Prayer 2641: Prayer of the Meadows

Lord of Life, 
all things are upheld by your tender hand; 
as the earth turns gratefully under your gaze, 
may our hearts revolve within your love. 

May we open our souls to receive your truth, 
and be molded by your generating Spirit
to care for this earth,
dappled and spangled with bud and bloom.
May we walk mindfully among the lustrous grasses
watching waves of light and shadow 
testify to the Wisdom You breathed into creation,
and dance to the tune of resurrection
that springs up from the waking ground.

May we praise You, O God, with joyful abandon,
joining the song of bluebirds, titmice, and wrens.
As the fields awaken gratefully
before the warming southern wind,
may we bow our heads in thankfulness
for all the You have done for us, O Holy One.

Center us, Good Lord,
within the greening boughs of your mercy and grace
and grant your sustaining help 
to all those whom we remember before You.

Amen.

Prayer 2640: Prayer of the woodlands

O God, 
as the mourning dove sings out 
its five round notes of praise and seeking, 
so my soul calls for you, 
and rests secure in the boughs of your love.

Bend my soul and shape my heart
by the breath of your Spirit, O Holy One.
O Lord Jesus, Savior And Redeemer
may I flourish in grace and reflect your beauty, 
like the redbuds wearing your crowns of purple blooms.

May I bow the knee of my heart
before the dogwood blossoms of white crosses,
bearing the marks of your wounds,
transformed by your blessing
into a sign of our redemption 
and herald of your resurrection,
and ever give thanks for your wondrous love.

Lead us, O Morning Star Who Guides Us,
and blaze eternally within the hearth our hearts, 
and draw within the lea of your mercy
all those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Beyond the Benefit of a Doubt: Sermon for Easter 2A

This is the second Sunday of Easter, which means it’s “Thomas Sunday.” Last week, on Easter Day, we heard the story of Jesus’s appearance to Mary Magdalene, in the garden that contained the tomb. This week we hear about the second and the third of the five resurrection appearances at the end of John’s gospel. The second one we hear of today still takes place of Easter Sunday, and the third one a week later. 

Today we have heard again the story of how Jesus appeared to the disciples that Easter evening—all except Thomas. When Thomas hears about Jesus’s miraculous appearance, he doesn’t believe until he sees with his own eyes. One of the first details we hear is that the disciples are behind locked doors, for fear of their own people. I wonder if there’s anyone here who can relate to being shut away for fear right now? Being separated from friends and loved ones out of fear and anxiety of being struck down with no warning, perhaps wondering if we—and the whole world-- are being punished for something or wondering if we have been abandoned by God?

We live in a time right now when some, just like those disciples, question where God is in this pandemic, in this time of fear, anxiety, and mourning. Some even take that question to the level of disbelief. Yet the question might be better understood if we turn it around: it’s not that Jesus is missing, it’s that we do not recognize Jesus when we see him. Perhaps we discount him because we think he looks like a gardener. Perhaps we discount him because he appears to us in humble circumstances, or he looks different than we expect.

It is obvious in our gospel that Jesus has been changed by his Passion and Resurrection, and that even those who love and know him best have a very hard time recognizing him. Why should it be any better for us, 2,000 years later? Each and every story we hear after Jesus’s resurrection centers on the disciples’ confusion and a failure to recognize Jesus at first. Not just the story of Thomas. Doubt and confusion play a part in the story of every encounter with the risen Savior. There is no one thing that gets the disciples to recognize Jesus.

But perhaps we can hear this passage differently because of where we ourselves are, this year especially. Once again we are promised and reminded that, no matter what barriers separate us, Jesus always shows up. Jesus always seeks us out and finds us where we are. Even behind locked doors. Even when we erect barriers out of fear. Jesus finds us even in the locked room, when we have isolated ourselves. Despite any locked doors, Jesus stands among his beloved ones and says “Peace be with you.” Three times. Here is another strong promise of Jesus’s presence. He has not uttered these words since the Farewell Discourse. This reminds the disciples of the last time they heard these words in John 14:1—“Do not let your hearts be troubled…” at the moment of their greatest distress. 

The idea of peace is not a disembodied peace that Jesus offers—Jesus stands among them and among us, offering the peace of his presence to help assuage our doubts and anxiety. It’s the promise of Jesus’s presence among us that brings us peace.

We are reminded today that, because Jesus loves us individually, there is no pattern in how Jesus comes to us. Jesus adapts his approach to us based on where we are emotionally. With Mary Magdalene, as we remembered last Sunday, it’s in her name being called and hearing the voice of Jesus that she recognizes him. With Thomas, though, the recognition comes through seeing, and being in the presence of Jesus. We have a history of assuming that Thomas touched Jesus, but the text never says that he did, actually. Seeing is the critical thing—seeing, and the reassurance of the restoration of relationship between Jesus and those who love him. And those of us who have gone weeks without seeing co-workers, friends, family, and loved ones in person can certainly understand Thomas’s need to see—not just see, but be in the presence of those we love and so desperately miss. But like Thomas, we have to wait.

Despite what has been depicted in artwork through the centuries, the idea of Thomas not actually touching Jesus can be a powerful metaphor for us right now. As we miss being with each other, with friends and loved ones in particular, Jesus reminds us that presence can exist even when physical touch is impossible. That locked doors cannot keep Jesus away from us. Nor should locked doors keep us from still carrying the good news of Jesus Christ—risen and alive, loving, healing, never-failing—out into the world.

Thomas is the only one who gets the adjective “Doubting” attached to his name as a slur. But remember, in the story we hear today, ALL the apostles were doubtful, or they would not have been afraid. None of them were able to believe until they too had seen Jesus with their own eyes. Thomas is the one who is willing to admit the emotional crisis that all the apostles are feeling, which manifests itself in the locking of doors of the house where they were staying. The two incidents in which Thomas speaks in John’s gospel show him as brave enough, vulnerable enough, and honest enough to admit he has questions.

Doubt is a sign of engaging with our hope and our faith. Doubt is a sign that we are evaluating, learning through questioning—and being vulnerable enough to share those questions and ask for more information when we need it.

When seen without caricature, Thomas has always had a heroic quality to him in my mind. He is willing to admit that he has doubt. He doesn’t keep those doubts to himself, which would have been easier and far more popular. Thomas is willing to give voice to his doubts. And when he gives voice to them, his needs are met. He DOES get to see Jesus. He does get the proof his doubtful heart needs. 

Some would say that we, too, live in a time of doubt. I wonder. Perhaps we should take it a step further. We seem to live in a time of disbelief. Shaped by the modern sensibility, we fear being seen as naïve, gullible, credulous.

Some among us have also decided that authority comes from one’s own decision, rather than from fact, expertise, or authority. And those people endanger us all in their insistence that their hunches and their freedoms—freedoms granted from the bosom of community—are all that matter, that their independence is more important than consideration for others and for the communities which make their lives possible, whether they like that reality or not. 

They refuse to believe that they owe a responsibility to the very community which makes freedom possible. Freedom without responsibility and love for each other and the common good is anarchy. It treats others as mere tools, or worse, threats. Such anarchy is grounded in disbelief that rejects the gospel of Christ, which seeks to promote shalom: community, justice, and empathy as our responsibility for the most vulnerable among us.

Disbelief is the adamant unwillingness to be converted to a new reality, even when presented with evidence. Disbelief is the stopping of the ears to hear that which surrounds us. It is the stubborn rejection of the warnings of a traumatized planet, reeling from tons of pollutants and casual human disregard. Disbelief snuffs out the light of inquiry and douses the wick with water. 

Doubt, on the other hand, is the oxygen that can make the flame burn brighter. Doubt invites examination, and is willing to adapt to new information. When Thomas DOES see Jesus and see his wounds as proof, he exclaims “My Lord and My God!” He abandons his skepticism in the face of proof, and states the unthinkable—that Jesus is not just the Son of God, but IS God. All while also being the same beloved, fully human teacher Thomas has known and loved. We have a God who is fully human and fully divine—that’s why Thomas’s confession is important. 

We are called to proclaim a Savior who is with us in our suffering because he still bears the marks of his own suffering. Those marks Jesus bears are there to remind us that God loves us that much. And we, as the Church, are called to bear our own marks into the world, so that the world, too, can see and believe. These marks and wounds are the sign of a love greater than words can express—a love that, when we open our hearts to it, overflows and spills out of us into a world starving for it.

Thomas’s doubt has led him further toward being a bold, powerful witness to who Jesus truly is. Thomas may have been initially wary or confused, but who isn’t at one time or another? The flame of belief, and of yearning to believe, burns within Thomas, and despite the locked doors, he remains still open to possibility. Especially to the possibility that his relationship with Jesus continues even after the cross and the tomb. And that's a precious lesson for us today, as well.

We have much to learn from Thomas, because Thomas reflects the willingness to suspend stubbornness, cynicism, and anxiety, and to allow the light of mystery to penetrate, bringing him to new understanding and enlightenment, remaking what he has previously known. Thomas may doubt, but he is willing to admit that he does not know everything. He is willing to be shaped and reformed in light of revelation, and to open himself to a new understanding of reality. Thomas is willing to own up to being human.

May we also be willing to doubt, to question, and to proclaim. May we be willing to suspend disbelief enough to see and hear what is right before us. May we make a space within our imaginations to receive new truths, allowing the risen Living Savior to break in among us, and reshape what we think we know.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 service broadcast on Facebook Live on April 19, 2020 for St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:
Acts 2:14a,22-32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31


Notes:
I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis for hosting a webinar via Zoom on this text on Friday, April 17, 2020.

Prayer, day 2639: Second Sunday in Easter

Blessed Savior,
we gather around your altars
to praise you
and embody your love in the world. Alleluia!

Bless and keep us this day,
that we may serve You
with our hands and our hearts.
Give us the wisdom
to live into the questions of our lives,
and the strength to examine our convictions.
Help us to plant the seeds of faith deeply 
into the soil of reason, tradition, and witness, 
that we may grow into a mature faith.

Grant peace and encouragement this day, O God, 
for all whom we remember at this hour. 

Amen.

Prayer 2638: Easter Saturday

Lord of Life,
we glorify your Holy Name, 
and give thanks for your blessings in our lives.

As sun and wind warm the greening Earth,
and call forth new life from the ashes of winter, 
we are filled with wonder
at the works of your fingers, O God
the filigree of bloom and leaf
that dance before our dazzled eyes.
O Creator, create within us new life, 
that we may seek and serve You in all things,
bound up within your web of beauty.
Risen Savior, abide with us,
and gather us together in faith,
by your peace.

Come, Holy Spirit,
be our Advocate and Guide,
and place your blessing upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2637: Easter Friday

Almighty God,
as we sit here, drawn here by love,
thirsting for peace,
You invite us into your holy stillness.

You are our God,
and we are yours.

With every breath,
may we be filled with gratitude, Lord
and sit in companionship with all your creation.

With every breath,
may our hearts sing, O Creator,
with the music of the angels, and give praise.

With every breath,
let us cleave closer to You, Lord Christ,
and anchor ourselves more deeply in your love.

With every breath,
let us draw in your wisdom, O Spirit,
and allow it to gentle our fractious ways.

With every breath,
may we be determined to walk in your ways, Blessed Jesus,
and renew ourselves in faithfulness.

With every breath,
may we examine our hearts, Merciful One,
and repent of all that draws us from love.

With every breath,
may we open ourselves to healing, Holy One,
and remember the hurting and the mourning.

With every breath,
may we tend to each other in hope,
embodying Christ’s love for all
as the cornerstone of our lives.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2635: Easter Thursday

Place a new song in our mouths and our hearts, O Lord:
let us sing our praises from the deeps of our souls.
Give us a joy in doing your will:
to act justly,
to love mercy,
and walk humbly with You in love, O God.
You have lifted us out of the pit we ourselves have dug;
You have delivered us to abide in your light.
Take us by the hand and lead us for joy;
may your healing radiance shine through us.
Knit us together in justice, reconciliation, and peace,
loving each other as ourselves.

Spirit of Peace, 

spread the wings of your redemption and grace 

over all who call upon You as we pray.

Amen.

Living Beyond Doubt: Speaking to the Soul, April 16, 2020

Luke 24:36-48

Having to trust what we can’t know is a challenge. That’s the problem the disciples faced as they had their first encounters with the risen Christ. They are clinging to the dead leaves of heartbreak, disbelief, and fear, because they think they have been left bereft, and those leaves are all they have left. It is there that the risen Christ appears among them, reassuring them and preparing them for the next phase in their ministry.

Our readings in the daily office for today remind us of the gift that doubt can give us, and the challenge that we face when we attempt to embrace and proclaim the wonder of God’s presence in our lives, especially during a time of fear such as this. Living beyond and through doubt can give us the clarity of taking our questions seriously and forthrightly.

When doubt becomes disbelief, it can blind us to possibility and imagination, especially that which is required to see the risen Christ in our midst, who often appears where and when we least expect him. He is there in every person asking us for something to eat or drink. He is there in every person who asks us for shelter, or for refuge. He is there, in every person, asking us to really see him and to welcome him.

In this world of pandemic, we face the conundrum that we need the promise of resurrection more than ever, and yet the resurrection IS an incredible thing to believe. Those of us living two millennia after those disciples can take comfort in the fact that those who knew Jesus best during his earthly ministry had to overcome a huge amount of doubt themselves.

Jesus closes with his reminder that his apostles are “witnesses of these things,” a claim we also saw in our first reading at v. 15. Being a witness is a solemn responsibility. Witnesses are expected to testify to the truth, fully and without embellishment. The disciples are called to be witnesses to “all nations.” For those of us who call ourselves “Christians” in the 21st century in North America, that promise rings true- even across the continents and the millenia. Alleluia! We are witnesses!

And that reminds us of our calling. We who are disciples— lay and ordained, doubting as we all are at one time or another—are tasked with carrying that witness out into the world. In last week’s passage from John 20, that was made explicit when Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon them, which for us recalls our baptism. We are called to witness to when we have encountered the risen Christ in our midst, or in our hearts.

We are called not just to witness, but to LIVE Resurrection, right now.

In turning toward reconciliation and resurrection, we called to shake off who we have been, and turn instead to embrace and embody who we are called to be. It’s not enough for us to see the glory of resurrection and what promises it holds for ourselves. We are called to witness to that resurrection and how it continues to work in a world that desperately needs to see it and be transformed, too.

And that resurrection must be seen through us, as we rise too into new life, now, choosing to set our faces and hearts toward Christ. Jesus Christ is with us, risen indeed. He is still calling us to embrace life and love over death and need, calling us to place the well-being of each other, compassion, grace, generosity, and mercy at the center of our rebuilt lives. Jesus is calling us to embrace him by embracing our responsibilities to each other, to walk in the way of abundant love where there are no winners or losers. Only overflowing compassion and empathy, and acting for the reconciliation and dignity of every single part of this beautiful creation that offers us its beauties even in times of turmoil.

First published on Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul for April 16, 2020.

Photo of a window at Trinity Episcopal Church, Tulsa, OK.

Prayer, day 2634: Easter Wednesday

Alleluia! Let us look to the Lord, beloveds, 
and with all that is within us praise and bless God. 

Most Merciful One,
pour forth your grace 
and fill our hearts with joy and compassion. 

Inscribe your love in our sinews and bones, 
and strengthen us for the mission you give us. 
Nourished by your gospel, 
let us bear good fruit for the life of the world. 

Let our lives be testimony 
to the glory and power of Love 
in all creation. 

Gather us within your embrace, Lord Christ, 
especially those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2633: Easter Tuesday

Most Merciful God,
You spread the canopy of love over us,
and we rise rejoicing,
praising your Holy Name.
We know that our Redeemer lives,
and we shout with joy
with countless throngs of angels and archangels. 
To You be honor and glory, O Lord of hosts: 
You hold all creation within your hand, 
and unify it with love everlasting. 

Lord Christ, 
draw within your tender embrace 
all people in their daily lives and toil: 
bless and hallow us, 
and make us blessings to others. 
Dayspring of Life, 
bend tenderly over us
and draw us into your embrace, 
for we are your children.

Holy One, 
make your face to shine upon us,
and stretch forth your compassionate hand 
over those we now name.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2632: Easter Monday

Alleluia!
Christ our Passover is risen indeed!
Risen Lord, rise in our hearts,
that we may testify to the wonders of your Love.
Risen Lord, rise in our minds
 that we may know your truth and perceive your wisdom.
Risen Lord, rise in our spirits,
that we may shout praise to God with abundant joy!

Tell out, my soul,
the glory of God throughout creation!
God's mercy and lovingkindness are everlasting:
may the radiant light of Your countenance
fill us with peace.
Blessed Jesus,
our hope and our salvation,
hear the prayers of our hearts
as we lift them to you.

Amen.

While It Was Still Dark: Sermon on Resurrection Day

While it was still dark… 

If you’ve ever been the victim of sleepless nights due to grief, you can probably relate to Mary Magdalene’s decision to get up while it was still quite dark and go to the tomb. It probably wasn’t the first time she had thought about it. But it was the first time she could go. Light probably wouldn’t have helped her that much anyway. And so the darkness outside matched the darkness of grief she bore on the inside. 

John’s gospel tells the story in the present tense, and that is a vital reminder even to us right now. Mary Magdalene arrives there at the tomb, and the stone is rolled back, the body gone, and Mary assumes that someone has taken the body. The idea simply multiplies her grief. And so her first reaction is to run and get some of the other disciples. 

She finds Peter and the unnamed disciple whom Jesus loved, tells them about the empty tomb, and then a footrace breaks out to go and see for themselves. We learn here that Peter may be good at jumping to conclusions, but he is not the jackrabbit of the disciples. The two men, however, see the tomb lying open, and poke around a bit. The shroud and head cloth are there, neatly rolled up, in orderly fashion. Surely grave robbers would not have bothered leaving the cloths behind, or being so neat about the gruesome work. So the two men go home, with one who is noted as believing that Jesus is risen even if he doesn’t understand how.

Only Mary is still rooted to the spot, and so desperate for any clue of where Jesus’s body has been taken that she looks inside—and then she sees the angels, sitting there, addressing her comfortingly, and not unkindly: Why are you weeping? 

But it’s then that Jesus comes up behind her. Of course she doesn’t recognize him. It’s still dark, and she saw him die that terrible death, unable to look away as her beloved Savior drew his last breath and then hung there so still. But in this way Mary is just like us. 

How often is Jesus standing near us, and we can’t see him? Maybe he isn’t what we expect. Maybe he looks different than us. Especially in our sorrows, in our tribulations, when we wonder if we are not being punished punished for something or wonder what we could have done differently as we watch and wait and weep ourselves in this time of pandemic and fear. Maybe we wonder if God has abandoned us, and while we enter into the darkness of our fears of abandonment and loss we just can’t see that Jesus is right there and has been there for who knows how long? 


Undoubtedly Jesus was different. So she assumes he is one of the few people likely to be in a garden before dawn. It is here that thousands of artists over the years have painted this scene, Jesus holding a hoe or some other such gardening tool, sometimes a big floppy hat pulled low across his forehead. And so she turns at the voice behind her. 

While it was still dark… 

When he says her name, comprehension dawns. The beautiful way he says her name, so familiar, lovingly, tenderly, is a balm for her soul. And of course, she longs to touch him, to see if the flesh is warm and real, to prove she is not having a dream or hallucination. Just as John has Jesus reminding us that his sheep know the sound of his voice, and that he knows them and calls them by name, so here Mary knows the beloved sound of her Shepherd’s voice. And just as Lazarus couldn’t come out of the tomb until he was called by name, so Mary can’t abandon her grief and begin to come back to life and move forward in her work as an apostle until she hears her name called.

But Jesus stops her. The phrase “Do not hold on to me,”—or “Do not cling to me” in another version—has a special resonance right now, doesn’t it? We’ve moved beyond not only avoiding physical contact with people, but we’re sterilizing our packages left on the front door, and getting take-out brought to our cars by people wearing masks. We’re sometimes unable to see or touch so many of the ones we love too, right now. 

But just like us, Mary can’t hold on to Jesus and keep him all for herself. Jesus still has disciples to see. Perhaps it is Jesus’s way of reminding all of us that our “personal relationship with Jesus” must be grounded in sharing Jesus and what he means with the entire world, not just keeping our love for him to ourselves. She has to let him go, so that she may step into her role as a witness and evangelist, powered by the love of Jesus in a new way. And of all the disciples, it is Mary Magdalene who comes to understand this even standing right there in the dark. Mary is the one whose love and devotion to Jesus is so pure and steadfast that she is a model without equal for all of us. She never runs away. She never falters.

The inspirational Episcopal priest Becca Stevens shared this meditation on this passage: The story of the Resurrection begins with the words, 

“While it was still dark...” The shadows of the cross were long as the sun was just rising on Jerusalem that Sabbath as Mary heads out with grief guiding her to the body. And that single act of faithfulness is enough to carry her with a peace that passes understanding to the source of love. The peace that passes understanding leads her through despair, leads her to brush aside fear, and to hold onto love. The shadows of the Crucifixion became the grounding of a deep peace that changed the world. And that story is powerful enough to unravel all the upheaval, violence, and fear that keep us from experiencing peace."

Jesus calls our names too, softly and tenderly, if only we still ourselves enough to listen. Jesus calls our names especially while it is still dark. While some people point to tragic events as proof of God’s indifference or lack of existence, we are reminded in this story that it is in the dark vale of grief that Jesus comes up gently behind us, asking us why we are crying not because Jesus doesn’t understand suffering but to encourage us to remember that Jesus is always with us in our suffering, and is our comforting, beloved friend who understands all our trials. 

That’s what Easter means. Even while it is still dark. As our reading from Jeremiah promises exactly for times such as these, the love of God for God’s people is an everlasting, sanctifying, reclaiming love. A love that never gives up even if the days seem the darkest. 

Easter doesn’t really happen when the sun is blazing in the sky and all the lights in the garden are shining brightly.

Easter doesn’t happen in beautiful nave or sanctuary—and a good thing too, because all disciples of good sense are staying home where they belong.

Easter happens often in the darkest part of the night within us. Easter happens not so we can stay frozen in time but so we can take up our mission to deliver a message of hope to the world simply by our way of being in the world as Christians. This year especially, Jesus comes up to us while it is still dark, and by whispering our name reminds us that even in our fear, our loss, and our distress, he is risen, and he is with us and present right now. 

While it is still dark, while we are afraid and isolated, Jesus calls us to embrace resurrection and tell out the good news. We need that light and hope now, more than ever. While it is still dark, Jesus calls us to turn toward his reconciling, abundant love, and take heart. In turning toward reconciliation and resurrection, we called to shake off who we have been, and turn instead to embrace and embody who we are called to be. It’s not enough for us to see the glory of resurrection and what promises it holds for ourselves. We are called to witness to that resurrection and how it continues to work in a world that desperately needs to see it and be transformed, too. 

And that resurrection must be seen through us, as we rise too into new life, now, choosing to set our faces and hearts toward Christ. Jesus Christ is with us, risen indeed. He is still calling us to embrace life and love over death and need, calling us to place the well-being of each other, compassion, grace, generosity, and mercy at the center of our rebuilt lives. Jesus is calling us to embrace him by embracing our responsibilities to each other, to walk in the way of abundant love where there is no winners or losers. Only overflowing compassion and empathy, and acting for the reconciliation and dignity of every single part of this beautiful creation that offers us its beauties even in times of turmoil. For such is the sweetness offered to us in the Kingdom of God.

And embracing that call is where the light dawns. Jesus calls our names, each of us beloved, so that we will see the light dawn even while it is dark. Jesus calls us to go tell out the truth of the Risen Jesus, risen even in this year of pandemic, risen and calling us to not return to our lives as they were before the shadow of these times hung over all of us. With open hearts, especially in times such as this, let us embrace each other, and change the world, in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Preached at the 8:00 am Celebration of Resurrection Day online at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:
Jeremiah 31:1-6
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Acts 10:34-43
John 20:1-18

Prayer, day 2631: Easter Day in time of pandemic

Alleluia!
Spring up, O Heart, from your slumber;
behold the Risen Light of Christ!
Let us raise our praises to Our Redeemer,
who has shattered the chains of death forever!

Risen Christ, unbind the shroud around our hearts,
that we may rise with You into new life,
bound only by the law of love and service.
Just as you commissioned Mary Magdalene
to proclaim your resurrection,
may we shout the story of salvation and sing songs of joy
telling the glad news to the ends of the Earth.

Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
You have opened the gates of everlasting life before us:
draw into your embrace all those for whom we pray.

Amen.

A Life Transformed: Sermon for the Great Easter Vigil

What a difference even less than a year can make. Last year, I ended our Easter Vigil sermon with these words: 

“That empty tomb also is God’s call to us to action—and that action is ever, insistently, love. Love not just as a fleeting fancy but as a way of life. Love that is a joyful choice and rebuke of the ways of despair, helplessness, and hopelessness that embues so much of our world today. Love that is necessary for eternal life, and indeed, as the resurrection promises us, we can live a life shaped by resurrection right now, and can have eternal life not off in the distant future but now.

It is this kind of fullness and hope that takes hold of us when we encounter that same empty tomb with wonder and amazement—wonder and amazement that we are made new persons in Christ, in all our diversity and difference unified by being children of God, wondrously made in God’s image. We are awakened to a reverence for each other and creation, called to cast off our divisions as decisively as Jesus cast off the burial shroud and walked out into the life.

This is the night when darkness has been put to flight, and sin and death are washed away. Resurrection is new life-- not just the old life given back, but a life transformed. A life based on mercy, a life that empties itself out for love—only to find that love rushes back in, as strong and as resolute as the tide.” 

 Our lives have certainly been transformed in the last few weeks, but transformed by uncertainty and anxiety—probably much as those disciples felt, scattered to the four winds as is implied in our gospel tonight. If we examine how we got here, though, there are lessons we can learn. Like the fact that scarcity is profitable, but also terrifying to those who end up being shut out. That short-term profits really are no substitute for long-term preparedness and equity in being able to be healthy and safe. That, contrary to the mantra we’ve had pounded into our heads since the 1980s, greed is NOT good. 

One of the disciplines that is highlighted during Lent is the discipline of self-examination and confession. For any of you who came to our book group on Tuesday nights, you will remember how much we discussed this each week as we made our way through Rowan Williams’s book Being Disciples. 

True confession is not possible without self-examination, as Williams pointed out. Self-knowledge is only possible if we cultivate honesty, as well as stillness. From these two gifts we learn and grow, even when what we learn about ourselves surprises us. And often, when we DO that examination, we are taken aback. Even St. Paul acknowledged this when he once confessed, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” 

The poet John Donne spoke of much the same thing in his poem entitled “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward:” 

 Let man’s Soul be a Sphere, and then, in this, 
 The intelligence that moves, devotion is, 
 And as the other Spheres, by being grown 
 Subject to foreign motion, lose their own, 
 And being by others hurried every day, 
 Scarce in a year their natural form obey: 
 Pleasure or business, so, our Souls admit 
 For their first mover, and are whirl’d by it. 
 Hence is't, that I am carried towards the West 
 This day, when my Soul’s form bends toward the East. 

Donne describes our souls as spheres, like planets. Each of us has a course that we intend to run. But something has to set us into motion. For Donne, the primary mover of our lives as Christians should be devotion to Christ. Yet, in truth, we often are set in motion by a host of other forces, what Donne calls “foreign motions,” that attract and pull us, adjusting our course, possibly from the one we had originally envisioned.

If we are living the examined life, we realize how turned around we can get. Rather than being devoted to the gospel as we mean to be with the best intentions, we get wrapped up in our own cares and concerns. And too often, they are not the things that bring us love, or community, or peace. That westward movement is the way of human authority, the sin of Adam and Eve that led humans to test their freedom through disobedience that still stalks us today.

Yet the events of this night remind us that God’s love, the power of life itself, cannot be held behind the sealed stone of any tomb. That power, the power of Love, is what calls us here tonight. Thanks be to God, we are reminded here tonight that no matter how much we have gone astray, nothing is impossible through Christ.

Our gospel from Matthew tonight shows us clearly the two directions that contend to reign in our lives. The guards that are there at the tomb are there because of the arrogance of human authority, an authority that believes it has the final say of life and death to those it considers an enemy. Despite the tomb being sealed by the Roman and Judean authorities, the angel rolls back the stone and sits upon it, another symbolic reinforcement of how God’s power supersedes and conquers that of worldly empire. In my mind’s eye, I have a picture that’s like a combination of Rodin’s famous statue The Thinker and the Greek Winged Victory statue in the Louvre. There that angel sits, victorious, on the stone that we try so hard to seal against our hearts, while those two guards are passed out cold on the ground next to it.

See,-- and we need this reminder right now more than ever!-- there is no guard that can prevent Love from destroying the chains of death itself. We are called tonight to stand with the two Marys, to see, and what we see changes us forever, urging us once again to turn from the Westward to the East, toward the light of impossible hope and unconquerable Love, Love that calls us to reconciliation with God and one another. Easter is the day that the universe is changed forever. 

It’s the dawning of the day we are challenged to do the one thing that truly scares many of us: to embrace the mystery of God’s love for all of us—wonderful and beyond our knowing, as we heard a few moments ago. By faith, we have come this far, tottering like toddlers on the feet of hope—and God has not brought us this far to abandon us now at the grave. 

God 
Has 
Not 
Brought 
Us 
This 
Far 
To 
Abandon 
Us 
Now 
At 
The 
Grave.

The Resurrected One calls us to resurrection, too, which is scary and thrilling and incredible all at once. Those who have been willing to let go of all that has unbalanced our world and instead have embraced resurrection with Christ will be changed down to the very center of their being. One who has been resurrected has been turned, and turned hard, from death to life, from sorrow to joy, from West to East.

And that’s good news, indeed.  Because our lives right now have been upended, that alone is enough to scare us. The pandemic that has ground our lives to a halt then adds to that fear. So how much do we ourselves need to hear the words “Do not be afraid,” spoken by first the angel and then by the Risen Jesus himself in our gospel reading? Do not be afraid, and go tell out the truth of the Risen Jesus, risen even in this year of pandemic, risen and calling us to not return to our lives as they were before the shadow of this illness hung over all of us. 

Even in our altered circumstances and in the midst of the unknown, Jesus IS risen, and is calling us to use the sight of suffering of so many before us as an opportunity to jettison all that contributed to the suffering around us. Instead, our resurrection lives CAN be lives where we embrace life over death and need, where we place the well-being of each other, compassion, grace, generosity, and mercy at the center of our rebuilt lives. For such is the sweetness offered to us in the Kingdom of God. 

In turning toward reconciliation and resurrection, we called to shake off who we have been, and turn instead to embody who we are called to be. It’s not enough for us to see the glory of resurrection and what promises it holds for ourselves. We are called to witness to that resurrection and how it continues to work in a world that desperately needs to see it and be transformed, too. And that resurrection must be seen through us, as we rise too into new life, now, choosing to set our faces and hearts toward Christ.

This is good news: the resurrection of Jesus is not a singular event in time. Jesus continues to rise again, continually, and we are called to witness to that resurrection with joy and gladness, and most of all, love that binds us and makes us one.

What does Christ’s resurrection mean for us today? It means that we live in Christ, and Christ lives in us, this moment and throughout our lives and beyond. Christ will never desert us. We only have to turn and embrace that love, trust in that love, for that is the way not just of devotion but of life, of self-giving, itself. Christ seeks to rise in our hearts right now, turning us to the East, toward resurrection within us and for the world.

We are called to tell and embody the story of Love that will not die, Love that in binding us sets us free from all fear, sin, and death. Love that makes us holy as Christ is holy, by making us fully human as Christ reveals to us what full humanity can be: not just a mirror reflecting Christ’s Easter light back into the world, but making ourselves windows through which Christ’s love shines through us against the forces of darkness and death. Jesus has and is vanquishing the powers of fear, hatred, death, and destruction that pull us from our intended orbit.

Jesus, in rising from the grave, has given us everything, and in doing so, calls us to share in that holy work by being true disciples witnessing and being the resurrected Christ in and for each other and all creation. Let us seize hold of a resurrection life, for the hope and healing of the entire world. 

 Alleluia!

Preached at the 8:00 pm Great Vigil of Easter in time of pandemic, April 11, 2020, online at St. Martin's Church Facebook page.

Readings:
Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation] 
Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea] 
Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all] 
Ezekiel 36:24-28 [A new heart and a new spirit] 
Zephaniah 3:14-20 [The gathering of God's people] 
Romans 6:3-11 
Matthew 28:1-10