The Seventh Sunday of Easter - May 8

Hospitality
Acts 16:16-34

Hospitality seems to be the result of conversion.  Sharing hospitality is an inevitable consequence of becoming a Christian.

At least that is what happens in the stories from Acts which we had as readings last week and this week.

You remember in last week’s reading Paul received a vision to go to Macedonia, to take the Gospel to Philippi.  Picking up the story as it is recounted in Acts:

On the sabbath day we [Paul and his companions] went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home." And she prevailed upon us (Acts 16:13-15).

This week’s reading follows immediately after last week’s.  Still in Philippi, Paul and his companions have been jailed.  That’s an interesting story in and of itself, but not my focus today.  They are praying and singing hymns when an earthquake breaks their bonds and opens the doors of the prison offering them freedom.   Continuing from Acts:

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God (Acts 16:29-34).

It’s too bad he doesn’t have a name, and surprisingly, tradition hasn’t given him one. 

Regardless, the first thing the unnamed jailer and his family do after they are baptized is to offer Paul and his companions hospitality.  And the first thing Lydia and her household do after they are baptized is offer hospitality.

The very first thing they do as Christians is share the Christian life with others.  There is never a moment, as baptized Christians, that they are alone.

The Christian life is shared with others.  Always. 

Offering hospitality is one way to think of that shared life.  But I think maybe that word limits our perspective on what Christian hospitality can be.  For us “hospitality” tends to mean dinner parties or having the in-laws stay for a week.

Hopefully, those are acts of Christian hospitality.  But the hospitality of sharing the Christian life is much broader.

Last Sunday in the adult education class we explored what Spirit-filled hospitality might look like.

It involves offering and inviting.  Offering something of ourselves to others.  And inviting them to share something of themselves with us.

It means noticing other people around us and offering what we have to them and inviting them to share what they have.  Things like:  Stories.  Needs.  Hopes.  Prayers.  Time.

Christian hospitality might sound something like this:  Tell me a story about your mother.  It may be joyous or sad, happy or difficult.  Or:  Can I pray for you?  Let’s get a cup of coffee.  Let’s walk together.  Here, take my coat; Keep it.

Of course, there’s another aspect of hospitality.  It’s not just about the things we initiate, whether that’s offering or inviting.  It’s also about accepting the hospitality of others.  Accepting the offerings and invitations of others.  For some of us, I think that’s often harder.  Yes, let’s walk together.  Thank you for your offering in my time of need.  I am grateful for your prayers.

So think about it as you encounter people as today unfolds.  People you know well, people you know a little, or people you don’t know at all.  Look for opportunities to offer and accept Christian hospitality.

Let us pray that the spirit will inspire us, as it did the Philippian jailer and Lydia, to share our life in Christ with others.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter - May 1

Tourist or Traveler on the Way?
Acts 16:9-15

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Ever since I was in seminary, I’ve subscribed to the Christian Century.  It’s actually published here in Chicago.  It’s a great source for religious news, faithful analysis and thoughtful reflections.  Its subtitle is “Thinking Critically. Living Faithfully.”  I want to share with you a commentary that appeared in the most recent issue.  It is related to today’s readings, especially the reading from Acts.

I found it very thought provoking.  And I hope it will provoke thought for you.  Or provoke conversation.  Or provoke soul searching.  It’s meant to be provocative, I think.  And if you find yourself reacting, maybe that’s a place to look prayerfully at your own life.  It’s by the relatively new publisher, Peter Marty.   He also serves as Senior Pastor of a large Lutheran church in Iowa.

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Tourist and Traveler

Early Christians used the Greek word hodos, or "the way," to describe the literal and figurative paths their lives followed. The wise men returned to their home country "by another road." Jesus' disciples spoke of what happened to them "along the way” to Emmaus.

Hodos could also refer to a way of life. Jesus points to John the Baptist as one who came “in the way (hodos) of righteousness.” By the end of the book of Acts, we find Christians referring to their whole communal life in Christ as “the Way."

According to John's Gospel, Jesus told his followers, "l am the way." This expression contrasts sharply with "I am the answer," something many Christians assume he must have said but didn’t. The difference between the two self-descriptions is huge.  The former invites grand adventure and openness to all of the ambiguities and doubts that go with a journey along uncertain paths. The latter suggests a packaged arrangement-a relationship involving little risk.

In his book Hidden History: Exploring Our Secret Past, Daniel J. Boorstin explains the historical difference between a traveler and a tourist. In previous centuries, travelers were those interested in unfamiliar settings and wild encounters that enlarged perspective. "The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience," writes Boorstin. In contrast, "The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes sightseeing." Tourism, in this historian's assessment, is a spectator sport full of contrived, prefabricated experiences.

The root words for travel and tourist informed Boorstin's study. Travel comes from the same word as travail, meaning trouble, work, or even torment. A traveler takes risks, plunges into diverse cultures, and seeks to learn local customs.  Unplanned experiences are the traveler's norm, sometimes involving challenging exploits. Travelers eat whatever food is placed before them. They aim to learn as much of the language as possible. Shopping for souvenirs plays no role in their ventures.

A tourist sacrifices less. The word tour from the Latin tornus— tool for making circles—literally means "one who goes in circles." A tourist is a pleasure seeker who passes through different exotic experiences only to return to a comfortable bed at night. Insulated from the noise, the smells, and the local people, a tourist's circle is complete once back home unpacking mementos and sharing photos.

I wonder if congregations are full of travelers and tourists. Travelers would be those who come to immerse their lives and refocus their values. They want to breathe the language of faith and know the way of Christ, even if travail may be part of the bargain. The tourists show up for a more passive experience, happy to drop in when they are in the mood. They spectate and consume, glad that the donuts taste fresh.

I suppose we all have to choose the spiritual road or path that works for us. Will ours be a journey rich in wild mystery, full of unknowables and incomprehensibles? Or will it be a safer path where we pick up a word here and a phrase there, making a few social connections along the way?

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Paul was clearly a traveler.  In today’s passage from Acts he receives a vision calling him to take the Gospel to Macedonia.  So he leaves where he is, gets in a small boat, and sets out across the Aegean for a foreign land.

This reflection really challenges us to ask just one question:  What way, what path is Jesus calling us to follow?  For each of us, as individuals, there is an answer to that question.  What path is each of us to follow as a disciple of Christ?

At first I thought the challenge was just to take the road “less traveled.”  But all we know about that way is that it is unpopular, not necessarily that it is the Christian way.

Or maybe, when we face a decision point, we are to take the more challenging road.  Maybe, maybe not.  Just because it is challenging does not mean Jesus leads us there.

The question is:  Where is Jesus leading you?  What path are you called to take as a follower of Christ?  And, yes, it may be an unpopular or challenging way.  But it will also be full of grace, rich in mystery, abounding in wonder and accompanied by Christ.

So let us pray that, as we follow the way of Christ today, we may be travelers, not tourists.

The Fifth Sunday of Easter - April 24

It Takes Others
John13:31-35

Throughout the Easter season, the Gospel readings are taken from John’s Gospel.  They come from different parts of the Gospel, different parts of Jesus’ life, but all teach us how to be Easter people.  How to live as followers of Christ in this time after his death and resurrection.

Today’s reading comes from near the end of Jesus’ life.  Jesus and his disciples are gathered at the last supper.  Judas has just left.  And, with that, those of us who know the story know that the final sequence of events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion have inexorably begun.  The end is near.

We may assume that Jesus also knows that the time he has left with his disciples is short.  “Little children, I am with you only a little longer,” he says.

So the words of today’s Gospel are some of the last words he shares with his followers.  These are words to live by after I am gone.  This is what you should do as my disciples going forward.

Love one another as I have loved you. 

I think it’s easy, without giving it much thought, to assume that Jesus means: “be loving amongst yourselves.”  We imagine he is talking only about relationships between the disciples.

It seems much more likely he meant:  Love others, all sorts of others, in the same way I have loved you.

Love others as I have loved.  A very straightforward command.  Not so easy always to put into practice.

I’ve said it over and over and over.  In church, in this reading love is not a feeling.  Love is not a feeling of affection.  In fact, we don’t have a clue how Jesus felt most of the time.  The Scriptures don’t tell us.   When there is some allusion to how he might have felt, it isn’t “loving” or “affectionate,” it’ exasperated, tired, angry…

We don’t know how Jesus felt.  We do know what he did.  And his ministry was broad, not limited to the disciples.  Not limited even to the Jews.   His actions, his deeds, brought God’s presence and care and new life.  He acted to show care for people.

He touched outcasts.  Literally touched lepers, who were defined as unclean.  He sat down eat with tax collectors and prostitutes, people shunned by society.  He brought fellowship and healing.

He fed people who were hungry.  One of the stories of feeding the multitudes does say that Jesus felt compassion.  Not affection, but compassion.  He acted to meet their needs, to show God’s care, to feed people who were hungry.

His words and his actions forgave Peter.  Peter, whose personal denial of Jesus was profound.  Jesus rebuilt that relationship.

He taught reconciliation and forgiveness to anyone who would listen and many who wouldn’t.

He calmed storms.  I’ve always cherished the metaphorical, as well as the literal, aspect of that action.  Jesus brought calm and peace into situations that were full of storms or conflict.

Love others as I have loved you and them, Jesus says.

For a while earlier this week I was thinking about preaching on Earth Day.  Environmental stewardship is important to me.  Caring for God’s wonderful creation is something we are all called to do.  As I was thinking about it I was reminded how often I’ve heard people say:  I don’t need to go to church, I can find God by the seashore.  Or:  I don’t need to go to church, I can find God in the mountains, or in the forest or on the golf course.

I speak to you as someone who has found God in all of those places (except the golf course).  But Jesus reminds us today that being a disciple involves more than individually finding God, whether out in creation or here in church.  Love others, as I have loved you.  That takes others.

To follow Jesus’ command requires us to interact with others in ways that show care.

It means even more than being civil to fellow parishioners.  Although I certainly recommend that.  It means seeking out those people who need us to love them.  Seeking out the people we are called to care for in Jesus name!

The person at coffee hour who needs someone to listen.  Seek her out.

The widower in your neighborhood who is profoundly lonely.  Seek her out.

People who are hungry.  Seek them out.

I am more and more concerned about the many people who are victims of violence over which they have absolutely no control.  Victims of domestic violence.  Victims of political violence.  Victims of the gun violence that plagues Chicago streets.  How can I act to bring God’s life and care into these peoples’ lives?

It takes others for us to be disciples of Jesus.  Love others as I have loved you.  Seek out people who need our care.  That’s what it means to be Easter people today.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter - April 17

God's Power
John 10:22-30

Apparently factions formed among Jews who knew of Jesus and there was debate about whether or not he was the Messiah.  We might imagine that it had become a heated, partisan debate.

So they said to Jesus:  “How long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

We also might imagine, that no matter what Jesus said, the partisan debate would go on.

Jesus, perhaps in some exasperation, said:  I have told you.  I have showed you.  “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me…”

Personally, I am not in suspense about whether or not Jesus is the Messiah whom the Jews of his day were expecting.  To a large degree the question has been answered.  Also, it isn’t a pressing question for me.  But that charged social/political atmosphere is the context for this portion of John’s Gospel.

This Fourth Sunday of Easter is unofficially called Good Shepherd Sunday.  On this Sunday we always pray the 23^rd psalm and we always have a reading from the tenth chapter of John.  John 10 is that extended discourse where Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd.

As familiar and cherished as this image is, there are complications and complexities.

A commentary on John’s Gospel, written specifically for those whose task it is to preach warms:  “In expounding the text, wariness is the homilest’s best posture” (Sloyan, Interpretation Commentary on John).

One issue is the political setting of this passage.  Jesus’ words were not offered as individual pastoral comfort.  (Not that they can’t serve that purpose today!)  The “Good Shepherd” is a leadership model offered specifically and only for the people in Jesus’ “flock.”

Belief is a central issue in this passage.  There are clearly people who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.  To them Jesus says:  “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.”  This passage and others in John 10 raise the huge and long-debated question of divine election.  Does God determine or predetermine who will be saved?  Predestination versus the power of human beings to choose or secure their own salvation or favor with God.  Is access to God, through belief, only available to those whom God has already foreordained as “his sheep?”  In John 10 “the mystery of divine choice seems to be why some believe and some do not” (Sloyan).

Important as this issue is, I’m going to dodge it today.  John 10 presents divine election as a given.  For us, it is a broader question and worthy of a more thorough discussion at another time.

This same commentary, speaking to us today says, “All we can say from this passage with certitude is that deity is far more powerful than humanity.”  And we could add that that power is life-giving for us.  God’s power is far greater than anything we can muster, individually or as a group.

Do you believe that?  Really?  I think this is a much more relevant and important question of belief than whether or not Jesus is the Messiah.  Do you believe that God’s power is far greater than ours?  Do you order your life based on that belief?  We probably all think we “should” believe this. We “want to.”  But do you really believe that deity is far more powerful than humanity?

It is a glorious truth for people who have known or who need the saving power of God’s love.  It’s really bad news for people who like to be in charge.  Which are you?  Today?

This sort of belief is not so much a choice of the mind, a reasoned decision.  It comes from experience.  Knowing, seeing, experiencing God’s power is the source of belief.  To believe in the power of deity, the power of God, isn’t gained by anything Jesus could have said then or might say today.  But his works, then and now, testify to that power.

So if you seek belief, seek experience.  Seek experience of God’s power.

The power of life overcoming death, as we heard in today’s reading from Acts.  Certainly a power greater than humanity’s.

God’s power to generate hope and new life in the midst of despair, when no human power could succeed.

The power of recovery overcoming addiction when all human power had failed.

The power to create peace where there had been only conflict in settings where human efforts at peace had not and could not succeed.

The power of reconciliation to heal estrangement beyond all human imagining.

Have you seen or experienced God’s power at work in the world?  In other people?  A power greater than human power?  Look for it. 

Have you let God’s power into your life?  It only takes the tiniest crack.

It is a life-giving power.  So strong that for those in its power, nothing can snatch them away from the life and love of God.  Nothing.

The Third Sunday of Easter - April 10

Charcoal Fires
John 21:1-19

This morning’s Gospel reading comes from near the end of John’s Gospel. We read John throughout the Easter season. You may remember that we also read John on Good Friday. The lectionary appoints John’s version of the Passion story for Good Friday.

I want to remind you of part of that reading:

Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus…. The woman said to Peter, ‘You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing round it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself. 

A few verses later Peter is still standing by the fire…

...warming himself. They asked him, ‘You are not also one of his disciples, are you?’ He denied it and said, ‘I am not.’ One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, ‘Did I not see you in the garden with him?’ Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed (John 18:15-18, 25-27).

Did you catch this one detail from this morning’s reading? The disciples have seen the Lord and when they had gone ashore, “they saw a charcoal fire there” (John 21:9).

How have I missed the charcoal fire all these years? Peter again being questioned next to a charcoal fire.

Jesus said to Simon Peter,

"Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep (John 21:15-17). 

The parallel between these two scenes is powerful and intentional. There’s no particular significance to the charcoal fire except to cement the parallelism between these two passages. We are definitely meant to remember Peter’s three denials as we listen to his three affirmations of love.

The third time Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, Peter is a bit annoyed. And he says, Lord you know that I love you, you know everything. We might wonder if Jesus was tempted to say: Yes, Peter, I do know everything. And I remember exactly what you said the last time you were standing next to a charcoal fire. I wasn’t there, but I do know everything, and I know what you said. So, are you sure that you love me?

Many people who have read and studied this passage have observed that in this encounter, Jesus isn’t just being a pest when he probes Peter over and over and over again—three times. He’s actually reassuring Peter. And Jesus is giving Peter the chance to be just as emphatic in his expression of love as he was in his denial. What’s really happening here is Jesus is saying, Peter I love you. Over and over and over again. Peter I love you. I know what you did. I do know everything. I know exactly what you said and did by that first charcoal fire. And I still love you. And I’m giving you the chance to put right what you did… To replace each of your denials with an expression of love.

Even the depth of your denial, Peter, cannot estrange you from me. I love you and I will always welcome, always invite, your renewed love in return. No matter what you’ve done or said in the past. I will always come back to you and say: I love you still, do you love me?

Easter is not just about life renewed after death. It’s about love renewed. It’s about the restoration and renewal of love between Peter and Jesus, between each of us and Jesus.

Thinking about charcoal fires brought to mind the Easter Vigil. Pretty much every Episcopal clergy person I know will tell you that the Easter Vigil is their favorite service of any throughout the year. It’s the most powerful, the most meaningful, the most spiritual. If you weren’t there, you’ve missed it this year, but come sometime if you never have.

It begins gathered around a charcoal fire. We gather in the dark out in front of the outdoor altar. We gather around a fire, called “the new fire.” It is a new fire, kindled just for this Easter. And we say these prayers:

Dear friends in Christ: On this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus passed over from death to life, the Church invites her members, dispersed throughout the world, to gather in vigil and prayer. For this is the Passover of the Lord, in which, by hearing his Word and celebrating his Sacraments, we share in his victory over death. 

Then we bless the new fire.

O God, through your Son you have bestowed upon your people the brightness of your light: Sanctify this new fire, and grant that in this Paschal feast we may so burn with heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may attain to the festival of everlasting light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

That’s cool enough, but that’s just the beginning. Then we light this candle, the Paschal candle, from that new fire. The Light of Christ. Lighting individual candles, we spread the Light of Christ among ourselves and carry it into the darkened church.

The Paschal Candle obviously isn’t a charcoal fire, but we do gather around it. One of the times we gather around this holy flame is for baptisms. When God says to the newly baptized: You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. The Prayer Book reminds us that the bond which God establishes in baptism is indissoluble.

No matter what we may say or do in our lives. No matter how often we may deny Christ or how far we may stray, Jesus will always be right with us, waiting and eager to say to us what he said to Peter. You are mine. Forever. I love you. I still love you. Do you love me?

The Second Sunday of Easter - April 3

Help Our Unbelief

John 20:19-31

The church is still full to the brim with flowers.  The aroma of lilies is everywhere. Outside, spring daffodils are still blooming, although after yesterday, they are a little chilly.  We are still very much right in the midst of Easter.  Our celebration of Easter last Sunday is still vibrant all around us.

The reading from John’s Gospel that we heard this morning begins later the very day of the first Easter.  Some of Jesus’ disciples have seen the empty tomb.  Mary has seen Jesus!  Alive.  Risen from the dead.  The joy and awe and wonder of the resurrection are right there.

And then, barely a moment later, fear and doubt have begun to sneak in.  There was barely a moment of Easter joy before the disciples began to experience fear and doubt.

In this reading, the focus is on “doubting” Thomas, but the fact that the other disciples were cowering in fear behind locked doors suggests to me that they weren’t terribly secure in their faith, either.

Along with joy and hope comes fear.  Yearning and awe go hand in hand with doubt.

We always read this Gospel on the Second Sunday of Easter, the day that, for us, at least in terms of our worship life together, represents the next moment after Easter.  We hear about the disciples’ fear and doubt.  The potent and powerful message of today is that, historically speaking, there has never been “pure” Easter faith without fear and uncertainty and doubt.  I say that to be reassuring.  Even back among the people who knew Jesus best, who had seen him risen from the dead, fear and doubt followed the resurrection virtually immediately.

So we shouldn’t feel guilty or ashamed of our own uncertainties and doubts.  We don’t need to deny or hide our fears or our questions.  In fact, I and many others would say that a living faith is always seeking, always questioning…  that the doubts and uncertainties that are a part of most, if not all, of our lives of faith are actually blessings.  Opportunities for our faith to deepen and grow.  Regardless, we should not feel guilty or ashamed of uncertainty and doubt. 

I think I’ve shared this prayer with you before, some time ago.  It’s written as a poem.  I know nothing about the author except his name:  Bernard, SSF.   SSF would be Society of St. Francis.  So he is a Franciscan monk, someone who has faithfully chosen to follow Christ as a Franciscan.  I know the prayer from an anthology of prayers I have (The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton).

Lord, I want to love you, yet I’m not sure.

            I want to trust you, yet I’m afraid of being taken in.

            I know I need you, yet I’m ashamed of the need.

            I want to pray, yet I’m afraid of being a hypocrite.

            I want to belong, yet I must be myself.

            Take me, Lord, yet leave me alone.

            Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.

O Lord, if you are there, you do understand, don’t you?

Give me what I need but leave me free to choose.

Help me work it out my own way, but don’t let me go.

Let me understand myself, but don’t let me despair.

            Come unto me, O Lord—I want you there.

            Lighten my darkness—but don’t dazzle me.

            Help me to see what I need to do and give me strength to do it.

O Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.

The phrase “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief,” comes to us, of course, out of the Gospels.  In the ninth chapter of Mark when a father is seeking healing for his son and cries out to Jesus, “I believe.  Help my unbelief!”

I think perhaps Thomas’ most admirable quality and the one we should seek to emulate, is his openness and honesty.  Thomas doesn’t hide his doubts and just go along with the disciples.  He doesn’t pretend a certainty he doesn’t feel.  He is open and honest with the other disciples, and, ultimately with Jesus.  In that, he is a model for us.

Be open and honest about your fears and uncertainties and doubts.  Be open and honest with God.  Like Thomas (and the poet monk).  Don’t ever think you have to have a perfect faith before you can talk to God.  Don’t for a moment think that you have to have a perfect faith before God will listen to you.

Bring your fears and uncertainties to God.  Like Thomas, demand an answer.  After all, it is Christ alone who can strengthen our faith, who can lead us into deeper understanding.

Remember, it was into the very midst of the disciples’ fear and doubt that Jesus came.  Into our fear and doubt Jesus brings his presence and his peace.

Easter Day - March 27

Aorist People
John 20:1-18

On Easter morning we joyfully acclaim:  The Lord is risen!  He is risen indeed!  He is risen!

Bear with me for just a bit, but this year I got sidetracked by grammar.  If you think about it, it is an odd phrase.  Not a construction we would use in everyday speech.  And what’s with the present “is” and then some sort of past “risen?”  He is risen.

And actually, if you Google “Easter grammar,” you get quite a few hits.  People wondering if “He is risen” is correct grammar, or wondering why so many Christians use poor grammar.  Shouldn’t it be “He has risen?”

But for centuries in our worship we have greeted Easter morning with the acclamation:  He is risen.  And, like so much of the material in the Prayer Book, it comes from the Bible.   The King James translation in particular.

As another aside, I think I have one of my former professors to thank for getting me off on this track.  Back when I was doing scientific writing, Professor Eric Cheney would not let any of his students use the passive voice.  Ever.  And scientists are prone to use the passive voice, especially when describing passive things like rocks.

This phrase isn’t actually passive voice, but I do think it caught my attention because of Eric’s persistent editing.

Apparently, this construction, “He is risen” is an archaic way of forming the present perfect for intransitive verbs.  OK, so that’s cleared it up for me!

More interestingly, and I am going somewhere with this, it is a way of translating a Greek verb tense called the aorist.  It’s not a tense we have in English, but it occurs, for example in Matthew 28:6 for the verb “raise”.

The King James translation:  He is not here, for he is risen, as he said.  Where we get our liturgical acclamation.

The New RSV, the version we use in worship, translates this same verse:  He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.

Some other newer translations say:  He has risen.

He is risen.  He has been raised.  He has risen.  It’s one word in the Greek.  The verb “raise” in the aorist tense.

One online commentator writes:  The Greek aorist passive has no precise equivalent in English, and this present perfect construction was particularly useful for [translating] verbs that presented an ongoing state resulting from a past action.  That’s what the aorist conveys--something I do remember from my New Testament Greek in seminary.  A past action that continues to present an active, ongoing state in the present.  We don’t have that tense in English.  There is no direct equivalent.  Something to remember, in general, when we recognize that we are always reading the New Testament in translation from the Greek.  There is no direct equivalent.

So the aorist tense describes an ongoing state resulting from a past action.  That’s Easter, isn’t it?

I’m not sure what to make of the idea that the whole of our Easter faith is based on a verb form that doesn’t exist in English.  But it really is.  For us, Easter is an “ongoing state resulting from a past action.”  Yes.  Definitely, yes!

We’re not Easter people.  We’re aorist people.  Or maybe Easter aorist people.

I love the joyous cry, “He is risen.”  It’s been a part of my entire life.  And I think it works for us theologically, whether or not we understand the grammar.  It conveys that aorist sense that we live in an ongoing Easter state resulting from a past action.

But all of this led me to want to come up with some less grammatically complex sentences that describe the ongoing state that results for us from the past action when God raised Jesus.  I wanted some simple, active, present-tense sentences that describe Easter today.  God is the subject of all of those sentences.

So Jesus was raised, back that first Easter.  Today, present-tense:  Jesus lives.  Jesus lives.  Mary saw him after his death and resurrection.  Mary saw him.  People still do.  I can’t say that I’ve ever physically seen Jesus in the way Mary apparently did, but without a doubt I have known his living presence with me.  Jesus lives.  And at one point in my life he said... to me:  Come home.  This is where you belong.  Be with me.

Another present-tense Easter sentence.  Love heals. God’s love heals.  There’s an Episcopal ministry called Magdalene House or Thistle Farms, that’s getting quite a bit of attention these days.  It’s a community of women who have survived prostitution, trafficking and addiction.  Their slogan is “Love Heals.”  And their results are a miraculous witness to the power of God’s love to heal.  Not universal, but nonetheless miraculous.  The women of Magdalene House will tell you emphatically, that God’s love heals.  Present tense.  When I was first thinking of this I was misremembering the slogan.  I thought it was:  Love wins.  Maybe winning doesn’t sound very Christian, but in this case, that fits, too.  God’s resurrection love wins over evil.

Last night at the Vigil I quoted the fourth century Easter sermon of St. John Chrysostom (You can read the whole sermon HERE).  Written originally in Greek, it appears to have a lot of aorist tense:

Christ is Risen (aorist), and you, o death, are annihilated! (present tense.)

Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

It’s that last present tense Easter statement I want to focus on.  Life is liberated.  That is passive voice (I think!).  The active form would be:  God’s power liberates life.  God liberates our lives.  Theologically, we would say God frees our lives from the bondage of sin.  One writer describes the dead places within us that God liberates (HERE).  The dead places within us that fuel corruption or deception.  Or the dead places within our lives where we buy into any of the “isms” like racism or sexism, which see someone else as “other” and therefore less.  The dead places where suspicion, rejection, marginalization, judgment, and fear dwell.  God opens the tomb.  God’s power frees our lives from these dead spaces.  God liberates our lives.

Finally, one more present tense, on-going active Easter state:  Hearts praise.  Our hearts praise.  Voices sing.  God inspires our hearts to praise, our voices to sing.  Just try to not say alleluia today.  Just try.  To not say alleluia today.  God fills our hearts with praise and inspires our voices to sing.  He is risen.  Alleluia.