Ponder All These Things

Sunday, April 7, 2024

FOMO Thomas

Are you curious enough to leave the door open? May love (not fear) be your guide.

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

FOMO—have you heard of this? Fear Of Missing Out

Maybe you are rolling your eyes at such a funny sounding ailment, but it is a real thing. This pervasive anxiety particularly haunts those younger generations living among us. A rock concert sounds awesome, but what if an even more awesome comedian comes to town the same night? Sure, dinner with a friend is cool, but what if another friend is throwing a party at the same time? Going to church on the Second Sunday of Easter is great, but what about brunch?

All joking aside, fear can be so crippling that it paralyzes our decision-making abilities. If you think taking a walk down the cereal aisle causes mild paralysis by analysis, a younger generation raised on technology feels this whenever they are seemingly disconnected. If we polled all our generation Z members about their feelings when they are away from their phones, I imagine they would name fear as one the primary emotions and particularly a fear of missing out without this connecting device. FOMO is real, and it is not anything new.

In today’s Gospel, Thomas had FOMO, but he came by it honestly! Thomas missed the Resurrected Jesus. He had a legitimate case of FOMO. If everyone here but you met Dolly Parton, wouldn’t you be upset? Now imagine it’s not Dolly Parton, but instead the Resurrected Christ! Would you not also have FOMO? And, in this sadness of missing such a profound encounter, would you not ask for proof of what your friends were telling you?

Now Thomas had a track record of asking probing questions. On the night before Jesus died, the teacher assured his disciples that they knew the way to the Father’s house. Thomas wondered what everyone else was thinking, “How can we know the way?” Jesus responded with a beautiful, enigmatic challenge: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus’ words harkened back to when God from the burning bush said to Moses, “I AM who I AM.” Meaning: God is presence itself. God who was with us, is with us, will always “be” with us. Jesus subtly dropped this into his response to Thomas’ question, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

In this exchange it was not that Thomas was doubting Jesus, he was curious, like the rest of the disciples, but he was courageous (or foolish) enough to verbalize what they could not. The same thing happened in today’s Gospel story. Thomas voiced something important, not just for those disciples, but for all of us who did not see the Risen Lord on that Easter evening. He was wondering something we wonder in our own day, “Is this fake news? Or is it real? Can I trust this?”

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,” Thomas exclaimed upon missing Jesus. Thomas was not going to give himself over to the idle tales he was hearing. He wanted to experience this for himself. We may think of this as doubting, but it was more than that.

Thomas appeared unable to give himself fully over to what the others had felt in this Sunday evening communion with the Risen Christ. Unlike the other disciples, Thomas had been by himself during this Resurrection encounter. The Resurrection is something we experience not in isolation, but in communion with one another—the brave women at the tomb experienced Easter together, the disciples in the Upper Room too, and isn’t this true of us, too? Thomas, though did not get this gift, so reasonably enough he felt the pains of missing out (POMO).

A week later, that is on another Sunday, another First Day of the Week, another Resurrection Day, today in truth, Jesus returned. This time, the disciples were not locked in fear, even if the doors were shut. Jesus showed himself to all the disciples, and to Thomas, in particular. Thomas’ response to seeing the Risen Lord demands our attention.

Thomas had yearned to put his hand in Jesus’ wounds, to touch the marks of these scars, but as soon as he witnessed the Risen Lord that was more than enough. This curious disciple identified who Jesus was, “My Lord and my God.” Since we hear this passage every year and since you faithful ones have showed up on the Second Sunday of Easter (kudos) you may have heard this passage so often that it has lost its provocative impact. Thomas’ words serve as the climax of the entire Good News of Jesus Christ.

If we rewind back to the beginning of John, we will remember that this account began with a cosmic hymn about who Jesus was. The Word who was with God, the Word who was God, the Word through whom all things came into being, this Word that the world did not accept, did not know, did not behold, this One who was the light of the world that came into the world, but was not accepted by the world, this One was Jesus. These huge claims about Jesus were made at the very beginning of the Gospel, they unfolded throughout John’s Gospel account, and here at the end of the story they point towards the great hope of this Good News. What is that hope? That someone who was curious about this Jesus person would express the truth of who he was, who he is! That someone would receive this Good News and that it would change their life!

Thomas exclaimed this truth and not because he put his hands in Jesus’ side, but because he beheld the Risen Christ in community. He never got his hand into the side of Jesus, nor did he touch Jesus’ wounds. Instead, Thomas recognized the truth. Jesus is “my Lord and my God.” Thomas was the one who articulated the hope of the entire Gospel account in this simple, provocative, and powerful phrase. To this day, some people even remind themselves of this paramount truth as they receive communion—taking hold of the body of Christ while saying, “My Lord and my God.”

The realization that Thomas had though was not simply for himself. Thomas after all is not this disciple’s real name. His true name was Judas, and no not that Judas. Like how Jesus gave Simon the nickname of Peter, he also gave this Judas the nickname of Thomas. Peter, as you may know means Rock. What does Thomas mean?

Thomas is a nickname, which means the Twin. Some scholars wonder if Thomas was literally a twin and perhaps, he got this nickname as a result. Others wonder if because Judas Iscariot and he shared the same name, maybe Jesus gave this Judas the name Twin to distinguish between the two. There is a more mystic understanding though.

I wonder if Thomas’ twin might not be someone inside the Gospel account, but instead someone outside of it. Someone who is looking into the Good News of Christ Jesus, even someone who is hearing these words two thousand years later, in a completely different language, and halfway across the globe. I wonder if you might be Thomas’ twin. I wonder what you share in common with this disciple.

Thomas was fearful of missing out.

Thomas wanted to see the evidence before he believed.

Thomas was curious.

Does this sound familiar?

Thomas’ understanding that Jesus was Lord and God served as the climax of the whole Gospel—and you having this insight yourself is the whole point of this story.

You are—we are the other half of this twinship. Whether you are brand new to Holy Apostles or you have been here since its founding—all of us are part of this story. We yearn to be witnesses of Resurrection in our lives. When we are not part of this community of the Risen Lord we may have FOMO, but for good reason. Thomas doubted in fearful isolation, but he believed in beloved community. He serves as a curious example for us who yearn to take hold of the Risen Christ not in our hands, but in our hearts. Our reception of Jesus as Lord and God is the climax of the good news. May we behold Jesus in beloved community, just like Thomas.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

The Greatest Joke of All

The Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles on this Easter morning!

Acts 10:34-43

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

John 20:1-18

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

There’s an Easter tradition within the Church, which I quite like. On this the Day of Resurrection, we tell jokes. Not just any jokes—we tell, terrible dad jokes about Easter! I mean why else would priests be called father if not for their awful sense of dad humor.

· Do you know what the forecast was for this morning? 100% chance of Son rise!

· Why did the easter egg hide? Because it was a little chicken!

· Knock, knock! Who's there? Wendy. Wendy who? Wendy Easter egg hunt taking place? It’s after the 10:30 service, by the way.

· When Jesus was resurrected what happened when he saw his shadow? Seven more weeks of Easter!

Okay, I’m sorry. Those were bad eggs. Yikes, so was that. Alright, moving onward, you may wonder why we tell these yokes… I mean jokes on Easter. Well, it’s because there is a belief that this, the Day of Resurrection, is the greatest joke of all time. This was God’s way of pranking sin, evil, and death. Some say that this was Jesus’ way of getting back at Satan who beguiled our first parents, tempted Jesus in the wilderness, and even wooed him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Regardless of whether you are envisioning a glowing Risen Lord laughing at a man dressed in red spandex with horns and a pitchfork or something more metaphysical, it’s clear that God does have a good sense of humor! Even our Gospel lesson for today seems a bit humorous.

First, there’s the way John subtly refers to himself. Mary Magdalene found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. What did she do when she saw it like this? She ran to tell others this mysterious news. Whom did she tell? Peter and some other guy—the disciple whom Jesus loved. That’s the pseudonym John the Evangelist gave himself, like how Samuel Clemens wrote under the alias of Mark Twain, or Peter Gene Hernedez is better known as Bruno Mars, or how we don’t call the world class performer Alecia Beth Moore, we call her Pink.

So, that’s one funny detail, but then we get to the disciples’ Easter morning 5K.

Peter and John faced off in an epic race. After hearing from Mary that Jesus’ body had been taken, they sprinted off to see the tomb for themselves. John described it this way, “The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.” In your face, Simon aka Peter the Rock—I guess if he was the rock he was not a rolling stone. What’s even more comical to me though is what happened after they reached the tomb.

Peter looked inside first. Then, the other disciple (John, we know it’s you) peeked in his head presumably after catching his breath. When he went in, he believed—maybe. For John stated they did not understand the Holy Scripture yet, and they left. This is so odd. It’s a moment of disbelief, which makes sense. We are talking about Resurrection here. Even after 2,000 years we are still in the dark about this great joke that God has played on death (and us). The next funny thing may very well be the most touching.

Mary wasn’t ready to leave. She was exhausted, she had to be. She had watched her beloved friend and teacher, the one whom she thought was the Son of God, she had watched Jesus die a gruesome death on the Cross. Then, when she went to check on his grave, she found it agape. She sprinted back and forth from the tomb to the disciples and back to the tomb. Then, when they left, she was all alone believing that Jesus’ body had been pillaged. In this exhausted state she saw into a realm that makes no logical sense. She saw angels in the tomb, Mary even had a conversation with them.

They asked why she was weeping she expressed her theory—they took him away. Then, not by magic but by something much more powerful the angels gave way to a mysterious figure. It was Jesus, but the funny thing was that Mary could not recognize him.

The man asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” I can imagine this tired woman being about fed up with all of this. She turned towards the man, and she scolded him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Why did she do this? John wrote she did this supposing he was the gardener.

Supposing him to be the gardener is a low key truth about God that John casually drops in as a funny line here in the Resurrection story, but it’s beautifully touching. He wasn’t a gardener, he is the gardener—as one song from the camp I grew up attending attests, “He’s a peach of a savior, he’s the apple of my eye, and he trims away the branches when the branches get to high, he will never ever leave me, so I’ll never, ever die, so that’s why I’m bananas for the Lord.”

The Gardener of Eden, the tender of our souls, the Divine One who gives all growth is truly who Jesus was, but no he was not the gardener of this graveyard. Mary would soon discover this truth, but not before another funny moment. Mary assumed that Jesus was the gardener who had hauled away Jesus’ body. It is on one level true though, he was not the gardener, but Jesus had in truth taken away the body. So, Jesus did something that is simply lovely.

He called her by name. In saying her name, “Mary,” the apostle to the apostles, this first messenger of the Best News that God has triumphed even over death, finally could see the truth she had begun relaying to others. She would then be able to fully announce that she had seen the Lord or as she calls him Rabbouni (meaning teacher).

This Day of Resurrection encounter as told by John is full of these little moments of peculiarity, these comical bits that push me to not only see the best joke of all time that death is no more, but also to understand more truthfully the Best News of all time. There is nothing, nothing, not sin, not evil, not death, nothing you have done or left undone, no mistake too big, no crisis too tall, nothing that separates God’s love from you.

We may though not always be able to feel this love. We might like Peter and John be too interested in competing against one another. We might like those disciples be too impatient hurrying off before the fuller bits of the Great Mystery are revealed. We might even like Mary have vision too clouded by grief or loss or exhaustion to see the love incarnate standing right in front of us. Still, God’s love persists through sin, evil, and even death.

God’s love persists for you, for all, forever. And that is no joke. Amen.

Saturday, March 30, 2024

Be, Go, Tell, and See

What are we to do when the best news dawns upon us?

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]
Romans 6:3-11
Psalm 114
Matthew 28:1-10
©2024 The Rev. Seth Olson

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

Early on the first day, Mary Magdalene sat in darkness. Her eyes were bleary, all her tears spent, so she just was. She was not alone though, there in the obscurity, Mary Magdalene sat with the other Mary. They spent yesterday, the Sabbath day, weeping and unable to eat or sleep. Whenever the woman from Magdala stopped sobbing long enough to lay down to sleep, her mind’s eye began replaying the tragic images: the soldiers mocking, the criminals groaning, and Jesus’ body collapsing. She could not stand to watch as he breathed his last on that horrible cross, so she had collapsed in a puddle of humanity before it’s gruesome shadow. There was nothing left for these women, except each other. They had put their hopes, their dreams, and their lives in him. Now he was dead.

As the flood of emotions continued pouring over them, the proverbial vessel keeping them afloat, their faith, felt like it was being tossed and blown. The storm of the last two days raged onward, and they were sinking. Mary Magdalene in desperation suggested they go to the tomb. The other Mary thought, “Why? There’s nothing we can do. He’s dead. Are we going to stare at a sealed tomb?”

Yet, she was too exhausted to disagree. Plus, maybe this would give them closure. Still in her depression and cynicism, the other Mary believed, “Nothing will deliver us from this hopelessness.” Early in the morning Mary and Mary floated on not buoyed by hope but drawn in by love for their teacher. They went to visit his grave, they went to be with him, they went to repay his love.

In the bleakest darkness, Mary and Mary passed the place of the skull, slowly nearing his tomb. As they grew closer, they heard the snoring and snickering of the guards whom the high priest had dispatched. As they began worrying about what they would do when the soldiers saw them, suddenly an earthquake startled the placid night. The entire area rumbled in the darkness. Just then, an angel blazed across the sky forcefully flinging wide the entrance to the tomb and landing gracefully on the large rock. The messenger’s appearance blinded those nearby like a lightning bolt. Mary and Mary hid their faces. Instead of a tremendous thunder clap, they heard the toppling of the guards.

Trembling out of fear and exhaustion Mary and Mary lay prostrate on the ground. A sweet voice rang out in the dawning light, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for him who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples.”

The women slowly rose. They timidly approached the gapping entrance. Mary Magdalene stepped inside to see the linens that once enveloped his body. The other Mary touched the massive stone, which had stood sentinel sealing in the Savior. “Where is he?” she thought, but before they could say anything, the messenger spoke once more. “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” The shock of this news puzzled and paralyzed the women for a moment, but as the joyful truth of the angel’s words dawned on Mary and Mary, they sprinted away from the surroundings of death.

They had never known such conflicting emotion. Fear, like a linen funeral wrapping was unraveling its grip on them, in its place was an all-enveloping joy. It was this overwhelming gladness that urged the women onward with reckless abandon through the darkened streets of Jerusalem. In the pre-dawn haziness, Mary Magdalene nearly ran into a figure. His outline, his aura, his presence were so familiar. Before the women could catch their collective breath, the mysteriously recognizable one spoke, “Greetings!” Immediately they knew.

He was alive. “Jesus is risen,” Mary Magdalene thought. He was living, breathing, and speaking to these most courageous disciples. They slowly approached him, took his feet, and worshipped him. The messenger had told the truth, then Jesus echoed the angel’s words, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Be, go, tell, and see. These were the simple commands of Our Risen Lord to these faithful ones. And, through their journey we now discover the fullness of this Good News—not just for them, but for all!

This Good News was first bad news though. And, on this most holy night, when earth and heaven are one, you may still be struggling. You might feel hopelessness like these women felt walking to the tomb. The storms of this life may still be shaking you. The wounds—the ones you have inflicted and the ones inflicted upon you—may not be fully healed. Tonight, everything is not magically erased. And yet, like Mary and Mary, tonight you came to the tomb with them. Remember that before they arrived, before the angel, before the encounter with Jesus, it seemed like everything had been lost—it was as though all they had was buried in the grave.

Inside the tomb lay their broken dreams, hopes, and lives. Mysteriously on this holy night, time collapses, and with the women, all of our brokenness rests within that cavernous grave too. Our broken dreams, hopes, and lives—all we have done and left undone to wound or be wounded—all of it lay inside with the still body of Jesus. To approach the place of our brokenness requires revisiting our darkest moments, those actions we pray will never see the light of day, and those times when we did not do what we could have done. As we approach this shadowy space, it at first seems that Our Savior is dead, that hopelessness wins, and that our brokenness persists.

Yet, in the predawn we encounter not only a messenger, but our Savior. The angel from God brings light into the darkness and opens wide the place where all that we fear was buried. The tomb though is empty. All that may be keeping us feeling stuck or paralyzed—all of our woundedness, hopelessness, sinfulness, shame, and death—all these things are transformed. God transforms these things not by magic, but by us stepping into the shadow parts of ourselves. As our eyes adjust to the darkness of the deadliest places within us, we find that even here, especially here God’s love and light bring healing, restoration, and resurrection. Like those brave women, we are to walk into the tomb to see that our old ways no longer sustain us, then we must go onward to Galilee. On the way, we meet the Risen Lord who implores us to be, go, tell, and see.

First, we must be. More fully, we must be not afraid, like both the messenger and Jesus instructed. Being without fear requires us to practice courage as we encounter our shadow selves. This could be through therapy, confession (we call it the Rite of Reconciliation), a small group of trusted beloveds, or any other number of ways. When we realize though that nothing—and I mean absolutely nothing—will prevent God from loving us, we will have new courage to confront the tombs of our lives.

We must go. Once we experience this transformation through God’s saving love, we cannot keep this good news to ourselves. We cannot keep Jesus in the Church, just like nothing can keep Jesus in the ground. We must leave here and tell others!

We must tell. We must share the good news with all whom we meet. Jesus is not in the grave, and neither is all that stuff that we keep locked away in our tombs of shame. Everything that we find wrong with our lives is not somehow magically fixed by the Resurrection, but once and for all we are certain that nothing can keep us from God. This is the good news. Nothing, not shame, not sin, not death, not a single thing keeps God from loving us.

We must see. Mary and Mary almost ran into him. They recognized him though, and they knelt down, touched his feet, and worshipped him. We too might almost run into Christ Jesus. We will meet the Risen One on the way to our own Galilee—to wherever it is in our lives that needs to know not the ~~Good News~~ but the Best News that God loves us without exception and without limit. He is in every stranger we meet and every friend too. He is in all of us for he has redeemed all of us. So, I encourage you to look for Christ everywhere!

The tomb is empty… empty of our sin, our shame, and our death. The tomb is empty of Our Lord. Christ is not here. Christ is risen. Be not afraid, go and tell the good news, and see the Risen Lord! Alleluia, alleluia Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Amen.

Not Only Easter People

On Good Friday everywhere I look I see the Cross

This sermon was preached at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover on Good Friday (March 29, 2024). A video of the sermon may be found here.

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

Today, as we heard the story of Jesus’ Passion according to John, I could not help but think about the failure of human beings, just like me, just like us. Mistake after mistake after mistake led to Jesus’ death:

Judas betrayed Jesus.

Peter denied Jesus.

The disciples deserted Jesus.

The chief priests condemned Jesus.

The crowd jeered Jesus.

Pilate wrongly convicted Jesus.

Soldiers taunted Jesus.

Collectively, they killed Jesus.

Hearing these failings, a painful pondering pokes at me, like a thorn lodged beneath my skin. Why? Why did these humans miss that Jesus was the Son of God? In John’s language, how could they not comprehend the Eternal Word made flesh? How did they miss that God had come to dwell among them? My question presupposes that my own vision is unobscured—that I can and do see God’s presence in my neighbor. Of course, this is not true. Like those of long ago, I fail and fail and fail again too.

Perhaps I’m wondering this because I want to reach back in time and stop this gruesome moment from happening. I foolishly cry out, I would never fail you, Lord. And yet, as those words leave my lips, I hear Peter’s cry echoing through the generations. I want to skip over this day—not because of those failures in the ancient past, but because of how I fail Christ today.

We in the Church often say that we are Easter people. We are ones who are about new life, reconciliation, and resurrection. While I fully believe we mean this, we do not wear miniature empty tombs around our necks, nor do we put that symbol on a pole to follow as we make our way through life together. On this day when we have hidden the sign of the Cross, its deadly outline still casts a shadow seen in the painful state of our world.

We may live in a comfortable part of the planet for Christians, but martyrdom for one’s Faith is not extinct. Since the year 2000, approximately 62,000 Nigerian Christians have died at the hands of Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group. A seminary friend immigrated from Pakistan to Mississippi because church bombings were becoming all too common in his homeland.

Lest we think this painful reality only applies to Christians, we would be wise to remember that Christ was raised up to draw in the whole world, and others suffer for their Faith too. One news analysis of data claims that “4 million Muslims have died in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere since 1980.” Our siblings in the Jewish Faith have continually fought against antisemitic persecution and genocide for millennia. This even includes contemporary Christians’ misuse of today’s Gospel text to justify hate crimes.

The Cross’ deadly shadow casts from Calvary all the way to here and now, and it does not only pertain to death because of one’s Faith. 18,450 people were murdered in the United States in 2023. That’s a 12.8% decline compared to 2022, but that’s far too many people dead.[1] 27 states, including Alabama, still implement the death penalty, and far too often those killed are later proven innocent.[2] Prophets of our age warn us of the harm we inflict on the earth through poor Creation Care, yet we apathetically continue our lives of convenience. Guns, electric chairs, and smoke stakes are the cross in our own day. We who identify as Easter people may want to skip ahead like fast-forwarding through the painful scene of a beloved film.

One such agonizing, yet beautiful film is Shawshank Redemption. In it the protagonist, a man named Andy Dufresne, finds himself wrongly imprisoned at Shawshank Penitentiary. He says to his friend in a moment of desperate clarity, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” I think when we call ourselves only Easter people we tend to twist this phrase around, as we say to Jesus, “Get busy dying, so that we can get busy living.” Today though we cannot hurry everything along. It’s not a day for us to get through. It’s not a time to rush Jesus onward so that we can don our spiffy outfits, hide eggs, and eat ham. We are called by Christ Jesus to be here.

Why is this so important? Because anywhere there is betrayal, denial, desertion, condemnation, jeering, wrongful conviction, taunting, or murder, anywhere there is this level of painfulness in the world, Christ Jesus is there with us. So, knowing this, can we be here with him in his agony?

Maybe to make sense of the crucifixion, some speak of Jesus’ atonement on this day. His standing in for us. I think this misses the mark. Jesus did not take our place to face the wrath of an angry God. That does not compute if we believe in a loving God. Maybe atonement is more like what Richard Rohr wrote in a Holy Week meditation years ago—Jesus is with us in the hurting, God is at one with us. Not atonement then, but at-one-ment.[3] Therefore, we as Christ’s people, as the Body of Christ, as the hands, feet, and heart of Christ, we are not only called to be with others when everything is peachy keen, fine-and-dandy, or hunky-doory.

We then are not strictly Easter people, nor is the Cross simply about human failure, nor is today merely a day to make it through. We have a God who became incarnate to live with us. What's our reply? Being with Christ Jesus, even in his most painful hour. Implicit in being with the Almighty One who became all-vulnerable, even unto death, is that we will pick up our heads and see the suffering around us. We may not be able to reach back in time to stop Jesus from being crucified, but who are we crucifying now? Whom can we help? Whom can we serve?

Last night on Maundy Thursday, Peter did not want Jesus to serve him. The disciple could not understand what was happening. He protested his teacher’s lesson of servanthood saying, “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Yet, this message did not just pertain to the moment when Jesus knelt at his disciple’s feet. We are now at the feet of Jesus who hangs upon the Cross, and we must receive another washing, another offering of service from Jesus, but this one is not peaceful nor placid.

Jesus did not endure the shame of the Cross simply to point out the failures of us as a species. This moment when we see the worst in humanity simultaneously serves as the instant when we see how profoundly God loves us. If we are not willing to gaze upon the Cross, if we cannot see the pain that the human family still endures today, if we do not see past our own failure to embody the self-emptying love of Christ, then we are not actually Easter people at all, for there is no Day of Resurrection without today.

On this day Jesus shows us the overabundant extravagance of love. When asked by Pilate, “What is truth?” Christ Jesus responded as the Word of God not with words, but with the fullest act of self-sacrificing love. What is truth? The Truth is Christ’s witness of self-giving, never-ending, all-encompassing love. And the Truth is if we want to be Easter people, then we have to receive the love of Jesus now at the foot of the Cross.

Jesus willingly drank the cup given to him, he willingly took the load of our failings on his back, and he willingly laid down his life on the Cross. If we receive this love of Jesus, then we too are called and empowered to love Jesus as he loved us, not just when things are good, not just on shiny, happy mornings, but when everywhere we look, we see the Cross. We are Easter people, but first we must be Good Friday people.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.[4]

[1] Jacob Knutson, “Homicides in U.S. set to drop by record numbers this year” from Axios

https://www.axios.com/2023/12/28/us-murder-violent-crime-rates-drop.

[2] Capital Punishment in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Although%20it%20is%20a%20legal,to%20different%20types%20of%20moratoriums.&text=Capital%20punishment%20is%20a%20legal%20penalty.

[3] Richard Rohr, “At-one-ment Not Atonement,” https://cac.org/daily-meditations/at-one-ment-not-atonement-2023-09-05/.

[4] Prayer for Mission, The Book of Common Prayer, 101.

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Remember and Love

The altar at the conclusion of the Maundy Thursday service at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles.

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Psalm 116:1, 10-17

This sermon was preached at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video of it may be found here.

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

This is a Nintendo 64. In the US, it was released in the fall of 1996. I know this because my buddy Jeremy Drummond received one—together we played on that console for endless hours conquering Super Mario 64, James Bond: Goldeneye, Starfox, Mario Kart, and Super Smash Bros. The reason I show you this video gaming system though is not for the sake of nostalgia, nor to describe my misspent youth, nor even to humbly brag about my gaming prowess. Rather, it is to tell you a hard truth about the human brain—our own computing system so to speak.

Despite all the amazing technological advancements that we have collectively accomplished as a human species, our minds have not evolved much—if at all—since the days of Jesus of Nazareth. In truth, our conscious minds are not even equivalent to 64-bit gaming system like this one. Consciously, we can only process about 40 to 50 bits of information a second. Sure, we can easily recall a seven-digit phone number, but what about throwing in a funky area code? Of course, we can keep three details in our brains, except what happens when someone throws in another question on top of that? Everything is fine while checking off chores in the kitchen, and yet our minds often go blank as to why we walked into the living room to do something else. The heartening thing is that we are not simply our conscious mind.

Our minds work to make sense with logic and reason—very good things! We in the Episcopal Church often state that reason is among the most important principles of our shared Faith along with Scripture and Tradition.

Still, we are not only a floating singularity or a disembodied brain that floats through time and space. Recalling another mid-1990s cultural reference (yes, I like to keep it fresh with sermon illustrations), we are not the tiny alien from the movie Men In Black, which controlled a human suit. There is more to us than simply what we think. Our beings are not confined to the neurons firing along synapses. And, while our conscious mind is like an outdated gaming console, our subconscious—our hearts and souls—are like a vast bank of servers powering a more sophisticated and mysterious computing network.

To this end—understanding our conscious mind and our subconscious awareness—let’s do a couple of things. First, what is your mind focusing on tonight? Right now, what are you thinking? You might be thinking about what I am saying right now. If so, thank you. Maybe you are thinking of what awaits you at home, at work tomorrow, or on your never-ending to-do list. If you are a worship leader, maybe you are thinking of your next part in the service.

Constantly though our minds are generating thought after thought, and if you are anything like me, you might get distracted by any one of them.

The supercomputers that are our subconscious though can pick up on things that our conscious mind does not easily hold. Even though you probably are not thinking about it, some part of you knows what the seat underneath you feels like. Pertaining to air temperature, if you feel comfortable in here you probably aren’t thinking that it’s too warm or too cold, but that’s data we are taking in all the time. Are you aware of your breath rate or how loudly your neighbor is breathing? Maybe not until I said something. You see our conscious mind is only the tip of the iceberg of who we are and how we engage with the world around us.

Now I’d like to try something else. It’s a bit different, but I figure if you are willing to come to a service with foot washing, maybe you are the adventurous type. Stick out your hand and raise a finger—not the middle one, as that might give us the wrong idea—lift up your index finger. Slow down your breathing and concentrate on your finger for ten seconds. Keep breathing, now look past your finger for ten seconds. Again, focus on your finger. And, now past it again.

This is vergence brain spotting—a mindfulness technique my therapist taught me. It’s designed to bring your whole self back into the room. So now that we are back in the room, let us go back into the upper room on that night long ago.

In that room, there was a lot that was happening. Surely the disciples could not hold all of it with their video game brains—their conscious minds had to be flooded with so much. In three Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist during (what we call) the Last Supper. We heard those words in our Second Lesson filtered through a letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians. Throughout John’s telling of the Good News, Jesus was revealed as the Bread of heaven, so the institution of Holy Communion is missing. Instead, the holy ritual on that night was something wholly different—the teacher Jesus washed his students’ feet.

Did the disciples focus on “Do this in remembrance of me” or “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another”? Were they thinking of all the details of the Passover feast or were they concerned about Jesus’ increased anxiety, as he had been warning that he must undergo suffering? Were they keyed in on the practical, the spiritual, both or neither? What about us? Our minds, like theirs, may hone in on a specific detail, but our supercomputing souls are taking in terabytes of data.

What is the sensation of having water poured over your foot? And, how does it make you feel emotionally—anxious, uncomfortable, sad, confused, excited? What do the bread and wine smell like, how do they taste, is there a specific sensation you feel when consuming them? Are there emotions that are provoked when devouring these elements? What do the hymns sound like in your ears? How do they make your heart sing or sigh, laugh or cry? When the light fades, when the night comes, when the darkness encroaches—what then? There is more happening here than what our minds can hold.

Every year when we walk this way with Christ more and more layers of meaning are added onto this three-day-long service known as the Triduum. We can simplify things though. We can narrow our focus. For our tasks—given to us by Jesus on this night—are to remember and to love. More fully stated—we are to do this, so we may remember and we are to love as he loved. He did not say, “Do this to understand me,” nor did he offer a manipulative eye for an eye relationship. He was not interested in doing this to exclude anyone, nor was his focus on a giddy feeling we denote as “love.” Instead, we are to remember him and to love like him. We are to remember and to love.

We are to remember the things, which happened throughout those three days long ago—Jesus’ betrayal, Passion, and death. These events necessitate us to remember Christ because people just like us tore him apart. We are called to re-member him, to put Christ back together, as we acknowledge our part in continuing to tear apart Christ’s Body any time we injure, maim, or sever a member of the human family.

And we are to love. We are called to love like Jesus did. In the verses omitted (by the formers of our Lectionary) from John 13 in the middle of tonight’s Gospel lesson, we discover that Jesus knew his betrayer Judas was in his presence. Jesus still chose to love Judas by washing his feet. This was not cheap love, this was not an empty gesture, nor was this only a feeling. When Jesus said, “love like me” it was costly, it was a choice, and it was a sacrifice. We are to love and to remember, to remember Christ and to love like Jesus.

Our minds might try to make this a simple task of thinking about Jesus’ betrayal, Passion, and death during the Triduum, these next three days, or even throughout our lives, but there’s more. Our minds might even make this a feat for our bodies to undergo—having our feet washed or consuming the bread and the wine, the Body and the Blood, but there’s more still. It is the very purpose of our lives and the highest aim of our souls to be here, to remember, and to experience the love of Christ, then to share that love abundantly.

The love of Christ will not fully be revealed tonight. Certainly, we will not hold its breadth and depth only in our minds. Like missing verses in our lives, we won’t comprehend the self-sacrificing love of this night, of the cross, and of Christ on this side of the grave. As Paul wrote elsewhere to the Corinthians, now we only see dimly, like in a cloudy reflection. What is clear though, is that Jesus loved his betrayer fully knowing that he would be betrayed. He loved his disciples knowing fully they would abandon him. He loves us too knowing fully we will let him down. Though each of us will betray and abandon God by not seeing Christ in each other and in ourselves, God in Christ loves us still, loves us anyway, loves us always.

Tonight, remember Christ as we collectively constitute the Body—receiving Christ’s Body in Holy Eucharist. Tonight, experience with your heart, soul, strength, and yes your mind the love of Christ—taking on the new commandment to love, like Jesus did. Tonight, through these holy days, and throughout our lives, may we not only think about Jesus—His betrayal, Passion, and death—but may we also re-member the Body of Christ, as we follow Jesus’ commandment to love like Him.