Good Friday - April 14

The Real Cross

We have all seen so many crosses.  In the church, in jewelry.  There are so many different kinds and different shapes.

But I’ve never seen a real cross.  A crucifixion cross.  I don’t mean something in the movies or even a replica.  A real cross actually used for crucifixion.  I’ve never seen a real cross.  Probably you have not, either.

A real cross.

Big, crude, covered with and smelling of God knows what.

With a dying man hanging on it.  And some other crosses with other condemned men hanging near by.

This day, Good Friday, challenges us to face, to experience, that cross.  To stand close enough to touch and feel it, to smell it.  To be so close that we really can’t see anything else around or beyond the cross.

And this service brings us there.  The Good Friday service brings us face to face with a real cross and Jesus crucified on it.

And THEN, standing there, we say:  We glory in your cross, O Lord, and praise and glorify your holy resurrection; for by virtue of your cross joy has come to the whole world.

This day brings us to the horror of the cross and then we proclaim glory and praise.  The challenge for us, as Christians today, is to see THAT cross as a source of joy.  To see the harsh, brutal, real cross as the source of joy for the whole world.

John’s Gospel, which we read on Good Friday, doesn’t describe what happened at the moment of Jesus’ death, but Matthew, whom we heard on Sunday says: The earth shook, and the rocks were split.  This service brings us close enough to feel the earth shake.  And then…

But just as the brutal cross is a source of joy, the earthquake is a source of renewal.  Easter renewal is not about the daffodils of spring; it is about the earthquake.

Today we stand close enough to the real cross to hear and see Jesus breath his last.  To die a real death.  Only then can we see new life triumph over death.

Maundy Thursday - April 13

God's Commitment

The reason we call this day Maundy Thursday is a bit of church trivia.   But it also helps us focus on part of the meaning of this day.

“Maundy” is a shortened, Anglicized version of the Latin mandatum, command.  It comes from Jesus’ words at the end of today’s Gospel reading from John:  A new commandment I give to you.  Mandatum novum.  A new commandment I give you:  That you love one another as I have loved you.  It’s associated with Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

Love.  I’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating.  When the Bible talks about love it doesn’t mean affection.  It means a way of acting.  Or, in a way I heard it described this week.  It’s a commitment.  Love in the Bible is not a feeling, it’s a commitment.

Bonhoffer describes that commitment:   love… is the will to enter into and to keep community with others.

Jesus’ command and the focus of this day inspire us to follow Jesus’ example.  But I want to focus on God’s commitment.  When we talk about God’s love for us, it is commitment we’re talking about.  That commitment is what the whole Triduum is about.  God acting out God’s commitment to us through Jesus.  So for at least a bit, let’s worry less  about what we should be doing and focus on what God actually does.

God goes to extraordinary efforts to be with us.  To enter into and keep community with us.  To be close to us.  Think about the foot washing!  Knowing what he knows, Jesus chooses to wash the feet of his disciples, including Judas.  God knows what Jesus felt at that time, but it’s hard to image that it was affection.  But he touched.  Cleansed.  Served.  Because he was committed.

This is what commitment in action looks like. 

And the Eucharist, of course, is God’s ongoing commitment to be in community/communion with us.  On Maundy Thursday we also always hear about Jesus establishing the New Covenant, setting in motion a way to keep God’s commitment to us after Jesus’ death.  Jesus creates a holy, mystical, eternal community shared with God, and invites us into it.

We give thanks for that community in the prayer we say after the Eucharist;

Eternal God, heavenly Father,
you have graciously accepted us as living members
of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ…

Remember, God’s love for us isn’t a feeling.  It isn’t affection that we must earn or live up to.  It is a commitment.  An unswerving commitment.  To us.  To be with us.  To do more for us than we can ask or imagine.  Nothing WE can do will shake God’s commitment to us.  God has shown us that.  Again.  And again.  And again…

Palm Sunday - April 9

Palm Sunday Processions
Matthew 21:1-11

We just heard the story of Jesus’ passion:  his so-called trial and crucifixion.  It’s a powerful story.  And for us as Christians entering into Holy Week, the events of Jesus passion lie just ahead.  We can see the cross on the horizon.  On Friday we will be at the foot of the cross.

But today is also Palm Sunday, the day on which we remember Jesus’ festive and triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  We heard that portion of Matthew’s Gospel as we began our own Palm Sunday procession at the outdoor altar.

From Matthew:  The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!"  When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?" The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."

The other Gospel writers give similar accounts of a great and festive event with large crowds cheering Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

I want to share with you one Biblical scholar’s commentary on Matthew’s account of the triumphal entry (Douglas R. A. Hare, Interpretation Commentary):

It is improbable that Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem manifested as open a claim to kingship as Matthew’s account suggests.  Had a large crowd publicly acclaimed Jesus as their king, the Roman garrison would have promptly cooled the messianic ardor.  Moreover, there would have been no difficulty in securing witnesses for a Jewish trial.  This does not mean that we must consider the incident as created (rather than interpreted) [by the gospel writer].  It is probable, however, that the demonstration was on such a small scale that it failed to attract public attention.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was on such a small scale that it failed to attract public attention.  Jesus’ actual procession into Jerusalem was probably more like our Palm Sunday procession, than like the grand event we usually picture.  It was small, quiet.  Basically unnoticed.  The participants were just a few of his most devoted followers.

Jerusalem at the time was busy, preoccupied with other things.

Years ago I read a clever essay about Jesus’ birth titled: “Not in the news.”  It is written in the style of a newspaper account and describes all of the things that were going on at the time of Jesus’ birth.  Jesus’ birth did not make the news.  Similarly, Jesus’ trial and death weren’t even a blip in the news of the day.  Other than later Christian writings, and a brief, passing reference in Josephus, there is no mention of Jesus’ death in the historical record.  It failed to attract public attention.

Matthew, and the other gospel writers, describe how it should have been when the Messiah entered the holy city Jerusalem.  They describe what should have happened when the King came into his own.  Great crowds should have dropped everything to gather in exuberant, joyful acclaim.  Hosanna! All glory, laud and honor to thee redeemer king, to whom the lips of children make sweet hosannas ring.

It’s Holy Week.  Jesus is coming again.  What sort of Palm Sunday will it be for you?

Are you too busy?  Preoccupied with other important things?  Indifferent to the Messiah’s arrival?

Or will you drop everything to sing and shout for joy?  Will you lay aside other activities to join the crowd that cheers and follows Jesus?

Good Friday - March 25

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The Power of God

The Gospel accounts are not consistent about what terrestrial or celestial events accompanied Jesus’ crucifixion.  Things like the darkening of the sun…

John, whom we always read on Good Friday, doesn’t mention anything.  But, of course, John was written a good bit later and is considerably more interpretative and less historical than the synoptic gospels.  John is also more pointedly critical of “the Jews.”  It took time for the early Christians to perceive the Jews as “other” and therefore available for blame.

We have no way of knowing for sure what happened to the world when Jesus was crucified.  But Matthew, Mark and Luke all recount very significant effects.

Matthew’s list is the most comprehensive:

The sun darkened.

The curtain of the temple was torn in two.

The earth shook and the rocks were split.

Graves were opened.

Everyone would have noticed.  A fairly small group of people would have actually witnessed Jesus’ death.  And even his closest followers couldn’t have really begun yet to understand what it meant. 

And yet, the Gospel writers are telling us that Jesus’ death on the cross affected everyone and, literally, every thing.  Everyone would have noticed that something monumental was happening to their world.

Things which they thought were absolutely solid, unchangeable or secure...  all of a sudden were not.  The light of the sun.  The stability of the earth.  Even the temple itself.  Were shown to be perishable, changeable.

Only the cross was secure, where God’s power, greater than any other power, was being revealed. 

Later St. Paul would write:  For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18).

God’s power, in the message of the cross, wasn’t to be fully revealed until Easter.  But Good Friday and the crucifixion certainly should have gotten people’s attention…  Wake them up to the earth-shattering, soul-shattering significance of what is happening.  What happened at Golgotha was an event more powerful than the light of the sun, more powerful than the solid rock on which we stand, more powerful even than the temples we build to house God.

Today we know (or say that we know) that Jesus’ death was earth-shaking, soul-searing, yet we rarely treat it as such.  We place our security elsewhere.  In things that seem to us secure.  Rather than in the power of God, made known on the cross.

Maundy Thursday - March 24

What Does Jesus Want to do for You?

It is only in hindsight that we really recognize the monumental significance of the event we commemorate tonight.

It was Passover, but really just another Passover.  For Jesus and his disciples they would have celebrated many Passovers in their lives.  And this was not the first that they had celebrated together.

For us it’s a Thursday.  Just a Thursday.  We’ve been taught that it’s Maundy Thursday, but it’s Thursday.  Many of you were at work today, doing what you always do at work.  Some of you are missing your favorite Thursday evening TV shows tonight.

I’m thinking about how the extraordinary events that we commemorate today break into regular ordinary lives.  They come unexpectedly in the midst of routine activities.

A traditional, routine Passover supper becomes the institution of the New Covenant.  What the disciples had always done become something they had never done before when Jesus said: This is my Body, This is my Blood.

And the foot washing was completely unexpected.  Jesus down on his hands and knees like a serving girl washing the disciples’ feet.  Out of no where.  Jesus the servant.

And, in a way, that’s lesson enough.  On a night when we might be watching reruns on TV or the usual scurrying to get kids to activities or just crashing tired from work…  On an ordinary Thursday night Jesus shows up.

But at a diocesan event this week Bishop Lee gave us another way to look at this event.

Peter didn’t want to be served.  Probably for much the same reasons most of you won’t come forward to have your feet washed.  You don’t like being served.  It’s awkward.  If my feet need washing (which they don’t; thank you very much), I’ll wash them myself!  I’m just not into the foot washing thing.

But.  It’s not about you, Peter.  It’s not about you!  It’s not about what you want.  Clearly.  You don’t want your feet washed.  It’s also not about what you need.  It’s not as though Peter’s feet needed to be washed and Jesus volunteered.  Jesus wasn’t really “serving” Peter, this line of thought goes.  It wasn’t about serving Peter’s needs.

We talk a lot about servant-hood on Maundy Thursday, and that’s definitely one (maybe the best) interpretation of this event.  Jesus models humble servant-hood.  Jesus does say that in John’s Gospel, that we are to serve one other as he serves us.  But not because Peter needed (or wanted) to be served.  Maybe it was about Jesus.  Maybe it was about what Jesus wanted to do for Peter.  Jesus wasn’t responding to Peter’s need, but was proactively doing what he wanted to do for Peter.  Serving is what Jesus wanted to do for Peter and the disciples.  It’s about what Jesus wanted to do.

What does Jesus want to do for you?  It’s a big question.  Not the same question as: what do you need.  Not the same question as:  What do you want Jesus to do for you, even if that’s a noble desire. It’s not about you!!!  It’s about Jesus.  Who Jesus is.  What Jesus wants.  What does Jesus want to do for you?

• Jesus wants wholeness and holiness for each of us.
• But he also wants us to be apostles.  To get off our backsides and on our feet…  To share the Good News.  Maybe that’s why he washed the disciples feet…  To help them focus on sharing the Good News.
• Or maybe he wants to show or share with us something new and wondrous.  Or something new that makes us really uncomfortable.
• Maybe he just wants us to be more open to his touch.
• Maybe he wants to teach us to be more courageous of faith.  To en-courage us in cherishing and proclaiming our faith.

So on an ordinary Thursday, Jesus shows up and says: Here’s what I want to do for you.  Would you let him do it?

Part of what participating in the foot washing is about is training us to remember that it’s not about us.  It’s about Jesus.  It’s about LETTING JESUS DO WHAT JESUS WANTS TO DO.

On this normal Thursday, Jesus shows up wanting to do something for us.

What is it he wants to do for you?  Will you let him?

Wednesday in Holy Week - March 23

Trust Jesus

The Way of the Cross.  It is the Holy Week journey.  As contemporary Christians our worship life this week invites us to experience it with Jesus.  To accompany him through the events of this week as he journeys towards the cross.  Holy Week is not about theology, about the meaning of what happened.  It’s about what happened.  We find our own meaning in experiencing it with Jesus.

It really kicks in tomorrow when we remember the last supper in our Maundy Thursday worship and enact Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples.  Then Friday we literally stand at the foot of the cross.

As you know, I’ve been using the liturgical devotion The Way of the Cross as a starting point for my homilies this week.  More widely known as the Stations of the Cross, in our tradition it is called the Way of the Cross.  Monday and Tuesday, we’ve looked at the Stations that do not have a source in Scripture.

Tonight, we’ll review those stations that are described in the Gospel accounts of Jesus journey to the cross:

Jesus is condemned to death

Jesus takes up his cross

The cross is laid on Simon of Cyrene

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

Jesus is stripped of his garments

Jesus is nailed to the cross

Jesus dies on the cross

Jesus is laid in the tomb

It’s like watching a train wreck.  You see disaster coming, but you can’t stop it.

Or like watching a movie or TV show when you know a character is walking into mortal danger, but you can’t warn them.

There is an inexorable momentum towards the cross.  Towards Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross.  We know that death on the cross lies ahead, but we can’t stop.  Jesus probably knew then what lay ahead, but didn’t stop.  The people who accompanied him then couldn’t have known.

And this devotion, which is the way of the cross, leaves him dead in the tomb.  That’s the end.  Jesus, dead, is laid in the tomb. 

Why would we get on this train that is heading for a train wreck?  Why would we join ourselves to this story that ends with death on a cross and a dark tomb?

I can only think of one reason.  Because we trust Jesus.  Trust.  Because we trust that accompanying Jesus is always the right thing to do.

Now, of course, we know that the story didn’t end at the tomb.  But this devotion, The Way of the Cross, ends with death on the cross.  And maybe part of what it teaches us is to trust Jesus.  Participating in this devotion, walking with Jesus to the cross, teaches us to trust Jesus.  It trains us to trust that accompanying Jesus is always the right thing to do.  Against all the odds, against everything that our senses may be telling us, to trust that Jesus is leading us in the Way that we should go.

Tuesday in Holy Week - March 22

Women on the Way

For the first three days in Holy Week, I am basing my homilies on the devotion that we call the Way of the Cross.  I like this title better than the more common Stations of the Cross, because it emphasizes the journey.  The stations are part of something bigger—the way we all walk this week towards the cross.

As I said yesterday, as early as the fourth century Christian pilgrims processed through the streets of Jerusalem imitating Jesus’ journey towards the cross as a means of personal devotion.  Over the years, this practice has been symbolically adapted locally throughout the world.  By the early 1700’s the number of stations had been regularized at 14.

Six of those 14 stations aren’t mentioned at all in Scripture.  They are the invention of pious folk, born purely out of legend.

Why?  What was missing from the Biblical record that faithful people felt a need to include?

Yesterday I mentioned the three stations that tell of Jesus’ stumbling or falling, illustrating the full humanity of Jesus.

Today, let’s look at the other three: 

Fourth station.  Jesus meets his afflicted mother.

            Sixth station.  A woman wipes the face of Jesus

            Thirteenth station.  The body of Jesus is placed in the arms of his mother.

What was missing from the Biblical record?  Women, apparently.

Women, of course, are mentioned from time to time in the Gospel accounts.  But with one exception, not as part of Jesus’ journey from his trial to his crucifixion. In Luke’s passion Gospel which we heard on Sunday, Jesus laments over the “women of Jerusalem.” "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children,” he says.  This passage occurs only in Luke.  It is the subject of the eighth station.  But the women are only passive recipients of Jesus’ words.   They do not interact with Jesus at all.

Of the three stations where women interact with Jesus, two are about Mary.  It is understandable that Jesus’ relationship with Mary would be embellished and expanded and that the pious would imagine her close accompaniment of Jesus along the way to the cross.  She was loyal, loving and brave.

But the woman who wipes the face of Jesus.  It’s a wonderful and fascinating addition to the story.  There is absolutely not the remotest source for this event in Scripture.  Yet legend has even given her a name, Veronica.  When Jesus falls, she pities him.  She feels compassion for him.  She cares for him.  She wipes his face.  Or, in another telling of the legend, she gives him her veil and he wipes his face and returns the veil bearing his image on it.

She cares for him.  She tries to help him, provide comfort.  His appearance was marred says the devotion for this station.  Yet still she pitied him.  She cared for him.

At a time when others were mocking, condemning, despising, rejecting, taunting, whipping Jesus, she cared for him.

Surely there were others, back then.  Maybe not many, but some, men and women who felt compassion for Jesus, who tried to offer comfort.  Let us remember them as we walk the way of the cross this year.

Monday in Holy Week - March 21

Jesus Falls

Today’s collect mentions walking the way of the cross.  In our Book of Occasional Services, there is a devotion called the Way of the Cross.  It is the Episcopal version of what is often called the Stations of the Cross.  Growing up, I thought only Roman Catholics did the Stations of the Cross, but it actually a widely used devotion.

It began on the streets of Jerusalem as early as the fourth century, as Christian pilgrims sought to trace the path of Jesus as he walked towards Golgotha.  Faithful Christians prayed at stations along that journey, seeking to mark the actual spots where Biblical events took place

The actual locations of those events have been subject to considerable scholarly and church politics debates.  Over the centuries, the number of stations also varied widely.  By the early 1700’s the number and identity of the stations had been fixed at 14.  As you know, many churches have pictorial representations of the stations on the walls to aid in the devotion.  (For it to work, though, you really need side aisles, which we don’t have.  Otherwise, I’m sure Bishop Montgomery would have installed stations here.)

Of the 14 stations, 6 have absolutely no source in Scripture.  Their source is purely pious legend.  Our devotion indicates that we can omit those three if we wish.  But perhaps they have something to teach us.  They have met a need for faithful Christians for centuries. 

Of the six stations which describe events that are not mentioned in Scripture, three of the six describe Jesus falling.  Jesus stumbling and falling along the way.

To this day, there is considerable variation in the prayers or meditations associated with each of the stations.  Several Roman Catholic versions I found online link Jesus falling with the weight of our sins.  It is the burden of carrying our sins that bears down upon him and causes him to stumble.

Alternatively, in the prayers associated with these stations in our tradition, the emphasis is on Jesus’ humanity.  Jesus has willingly taken on human weakness and frailty.  Because he is fully human, he stumbles as he struggles along a very difficult journey.

It is because Jesus is like us that we may hope to be like him.  

These stations illustrate the holiness of stumbling.  If the holy one stumbles, then our weak stumbling may be holy, too.  They show Jesus humility in fully taking on human being, so that we who are human may come to take on him divinity.

Because Jesus is like us, even in our frailty and weakness, we may hope to be like him.  The Jesus who stumbles and falls is the Jesus who dies on the cross.  The human Jesus who stumbles and falls is the Jesus who is raised to new life.  And we, who stumble and fall, will be raised, too.

Palm Sunday - March 20

Palm Sunday:  Welcoming Jesus

Luke 19:28-40

Several of the names or themes that we associate with this day seem a bit odd.  We call it Palm Sunday, of course.  And yet there is no mention of palms at all in the synoptic Gospels.  In Luke, which we heard this morning, plants aren’t even mentioned.  The people laid the cloaks on the colt for Jesus to ride and on the roadway ahead of him.  Matthew says that they cut branches to place on the road.  In Mark, they are “leafy” branches, but no palms.  John does mention palms, but John is the least “historical” of the Gospels, so it’s hard to say.

We also talk about this day as the day on which we commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  The Palm Sunday story is the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry.

But many scholars and commentators note that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was, in fact, the opposite of triumphant.  Think about what triumphant means.  It means victorious.  To triumph is to conquer.  To be triumphant you have to be triumphant over someone or something.  We do speak of triumphing over hardship, but more commonly it means winning an athletic or military or political battle.  Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was anything but triumphant.

In contrast, Pilate, who represented a triumphant government would have arrived in Jerusalem about the same time.  He did not live in Jerusalem, but would have traveled there to be present during Passover representing the Roman government that had triumphed over the Jews.  And his entry would have been triumphant.  Riding on a noble steed, surrounded by embodied power and military might.

Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem was a humble entry.  Riding a young colt, bareback, his feet probably dangling near the ground, surrounded by a ragtag group of disciples.  Jesus’ actions as he entered Jerusalem were not triumphant.

Jesus’ so-called triumphal entry has always been less about Jesus’ actions and more about the people welcoming him.  It’s about how they felt about his entrance into their city, into their lives.  And they cheered with joy.

At least they cheered when Jesus entered Jerusalem.  This weird day is actually called Palm Sunday:  The Sunday of the Passion.  It’s Palm Sunday, but the sad pragmatism of the church recognizes that most of you won’t be in church on Good Friday.  So we also read the Passion Gospel today.  So in the span of just about twenty minutes in our worship service, the peoples’ feelings changed from joyful welcome to indifference at best or condemnation at worst as Jesus is condemned and crucified.  All of us probably can identify with a range of feelings along that spectrum from joy to indifferent or condemnation.  For what it’s worth, as a preacher I have always found it easier to conjure up in all of us feelings of guilt or remorse as we accept our culpability for Jesus on the cross than I have to inspire those Palm Sunday feelings of exuberant welcome.

Jesus was hailed, Luke says, for his deeds of power.  That might sound like Jesus had something to be triumphant about.  But think about what the acts of power Jesus had performed during his life and ministry.  He healed people.  He brought peace in the midst of the storm.  Jesus’ power brought healing and peace in the midst of turmoil.

It certainly may be that the people who welcomed him thought or hoped that he would become a triumphant political leader.  We know that didn’t happen.  And that was not the witness of Jesus’ life.  Jesus brought healing and peace.

There is a lot to celebrate on Palm Sunday.  Just think, on this day we don’t have to go searching for Jesus.  We don’t even have to struggle to follow him.  He comes to us.  He comes into our lives, walking down the street right outside.  We just have to welcome him.  With joyful hearts.

Can we do that?  In the midst of everything going on, do we, can we stop to sing and cry out with unbridled joy for one who has humbly come into our lives bringing healing and peace?

Good Friday - April 3

Praise God
Psalm 22

This year in particular I have been troubled with the profound discontinuity between how we refer to the cross and what the cross really was. That discontinuity is captured in one of the collects for Holy Week. “O God by the passion of your Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life.”

It was a cruel and inhumane means of political execution.

But at the same time I can’t get the hymn out of my head “When I survey the wondrous cross.” We call the cross wondrous. In today’s service we venerate it.

The cross itself… Can it be both beautiful, wondrous and horrific?

We revere the cross, of course, because of Easter. Because of what happened later. Jesus’ death on the cross ultimately brought such wondrous results. But that’s looking forward into the future.

But what about today? The day of execution, the day of death. Is the cross wondrous today? As Christians, of course, we are never without Easter. But imagine there had been no Easter. Today a holy man dies. Dies on a cross. (Not “the” cross which has come to signify so much, just “a” cross.) Without Easter is the cross wondrous? Without Easter is there anything good about this day?

In Mark’s account of Jesus’ death (which we heard on Sunday) and in Matthew’s Jesus utters the words of a psalm as he is dying on the cross. Psalm 22, which we just prayed. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

As I’ve been reading William Temple this week, one sentence has stuck with me. Describing participation in worship, he writes: “We join in praise of [God’s] goodness in the Psalms which rise out of every kind of human joy, sorrow, perplexity, anxiety and doubt.”

We join in praise of God’s goodness in the Psalms. I may be stretching Temples’ meaning beyond what he intended when I suggest that psalms are always prayers of praise. Yes, they arise out of the full range of human experience and emotion. The full range. But they always acknowledge and praise God’s holiness, God’s glory, God’s majesty and God’s goodness.

People categorize psalms… There are psalms of praise, royal psalms, psalms of ascent to be prayed when climbing up to the temple, psalms of lament or complaint. Psalm 22 is a psalm of lament. But did you notice how it is full of praise? All psalms are prayers of praise.

God’s holiness. God’s glory. God’s majesty and goodness. These don’t depend upon Jesus’ resurrection.

God’s holiness. God’s glory. God’s majesty and goodness. These don’t depend upon our success or happiness. God is not good and holy only when we feel favored or blessed. The writer or writers of the psalms understood this. In the midst of joy, yes, but also sorrow, perplexity, anxiety, doubt, horror and death, God’s holiness, glory, and goodness are worthy of praise.

God is worthy of praise at all times. Even from the cross.

This is one of the messages of Good Friday. To remind us that God is worthy of our praise. Always. Even in the most horrific or desolate times of our lives. Praise God.

The most important meaning of this day does lie ahead. But in the mean time. In all times, let us praise God.

Maundy Thursday - April 2

Knit Together in Fellowship
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

In the services earlier in Holy Week I’ve been drawing upon the words of William Temple to illustrate practices of holiness. I want to quote Temple again:

When [Jesus’] visible Presence was withdrawn from peoples’ sight, what was left as the fruit of His Ministry? Not a formulated creed, not a body of writings in which a new philosophy of life was expounded, but a group of men and women who found themselves knit together in a fellowship closer than any that they had known, and who became the nucleus of the whole Christian Church.

Sometimes I think that’s all we need to know. That being a fellowship is the primary thing to being a Christian. That following Christ is really all about how we related to one another. Creed, theology, philosophy are all secondary. Focusing on fellowship is particularly apt this evening. All of the things that are particularly associated with Maundy Thursday have to do with fellowship… how we interact with and relate to one another.

It’s probably important right at the beginning to step back and remember that to relate to others, there have to be others. You can’t be a fellowship by yourself. So following Christ means being with others.

The fruit of Jesus’ ministry was a fellowship. The events which we remember on this day were the last time Jesus and his disciples gathered in fellowship. And he did give instruction on how to be that fellowship.

First, as you may know, the name Maundy Thursday is about fellowship. The word Maundy is a shortened, anglicized version of mandatum, the first word in the Latin version of John 13:34.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

We heard that verse in today’s Gospel. In John’s Gospel Jesus says these words shortly after the footwashing at the Last Supper.

It bears repeating over and over again that the sort of love Jesus is talking about is not affection. It is expressed in action. It is expressed in how we act towards one another in fellowship.

And there are two particular actions that are also associated with this day. That Jesus did to express love within the fellowship of his disciples.

They shared a meal. I don’t know if Jesus meant to institute Communion as we now practice it, or not. Surely Communion is a gift of the church to us today. But in fellowship with his disciples, Jesus shared a meal. To share a meal is an act of love (with or without affection). It nurtures and sustains relationships. And the more we share meals, the better. The more Christian fellowship will be strengthened and grow.

The other action that Jesus did to express love within the fellowship of the disciples was to wash their feet. It was an act of service. Not one they asked for, but one they probably needed. It was a tangible, not a symbolic act. It seems a bit odd and awkward to us today, but I wonder if it wasn’t the most universal, obvious need of the disciples. Their feet were dirty from traveling. To wash them was an act of hospitality, but it was also met a genuine need.

When we reenact the footwashing in today’s liturgy a lot of people choose not to participate. Some for better reasons than others. And that’s OK. For us, it is just an optional ritual.

But I think it’s extremely important that we are all reminded that acts of giving and receiving service are how we relate, how we interact within this fellowship of Christ. Service that meets genuine needs is not optional; it’s what we do. We serve the needs of people we like and people we don’t like. We accept service when we need it. That part’s even harder for most of us. But we accept service when we need it. It’s not optional. It’s part of Jesus’ command to be a fellowship that expresses love through service. And the more our interactions are characterized by service, the better.

Maundy Thursday reminds us that the word disciple should not exist in the singular. There is no such thing as “a” disciple. There is “the fellowship” of disciples, bound together by acts of love: shared meals and shared service. Let us pray that we may be such a fellowship.

Palm Sunday - March 29

Can You Imagine?
Mark 11:1-11

A big part of what the church offers during Holy Week is the opportunity and the hope that all of us will experience the stories of Holy Week. That we will literally be drawn into the events of Holy Week… find ourselves taking part in the stories. Think about it: We have more “props” in this week’s worship services than in the entire rest of the year. In fact, unless you count the Advent wreath and maybe the crèche, we don’t use any props at any other time of the year. But this week we have palm branches, foot washing, our own Garden of Gethsame, the veneration of the cross… Props intended to invite us to an enacted participation in the stories.

But I find myself wondering if that really happens for many people. I know many parishioners find the special rituals of this week moving and meaningful. But do they really lead you to see and experience yourself in the stories?

I think there are a couple of things that make it difficult for us to experience these stories as though we are actually a part of them. One is that it is a long ways, literally and metaphorically from 21st century northern Illinois to 1st century Jerusalem. It is not easy to travel across the vast distance of time, culture and geography to enter into the stories of Jesus’ last week.

Second, we know how it ends. It’s very difficult to enter into these stories along with those people who were experiencing them as they happened. Today we heard the story of the triumphal entry and the story of the crucifixion.  We know what happens.

For example, the folded palm crosses as one of the props for Palm Sunday. (They are a part of my history in the church; I folded a lot of the ones we have today; but, as many of you know, I mutter about them, too.) They are an odd prop if meant to evoke the original story of Jesus’ triumphal entry. No one in Jerusalem then would have had them. Not just because they didn’t have altar guilds to fold them, but because the cross hadn’t happened yet!

Having said all that… even if the liturgical enactment of these stories is not often effective at literally drawing us into them, perhaps it will spur our imagination. Let us try to imagine… to imagine what it was like for the people who experienced Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Let us try to imagine what the people who were there experienced.

I offer one contemporary analogy, and I don’t mean this irreverently. Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem was like the homecoming parade of a victorious sports team. Our own are returning home in glory. We identify with them. We are a part of a larger, exciting movement. There is a sense of common identity, shared celebration across all sorts of ethnic and economic divisions. They are ours and we are theirs and we share in their glory.

The Son of David has come home in triumph to the city of David! He is ours and we are his, united and sharing in his glory.

Can you imagine feeling that way about Jesus? That enthusiastic identification with him and his movement?

And what did Jesus bring to the people who lined the streets of Jerusalem to greet him? Remember, he did not bring them salvation from their sins. He did not bring 2000+ years of interpretation of the meaning of his death.

He did come bringing God’s solidarity with the socially marginalized, politically oppressed and economically exploited. Can you imagine cheering for someone like that?

For many, though surely not for all of us, it requires a lot of imagination to celebrate someone who brings God’s solidarity to people who are socially marginalized, politically oppressed or economically exploited. But the people who cheered Jesus into Jerusalem were those people. Can you imagine what they celebrated?

And, as Jesus entered Jerusalem, he brought the fruits of his life and ministry. He had taught people about God. His teaching made God real in their lives in new and powerful ways. His very presence with them seemed to instill healing and hope and peace from beyond any resources that this world offers.

Can you imagine being overwhelmingly excited to be in the presence of someone like that? Can you imagine being so excited to see someone who teaches about God that you take time away from work to be there? Can you imagine being so eager to see someone who offers the healing and hope and peace of God that you would travel for days with your family just to cry Hosanna when he passes by?

It’s a pity that today it seems to require imagination to stir up excitement about the coming of Jesus.

Good Friday - April 18

Worth Saving

The headline in a newspaper of our day might read something like Young Firefighter Sacrifices his Life to Save Couple.

The article might go on to talk about how the young man had only fulfilled his dream of being a firefighter a year earlier. He was just embarking on a vocation he was passionate about. And maybe he had young children. And the guys on his local softball team would miss him at second base, although he wasn’t much of a hitter. His parents were disconsolate. To them, he was special, but they hadn’t seen him as extraordinarily courageous. On that day he had a chance to save lives. But lots and lots of people in all sorts of different settings show similar strength and courage every day. On the whole, he was an ordinary young man.

In their book on Jesus’ last week, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossen use the image of a firefighter to talk about sacrifice. In the book, the context is not Good Friday, but the image has stayed with me.

Partly because it helps highlight the humanity of Jesus. The ordinary humanity of Jesus. He was just a young man.

The theological paradox that he was fully human and fully divine is really an unimaginable mystery. We’ll see the results of his divinity tomorrow night and Sunday.

But today the man who is dead is just a young man. Just a normal young man. Not super human. Not more than human. Just human. Younger than most of us, but otherwise just like us. Notwithstanding the hymn, we don’t know that he was particularly skilled with the plane and the lathe (he may have been a mediocre carpenter), or that he was unusually strong, or unbelievably heroic. He was a normal, ordinary human being.

Today we reflect on the fact that that young man died on the cross, not because he was a one-of-a-kind, extraordinary human being, but because we are worth saving. A young man, Jesus, died on the cross because we are worth saving.

That imaginary firefighter was just a young may who died, sacrificed his life, because the lives in that burning house were worth saving. Even if it was their indifference or negligence that started the fire. Even if, against all comprehension, they knowingly set it. Or maybe it was a tragic accident unrelated to them. Regardless, their lives were worth saving.

In God’s eyes, our lives are precious and worth saving. That’s the Good News on Good Friday.

Maundy Thursday - April 17

Two Sacraments

There are two big themes in the liturgy for Maundy Thursday. The first is Jesus’ last supper shared with his disciples. And the second is Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

We heard about the Last Supper in the reading from Corinthians. It includes what are called the words of institution. Words said by Jesus at his last supper that convey the command for his followers to continue to “do this in remembrance of me.” In a way the Last Supper was the First Eucharist. As the collect says, Jesus instituted the sacrament of his body and blood. Historically, it’s not quite that straightforward, but it is Jesus’ actions and words and presence that are the source and authority for our sacrament. Jesus himself instituted the practice of sharing bread and wine.

In the centuries since, of course, Christians have found that participating in that sacrament, sharing the bread and wine, brings communion with the living Christ.

The Eucharist is one of our Sacraments, those grace-instilling rituals we do in the church. The sacraments always have an outward, physical, tangible component. They invite and require our actual physical participation. And through participation we meet God and receive God’s grace.

The Eucharist involves real bread and real wine, and when we consume that bread and wine we are united with Christ, and through Christ with one another in heaven and on earth. And Jesus instituted the sacrament. He told us to do it. He showed us how to do it and what to use. He even gave us words.

The reading from John’s Gospel recounts the other primary theme of this day. Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. According to John, after Jesus washed the feet of the disciples he said to them, “You ought to wash one another’s feet. You also should do as I have done to you.” He told them to do it. He showed them how to do it and what to use. And he gave them words about cleansing and showing love.

The parallels are very striking. He took real bread and broke it. He took a towel and tied it around himself. He took water and poured it. He gave the bread to his disciples. He washed his disciples’ feet. He told them to continue doing what he was doing with them.

Liturgical scholar Melinda Quivik writes: For some churches -- Brethren and Mennonites, for example -- foot-washing has sacramental power as an action instituted by Jesus. But even for those churches that have not yet embraced foot-washing, this day is the time to begin. It is a vital way to know Jesus.

Not all Episcopal churches include the ritual of foot washing on Maundy Thursday. We used to have the option to skip John’s Gospel and read instead a passage from Luke about the last supper. This is the first parish I have been associated with that did foot washing. I will never omit it again. Jesus told us to do it in remembrance of his love.

Drawing further—at least in part—upon Melinda Quivik’s words: In a strong sense, foot-washing is a metaphor for Confession of Sin and Absolution. The ritual of foot washing establishes in personal and unequivocal action the astonishing welcome Jesus offers to who we are, in our failings and deceits. Jesus’ action is a sacramental cleansing of one of the least attractive, most avoided, often misshapen parts of the body. We all have such places within us. Places which need cleansing.

When we offer to Jesus that which is dirty, misshapen, hidden within us, we are met in response with the great generosity of God’s compassion. Jesus’ action showing how he loves us so much more than we love ourselves. Touching, holding, washing, restoring to holiness that which we would hide or deny.

Much is made of how Jesus sets us an example to serve one another. And we should not loose sight of that. But this Gospel and this ritual are primarily about Jesus serving each of us. And whether or not we will admit we need his cleansing love. When we wash one another’s feet, it isn’t about mimicking Jesus. Any more than we mimic Jesus when we break bread together. It is about being Jesus’ hands and words and presence. That’s what the people of the church are and do. Especially in sacramental actions. It is Jesus who washes our feet.

Do this in remembrance of my love, Jesus say. And when you do this you make my generous love known and real in the world.

Wednesday in Holy Week - April 16

Collect for the Wednesday in Holy Week
Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Once again, the collect appointed for this day has very little history. It was written by an anonymous author for the 1892 revision of the American Prayer Book. It didn’t make it in to the Book until the 1928 version, where it was appointed for the Tuesday in Holy Week. The current prayer book moved it to Wednesday because it fits better with the lessons appointed for this day.

Especially since I don’t know the author, I am emboldened to change one word in the collect. I’ll come back to this, but I take exception to the word “joyfully.” “Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time…”

The collect is about suffering. Jesus endured suffering. Although it’s not explicitly stated in the collect, the important implication is that he endured suffering on his way to glory. On his way to resurrected glory. We pray that we may accept suffering confident in the glory to come.

The collect says that Jesus “gave” himself to shame and bodily pain, to suffering. That wording is a little misleading, too. He clearly didn’t seek out suffering. He didn’t say to himself: I need to go out today and find somebody to spit on me… But he accepted suffering. As Hebrews says, he “endured” suffering. He endured suffering as an inescapable part of human existence. Also, he didn’t draw on divine powers to avoid or end his suffering. He didn’t send a thunderbolt to zap his persecutors. Suffering is an inevitable part of human existence.

The fact that Jesus suffered surely shows that God doesn’t send pain and suffering as some sort of punishment. Jesus suffering: God didn’t send it. Jesus didn’t seek it. Jesus didn’t eliminate it. But Jesus does show us that there is a path beyond suffering to glory.

The problem with the word “joyfully,” at least for me, is that it seems to imply that suffering is necessary or good somehow, something that should be welcomed or sought out. And I don’t really think that’s the intent of this collect and certainly not of the Gospel. Suffering is a part of human life, human activity, human relationships, including Jesus’. It is not something to be sought, but it is inescapable.

There are lots of kinds of suffering, of course. Physical suffering. Shame. Mental anguish. All of the ways that we in our lives we fall short of our hopes. Suffering is a part of all of our lives.

But these are the things to remember:

Suffering is not something to be sought. Never fear that you have not had enough suffering to enter into glory.

Jesus suffered. Never fear that suffering will somehow prevent you from entering into glory.

Looking to Jesus, have confidence, even in the midst of suffering, that glory lies ahead.

Tuesday in Holy Week - April 15

The Collect for the Tuesday in Holy Week: 
O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

These first three days of Holy Week, I am focusing on the collects. There is almost no history on this one. It is from an early 20th century English prayer book, appointed for Holy Cross Day.

It’s focus is the cross. Yesterday’s collect talked of walking in the way of the cross. Today we pray to glory in the cross.

Glory is used as a verb. I understand glory as a noun. Glory is magnificence, beauty. But what does it mean to glory in something? According to the dictionary it means to take great pride in. So to take great pride in the cross.

I’m still not quite sure what that means, but it sounds passive and remote. I might have a whole list of things I take pride in… my cooking, my CD collection, the cross…

For me, to glory in something, especially the cross, evokes something more tangible, more physical. More like revel in. Or it’s all the fashion these days to use “marinate” in religious conversation. “I’m marinating in the Scriptures.” Or marinating in the cross.

And as I marinated or ruminated on all of this, several visual images came to mind. Stay with me, I will circle back to the cross.

I swam competitively as a child and teenager, and somewhere along the way I took life saving training. One of the things you learn is that people who are drowning often resist being saved. They are panicked, they flail about, they push you under, but they will not hang on so you can swim them in. It is actually much easier to save someone who has lost consciousness. There is a special way to hold their head above water and a special stoke to use to swim to shore and safety.

Thinking of live-saving, I cannot help but think of Newfoundland dogs. They are bred to be lifeguards, water rescue dogs. Part of their instinct is to bump or nudge towards shore, but ultimately they rely on the person being able to grasp hold and hang on as the dogs, who are powerful swimmers, swim to shore.

The cross is very well constructed for hanging on to. The same shape that makes it an instrument of shameful death also makes it easy to hang on to if you need saving.

In the collect we pray that this instrument of shameful death may be for us the means of life. The same shape that makes it an instrument of shameful death also makes it easy to hang on to if you need saving. If you are drowning, floundering, in need of saving, the cross is the means of life.

But you do have to grab hold.

Monday in Holy Week - April 14

Collect for the Monday in Holy Week
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

The collect appointed for today has a certain Anglican gravitas. It sounds like a prayer the church has been saying for centuries. And, indeed, the phrase “went not up to joy but first he suffered pain and entered not into glory before he was crucified” comes from the earliest English Book of Common Prayer and was probably penned by Cranmer at the time of the English Reformation.

But that’s the oldest bit of this collect. None of it comes from medieval Latin liturgical works, as do many of our collects. And although it incorporates Cranmer’s phrase, the collect as a whole was written by the American churchman the Rev. Dr. William Reed Huntington in the late 1800’s. Huntington was a significant leader of the Episcopal Church during the Civil War and worked for reunification of the church after the war. He wrote this collect for 1892 revision of the American Prayer Book. Ultimately, it was not included in that book, but did first appear in the 1928 book.

The relative modernity of this collect is interesting because of the phrase in the intercessory portion of the collect which refers to walking in the “way of the cross.” Well before the late 1800’s that phrase had taken on specific connotations. In addition to the general Scriptural meaning of following Jesus, the phrase “way of the cross” came to refer to the ritual also known as the stations of the cross. The liturgical pilgrimage that traces Jesus’ last steps. It is also called the Via Dolorosa or path of pain.

The number of stations has varied across the years. These days there are typically 14. Of those 8 have some source in Scripture; the other 6 are inferred from Scripture or based solely on pious legend.

The stations:

• Jesus is condemned to death. He is confronted by his human mortality. 
• Jesus takes up his cross. Carrying all of the burdens of a sinful world. 
• Jesus falls. 
• Jesus meets his afflicted mother, seeing how the course of his life brings pain to someone who loves him. 
• The cross is laid on Simon Cyrene. In a sense Simon becomes a caregiver, accompanying Jesus on his final journey. 
• A woman wipes the face of Jesus. 
• Jesus falls again.
• Jesus meets the weeping women of Jerusalem, weeping for their children, perhaps for the pain in their children’s lives in which they are complicit or simply for the pain in their children’s lives that they cannot remove. 
• Jesus falls again. 
• Jesus is stripped. Stripped of material possessions. Stripped of human dignity. 
• Jesus is nailed to the cross.
• Jesus dies. 
• Jesus is placed in the arms of his mother.
• Jesus is laid in the tomb. 

In this collect we pray that the way of the cross may be for us the way of life and peace. Because Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, the way of the cross has become a way of life and peace. Because Jesus walked the path of pain before us and for us, when we walk our own path of pain, he is with us, bringing us life and peace. Even in the midst of pain. Jesus is the source of life and peace as we walk the way of the cross our own via dolorosa.

When we face our own mortality or are burdened by sin, Jesus is the way of life and peace.

When we stumble and fall. And fall again. And again and again. Jesus picks us up and gives us life and peace.

When we hurt others or fail to protect them, Jesus is with us in life and peace.

When we are caregivers or need caregivers, Jesus is in our midst, walking with us in the way of life and peace.

Even at the moment of death, maybe particularly at the moment of death, Jesus is life and peace.

May we find the way of the cross to be none other than the way of life and peace.

Palm Sunday: The Sunday of the Passion - April 13

Distracted by Jesus
 Matthew 26:14 - 27:66

In what has been a bit of a theme these last Sundays in Lent this year, we’ve just heard another very long Gospel reading. Not that I’m making light of the Passion Gospel. Every year on this Sunday we hear one of the full versions of Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion.

But I wonder, this morning as you listened to the Passion Gospel, did your mind wander just once or twice? I know that it’s possible, even while your eyes are following the words on the page for you mind to wander off somewhere else.

Or if your mind didn’t wander during the reading of the Gospel this morning, what about during a typical Sunday morning service? How often do you find yourself occupied planning the rest of your day, worrying about an issue at work, making a mental grocery list, writing an actual grocery list on the back of the service leaflet? How often during church do you, in effect, leave church?

Don’t feel too bad. It happens to all of us, and it’s not the gravest of sins. But here’s the question to ponder:

Does it ever happen the other way around? When you’re “out there” doing all of the things we do “out there,” does your mind ever wander “in here?” In the midst of grocery shopping do you ever find yourself lost in thought as you think of yourself praying the prayers of the people? In the middle of all those things going on wherever they are going on… at work, at Little League, working on your taxes… Other than a brief thought about potential deductions, do you have to “shake off” thoughts of church as you go about your daily life? In the middle of a Thursday, does your mind wander to the experience of participating in Communion? Life distracts us from church all the time. Does church ever distract us from life?

Maybe this week. This Holy Week. We all have the opportunity to spend a lot of time at church. More time than usual. At the very least church forces itself into more of our personal time this week. Maybe church also seeps more into our ongoing awareness this week as well.

Being distracted by church in the midst of life isn’t the point, of course. Being distracted by Jesus is. And that’s what the church does during Holy Week. This week the church distracts us over and over and over again with Jesus.

In worship services we walk Jesus’ last week with him. We hear the stories. We enact parts of them, as we did this morning in the palm Sunday procession, as we will with the foot washing at Jesus’ last supper, as we wait with him trying to stay awake in the garden the night before his death, as we venerate the cross he hangs dying on. We place ourselves with him. We don’t just hear the stories, we take part in them. We put ourselves there with Jesus during the final events of his life.

We spend a lot of time with Jesus. We spend a lot of time with Jesus this week. A lot of holy time with Jesus. And as we intentionally share his life, perhaps we become more mindful, more aware, that he shares ours. It is not just that we are with him here this week, he is with us here this week. And everywhere all the time. He places himself in our lives throughout our lives. Not just as we worship, but as we struggle… in the painful times and the boring times… sleeping, waking, times of joy, times of sorrow.

Jesus’ holy presence distracts us day and night this week. As we enter in to his life, we cannot help but be distracted by his presence in ours. This week.  Just this week?

Perhaps the greatest gift of Holy Week is that it teaches to hope that all of our lives, not just this week, can be holy. The experience of Holy Week teaches us to hope, to believe, that Jesus distracts our daily lives. His holy presence is with us throughout our lives.