May 31, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11 + Psalm 104 + Galatians 5: 16-25 + John 15: 26-27, 16: 12-15

Wind and Fire is something we know about in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, because of the destruction wind and fire bring in this climate, there is not much positive thought provoked by the thought of the two. But for people rooted in the images and stories of the Scriptures it is different. From the Bible’s Book of Beginnings: “Genesis” wind brings life sweeping over the primordial waters bringing with it order and wondrous harmony in the universe.

An east wind at their back enabled the Israelites to cross a Sea. For Job an experience of the living God occurred in a whirlwind. Ezekiel’s prophetic visions were carried on winds, and when his ministry ended Elijah assumed his role only to be swept up to God in a whirling wind.

Over and over again, fire breaks out in the history of God’s presence with his people. A covenant with Abraham is sealed with a sacrificial fire. Moses is summoned to his mission and purified before a burning bush. He leads Israel through the desert with a pillar of fire assuring all who followed that their path was God struck and protected.

To this day, a torch of fire initiates Olympic Games, candlelight vigils mark tragic deaths, and “eternal flames” burn at sacred places and tombs. We get the idea, but yet we somehow do not make the deeper connections. Saint Luke in Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul in his Letters, and Saint John give us a way to connect the dots, so to speak, and move ahead because Pentecost is not a feast or day on the Calendar. It is a people who live by the Spirit, who are filled with the Spirit, who more than knowing something about Jesus have begun to do something about Jesus.

In our fascination with things, we can hold, touch, and control, our Baptisms leave some to wonder and even ask if we have been Baptized by the Spirit. The question bears witness to the lack of fire in our lives. Water flows on the outside, but Spirit must burn within not to destroy but to purify, to cleanse, and fortify. We listen to the evidence of the Spirit Luke describes with rich biblical images in Jerusalem but we get all distracted by silly details only made worse by the rendition of that day artists have left us with a carefully arranged group of over-robed people sitting around with their eyes rolling up in surprise at tiny flames overhead as though they were afraid their hair might catch fire!

That is not Pentecost!  What Luke and Paul and John describe as Pentecost consists of people who take courage, who have burst out of their individualistic private little selves to become one, and a people who know peace. Pentecost is the consequence of the incarnation: this day is the reason we celebrated Christmas. It is the presence of God in human life. Pentecost is the indwelling of God’s Spirit, God’s Life in the human family.

We shall have that Spirit and know that Spirit when we live with courage in the face of anything that is opposed to God’s Life and Presence. That Courage does not mean there is no fear. Only a fool has no fear. Courage means that fear is not in control and we are not afraid to speak, to act, to live as people of God while remembering that every other living being holds the same spirit making their lives precious and holy in God’s sight. The Spirit of God is not selective, exclusive, nor contained or controlled by anyone but God. That promised Spirit has come upon the whole earth to renew the earth and everyone on the earth. That Spirit is not the privilege of a few or an institution; for our history reveals countless times when a single spirit-filled person of courage said: “No.” or “There is another way.” They are the likes of Francis and Catherine, Ignatius, or Becket. Pentecost People have the Spirit, and we know them by the fruits of their lives more than by their names. Paul gives us some clues to look for.

We shall have that Spirit and know that Spirit when the human family is more important than nationalistic self interest. People everywhere from here to pirates in Asian Seas are so involved in their national interests that they fail to consider other national interests. In an interconnected world, local effects have global repercussions. Riches in another region result in poverty elsewhere. The good life in one country is financed by impoverishing lives in another. A coffee picker in one country could eat for a week with what we spend of mocha late. Africans live in chaos today because colonizers wanted the resources of that land to live more comfortably at home, so they arbitrarily divided up that continent into manageable artificial countries without respecting ancient tribal enmities, and then we get shocked when tribes kill each other

All of this is beyond our personal control, and huge injustices spring from structural evil; but we are not without guilt because we benefit from the system that creates our wealth and live in a sinful situation. If one of the fruits of the Spirit is oneness it has something more to do with the whole human family than with patriotic songs or team spirit over a game. That Spirit awakens us to a moral obligation to spend less on ourselves separating us from evil structures and leading us to give to the poor strengthening our communion with them. As long as we are divided between us and them, we are separated from the Kingdom of God.

The dying breath of Jesus was the breath of peace and forgiveness. The beginning of peace is in the human heart, and a heart that refuses forgiveness knows no peace. It is in a peaceful heart that Christ dwells, and from that heart flow joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity and self control. When we grow in the spirit of peace, peace will come, and not until then.

When the wind blows, the seeds of Good News are scattered everywhere. With the wind at their back, that crowd in Jerusalem: all of them, not just twelve began to spread seeds of unity and joy, life and hope, justice and peace. With fire in their souls, they started something that caused every empire of the world to take notice. If what happened in Jerusalem is just a story from a day long ago dissolving into distant memory with no bearing on our present experience then it’s time for a new Pentecost in this place, in our lives. God’s wind still blows and God’s fire still burns, and the Spirit of Jesus still breathes on us. Knowing this however is not enough. What are we to do? we must ask.

May 17, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts of the Apostles 10:25-26 + Psalm 98 + 1 John 4, 7-10 + John 15: 9-17

Worse than a pandemic of flu and more harmful even than HIV or AIDS is another illness spreading through the human community in our time. It is wearing away at human relationships and isolating people. It reveals a profound truth that this Gospel addresses today. The sickness spreading among us is internet porn, and no one is safe from it. Addiction to it begins like any chemical addiction: first simply through curiosity and then before you know it (and that’s the important part: BEFORE) a little is not enough. It has invaded the finest homes and is a secret that worms its way into lives and hearts. With shame and confusion, it leaves helpless those who are trapped by its lure. In the end it is an epidemic of loneliness and self-doubt: a painful condition medicated away wrongly by a cyber person who will never reject us and is available on demand at the click of a mouse. Usually, some cyber face better looking than anyone we would risk meeting in real life appears all because we fear that they would take a second look at us in real life.

It’s all about desire: the desire for another person.  That desire is buried deep in our bones, and this desire is different from other desires. We desire chocolate or peanut butter cups, some new gadget, or clothing. We desire success and money – but these desires are for our sake. The desire for another person at its best is when we desire them for their sake not as a possession but as a partner. We desire them for what we can give them, do for them, and provide for them; not for what they can do for us like money and success, or chocolate. There is something different here.

But that’s not all; we also find a desire that they desire us. Our desiring makes them valuable. Their desire makes us valuable. Here is where today’s Gospel begins to speak to us. It is a Gospel full of love. Jesus wants to be loved revealing God’s desire to be loved. We want to be loved ultimately unfolding our desire for God. I believe that the essence of being human is the desire to be desired by the one we desire.

The words Jesus will speak in today’s Gospel are the last he will speak before he makes his way to the cross. They are the last words of the Gospel we shall hear before we celebrate the Ascension. Now we know why Jesus has come among us, and now we know what His father wants to say to us. “Remain in me!” He says. “Remain in my love.” This is divine desire for us on the lips of Jesus. The desires that stir in us all spring from the depth of our humanity, and no matter what they are on the surface, it is always and ultimately our desire for the one who desires us. The essence of being human is the desire to be desired by the one we desire.

Everyone one of us knows that even when a desire is satisfied, it is less than perfect. If that taste of a piece of chocolate was perfect, we would never reach for the second piece. If some other person was perfect in desire with us, it would never wane or get distracted. If some other person was perfect, we would never look at another, Yet the truth is, no one can ever meet our needs, match our wants or complete our desires. We always desire more. Intellectually we understand this through our spiritual tradition; but somehow, we fail to integrate that understanding into our experience.

In other words, we know that the root of our desire is for God, and we understand the revelation of scripture that God desires, loves, and cares for us; but we split our love into two compartments. We elevate love of God and spiritualize it, and in effect, we de-humanize God’s love, and this is a problem.

We have to keep our love on a single level. We have to understand that our desire for piece of pie or four scoops of ice cream is part of our desire for God, and that our desire for peace is a desire for divine shalom; that our desire for another person is a participation in our desire for God. Every desire leads to God if it is a good desire. Each of us is a living throbbing desire to be desired by the God we desire.

That God is not found on a computer screen or a chat room. All we find there is ourselves.

That’s the difference between a cyber relationship and a marriage covenant. In fact, it is what make marriage a covenant and sacrament, because in that sacred relationship the desire for God is ordered into a desire for another who desires us. It is the same with a Eucharistic community. Our hunger for God finds its expression in our hunger to be here together. God’s hunger for us finds its expression in God’s desire to feed us with this sacrament.

And so that God speaks to us today with desire and longing that is not just spiritual. It is real, human, powerful, and healing. “Remain in me.” It echoes the plea of those disciples on their way to Emmaus: “Stay with us.” It is the cry of the church a week before the Ascension of Jesus. “Do not leave us.” It is the cry of God in the human heart: “Do not leave me.” It is the cry of the church to its young people; “Do not leave us.” Here we learn the meaning of desire. Here we learn the meaning of love.

May 10, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts of the Apostles 9, 26-31 + Psalm 22 + 1 John 3, 18-24 + John 15: 1-8

We must be very careful about how we hear and how we use the word: “True” which John puts on the lips of Jesus in today’s Gospel. The word for “true” in Greek means a lack of forgetfulness. It has nothing to do with being right or wrong, true or false. For those of us who find our identity within the Roman Catholic Church, our claim to be the “true” church does not imply that another is false. It simply suggests that we do not forget. We do not forget our past, forget our tradition, and forget our roots in the apostles, and the teachings of Jesus about unity, forgiveness, fidelity, and love.

The true vine is “true” because it does not forget its communion with all there is and the source of all there is. Never did Jesus forget where he came from, and so he was never in doubt about where he was going. Never did Jesus forget who he was as the Father’s Son. Never did he think that he was on his own living his life, doing his thing, becoming his own man. He was “true”, and so he could say: “I am the Truth.”

Trouble entered this world when forgetfulness occurs. Eve forgot what God had said; forgot that she was created and God was Creator. Trouble still enters this world when we forget the Will of God that we all be one, when we forget that we must love one another,

when we forget to forgive, or forget that we are commanded to feed each other, and bear one another’s burdens. Trouble comes when we forget that we all come from the same God

that we are all brothers and sisters, that we are here to live in harmony with each other not in competition; or forget that peace is the fruit that springs from the vine of justice. If we are grafted onto the True Vine, then we cannot forget or else we shall be pruned away. We must be True like the vine to which we are grafted, and our truthfulness comes from that connection.

I have spoken of this image with you before. In the church where I studied for the priesthood there is a stained-glass window before which I have stood and prayed on many occasions. In the center of the bottom panel a tree rises up with a great trunk and luxurious branches. It bears red ripe apples. On either side stand a man and woman who are recognized because she reaches up for some of the fruit. She takes when she should be receiving. In the panel above that one, the same tree trunk extends upward but changes into a vine loaded with rich ripe grapes. The vine twists and turns upward into a third panel

and that vine becomes the wood of a cross on which Christ hangs helplessly in death.

In my mind, Jesus is grafted to the cross, to the vine, and ultimately to that everlasting symbol of the garden which we ought not forget because that was where and was when we were True: to the Will of God, the Plan of Salvation, and most true to the nature into which we were born.

 Our only hope to be True: truly human, truly holy, truly church is to remain on the vine, even though it is a vine that will be pruned now and then so that it can be fruitful.  Jesus and his first followers knew quite well that the fruit on the vine only comes from new growth. Our only hope to avoid being fuel for the fire is to be made new again and again by the pruning of conversion, discipline, sacrifice, and sometimes suffering.

In our chapel the crucifix on the south wall has a vine weaving itself out of and around the cross. You might take another look at it someday soon and ponder the meaning of that cross and that vine and how it is that we might become True.

April 26, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts of the Apostles 3, 13-115. 17-19 + Psalm 4 + 1 John 2, 1-5 + Luke 24, 35-48

Sometimes I am almost overwhelmed at the thought of what we are and what is happening to us in the place, in this church, our Jerusalem. It frightens me sometimes to wake up from routine and remember what happens to us in here. We are so casual, so complacent, and so comfortable. You come late, sometimes I come unprepared. It’s the same thing. We slip into the role of spectators. With arms folded you stand and sit, kneel and sign yourselves. I watch you and you watch me sometimes. Most of the time we listen to the Word of God as though it were a story someone is reading about the good-old days. Our imaginations, if they are working at all dwell on the past, and we get stuck remembering what God HAS done, what Jesus HAS said, what happened in that Jerusalem as though it was over, finished, and done with.

Then sometimes I wake up and I get it. I dawns on me again that this is Jerusalem, and what we proclaim in here is about today, not way back then. The one who speaks to us all is Jesus raised from the dead. But because we keep looking backward, we don’t recognize him. We are like those men and women in Jerusalem who kept thinking about those times before the death and resurrection. In that kind of thinking there is no future and nothing to do much less anything to become.

Last week, we heard an experience in Jerusalem. While Thomas may have been the one who spoke the feelings of many, the incident was really about Jesus and about what happens to someone who is raised from the dead by God because of their obedience to and commitment to God’s Will. Today we hear an experience that is not about Jesus, but rather about people who gather around a table in Jerusalem and look into God’s Word to understand what is happening to them in that place.

It is not hard to understand the experience of the apostles and their closest friends. No one has been raised from the dead before. They have nothing to relate this experience to except ghost stories, and so they do. For a brief time, they are stuck looking backward, remembering the past, longing for it, sad that it seems to be over, and not quite sure what it means or what to do about it. So they sit together and ponder the Scriptures waiting. Some of them try going back to their old ways, they fish again, they walk home to Emmaus; but the truth is, there is no going back.

This week it is about them, about how difficult it is to grasp the fact that someone has been raised. They kept thinking it was a ghost. Ghosts for most people interested are the “so-called spirits of the dead”. What stands before them in Jerusalem is not the spirit of a dead man. It is someone alive enough, real enough, present enough to eat! How to understand this is the question with which they struggle, and so they are led to search the Scriptures for insight and understanding. The one who appears to them affirms their search but tells them that it will take another witness, more testimony, before this resurrection transformation can be believed, understood, and appreciated for what it really means. That witness is the Spirit which He will send. When that Spirit comes, the transformation of Jesus will no longer be the remarkable experience because their own transformation will open their eyes and their hearts. They will be the ones transformed.

And so it happens Luke tells us, but not just for them. We too are in Jerusalem trying not to look backward while pondering the scriptures to see and understand what is happening to us. We are aware that people all around us seem to be getting it – seem to be grasping the meaning and being transformed by it. Just as Apostles burst out of that room and out of their timid uncertain selves to peach, proclaim, forgive, and heal, we see it happening. Men like Stan Rother, a little nun in Calcutta, a courageous priest a sister and laypeople with a vision of the Kingdom of God living in Haiti’s poverty and disease, mothers and fathers forgiving each other and sacrificing everything for their children, young men chosing a seminary rather than careers of prominence and power. Nurses, Doctors, Teachers touching other lives with compassion and gentleness!

It’s everywhere, this victory of the resurrection with it’s transformation. How can we understand this? The Scriptures read not as a history lesson, but read under the power of the Spirit opens minds and hearts to discover and embrace a God who wills us to be free, forgiven, loving, caring, and faithful stewards of his gifts.

We are in Jerusalem today, and Christ is in our midst. Some may think its just the memory of a dead man; but we are invited to touch and see, listen and understand.

If you are here today, you are people of the resurrection having made the choice to come to Jerusalem. Yet we are surrounded by too much darkness and death. We allow ourselves individually and as communities of faith to succumb to the trivialization of our faith rather than proclaim the call to repentance and conversion by our own transformed lives. You don’t need a pulpit to proclaim the resurrection. You do it in your kitchen, on the phone, at work over coffee. By the power of God’s Spirit we are witnesses to the dawning of God’s new order for the world: a world free of anger, hatred, lies, self-serving behavior, pride, and any other deed of darkness.

At the beginning of his ministry, the Spirit came upon Jesus. That same Spirit has come upon us and our ministry has begun once we understand what is written in these scriptures. The same experiences available to the apostles are available to this apostolic church even if corporal appearances of the risen, ascended and exalted Jesus have ceased for a time. Opened eyes and opened minds communing with Jesus are what it takes to see clearly and comprehend with discernment what we are becoming here. When you start to get the point, it ought to be enough to scare you, and prompt you to say: “Come Holy Spirit” for without it, we shall remain only spectators all the way to the end. I don’t want to be a spectator when everyone else is rising from the dead.

April 12, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts of the Apostles 10: 34, 37-43 + Psalm 118 + Colossians 3: 1-4 + John 20: 1-9

Matthew says:

“After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene came with the other Mary to inspect the tomb. Suddenly there was a mighty earthquake, as the angel of the Lord descended from heaven. He came to the stone, rolled it back, and sat on it.”

Mark says:

“Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome were saying to one anther, ‘Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? When they looked, they found that the stone had been rolled back. (It was a huge one.)”

Luke says:

“The women came to the tomb bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled back from the tomb.”

You just heard John say:

“Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been moved away.”

If all four evangelists write about the stone, it is a big deal. It is important. There is something about this stone moving that carries with it a message worth our notice this glorious day. However, getting that message is not easy if we continue to think that the stone was there to keep Jesus in. I would propose to you that we have the whole thing backward. The point is not that there was a stone closing the tomb, but that the stone has been rolled away opening the tomb. Open tombs, just like open doors are not open just to let people out.

Some ancient cultures have believed that tombs were a gateway to the next life. That is good thinking. It is certainly Gospel thinking. We need that stone rolled back. We need that tomb open, not to let Jesus out, but to let us in. Peter and John went into that tomb, and they emerged with a new life, a new mission, a new way of seeing and believing. It will be no different for us if we want to be counted among the chosen, the believers. What ever stones get in the way must go. They must be rolled back. We have to die and face a tomb or two or there is no way we shall really live. The point is to live, not to survive. People who have not faced a tomb, only survive for another day to survive again. We are not called by God to be survivors who scratch around in this life defending and protecting ourselves, fearful of what will come next to threaten what we have and what we have stored away. We are called to Life – called to Live, and the only way to that life is through the tomb.

There are in this life a thousand deaths and more. Times when there is loss or change and we think we are going to die. Times when bad news comes, and we die of fear and sorrow. There are people in this assembly who live this day with sadness and an empty place at the table, parents who have lost children and discouraged men and women who have lost jobs and savings. This sadness is the sadness of the tomb. Yet for those who know the story of an open tomb in Jerusalem this sadness is not the end.

Something happens in tombs for those who are attentive to the will and word of God. Pay attention to Jesus in these accounts of the tomb and resurrection. The verb in the gospel is in the passive voice grammatically: “He has been raised.” Jesus is not the actor here; he has been acted upon. He did nothing except fulfill the will of God and accept the consequence of doing so. Because of that, God acted upon him raising him to new life.

It is this news that gives us hope and confidence that whatever death we may face, sadness, disappointment, or tragedy if we have fulfilled the will of God, we shall be raised from any grief or loss that has put us down. God acts upon those who are faithful. To anyone who has ever cried out: “God, Why?” “Why have you forsaken me?” there is an answer. God’s action in the tomb is God’s answers that question. The news today is that the stone has been rolled back: the stone that would leave us defeated by evil, sorrow, sadness, or grief; the stone that would not give us access to that action of God who will raise us again and again, as many times as it takes for us to really live. Life is what God is about. Life is the Will of God. Life is the surest sign of God’s presence. Life is the consequence of a willingness to die to self, to sin, to selfishness.

I have this idea that some might find slightly irreverent, but I think that Jesus lived in a state of constant surprise. I believe he was surprised when Peter, Andrew, James and John quit their jobs to follow him. I believe he was surprised when Matthew left his desk in the tax office and came along. I feel sure he was just as surprised as the wine steward who tasted that wine in the water jugs at Cana and raved about its quality. I think he was surprised when Peter’s mother-in-law got up after he touched her. I think much of his life was a pleasant surprise, even the day he called for Lazarus and he actually came out of the tomb. Think how much more wonderful it is to imagine these events as surprises rather than as just something ordinary in the life of a miracle worker. With that thought then, imagine how surprised Jesus was that morning to discover what God could do with and for him. My Easter prayer and my hope for you my friends is that having been faithful to the will of God you will be surprised again and again and what Life God has planned for you. May every Sunday be another Easter for each of you, and may you be surprised to find that the stones that keep you from truly living have been rolled

April 11, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Mark 1: 1-10 Palm Blessing + Isaiah 50: 4-7 + Psalm 22 + Philippians 2: 6-11 + Mark 16: 1-8

In the era of human civilization, human scientists can mark the Iron Age and the Bronze Age with the discovery of these things and their impact on human life and history. Then I suppose the development of the wheel, electricity, and the printing press ought to be counted, and perhaps many other moments that left their mark on human life. But none of them compares to the inaugural event that forever changed this world: the resurrection of Christ. It does not make any difference whether you believe it or not. The impact, the consequences are unmistakable as the lives of those who experienced and witnessed it began to change the course of human history.

Once every twelve months on the Sabbath after the first full moon of the spring equinox, people like us everywhere on this earth assemble in the night – at an hour that is in-between. We are between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We are between the death of Christ and the Resurrection. We are between sunset and sunrise. In a sense, for a moment, time is suspended giving us a space in which to reflect upon how we use time and what happens in time.

How we live in time shapes the quality of our relationships with ourselves and with others; with the world and with God. Too many of us seem to see time as something to be ticked off, or counted down wishing they had done things differently, looking back. This moment in here suggests that we would do better to look forward and live in anticipation of what will happen next.

Here in the darkness of this Easter Vigil, we are between times. We know darkness, sometimes far too well and too often: and in that darkness we search for meaning in our lives and the world around us.

Here in the darkness of this Easter Vigil we practice, we practice waiting. It is the crux of our faith this waiting, and if we practice it well, we shall endure other times of waiting that come: waiting for a birth, waiting for the results of a medical test, waiting for a loved one to breath their last, waiting for our own last moments.

Here in the darkness, we remember who we are and whose we are, We gather in community to keep company in the dark because it is frightening and lonely without another. It is so easy to fall into the violence, greed, and narcissism of this age, and so we sit in the dark to remember that we have embraced another way of life, and that along with those who keep this vigil we do not turn back for like the Israelites whose story we told again, we go forward even if the way is uncertain: forward to grow in relationship to God. Together we can face the unknown, the unfamiliar, and trust God for what is to come.

Mary Magdalene and the others show us how. Although frightened, they pressed forward facing the challenges that assaulted their faith. A new day dawned, and it was time to carry on with life even in the midst of death. When they arrived at that tomb, they were surprised that he was not there. Even though they could not possibly have understood what it could mean, what began in the darkness of an uncertain night was now beaming with possibilities and newfound hope. It is when we choose to live in the face of what looks like death that God most often surprises us with a glimmer of light and will carry us into a new day. We have held that glimmer of light tonight, and we have shared in this darkness. We must continue to do that, and when we do, we shall live in time and in the future.

April 10, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Isaiah 52: 13-53, 12 + Psalm 31 + Hebrews 4: 14-16, 5: 7-9 + John 18:1-9, 42

Time, culture, and familiarity have just about insulated us from the reality of what we remember today. We have managed to become immune to the reality of what happened in Jerusalem and what continues to happen around us. The self-proclaimed “civilized” society in which we live now avoids passion, and when it is observed, it is either distant from us as an admirable quality of a few or an always to be avoided behavior seen in those different from us.

The inevitable consequence of this is a wrong conclusion that Christ had to die on a cross and that he chose to do so. That thinking is somehow an attempt to distance ourselves from the harsh and brutal reality of what happened. The truth is it repels us.

We are appalled by it. So, it is tempting to take refuge in the thought that it was God’s will even though we do not understand why God would will such a thing. It is a way of finding a comfort that shields us from the truth. God did not will His son to be condemned as a criminal and executed. Jesus Christ did not choose to be crucified. He chose to be faithful not matter the consequences. The fact is, Christ died because human beings chose to kill him. This was not some divine plan.

The powerful figures in this account all had a part to play.

The Pharisees, Peter, Judas, Pilate, Herod, James and John, his closest friends:

any one of them could have stopped it, but they did not do so.

• The Pharisees could have stopped it all, but to them, Christ was an impurity who broke the tradition of Moses. There is no reason to think they were evil. They were simply complacent and very self-satisfied. They fell into the trap of assuming that challenges only come from enemies.
• Judas surely believed that his own vision should be Christ’s vision. He must have thought that he could force the issue by putting Christ on the spot. I suspect that he was actually a very dedicated man who had simply become too narrow, too caught up in his plans and vision: another deadly trap.
• Peter the Rock, knew a moment of betrayal and panic. We’ve all been there. One split second and a bad decision. It is easy to understand Peter. He was afraid. Fear does terrible things to people. It does terrible things to us.
• Pilate the intellectual. He wants to debate or argue. “What is Truth?” Meanwhile he tries to read the crowd. He wants to please. Should he release Barabbas or Jesus? What will please the crowd? What will please the Emperor? So, the last result of a people pleasing politician is? Do nothing at all. He washes his hands, claims it’s not his concern and that way he doesn’t get hurt.

So, the cross goes up because no one stopped it. It happens all the time, not just on Good Friday. At least part of the Goodness ought to be because it does not have to be. This world never needs to be narrow or small. We never need to be trapped by our own assumptions and self-satisfaction. We never need to argue or make that one wrong snap decision. We have nothing to fear. That is not God’s plan, and neither was the cross in God’s plan. Two days from now we shall remember what God’s plan is: a world full of hope, full of joy, as full of goodness as God’s boundless power and mercy. A world full of life.

April 9, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14 + Psalm 116 + 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26 + John 13: 1-15

The hour has come. Lent comes to a close now. The great hymn, “Gloria” which we have not sung since the Sunday before Ash Wednesday brings the season to a glorious and thrilling conclusion. Now begins the Sacred Triduum, the Three Holy Days when we shall remember what Jesus has asked us to do in his memory, and tomorrow look upon the crucified man of sorrows, the suffering servant on the altar and throne of the cross. It is a lot to take in, but tonight and tomorrow lead us to Saturday night when we shall make sense of it all in the darkness enlightened by the Word of God and sing once again that great hymn of Glory.

Again and again in John’s Gospel we have been told that the hour has not yet come. Then this past Sunday we heard Jesus announce as those Greeks come to see him that Jesus knows that his hour has come. In a stunning reversal of roles, the teacher, the Lord, the Master, the Son of God, the Son of David, the Son of Man, the Messiah (call him everything you can) girds himself as servant and crawls around on the floor to wash feet.

It is a startling image of God, a God on the floor, bent down, kneeling. It is a humble God the Jesus reveals. The challenge of this image makes as much impact on us as it did to the disciples and a protesting Peter. Where is the God of anger and wrath? Where is the God of power and might? Where is the God who slew enemies, who strikes down opposition, who crushes the infidel? Where is the God in radiant robes on a throne with servants and angel / choirs? Where is this feared omnipotent one who speaks in mystery through a burning bush to tell Moses: “I Am”?

That God is in an upper room down on the floor and the treasures offered him are human feet, dusty, worn, tired, split, calloused, swollen, blistered and dirty. Something is wrong with this picture thinks the Peter inside of us. Yet, something is right says the Jesus wrapped in a towel.

Feet tell a lot about us, and we like to keep them hidden, covered with socks and shoes. If not, we’re off to pedicure and paint to distract from the blemishes most of us would rather hide. Our feet tell our story. They tell where we have been and where we should not have been. They carry our burdens, they bear the first scars of our journeys. They sweat and smell. They ache and twist with age. There is something a little daunting about placing our bare feet before another, exposing them to be touched and washed by another. It is the same for the one touching and washing.

But it is God who does the touching, the washing, and the healing. It is God who accepts those feet the story they tell and the burden they bring. It is the humble God that Jesus offers to those who will offer their feet and all the burdens those feet carry from place to place and day to day.

A humble God looks for humble people. That’s the story of this day, and it is what we are invited to remember. He never said: “Be sure to remember how I cured the blind and the deaf, the mute and the crippled or those possessed by demons; how I forgave prostitutes and ate with sinners.” The one thing Paul tells us he did ask us to do in his memory concerned what we do at this table.

Here we remember what Jesus has done for us. We recall his saving deeds in the Eucharistic Prayer, how he suffered and died for us, rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit. He comes to us each time we gather here as he did to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and because of that, we come here week after week to share what he has done for us and how we have seen him. Strengthened by the Spirit that comes upon us in this place, we then begin to be what he has been for those who are sick, desperate, and lonely.

The more we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, the more we become the Body of Christ. To share in his glory we will find our way into his sufferings. Betrayed, mocked, ridiculed, and asked to carry a cross, we will fall from time to time; but we will get up again assured of victory. We will be Simon of Cyrene for each other and carry one another’s burdens. We will be Veronica tenderly wiping each other’s face. We will go down on our knees humbly before one another, break and share bread transformed and transforming us into the Body of Christ. We will profess over and over again that we believe in the resurrection of the dead, the life of the world to come, and that Christ will come again.

April 4, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Mark 1: 1-10 Palm Blessing + Isaiah 50: 4-7 + Psalm 22 + Philippians 2: 6-11 + Mark 14: 1-15

I am not exactly sure what it is or why, but we have so sensationalized the death of Jesus Christ that we have lost something very siginificant that is right here in the text no matter which of evangelists you read. The truth of the matter is that there were at least three executions that day outside Jerusalem. There may well have been more. It was a very common and ordinary event. Internal disputes among the Jews were common as well. The factions pushing and shoving for power and inflence were at each all the time. Pilot was there because of it. He knew their intrigues. He knew how to play them against one another. Keeping them divided was the easiest way to keep them in check.

It did not take much to draw a crowd in those days, especially during the seasons of High Holy Days. Outside of the Temple and its rituals, there wasn’t much to do. Children did what children do: they play games, march around, sing, and dance. They play with sticks and branches and anything else they can find. The children of Jerusalem knew the rituals and the story of the Feast of Tabernacles, its procession with branches waving in the wind was deep in their imaginations.

Roman soldiers did what Roman soldiers do: they oppress, torment, humiliate, and the steal. Paid little, far from home in a very alien and unfriendly land, they took the spoils and what was left from those they executed day after day.

What’s the big deal here? Nothing; and that is the tragedy of it. This death we have just recalled was perfectly ordinary and perfectly legal. There is no blaiming Pilot, the Jews, the Sanhedran, Herod, or the High Priest. This death was not some rare insanity of a few evil people. There is a deeper flaw, a deeper tragedy to be addressed that will not allow blaim or the shifting of responsibility by sensationalism. The people in this Gospel are convinced that they are acting rightly, morally, and justly.  What frightens me is that Christ was executed by good people. The same people who brought the Palms brought the Cross. The fault here is not that they were evil or bloodthirsty, but that they were complacent. so compacent and easily swayed that they shout “Hosanna” one day and “Crucify Him the next.”

What ought to disturb us most of all with this scene is not the cross but the crowds. Tools of execution are common enough: guns, gas chambers, electric chairs, ropes, chemicals in syringes, pills, swords, rocks and clubs Sadly, what is just as common and the harshest image of all is a crowd doing nothing. Standing there, ready to watch if there is something interesting, and just as ready to move on if there is none. No one seems to say: “Stop this?” The only one who questions what Jesus has done to deserve death is Pilate! What irony is this?

To whatever extend we are still part of the crowd, we are part of the tragedy, the injustsice, the sadness of life. We cannot hear this Gospel and wonder, “What was wrong with those terrible people.” Every one of us has stood around and said nothing in the face of injust, evil, and cruetly. It happens everywhere from school yards to coorporate offices. Jesus shows no anger at the crowd, or to those who nailed his hands;

but He did have strong words for the luke-warm, those who never could speak up, stand up, question and step out of the crowd’s fickle mediocrity.

As we ponder the events of our religious past against the events of our own time, rather than be appalled or sorrowful about what happened in Jerusalem a long, long time ago, we might take a closer look at our own passion or lack of it for justice, for truth, for peace and for life itself.

March 29, 2009 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Jeremiah 31: 31-35 + Psalm 51 + Hebrews 5: 7-9 + John 12:20 -33

To an age and culture that prizes individuality this Gospel suggests something that might prove troubling. To people who find their identity by establishing and maintaining their unique difference from others this Gospel is almost unintelligible. Singularity and the ideology of individualism is a hoax; a lie that is the surest sign of sin’s presence in this world. From the very first reflection on the condition of sinful humankind in Genesis, to these words of Jesus in John’s Gospel the action and the will of God has been to restore the unity, wholeness and oneness of creation with the creator. It is not good to be alone! And so, a single grain of wheat opens up this message for us putting us in touch with what Jesus reveals as the will of His Father. The example Jesus uses is a grain of wheat. This is not an agricultural lesson. The point is not so much the object as it is the singleness. The adjective, single is the point; not the noun, wheat. It is the single grain that dies in its singularity. What dies is not the wheat, because it brings more wheat. What dies is singularity, the individuality. When it falls to the ground it is transformed and ceases to be a single grain.

That death or that passing away opens the way to life as God has planned and willed it. For that single grain there will never be a head of wheat until the individuality passes away. It is the singleness, the individuality, the separateness that must die before all the grains it produces can be harvest together.

This is the mystery of the incarnation opening up for us. Human and Divine separated by sin loose their separate condition and become one. The work of that One who is the Christ is the restoration of the oneness of the human condition. Think of what he does again and again with his signs: the lepers are restored to their relationship with the community from which they were separated by that disease; a dead girl, a centurion’s son, the sleeping Lazarus are brought back not just to life but restored to the relationships and family to which they belong. If the signs He works are not enough, listen to the prayer: “Father, that they may all be one as we are one.”

In these verses today, when Jesus exclaims that the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, it is his response to the Greeks who have come to Philip and Andrew. He recognizes that his work is nearly complete. Those outsiders, those Greeks, are now coming in! The differences that have kept them apart are going away, the separate grain dies, and something new is coming to life.

The struggle that Jesus experiences is the struggle we all know only too well. The individual self dies hard. The independent spirit does not give up easily. Doing it my way, having my way, doing my thing, keeping my stuff, is not the way of life in Christ.

We are so locked into this thinking and this behavior. We start early in life thinking and too often saying: “Look what I did!” When in truth no one of us every does a thing by ourselves; but we think we have, and we are quick to suggest that there is something grand in that assumption.

This is what it means to die to self or to lose one’s life: It means to lose that separate, individualized, isolated, life for the sake of being one with all others and the Christ/God.

This was the work of Jesus: to become one and lose himself in others: to become one with the sinner and the outcast, to become one with the sick, the hungry, and the thirsty, to become one with the seekers and questioners, the married at Cana and the single young man who came wanting to be perfect. He even became one with the dead so that in the isolation of death, the divine presence might bring them all to rise on the last day.

In this divine plan we discover the meaning of what it means to be church: not separate congregations doing their own thing. This is why Paul says in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. All that makes us distinct, separate from one another and therefore from God must die, must pass away. When it does, the compassion of Christ will be known and shared by all. We will bear one another’s burdens because the burden of one is the burden of all. The hungry and the homeless will be fed and find shelter because no one will ever think that the food they have or their home is their own. Privilege will not mean possessions and power, but rather opportunities and duties. Remaining a single grain offers no promise of life, but when all that keeps us apart passes away and we lose that kind of life – we shall be transformed and finally have life everlasting.