March 23, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts 10:34-43 + Psalm 118 + Colossians 3: 1-4 + Matthew 28: 1-10

After forty years of preaching Easter Homilies, I am beginning to get the idea. Easter is not a day or a season. It is a perspective, a lens through which one can view the world and history. Those who think of Easter as a day or season, think of Easter in terms of “how” and “what”. “What happened in that tomb behind the stone?” “How did that stone get moved?” “What did he look like if Mary didn’t recognize him?” “How did he get around if he showed up in so many places?” This king of thinking needs evidence. For these people proving the resurrection is a big issue. It is also a losing proposition since an empty tomb is only an empty tomb and you can make anything out of it you want. Since the eyewitnesses are gone and all we have left is their testimony, we can’t ask any more questions.

When you begin to consider Easter in another way, there is a different set of issues. The “what” and “how” questions become irrelevant. “What does it mean?” is the big question, and “What happens to me because of it?” is another. Those other questions about how and what happened are silly and trivial by comparison.

If Jesus has risen from the dead, the question to ask is: “What does that mean, and what is happening to me because of it.” We know from the Gospel accounts what it meant for those who had been with him. It meant that their sorrow was turned in joy, that their fear was challenged, and that if they stayed together, lived together, and remembered what Jesus had taught them, their lives would see and do greater things than they could ever have dreamed of. Their testimony tells us that their sorrow lasted less than a day. In forty days time (a Biblical, symbolic number) their fear vanished, and that timid, unfaithful, confused, doubt filled group of unlikely leaders emerged with a courage, a spirit, and an understanding of what had happened that caught the attention of a whole city and soon the whole earth. Pentecost.

If you are interested in shifting from Easter as a calendar date to Easter as a way of seeing, believing, and understanding things, you have to begin asking those other questions and the last and biggest is “What happens to me because Christ rose from the dead?”

We Christian people, especially we Catholic people with our crucifixes and Good Friday cannot just focus on the fact that Christ died for us. That does not finish the story. More important than his suffering and death is the fact that he rose for us and sent us the Spirit. This is why I say: Easter is a lens – it gives us the whole picture with which we may then explore the whole Paschal mystery.

That whole picture then is not just Good Friday, not just Easter but also the Forty Days, the Ascension, and Pentecost. Look through the lens, and here is what you see: Good Friday=loss. Easter=reception of new life. Forty Days=grieving the old and adjusting to the new. Ascension=letting go of the old without clinging. Pentecost=reception of a new spirit for the new life that one is already living. That is the paschal mystery, all of it from Good Friday till Pentecost.

Looking through that lens, we can understand that there are two kinds of death: “terminal” and “paschal.” The first one ends life and all possibilities. They are both real; but the second one ends one kind of life and begins another. The image of a grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying to produce new life is the way Jesus taught us about this truth.

There are two kinds of life: resuscitated life and resurrected life. The first is that restoration that occurs when someone is clinically dead and then brought back. Perhaps the story of Lazarus is an example. Resurrected life is not this. It is no restoration of one’s old life, but the reception of a radically new life. Lazarus got his old life back with sisters Mary and Martha. Jesus did not get his old life back.  Easter is about paschal death and resurrected life. For living mature Christian people everything depends on getting this right.

Christ spoke of many daily deaths and of many risings. These are the reality of the Paschal Mystery and the secret to life and ultimate happiness.

We die so often, but rarely do we recognize it and integrate into the paschal mystery. We die to our youth. You get up one morning and look in the mirror and no matter what cosmetics you employ, or what surgeon you see, or diet you begin, something is gone. You can either grieve that loss for the rest of your life, or you can recognize that even without youth your life is good, full, and joyful.

We die to our wholeness. People who have been abused, raped, betrayed in love, wake up someday and realize that something has died inside them. They can either become bitter, angry, and filled with rage and hate, or rise in the Paschal mystery.

We die sometimes to our dreams. We hear about this in the Gospel as those disciples walked to Emmaus and said: “We had hoped that….” We have all experienced that death, that collapse of our dreams about how things might be for us and it can leave us empty and useless, or we can rise in the Paschal mystery.

The honeymoon of our lives dies, and the excitement, the passion, the interest that was there at first, in marriage, in parenting, in a new vocation begins to look like hard work. We either collapse or grow weary, or we find in the Paschal mystery something richer, deeper and fuller in spirit.

In our culture we experience and celebrate Easter with springtime and eggs, bunnies and lilies. In our faith we experience and celebrate Easter as the Paschal Mystery that takes us from death to new life leading us through times of confusion, doubt, and grieving to the time of letting go, and the moment of embracing a spirit filled new life. This is the Paschal Mystery. It is where Jesus would lead us. Look at the lives of those who first followed him. They are as much the point of the Easter Gospel as Jesus. Consider what happened to them because of this mystery, and believe not just that Christ rose from the dead; but that it can happen to you as well. We do not just die a thousand deaths without rising to new and fuller lives. This is the promise God has made to us, and that promise is being kept.

March 22, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

My dear friends, in the darkness of this night, we stand in awe before the power of light and life which reveals to those who wish to see and understand the wonder of God; Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier: a God of love and mercy. We gather in holy place tonight and express that wonder and our deepest hopes in the presence of these 50 people whose faith and hope has become our own. We see in them what we have become. While we watch and listen to what they say and do, we are reminded of what we must all become: a people open to grace, seeking the truth, dying and rising, filled with the Spirit. They remind us that conversion is way of life, not a one-time event. What they are tonight for us, is what we must become.

For you, our blessed elect, the time has come to wrap yourselves in mystery; not in the sense of something you can’t understand, but in the sense of mysterion: a gift from God that you will unwrap again and again in years to come; a gift in which you shall take unending delight. From this night on, life is that gift; and from now on, you must not think of life as a possession, something that is yours, something that is yours to control or protect. It is no longer a possession you can choose to share with others or from which others can be excluded.

If we see ourselves as a kind of property we have a right to control rather than as a gift with infinite depth we are meant to experience, we will make radically different decisions when we are faced with moments in time that threaten our autonomy. We do not exist alone. We have no identity without other. We would could not be here had not two people come together in intimacy with God to conceive this gift. Our lives are grounded in this mystery which we are meant to live. Our lives are not a form of property. The inevitable end of that thinking is despair because when suffering comes (suffering we cannot control) there is no hope.

Grasp that cross hanging from your neck right now. Hold it. May it be for you what it is for this church you are becoming: a sign of hope that we share because we have received the mysterion. It is both a sign of what it means to live on this side of death, and the resurrection we hope for. It is a reminder that loving surrender makes suffering a sacrifice of love that redeems not an experience of misery we have to control. Buddhism speaks of existence as suffering. It is inevitable to the Buddist mind that to live is to suffer and then to die. It is tragic, this way of thinking. What we all know to be true is that suffering is inevitable and dying is unavoidable. Yet what people of our faith and this religion believe is that suffering and dying are not problems to be relieved; but that they are a sign of the kind of world we live in, either a world that ends in, and is ultimately about the betrayal of our hope; or a world that is about the hope that transcends this suffering and these limits.

I have read that when the great church historian Jaroslav Pelikan was dying he said: “If Christ is risen, then nothing else matters.” then, after a pause, he said, “And if Christ is not risen, then nothing else matters.”

There is a choice for you, the elect. It is a choice between hope and hopelessness. The meaning of your lives is not found in the experiences of the moment, and experiences you can understand and control. The meaning of your life will be found when you surrender, let go, and fall headlong into the embrace of God who made you, calls you, and waits for you. When that happens, there will be no fear in you and no suffering you cannot endure. To that truth we say: “Amen” because Christ has risen, and so must we. If you want that gift and seek to be identified with him, move forward now into the mystery.

March 21, 2008 at Saint Mark Church in Norma, OK

Isaiah 52: 13-53:12 + Psalm 31 + Hebrews 4: 14-16, 5: 7-9 + John 18:1-19:42

Earlier in John’s Gospel, Chapter 11 to be exact, the movement toward this moment began. Threatened by an outsider, by some one out of their control, the leaders of the people ran to their high priest a man named Caiphas. He knew that the Romans would sack him if he did not keep his Jews in line. The closer Jesus got to Jerusalem, the greater was his following. Caiphas was at risk, and so the carpenter’s son from Nazareth had to go. He was upsetting things.

All that we have just heard in the Passion is the consequence of a way of thinking that found its ultimate expression in the one quote of this man Caiphas that has lasted longer than he did: “It is better that one man should die for the people.” That haunting quotation expresses a perverse truth that we have yet to question. Caiphas, even though he was put out by the Romans is yet to be silenced. Better this death than have our lives upset. Better this death than we should have to change. Better this death than we should do without anything we want. And so it goes on and on and on.

Believing this perversity means that capital punishment will find supporters who believe that people should be put to death. Caiphas is still saying, “Better that one should die.” Believing this perversity means an unborn child has its life taken because it is better than upsetting one’s plans and one’s future. Caiphas is still saying, “Better than one should die.” Believing this perversity means the poor stay poor because we cannot afford welfare, Medicare, day care, or support mothers at home with small children. Caiphas is still saying, “Better that one should die.” Believing this perversity means our country will not allow refugees because we fear they will take our jobs and have an adverse effect on our standard of living. Caiphas is still saying, “Better that one should die.” We take the resources of this earth to support a lifestyle we think we deserve and do not respect nature,but just consume and pollute the environment for future generations. Caiphas is still saying, “Better that one man should die.”

It’s like a great litany of death that is repeated again and again from Caiphas to us. Better these deaths than we should be upset or have to change.

When Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Stan Rother, and Anne Frank are killed, when the clan murders civil rights workers in Mississippi, when oppressive regimes intimidate people and make them disappear, Caiphas is still saying, “Better that one person should die for the people.”

But it isn’t better. It is not better at all. We need the courage to say that and believe it. We need to be less intimated by our own weaknesses and fears and more courageous in moving out of our affluence, privilege and good name, less timid, small and petty and more willing to sacrifice and die rather than let an innocent person die by thinking that it might better than risk upsetting the way things are or always have been. For this kind of courage we ought to pray today as we look at the cross. This isn’t the time for sentimentality. Gospel love is not about feelings. It is about action. If we respond to God’s love at all it will be by action.

Joseph of Aramathea emerges in this Passion as a man of courage. He stepped forward by name in the absence of others to get the body of Jesus down from that cross. But he only took down the body. The truth is, Christ is still on the cross. Christ still is crucified as long as Caiphas holds his power over us leading us to believe and act on the belief that it is better for one person to die than have things upset or change.

The death of Jesus, an innocent man, is the consequence of thinking like Caiphas. Our lack of courage is no greater or less than the lack of courage on the part of the closest friends of Jesus. They are nowhere to be found in the passion accounts. They have all gone missing rather than call into question the thinking of Caiphas. As we ponder the cross this day, we must ponder the attitude that leaves Christ hanging there still all alone.

March 20, 2008 At Saint Mark in Norman, OK

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

The Jesus of John’s Gospel is Divine, all knowing, all powerful.He knows, says John that the Father had given all things into his hands. He knows who will betray him. This Jesus does not eat the Passover meal. He is the Passover Meal. There is no Passover meal in John’s Gospel, no institution of the Eucharist. The Jesus of John’s Gospel does not pass broken bread and a cup around with a command. The Jesus of John’s Gospel has a different command.

He takes off his robes and wraps himself in a towel. Tomorrow his robes will be stripped from him, and he will be tied by others. Before they can do their deed, he does it himself. What he does seems at first to be act of humility. That is what Peter thought. But this is an act of love, not humility. It is a divine act, a revelation of how much God loves us revealed in a new Commandment upon which the New Covenant will rest: the Commandment of LoveYet if we think that this love is a feeling, we still get it wrong like Peter. The Love of Jesus is not a feeling, it is an action.

This is the love by which Jesus set aside all that was His. No power, no authority, no exaltation. He left that aside to show His love, and he asks us to do the same: to set aside our perceived privilege, our desire for power, our controlling ways, and our expectations, and be empty for the sake of others. He says to Peter and to all who fail to understand, if you do not participate in this self emptying, you cannot enjoy the blessings it will guarantee.

Never did Jesus deny the dignity that was his as God, but he did not use it to safeguard is own comfort or well-being. Instead, his self-giving is the model and example of what his disciples must be willing to offer others.

In John’s Gospel there is water everywhere. From water in the Jordan for John’s Baptism, from water into wine at Cana, from water at the Temple’s Pool, from water at Jacob’s well, water in this basin, finally to water from his pierced side. By water our thirst is quenched, we are healed, washed and brought to life. See it once more. Understand, believe, and imitate his example keeping the commandment he has given us all.

March 16, 2008 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, K

Isaiah 50: 4-7 + Psalm 22 + Philippians 2: 6-1 + Matthew 26:14 – 27:66

(The Homily is delivered before the Proclamation of the Passion today.)

We begin today a week of remembering. Our remembering however is not simply the calling to mind a past event that might stir up gratitude or sympathy. Our remembering now is the heart of our Catholic faith. It is about connections. This remembering is the opposite of “dismembering.” The first consequence of sin, the break up of our relationship with God is over.  We are reconnected to God by the faithful obedience of His Son. We are brought together with each other by our Communion in and through His Son.  The one who remembers us and whom we remember died violently, shockingly, suddenly, but not senselessly. The one who remembers us and whom we remember was mocked, pierced, and spit upon, without losing sight of his mission. The one who remembers us and whom we remember was betrayed by a trusted friend, abandoned by everyone he loved when he needed them most.

We remember his living as well as his dying. We remember his giving and his serving. We do so to experience every day his presence to us here now and always.

We do so to allow that presence to transform us.

Listen now to the Passion of Jesus Christ as recorded by Matthew. Notice carefully that the evil of sin is not just the torture Christ endured, but the fact that he endured it alone. It is the abandonment of Christ, the faithlessness of those who professed to follow him that Matthew reveals. In this account of the Passion, except at the table of the Supper, Jesus is nearly silent. He is not the central figure, the crowd is.

We are ones in Matthew who are the focus of the Passion. Jesus is the recipient of the actions of others.

We remember this today in order to grow in faith: to become defenders and selfless servants of the least, the little ones, poor and hungry, thirsty, naked, and homeless.

We remember in order to become more like this one in whom we find our reason for living, our hope in dying, and our faith in the future where all our memories will be forever realized.

March 2, 2008 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

1 Samuel 16:1-7, 10-13 + Psalm 23 + Ephesians 5:8-14 + John 9: 1-41

This is a thrilling and exciting story. It is dramatic in the typical way John constructs his stories. There are details that excite the imagination, and those details tell most of the story. This is not simply a story about a blind man who bumped into Jesus. Do not miss the detail that Jesus went looking for him not just once, but twice. This not a story about sight being restored. The man was blind from birth, from the beginning. There are unmistakable references to creation here.

Get that little detail about dirt. Think of creation. Then remember where the man is sent: to the Pool – the Water – and the name of the pool is “Sent.” Then recall what God does on the first day of creation: bring light out of darkness. Suddenly this is not about a cure. This is about creation, about what God has done, and what God is still doing. It’s about what is happening now with Jesus, and what is happening those Jesus seeks. That man did not simply have blind eyes cured. He came to the realization that God’s creative power was at the center of his being. No story here about a blind man, no story about something Jesus did; this is a story about conversion as a new creation; how it works, and what it brings about.

It is a spiritual experience, a spiritual cure far more significant than getting 20/20 vision. Throughout the Gospel of John, the theme of Light and victory of light over darkness weaves its way through every scene. From the first chapter to the Passion,

there is a constant movement from darkness to light. Right up to the dramatic moment when darkness covers the earth in the middle of the day as the sun is darkened.

What John would have us understand is this truth: that Christ the Light has come to seek those who live in darkness. Now darkness itself is neither bad nor sinful. Jesus deals with that through the discussion of this man’s blindness: did it come from his parents and their sin? No. Darkness is simply the stuff in which creation happens. What is wrong and sinful is to choose to remain in darkness and refuse the light when it comes.

This is the heart of our Lenten story today.  Sin is a stubborn attachment to darkness. When the Pharisees refuse to change, refuse to open their eyes to the Light in their midst, when they accuse others of sin who clearly see the creative work of God in their midst, they are in trouble. Avoid Jesus as light, then meet him as judge. The Pharisees had an investment in darkness in keeping things the same, in keeping things in control, their control. When they see this man who is so different, they see a threat.  We must understand this story my friends: that blind man did not ask for anything. Jesus went looking for him. The gift did not make his life easier at first. He ended up expelled from the synagogue. But this story reveals that through human weakness the power of God enters human life, and the power is creative. Light comes to those who recognize that life is blindness without Christ; and comes through their weaknesses. Darkness comes to those who without Christ claim to see. It is a message for Lent. It is a call to choose Christ, to make him first and more important than others or the approval of others. We have been to the pool, the “sending pool” of Baptism. We have been enlightened. Why should any still live in darkness unless they have chosen it?

February 17, 2008 at Saint Mark Norman, OK

Genesis 12:1-4 = Psalm 121 + Romans 4:1-5, 12-17 + Matthew 17:1-9

This is not so much a story about Jesus as it is about the disciples, and it must leave us wondering about ourselves. It is more about discipleship than it is about the identity of Jesus. There are ancient symbols here: a mountain and a cloud. The high mountain is about the ascent of the human to the divine. And so, they go up – “by themselves” says Matthew. Then a cloud comes. It is the divine, and there the human and the divine meet. Suddenly they are no longer “by themselves”. They have company: Moses and Elijah. These are also “mountain men” let’s call them. They have gone up to mountains to look far off and find the way. It is there, above the plain that they can see which way to go.

Just as they are about to see the plan, there is that voice, and they fall to the ground in fear. A most tender moment occurs that we often miss when reading these verses of Matthew’s Gospel. The writer simply says: “He touched them.” They look and they see Jesus. He is the only one left to lead them, to teach them what they must know, and to take them from fear to love.

So, this story is about them – about these disciples and how they moved from fear to love: by listening to Jesus. Before their experience, they resisted. They wanted nothing to do with what Jesus said to them about the coming death and resurrection, betrayal and trial. Now things will be different. Peter, whose mind had been set on human things rather than divine things changes as he now begins to listen to Jesus who thinks “the things of God.” In the end, it is these disciples who are changed on that mountain. Jesus goes back to the way he was. They do not.

Matthew includes this story about the disciples so that his church, our church, which too often thinks human things rather than things of God might be touched by Jesus and rise up from fear or from denial. Virtue is tough, and the virtuous life is hard work. It is hard to listen to Jesus when there is so much noise around us. It is hard to hear the voice of God calling us to compassion, peace, and truth when human thinking and the noise of this world is violent, powerful, and destructive of the vulnerable, weak, and the poor.

We carry a moral agenda if we listen to God’s Son. It is a heavy burden to be committed to compassion and face suffering. We must not ignore or dismiss it. It is a heavy burden to be committed to peace and face division and hostility. We must find a way to reconcile without making things worse. It is a heavy burden to be committed to the truth and face cover-ups and lies from the highest offices to the smallest child in a classroom. We must not be fooled into thinking that anything can be hidden.

What we discover on the mountain is that we are not alone. Human effort is never just that. For those who listen to God’s Son there will also be divine grace bringing divine power. What we do in response to what God asks cannot fail, because we do not do it alone. When we finally embrace this truth; we can rise without fear, we can listen to Him, be open to God’s will, and engage ourselves in the mission of Jesus Christ. Then the Transfiguration will no longer be a story about Jesus or about Peter, James and John. It will finally and rightly be about us.

February 10, 2008 At Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 + Psalm 32 + Romans 5:12-19 + Matthew 4:1-11

Since the average age in this parish is 33, I realize that when I think about the days when I was 16 and 17 years old, most of you were not even born. I was that young once, and to the terror of my parents, I bought my own car. More often than not, when I would leave home for work, school, or to take my sister somewhere in that car, my father or mother would stand at the door and shout: “Remember who you are.” At the time I thought it was silly. Did they think I had amnesia?

A simply kind of Gospel wisdom brought that memory back to me as I sat with this piece of Matthew’s Gospel. As always, Matthew has one eye on the Old Testament and one eye on the New. His experience of Jesus and his memory are thoroughly conditioned by the stories, images, and the revelation of Israel’s experience with God.

They went to the desert, and their temptations in that 40 year span of time centered on food and water, the protective presence of God, and whether or not God was really God; a God beyond their control. In other words, it was about trust in God.

So, Matthew has Jesus go to the desert, but not before he gets in the Jordan for Baptism and has his revelation about his identity.

Now think of the Israelites who did not go into the desert until they passed through the water of the Red Sea. In that desert, during those 40 years, they developed their identity as God’s People, but time after time, temptation after temptation, they forgot who they were.

Jesus is now baptized. He knows who he is, and he goes to the desert for 40 days, and temptations begin.

Temptation is something we could all talk about. Everyone ought to be an expert. Temptations have an advantage over us. They are there first. They lie in wait, and they get to make the first move. When temptations finally make their move, it’s usually quick. We rarely have enough time to think it through, consult, and consider all the implications. Speed and pressure are in temptations favor. There is almost always this sense that we need to do it now. If we don’t, we may not get another chance. Later when we look back, we realize that if we had just applied the breaks, things would have been different. Temptation has the upper hand, and we end up saying to ourselves: “How did I get into this?”

Of course, there are different levels of temptations. Looking up from dinner with the desert cart parked by your table is not the same as looking up from your desk and seeing another’s exam answers right in front of you, or suddenly realizing that you could make a few adjustments on your tax table or the books at work and come home with a few more bucks in your pocket. Either way, temptations whether they are big or small are always about identity: who we are.

This forty-day season slows us down a bit and puts on the brakes. With the Triduum ahead of us – those three days when our identity at the table of the Lord, at the foot of the cross, and at the waters of baptism establish our identity, we have time to remember who we are as sons and daughters of God. Temptations are attractive because they appeal to a fantasy; to something we are not but wish we were. So it seems as though we can have it all, or have what we always wanted: a life of good fortune, a life always satisfied, a life without injury, or a life or power.

How could we possibly remember who we are when these things are offered? Eve and Adam know this story well.

Slow down. We move too fast. Fantasy that leads us away from the truth is the threshold of temptation. Knowing who we are, remembering who we are makes the difference. In Matthew’s 40 day story Jesus does not use some divine power to resist and control temptation and the tempter; he simply remembers who he is. We can do the same.

February 6, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Joel 2:12-18 + Psalm 51 + 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 + Matthew 6:1-16, 16-21

 We celebrate feasts differently today than our ancestors in faith celebrated feasts. They would keep a long fast leading up to a feast, and then there would be a joyful celebration last might last for days. Now, there is a long celebration leading up the feast, and then a fast follows.

Our way of celebrating Christmas is a perfect example. At some secret day in mid October Walmart, Target, and Hobby Lobby put out their Christmas stuff. That triggers something in us, and then for about two months we begin to celebrate. The parties start, the decorations go up, cards go out, and Christmas music begins to play. When Christmas day finally rolls around, we are finished, worn out, and full of we can eat and drink. The December 26, we’ve had it and we’re ready to move on; and then begins the fasting which the secular world calls “the diet.” Christmas Season used to last until February 2. In fact, in Vatican City the big tree and the Manger Scene just came down. In Oklahoma, Christmas season ended at sundown December 25.

This is a curious reversal. In our tradition as Catholics, the build-up was always toward a feast. Celebration came after. Today the feast is first, the fast is after. It’s curious. My suspicion is that we know how to anticipate and event but have not yet figured out how to sustain it. So, we confuse anticipation with celebration. I think one of the reasons is that in today’s life we just find it hard to anticipate anything. We want everything to happen quickly. We do not live well with the tension of something unresolved. Longing and fasting are not strong points in our culture. Consequently, without building up properly for a feast, we do not celebrate properly either.

To feast, one must fast. To taste something extra ordinary, one must have tasted the ordinary. The sublime depends upon sublimation. Seasons of play follow seasons of work. Seasons of intimacy follow seasons of solitude. Presence means something when there has been absence. There is a rhythm to life that must be observed, and when it breaks down, nothing is special and there is little to enjoy. So, Christmas is hardly special when we celebrated it during Advent. Weddings are not very special when the bride and groom have been living together already. Premature experience has a way of draining us of enthusiasm and expectations which can only come from painful waiting, longing, and sublimation.

Let’s get it right this year and this season. It’s time to fast and get ready for the feast. If we take it seriously, the feast will take more than one day to celebrate. The church gives us four: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Saturday of Vigil, and Sunday. Entering this fast anticipating the Feast of Life might suddenly lead us to see that this life is all anticipation for Life’s fullness in the Kingdom of God. Life here is itself a fast when lived in a spirit of self-sacrifice and self-giving. Not taking all there is, not keeping all we have, not demanding and expecting that we have a right to more of anything makes all of life a fast for the great feast to come.

February 3, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Zephania 2:3-12 + Psalm 146 + 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 + Matthew 5: 1-12

Most of us might easily point to these verses of Matthew’s Gospel as the most familiar part of his work. It is so familiar I suspect that with a little thought we could probably recite the whole list. We’re heard it and read that often! What Matthew unfolds here is list of the kind of people Jesus declares “happy”, and then he tells us what they can hope for. There is here a two-part message: qualifications for entering the Kingdom of heaven, and then what those who seek the kingdom might expect. Failure to keep the two parts together turns the first part into a set of rules: be poor, be merciful, be pure of heart, that sort of thing. If we do that, we miss the good part; the hopes that one might expect who is willing to be poor or merciful, or pure of heart.

This sermon is intended to stir up our hopes, give us something to look forward to, motivate us and urge on to practice the virtues it proposes.

Perhaps we would get the point and take the virtues more seriously if we thought more about them. The list we get here includes the kingdom of heaven, comfort and consolation, sharing in God’s reign, divine justice, divine mercy, seeing God, being children of God and perfect joy and happiness. Who wouldn’t want those things? What they all boil down to is simply the fullness of life in the presence of God. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our wildest dreams, our best hopes, our most fervent wishes are not only possible, but they are real.

The first part of each beatitude simply lists the character and the behavior of those who really do reach for fullness of life in the presence of God. These people are not economically deprived. They are poor meaning that stuff is not as important as God. They simply believe that if anything they have gets in the way of their relationship with God, it has to go. In short, they are compassionate, meek, merciful, sincere, honest, and people who make the world a better place. They are willing to be insulted and persecuted for their ideals and values.

But something whispers in the back of our minds that all this is mountain talk.

We all come down the mountain sooner or later; down to the flat land. We hit bottom again where poverty crushes all the way through, mourning has not comfort, persecution is victory for the persecutors, mercy is limited, peacemaking impossible, and meekness inherits nothing but it own refusal to fight back. For a moment there on the mountain, we had breath of mountain-fresh-air. Then we’re back to human pollution.