Ponder All These Things: 2024

Sunday, April 21, 2024

Bad Shepherds and the Good Shepherd

I'm not the Good Shepherd, but I work for the guy.

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.

Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has popularized a phrase that I bet you’ve heard before: “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” This is an example of a very old method of talking about God, called apophatic theology. Speaking not in positive statements about God—like God is good—but instead saying only those things, which we are certain do not pertain to the perfectness of God is the practice of apophatic theology.

Using this method, I want to talk about Jesus, our Good Shepherd on this Good Shepherd Sunday. However, let’s be a bit creative on this rainy Sunday when using our theological imagination. Today, I want us to dream about our Good Shepherd Jesus not as a First Century paragon spiritual sheep herd, nor as a modern-day exemplary pastor, but instead as the complete opposite. And, to do this may we draw upon the modern day “prophet” David Letterman, formerly of the Late Show. So, here are the Top 10 Ways to be a bad shepherd:

10. Starting every vestry meeting with 30 minutes of silent meditation.

9. Saying to a grieving family at a funeral planning meeting, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do the funeral at that time because my fantasy football team is playing then.”

8. Teaching an Augustine of Hippo Christian Education class entitled, “My Confessions: The True Life Tales of A Pastor Before He Met Jesus”

7. Forgetting your microphone is hot when you start having an argument with yourself about who is the greatest parishioner.

6. Instead of using the Book of Common Prayer, siding with a bridezilla‘s desire to write her own vows, which include a line about how her husband will spend every Monday night watching ABC’s the Golden Bachelor with her.

5. Wearing a purple bishop’s shirt around your home and making your family refer to you as the Righteous Reverend of Narnia.

4. Doing anything to upset the Episcopal mafia a.k.a. your altar guild. Remember: they run the Church. (Forget about it!)

3. Starting and ending your sermons with the catch all prayer, “Roll Tide!” or “War Eagle!”

2. Using the clergy discretionary fund to go on a shopping spree for all new and completely unnecessary clergy apparel.

1. The number one way to be a bad shepherd is… well, hold on a minute!

As funny as some of these are, there is a sad kernel of truth that runs through each of them. Hidden in the background of the 10th Chapter of John’s Gospel account about the Good Shepherd are words from the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel and Jesus were concerned not only with describing God as the Good Shepherd, but also with the apophatic practice of pointing out the bad shepherds too.

As Ezekiel described them these were shepherds who had “not strengthened the weak...healed the sick...bound up the injured...brought back the strayed...sought the lost, but with force and harshness [had] ruled them” (34:4). Bad shepherds—sadly enough—are not characters confined to ancient history. Painfully, we know examples that are not humorous, but heart-wrenching. We can think of church leaders who have been bad shepherds, teachers who have caused us pain, priests who have violated our trust, and pastors who have scattered the flock. We may wonder why this happens.

The Quaker thinker and author Parker Palmer, in his great little book Let Your Life Speak, borrows a line from the Sufi mystic Rumi that surgically cuts to a deep and painful truth—a truth that gets at answering this question of why. “If you are here unfaithfully with us, you’re causing terrible damage.” Palmer adds on, “If we are unfaithful to [our] true self we will extract a price from others. We will make promises we cannot keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams that devolve into nightmares, and other people will suffer—if we are unfaithful to our true self.” This is the apophatic description of the Good Shepherd.

Here’s how we might say it more positively: The Good Shepherd gives to others. The Good Shepherd keeps promises. The Good Shepherd builds houses that last. The Good Shepherd conjures dreams that grow. The Good Shepherd takes away suffering. The Good Shepherd is faithful. These words are so beautiful—and yet, sometimes in the Church we get all of this mixed up.

As your pastor I am called to not be the bad shepherd, to not be the hireling, but I am also not the Good Shepherd. We are getting closer to the number one way to be a bad shepherd, but first, let’s clarify what we mean by good.

The Greek word that we so casually throw around as good, doesn’t mean good as we commonly use it—a quality to be desired or approved of. The original word here (kalos) means model, example. The model shepherd. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, as in the exemplary shepherd, the one we are to follow, which gets us to numero uno on the list!

The number one thing that makes a good priest into a bad shepherd is thinking that we are the Good Shepherd. I am not the Good Shepherd. I am not called to be the Good Shepherd. None of us are. But, to help clarify this whole Good Shepherd thing let us consult the classic film Home Alone.

Now, you may recall that Kevin McAllister—played by the exquisite Macaulay Culkin—gets left at home alone by his family. Kevin survives pretty well for a couple of days, but soon wants nothing more than to be surrounded by his family again. So on Christmas Eve, Kevin finds a mall Santa who is smoking a cigarette with his fake beard halfway off his face, and he says, “I know you’re not the real Santa…but I also know you work for him.” This mall santa is my part and yours too. I am not the Good Shepherd, but I work for the guy, and so do you!

This week we had a vestry meeting in which everyone thought it was hilarious that I keep pointing out when the Celebration of New Ministry is, as though this is my grand event. It is not! Lionel Mitchell—the Liturgical Theologian—makes clear that holy moments like ordinations and Celebrations of New Ministry are not coronations for clergy, but are the celebration of our ministry together as the Body of Christ.

We are all part of the ministry of the Good Shepherd, which means all of us are called to follow the example of the model shepherd Jesus. All of us are called to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the strayed, and seek the lost. All of us are called to give to others, keep promises we make, build houses that last, conjure dreams that grow, take away suffering, and remain faithful. All of us are called to follow our model shepherd.

Beloveds, this means that though we be people with unclean lips we say to God, “here am I, send me!” This means that we go with our exemplary shepherd into the valley of the shadow of death. This means that we protect the vulnerable lambs, feed the hungry sheep, and go in search of any lost members of the flock. This means that we follow our model shepherd even in laying down our lives.

May we remember who we are and whose we are. We follow an exemplary shepherd. Let us follow in his way. Amen.

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.