Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted.

We must challenge the status quo, we must ask the tough questions, we must pursue righteousness in all things.

We must, above all else, demand dignity for every single human being , no exceptions.

Because when we do that, we’re loving as we’ve been—as we are---loved.

Because when we do that we’re going and seeing, we’re believing and telling—

 we are doing what must be done.

And that is our Easter task. It is our Christian task.

Alleluia.

The Lord is Risen , indeed.+

Never an Idle Tale

+An idle tale. This was the apostles’ reaction to the women who announce the Resurrection. It was outrageous, absurd, ridiculous and unbelievable. Angels saying that the Lord was raised—that he was alive? No way.

The apostles saw the crucifixion, they witnessed the hasty burial. They knew dead when they saw it and Jesus was definitely dead.

Can’t you hear them— “Poor women, they’re so overcome with grief their minds are playing tricks on them.” But really, who can blame them?

Let’s face it; this whole Resurrection thing is pretty difficult to imagine, to understand. To accept.

How many of us deep down (or maybe not so deep down) wonder if this, the miracle of Jesus’ Resurrection, isn’t after all, simply an idle tale?

He was dead and now he’s not? Let’s be clear, this was a return to life after complete and utter death, up to and including burial and the sealing of a tomb. 

Go ahead, try and explain this to someone who has no understanding of the Christian faith---at best you’ll sound confused, at worst, you’ll sound insane.

I have no doubt that there are people here tonight who find this entire thing, an idle tale. 

But the truth is, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, his defeat of death, ISN’T an idle tale, it isn’t a story; it’s the definitive narrative of our faith.

The Resurrection is completely true--

AND  impossible to explain.

 It’s impossible to explain because we aren’t supposed to explain it--it isn’t some concept to master, it isn’t some theorem to prove.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: a man arrested, tortured, killed and buried may be impossible  to prove…

…But it’s not impossible to believe. And believing, rather than proving, is what faith is all about. This is where people get hung up. They want to figure it all out before saying that they believe, they want all the answers before they commit.

To little Oliver, who we’ll baptize in a few moments and whom I have the distinct honor of sponsoring, I’d like to say this:

That’s not how faith works, buddy.

Faith doesn’t ask for proof and faith doesn’t expect lock-step adherence.

Faith can’t be explained, faith can’t be proven, faith can’t be diagramed.

Faith can only be lived.

Faith is a journey, a journey filled with steps….some small, some giant, some forward and some back.

Everyone’s faith journey, including yours little man,  is chock full of fits and starts, ups and downs, good times and bad.

It’s normal to doubt, to question, to wonder. 

       Just ask Jesus’ closest friends. 

The apostles believed in Jesus and then, they didn’t. Peter proclaimed Jesus as Lord and Savior and then denied him three times. Thomas followed Jesus faithfully for three years but missed Jesus’ initial resurrection appearances so he---a man who had seen the miracles of Jesus up close and personal-- refused to believe the resurrection until he placed his own fingers into the wounds of Jesus.

Oliver, everyone has doubts now and again.

It’s difficult for people with questions to feel comfortable in church because they mistakenly assume that us “regulars” have all the answers, that our way is steady and sure. It isn’t! We doubt, we wonder, we worry. We wrestle with our faith each and every week. But we don’t give up, we persevere, we slog ahead and bit by bit, step by step, we start to get it.

After hearing from the women, Peter ran to the tomb and seeing it empty, he started to get it. And then, when the disciples saw Jesus, wounds and all, they understood some more. The more they encountered Jesus, the more their faith was strengthened.

Belief in the resurrection came to Jesus’ most ardent and loyal followers step by step.

Belief in Jesus isn’t a one-time event and faith in his teachings doesn’t come to us in one neat little package.

Belief and Faith don’t have on/off buttons.

Faith operates more like a dimmer switch.

There are days when the light of faith burns brightly and fully in our hearts and minds and souls. There are other days, other moments in time, when the light of faith darkens…there are times when our faith is reduced to the embers of a long ago burning fire.

Faith isn’t linear, it isn’t straightforward---our faith is a moveable, ever changing, always evolving thing.

Martin Luther King Jr said:

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase to take the first step.” You take a step and then you take another.

To Oliver and all gathered here tonight:

The point isn’t to get to the top of the staircase faster than anyone else.

The point is to start the climb, one step at a time.

So regardless of whether your faith journey is just beginning as it is for Oliver or whether you’ve been following Christ for your entire life, I have an invitation for you….

Step up and step out in faith because the miracle of Jesus’ empty tomb, the wonder of Jesus’ complete defeat of death, the amazement of the Easter miracle is yours for the taking. So, grab ahold and start on your way because your journey of faith—-no matter how many fits and starts, detours and doubts it contains, will never ever be an idle tale. And to that we can only say:

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia and Amen.+

Holy Saturday

Jesus has descended to the dead. So we never have too, 

 Holy Saturday 2019

Mary Oliver writes: 

Someone I loved once gave me

A box full of darkness

It took me years to understand 

That this, too, was a gift

(Mary Oliver, “The Uses of Sorrow”)

Yes, friends this day of darkness. This day of absence is indeed a gift. 

Jesus is dead. He’s been laid in the tomb. He’s descended to the dead.

And this is good news. 

     Surely disbelief filled all those who loved him.

Peter plagued by his guilt of being the denier.

Judas dead by his own hand.

The beloved disciple, wracked with grief.

Mary of Magdala, inconsolable.

And then there’s his mother. Is there a pain worse than that of a parent who has lost a child?

Where is the Good News in that?

It is all so sad.

      But this morning we aren’t here to lament, we aren’t here to weep, we aren’t here to mourn.

No, we gather this morning to marvel at Jesus. Not at his miracles, his stirring rhetoric, his parables. No, we gather in our quiet exhaustion to marvel at Jesus the man. For today Jesus has made the most human of journeys. 

Jesus has plunged into the depths of death. He’s fallen into the abyss of nothingness, of desolation and of loneliness guaranteeing that we’ll never be alone. Because with his descent into the depths of death Jesus has been everywhere we will ever go.

    Think about it. Feeling abandoned? Jesus has been there. Spit upon? Jesus has been there. Denied by your own? Jesus has been there. Raged in frustration? Jesus has been there. 

Jesus, on this Holy Saturday looks death square in the eye and says, “no

more will death be a thing to fear, a thing to worry about, a thing to hate.” For on this day Jesus blows the gates off of death, escorting all who went before from eternal darkness into eternal light. And he did this for us. For you. And for me. 

Never again do we have to feel the loneliness of Mary. Never again do we have to feel the abandonment experienced by Job. Never again will we be shrouded in the darkness of Jonah. Never again will we wail our laments alone. Because today Jesus has filled the last of our emptiness, today Jesus has plummeted himself into the abyss of darkness, despair and death so that each of us, when we inevitably fall into those dark spaces of our minds, into those hells of our humanity, into the depths of grief, will not be alone. 

Jesus has been there. And Jesus remains there.

For Jesus, the son of the living God, the Word made

flesh, the author of our salvation, has been to the heights and the depths of our human existence.

Today, in the quiet solitude of this day of rest, be comforted in knowing that even as his body lies in the tomb, Jesus is with us. Tomorrow, next week, next month or next year when you feel the desolation of pain, the fear of abandonment or the despair of grief, know that you are not alone for Jesus, our Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, has been there too and will not, no matter how much we resist Him, abandon us. So today, our box of darkness is being turned into good news indeed.

Amen.

Two separate homilies at two separate "Last Seven Words" Liturgies:Father Forgive Them....St Philip's; It is Finished, St. David's, West Seneca

Father Forgive Them For They Do Not Know What They’re Doing Good Friday Noon. St Philip’s 2019

The first words Jesus utters from the agony of the cross are these: “Father Forgive Them For they Do Not Know what they are doing.”
Jesus is right. When caught up in a mob mentality, when the rage of a crowd takes on scary proportions, we do not realize what we’re doing.
Good Friday is a perfect example of this:
You see here’s the thing about the crucifixion—-we can’t sit smugly by and think, “those bad Temple authorities, those awful Romans, those clueless disciples…not me I wouldn’t have done that.” But here’s the thing:
Of course you would have. Of course I would have. We would, we do.
All the time.
The French theologian Rene Girard made an entire career writing about how we scapegoat others as a way of making ourselves feel secure. There is a base human desire to take all our insecurities, fears, doubt and dump it on the “other.” The “other” is usually the one who doesn’t look like us, love like us, worship like us and/or vote like us. We do this not because what the “other” is doing is wrong, we do this because what the “other “ is doing is something we don’t understand, it’s unfamiliar and challenging. What we know, what has always been, what is familiar….when that is challenged, we get scared.
And when we get scared we look to off load that fear on another—a scapegoat.
So back to Jesus. He knew he was a scapegoat. He knew that the message he was preaching—you know love everybody even those, especially those you’re not that crazy about—-was threatening to the Empire, it was threatening to the Temple Authorities, it was threatening to those who had not yet opened themselves to Jesus’ teachings. It was even threatening to those who loved him.   Jesus knew that his message challenged everything anyone had ever known. And he knew that eventually he would need to pay for this message…not because he failed, but because changing the way we think, act and feel takes generations and he was running out of time….however, he had one final act, one more shot at getting his message through our thick heads...the crucifixion.
By being on that cross Jesus took  all the hatred and evil and fear of this world onto himself. He eliminated the need for scapegoats! But we, not unlike the disciples, aren’t so quick on the uptake!
 So Jesus continues to offer himself on our behalf, each and every time we celebrate the Eucharist. . By engaging in Eucharist, by laying our burdens at the foot of the cross, we’re freed from all that weighs us down allowing us to be resist the desire to scapegoat and open ourselves to doing the work we’ve been given to do—-feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bring justice to all the world.
However, and this is what Jesus knows as he asks God to forgive us…we get sidetracked, we listen to the voices of this world, we let the fear of THIS WORLD hijack our faith and we fall back into doubt and fear and hate  and scapegoating. We do not know why we do this, we often don’t even know that we are doing it, we don’t think we know how to not do it . And yet—each and every time we lay these burdens down upon this altar—we’re forgiven. Because God knows, as Jesus knew, that when we forget to focus on the lessons of Jesus, the love of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit…when we instead stay focused on this world and all the jealousy and fear and intolerance within it, we do not know what it is we are doing…And so God forgives us:  Again and again and again.
But wouldn’t it be nice, wouldn’t we be doing our Lord a great favor if,
the next time we find ourselves listening to the voices of those around us, of the crowd, of the mob, of the people of this world, we were to come to our senses and  finally—-finally—know what it is we’re doing and, once and for all, stop it?
May we take these words of our Lord on the cross and etch them upon our hearts remembering that life defeats death, light overcomes darkness and love? Love always and forevermore defeats hate. May the words of our Lord, his act of total self-giving upon that cross  strengthen and embolden us to do what it is we need to do, to do what it is we must do: Love one another just as we have been loved. Amen.

*********************************************************************************

It is Finished. St David's West Seneca

 Those of us gathered here this afternoon know that Easter always follows Good Friday, that joy returns after despair, that hope defeats fear and that out of death comes glorious, glorious life.

 But on this most holy of afternoons, during these three hours of darkness, it isn’t Easter yet. Death hasn’t been defeated, Pain is very real and the Savior of our world; our Teacher, our Hope, our Lord and our God has been nailed to a cross and life—his beautiful precious human life---is slipping out of his body. He’s in agony, he’s scared, he’s weakening. It looks---it feels as if  the empire has won and that the joy, hope and life of the babe born in the manger has been utterly, thoroughly and completely defeated. That the love and light of Jesus has been snuffed out and the hate and darkness of tyranny has won.

 But….and thank God for this BUT….our faith, the Faith given to us through the prophets of old, the Faith taught to us by the prophets of the not so recent past, give us this absurd trust that death does not, and never will have the final word.

     So when Jesus says “It is Finished,” it’s not a cry of defeat, it’s as scholars have said for generations, a proclamation of victory.

Jesus was proclaiming that his work as God taking on the flesh of this world, as the man Jesus, was finished. 

And while that makes sense to me----haven’t you ever finished a long and painful task and although exhausted and maybe even in pain, you’re able to look at what you’ve accomplished and say, with satisfaction, “It is Finished!”-I have done all I can do ---I can’t help but “hear” these words of Jesus as being tinged with less triumph than scholars would lead us to believe.

    Look around the scene---everyone but a handful of women and the beloved disciple have abandoned Him---Judas has betrayed, Peter denied and the others? They’ve slipped into the temple crowds, hiding as best they can, denying all that has been, securing their place back into the status quo…with all that going on how can Jesus feel victorious?

Yes, his earthly life is coming to an end: he’s taught all he could teach, he’s healed all he could heal, he’s frustrated the temple authorities to the very end--- but the work?

The challenges to tyranny, the commandment to love one another, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the broken-hearted…. that work?

It’s so very far from finished.

Yes there is work yet to be done—the tyrannies of our own lives, the losses, the fears, the burdens, the worries, the grief, all must be dismantled. 

The tyrannies of our world: intolerance, hate, hopelessness, must be challenged until they too are trampled beneath the glory of the kingdom of God come to reign here on earth. 

This work is our work. This work has been left to us by Jesus and our job, our one and only job from this day forward is to tackle this work emboldened by the witness of Jesus of Nazareth. We must tackle this work with the steely eyed focus of Jesus who refused to be sucked into the world around him but instead, kept his sure and certain focus on the paradise which awaited him and awaits us all. 

And so, on this Good Friday, we must admit that this work—this good and holy work— is not finished and will not be finished, will not be complete—the victory of God will not be won until: 

the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the lonely loved, the shunned welcomed, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding is available to everyone, everywhere, always. 

It isn’t easy work, it isn’t popular work, it often feels like impossible work. But as long as we call ourselves followers of Christ, as long as we proclaim Jesus as Lord, it is our work. 

And there is so much of it to be done. But be not afraid, for as we will hear from Jesus as he prepares to ascend to his rightful place in heaven—he will be with us always. In everything, until the end of the age. 

So my friends, let us get busy, may this work, this good and holy and necessary work be finished by us and through us, so that the dream of God, seemingly shattered upon that cross will, once and for all, be fulfilled.

Because then and only then will it truly be…finished. Amen. 

Maundy Thursday 2019 St Peter's Eggertsville

+In tonight’s Gospel Jesus is tired. He’s scared. He’s had his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, things have been set in motion…it’s all happening so fast. And His friends aren’t getting it.
He needs them to get it.
So, after sharing a meal with his friends, after realizing that one of them will betray him, another will deny him and still others will just try to forget him, Jesus tries ONE MORE TIME to get his message across. The message of interdependence, the message of the last shall be first, the first shall be last. The message of “we’re all in this together” and if one of the least of us is struggling then we all stop, go back and bring the least along with us.
The only way we—meaning CIVILIZATION—can move forward, the only way we can get close to the image God has for us is to serve each other…in all things and at all times.
 You see until we see each other—REALLY see each other, we won’t make much progress with this peace on earth thing—-this God loves everyone everywhere no exceptions thing—-this “as I have served you you must serve others in my name” thing.
To really see the other we must be vulnerable with them.
Which is why, traditionally, we have washed each other’s feet on this holy night.
But somewhere along the way, our cultural norms made taking off our socks and our shoes far too intimate, far too personal. It made us feel far too exposed. And so folks stopped attending Maundy Thursday services.
Now there are all sorts of theological arguments as to why not washing feet is a problem. But I don’t think tonight is a night to make some theological point. I think tonight is the night for us to —-in the way that is accessible to most of us—-to take Jesus’ message that we can only be  a part of Him is we serve others—-to heart.
So, tonight we’ll wash hands, not feet. For only in being willing to serve one another will we bring God’s dream to reality for only by “being in this together” will we be able to move our world from dog eat dog, one upmanship, mistrust and anger to a world of companionship, collaboration, trust and love.
Tomorrow you’ll hear Jesus exclaim, It is Finished, but the truth of the matter is that while Jesus’ time on earth was finished, the work he came to do, the work he started and the work he left for us to do is not finished.
So tonight we wash each other’s hands saying, “love others as you yourself are loved” in an effort to start such a chain reaction of love and light that the darkness and hate so dominant in this world will once and for all, be defeated.
By washing each other’s hands we’re making an outward and visible sign of an internal and invisible fact: we are God’s beloved and our job, as long as we take breath, is to make sure that all whom we encounter, in all we do and wherever we go, know that they too are cherished, beloved, and redeemed children of God. For when we do that? Well when we do that we will change this world. Amen.

We Walk with Him Because He Walks with Us Palm/Passion Sunday 2019

We Walk with Him Because He Walks with Us Palm/Passion Sunday 2019

Welcome to the most manic-depressive day in the church year

From Hosannas to Crucify Him

From I will follow you to the grave and beyond to “I do not know the man”

From “we’ve got your back Jesus” to the disciples literally falling asleep on the job

From Triumphal Palm Parade to hanging on a cross alongside the most despised of criminals.

From the brightness of glorious light, to the depths of deepest darkness.

This day is tough. 

This day is painful

This day is depressing

And this day….and the more extended replay that makes up this most Holy of weeks…is absolutely necessary for us. We cannot relish in the miracle of the empty tomb without trudging through the reality of the disappointment, betrayal, denial, hate-fueled violence and utter despair of these next few days. Why? Because our lives are not lived on the mountaintop only, but also in the valleys.

As Bishop Sean mentioned in his sermon at last week’s service at the Cathedral—- we must accept that life is full of mountaintop glory and valleys of darkness, of He is Risen and of CRUCIFY him. 

You see in Holy Week we experience the fullness of this life, the fullness of what we—humanity—-deal with and are capable of. It’s the whole point of the incarnation—played out in intense technicolor truth: God came to be among us, in the person of Jesus Christ, to experience the absolute totality of human existence—from the vulnerability of infancy, to the depths of despair in Gethsemene and to the passage from death and degradation into eternal life. Jesus came to walk this walk and to lead us through that final step of our mortal journey—moving from death into eternal life. Folks, we don’t get to the light without the dark. So to those who say—“I can’t stand Holy Week, I can’t stand the sadness and the brutality and the horror of all that happened—-we are an Easter people, right? Let’s just stay in the brightness and light of new life and forget the rest,” I say:

We can’t. We mustn’t. We shouldn’t. 

For Jesus Christ came to be among us fully. And we need to be with him fully as well. That means shouting Hosanna and accepting that we also shout Crucify Him. It means saying we will never abandon him and then falling asleep. It means saying we will follow him to his death and then proclaiming, I don’t know the man. It means begging him to bring us into his kingdom and realizing that he will, in spite of all we’ve done and left undone. 

Yes, today is a bit jarring in its change of mood. 

Our job, as best as we can fulfill it, is to relish in the joy, experience the despair and walk the walk of Jesus of Nazareth knowing that there is no darkness, no pain, no abandonment and no terror that we experience in our life that our Lord and Savior hasn’t experienced as well. For God so loved the world God came to be among us in the person of Jesus Christ so that neither we nor he need ever be alone. 

So welcome to Holy Week, walk this walk with Jesus just as he has, just as he is and just as he always will, walk with us. Amen.