April 21, 2002 Adcts 2:14,36-41 + 1 Peter 2:20-25 + John 10:1 10
Called by name and hears my voice are two features of this Gospel from which we cannot escape. Complex and complicated as John’s tenth Gospel may be, with powerful implications about the identity of Jesus and his place in Jewish tradition, the scene is set at the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple. We can go no deeper into its meaning until we recognize that it is spoken to us, not someone else. The temptation to listen to and study the Gospel as a piece of historical or ..ancient” writing from another age and about another age is dangerous. It robs the Word of it’s Life, and cheats us of our chance to have that Life.
There is an old-time description of Baptism that we still sometimes hear, probably because it isn’t all wrong. It calls the rite: “Christening” I am sure that at it origin, the word springs from the anointing part of the rite wherein the candidate is anointed with “Chrism” Yet I suspect that the term stuck because through that anointing the candidate became Christ’s own taking upon themselves the name and the identity of Christian. In other words, by those symbols and rites, a person could say, as Jesus so often says: ..I am. . .a Christian.”
A people called by that name are no longer outside of this Gospel. They do not read nor hear it as though it were about someone else at another time. They read and hear it as their own. Once called by name in this way, we are like the sheep John describes, able to hear the voice of the one who calls us; but not only hear it, we can recognize it above and among all other voices and calls.
The Pharisees of this Gospel are still among us because they are still within us. It is not that John points to some people, but that he points to some behavior that is common to all who do not understand what he is trying to tell them. This voice is replacing all other voices. This voice is the only one we follow. This voice is the only one that can lead us to salvation and the Kingdom of God.
From the moment we are called by name, we are no longer Americans or Mexicans; white or black; Democrats, Republicans, nor Independents, for that matter, -we not necessarily Jews, Baptists, Catholics, nor Muslims. If he has ..sheep of other flocks” as he says, we are His, and His alone. Our identity is first established by whose voice we hear, and we use that voice to critique and identify all the other voices that are calling to us at all times. The “prophet” in the Old Testament mind was not a figure of the past, but an ever present reality. Hearing the voice of Christ is not listening to the past. This is not “The History Channel.” It is timeless and present.
The Pharisee in us wants privilege without responsibility, wants to eat from the tree of knowledge and seize the authority to determine right and wrong, and set standards by political fashion and social values. The Pharisee in us listens not to the voice of Jesus but to one’s own inner desire for approval and identity granted by the greedy, “thieves and robbers”, as Jesus calls them.
The issues that confront those called by name, “Christian” are issues of this day that those who first heard these words could never have imagined, but the power of this Living Word still speaks with clarity and vision. By our very identity, our very name, we are a people who care for the poor and do justice. These two guides are always the foundation of decision making for us. Many would think that listening to the Scriptures is listening to the voice of Jesus who walked in Galilee two thousand years ago, but we proclaim this Gospel with purpose on Easter’s fourth Sunday because it is a living Jesus in this time and age that we proclaim and whose voice we hear He leads us into the issues and crises of this day, calling us to truth, holiness, and wisdom: a truth that is not relative and is accessible to all, a holiness resting upon integrity and wholeness, and wisdom that is not something we ourselves can claim, butsomething that embraces us from without.
Called and Claimed as God’s own, Open and Attentive, we are a people in this season who listen for the voice of our shepherd knowing a multitude of ways to hear that voice in scripture, in tradition, in study, in prayer, in dialogue, in silent reflection and in teaching, but always by listening, not talking, preaching, shouting, or demanding. Then we become a people who can follow that voice in unity and charity, joyfully moving into the new Jerusalem where all shall have life and have it abundantly.
April 14, 2002 Acts 2: 14,23-33 + 1 Peter 1 17-29 + John 24: 13-35
We are looking during these Easter Sundays at the various people whose testimony is so essential to our faith. Without them, we would stuck on the death of Jesus. Without them and the accounts of their experience, we would be stopped dead at Good Friday First we had Mary Magdalene, then Thomas, and now these two. They’re good, these disciples. They’ve got it all down. They know what has happened, but they don’t know what it means, and that’s the trouble. They veiy nearly miss making the connection between Jesus of Nazareth and the God for whom they have such a thirst.
They’ve got all the details down: the death, the empty tomb reported and confirmed, but they fail to recognize the meaning, just as they fail to recognize the person of Jesus Christ. They call him a prophet, but they fail to recognize him as the one who redeems. Luke is clever with this. In the first chapter of his Gospel, Old Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit announces that “God has visited his people and set themfree.” In the second chapter, old Anna in the Temple saw the child and spoke of him as the one who would “set Jerusalemfree.” The word Luke uses for this deliverance is used only in the first and second chapters, and then he does not use it again until this final chapter when these two struggle in their disappointment because they had hoped that Jesus would be the one to set themfree.
This becomes a stoiy of recognition, and they almost miss it. He is about to go on when they suddenly discover that for which they have longed. a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As they look around that table, they recognize more than Jesus in that room. They recognize themselves, and they recognize what has happened to them in the breaking of the bread. They have been set free. What was promised at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel has been fulfilled, and all that remains now is for them to recognize what that means.
In their suddenly recognized freedom, they leave that room and hasten back to Jerusalem, free from the sadness, free from the disappointment that kept them from recognizing what had really been going on in Jerusalem those earlier days. It wasn’t just about Jesus, it was about them too. It was about their deliverance from all that would keep them joy, from all that would keep them recognizing Christ in their midst, and claiming the relationship with God for which they longed. It was about their future and the burning hearts as they now lived with what they knew but could not prove.
What seems like the end of this Gospel is just the beginning. What seems like the end of Christ’s life is also the real beginning, and so it is with us as well. What sometimes seems like the end is just the beginning: when we think we’re done in, crushed, beaten down one last time, we are simply failing to recognize what has happened during those days in Jerusalem. It was not the end.
They knew it, but they couldn’t prove it right then. It took the rest of their lives to give the final witness, and they must have done a good job of it, because we have the story to tell and the faith with which to pass it on. My friends, we have some bread to break here and a blessing to share, and every one of us knows someone who is walking through this day of their life sadly and ftlled with disappointment. Some of us know people who think they’re at the end. Our hearts ought to be burning right now as we think of them and plan to join them and stay with them until they can recognize the God who has come to set them free.
April 14, 2002 Acts 2: 14,23-33 + 1 Peter 1 17-29 + John 24: 13-35
We are looking during these Easter Sundays at the various people whose testimony is so essential to our faith. Without them, we would stuck on the death of Jesus. Without them and the accounts of their experience, we would be stopped dead at Good Friday First we had Mary Magdalene, then Thomas, and now these two. They’re good, these disciples. They’ve got it all down. They know what has happened, but they don’t know what it means, and that’s the trouble. They veiy nearly miss making the connection between Jesus of Nazareth and the God for whom they have such a thirst.
They’ve got all the details down: the death, the empty tomb reported and confirmed, but they fail to recognize the meaning, just as they fail to recognize the person of Jesus Christ. They call him a prophet, but they fail to recognize him as the one who redeems. Luke is clever with this. In the first chapter of his Gospel, Old Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit announces that “God has visited his people and set themfree.” In the second chapter, old Anna in the Temple saw the child and spoke of him as the one who would “set Jerusalemfree.” The word Luke uses for this deliverance is used only in the first and second chapters, and then he does not use it again until this final chapter when these two struggle in their disappointment because they had hoped that Jesus would be the one to set themfree.
This becomes a stoiy of recognition, and they almost miss it. He is about to go on when they suddenly discover that for which they have longed. a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As they look around that table, they recognize more than Jesus in that room. They recognize themselves, and they recognize what has happened to them in the breaking of the bread. They have been set free. What was promised at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel has been fulfilled, and all that remains now is for them to recognize what that means.
In their suddenly recognized freedom, they leave that room and hasten back to Jerusalem, free from the sadness, free from the disappointment that kept them from recognizing what had really been going on in Jerusalem those earlier days. It wasn’t just about Jesus, it was about them too. It was about their deliverance from all that would keep them joy, from all that would keep them recognizing Christ in their midst, and claiming the relationship with God for which they longed. It was about their future and the burning hearts as they now lived with what they knew but could not prove.
What seems like the end of this Gospel is just the beginning. What seems like the end of Christ’s life is also the real beginning, and so it is with us as well. What sometimes seems like the end is just the beginning: when we think we’re done in, crushed, beaten down one last time, we are simply failing to recognize what has happened during those days in Jerusalem. It was not the end.
They knew it, but they couldn’t prove it right then. It took the rest of their lives to give the final witness, and they must have done a good job of it, because we have the story to tell and the faith with which to pass it on. My friends, we have some bread to break here and a blessing to share, and every one of us knows someone who is walking through this day of their life sadly and ftlled with disappointment. Some of us know people who think they’re at the end. Our hearts ought to be burning right now as we think of them and plan to join them and stay with them until they can recognize the God who has come to set them free.
April 7, 2002 Acts 2:42-47 + 1 Peter 1:3-9 + John 20:19-31
One of the greatest scholars on John’s Gospel suggests that the fourth Gospel is a “Gospel of Encounters.” It’s a wonderful idea if you think about it, stories of encounters. the encounter with John the Baptist; with Macy, his mother, at Cana, with Nicodemus; the woman at the well, a Roman official with a sick child, a sick man at Bethesda’s pool, a man born blind, Martha, Macy, and Lazarus, Macy Magdaline; and Thomas in an upper room. All are stories of people encountering Jesus Christ. One after another, they make their way onto the stage of John’s great drama, and through them, we learn more and more about Jesus, and each encounter is a story of faith and a confrontation with obstacles to faith. Those obstacles are what define SIN in John’s theology.
In some way or another, unique to each situation, Sin comes a kind of refusal, or blind spot, with regard to the presence and truth of Christ’s identity, and Faith comes from hearing the Word spoken by Jesus with a willingness to act on that word. Light must comes to that blindness, acceptance or understanding must gives way to refusal to change. It all begins with John the Baptist who points out Jesus Christ to the others, who surely must have looked and laughed. It’s a wonder it didn’t cost John his following. He talked of Messiah and pointed to a boy from Nazareth! It was the farthest thing from anyone’s mind. Then it concludes with Thomas whose expectations of a messianic age are crushed by a cross, who looks for a savior and sees nothing but a broken and wounded man recently given up for dead.
It leads us to wonder what it must have been like in the other stories of sin and faith that continue to be retold in our tradition? What was it like to face the truth in the age of crusades when Christian people, the Body of Christ were being slaughtered by other believers under the banner of the cross?What it was like in the age of the Inquisition when power and politics ruled moral judgement and the Body of Christ was burned at the stake as easily as books and ideas?What it was like in an age when Popes led armies as Tempera! Rulers and remained silent while the Body of Christ was oppressed for the sake of their security and ease?People of faith in those days had to look at their church, the Body of Christ, their brothers and sisters, and see a broken, wounded It leads us to wonder what it must have been like in the other stories of sin and faith that continue to be retold in our tradition? What was it like to face the truth in the age of crusades when Christian people, the Body of Christ were being slaughtered by other believers under the banner of the cross?What it was like in the age of the Inquisition when power and politics ruled moral judgement and the Body of Christ was burned at the stake as easily as books and ideas?What it was like in an age when Popes led armies as Tempera! Rulers and remained silent while the Body of Christ was oppressed for the sake of their security and ease?People of faith in those days had to look at their church, the Body of Christ, their brothers and sisters, and see a broken, wounded
The challenge faced by Thomas in that upper room is much like their challenge and ours today We look at a broken and wounded Christ, broken and wounded by his own, not really by someone else. We see wounds caused by sin, and feel shame and sadness. We look at a church, our church, wounded and shamed as Christ was wounded, abandoned, and shamed, and we feel what Thomas must have felt in that upper room as he was called to risk faith in this one who is so unlike what he expected. What were his choices? Cut and run, or stay in there with the others and find out what God would do with them and this battered Body of Christ.
Thomas has been in my thoughts a lot this year as, like you, I look at Christ in His Church and see wounds instead of glory, feel disappointment as much as hope, and ponder what fear and sin have done again. Do we cut and run or stay with others and be transformed by what we see into greater believers who like those apostles break out of a locked up room and are born again by the power of the Spirit. It is a tough time to belong to this church. It was then too, and there have been tough times in the past. For me, it is a tough time to be a priest, and later this month I shall begin my thirty-fourth year in this sacred ministry, in a life I wouldn’t trade for anything, but admitting that this year is the hardest of them all. We see what Thomas saw. We feel what Thomas felt. We can still encounter the Christ he met in that upper room with the others, but we’ll have to be there to do it.
That Christ who met John the Baptist, Nicodemus, the Woman at the well, Mary Magdalen, and all the others did look quite the way they expected, but he spoke them all of forgiveness and healing, and called them to look beyond what they could see to what they could believe. They had to let go of a lot of things that kept them believing, and most of all, of fear that kept them hiding behind doors and walls. Listen and watch Thomas as he encounters the Lord and faces his own fears, sadness, shame, disappointment, and doubts.He has something to say to us this year like never before, something he may have said in previous generations who shared his feelings, something to teach us about reaching out in trust when there is no reason, and waiting for the Spirit to transform all of this mess into a reason to rejoice.
Christ. They must have been hurt, angry, disappointed, shamed, and disgusted.
The challenge faced by Thomas in that upper room is much like their challenge and ours today. We look at a broken and wounded Christ, broken and wounded by his own, not really by someone else. We see wounds caused by sin, and feel shame and sadness. We look at a church, our church, wounded and shamed as Christ was wounded, abandoned, and shamed, and we feel what Thomas must have felt in that upper room as he was called to risk faith in this one who is so unlike what he expected. What were his choices? Cut and run, or stay in there with the others and fmd out what God woulddo with them and this battered Body of Christ.
Thomas has been in my thoughts a lot this year as, like you, I look at Christ in His Church and see wounds instead of glory, feel disappointment as much as hope, and ponder what fear and sin have done again. Do we cut and run or stay with others and be transformed by what we see into greater believers who like those apostles break out of a locked up room and are born again by the power of the Spirit. It is a tough time to belong to this church. It was then too, and there have been tough times in the past. For me, it is a tough time to be a priest, and later this month I shall begin my thirty-fourth year in this sacred ministry, in a life I wouldn’t trade for anything, but admitting that this year is the hardest of them all.We see what Thomas saw. We feel what Thomas felt. We can stillencounter the Christ he met in that upper room with the others, but we’ll have to be there to do it.
That Christ who met John the Baptist, Nicodemus, the Woman at the well, Mary Magdalen, and all the others did look quite the way they expected, but he spoke them all of forgiveness and healing, and called them to look beyond what they could see to what they could believe. They had to let go of a lot of things that kept them believing, and most of all, of fear that kept them hiding behind doors and walls. Listen and watch Thomas as he encounters the Lord and faces his own fears, sadness, shame, disappointment, and doubts.He has something to say to us this year like never before, something he may have said in previous generations who shared his feelings, something to teach us about reaching out in trust when there is no reason, and waiting for the Spirit to transform all of this mess into a reason to rejoice.
March 31, 2002 Acts 10:34-43 + 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 + John 20:1-9
This woman, Mary of Magdala, appears in all four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection. In itself, that fact, says more than we could imagine when it comes to measuring her significance and her impact upon the church in those days of Gospel formation. She plays a central role in this last of John’s great dramatic scenes. She is at the tomb before John and Peter, and she reports that the stone has been moved away Her tum to look in that tomb comes after they have gone. Once the Gospel has gotten Peter and John out of the way, Mary takes the center stage to unfold the Gospel’smessage of Gloiy and the church’s relationship to Jesus.
She is, in John’s Gospel the essence of Christianity and the model of one who has found the Lord and believed. She is first of all, remember, a sinner who was forgiven by Jesus, healed and restored by the casting out seven devils (Luke 8). It is a forgiven and healed sinner who becomes the first to encounter the risen Christ. It is her transformation that is most striking. The change that faith brings about in this woman is what John puts before us today The consequences of that change are what we ponder in the heart of this Gospel proclaimed.
At frrst she thinks the body has been stolen. something not uncommon in those days. Graves were robbed all the time. The detail of the veiy neat folding of the burial clothes suggest that what happened there was not the usual haste of a thief, but rather something veiy planned and determined. Robbers would either have taken the body wrapped, or would most likely have left the cloth on the ground, thrown off in haste.
She sees this, and then John, in his usual dramatic style begins a dialogue, and I want you to notice the stage directions that keep interrupting the conversation. If they were not important, he would not have put them in the text. She keeps turning back and forth. toward the grave, toward Jesus, toward the grave, and then toward Jesus. It’s as though she doesn’t know where to look, but it’s certain that as long as she looks at the grave, she isn’t going to get anywhere, and not until she hears his voice and he calls her name does she finally tum away from the grave, from the past, from death, toward the Lord and toward Life. Yet, even then she reaches out, and he must say to her: “Let go of me.” There is no hanging on to the past, there is no hanging on even to the Jesus of this earth, he must go to glory, and she must go back to the others in order to meet Jesus in glory She is sent into the community, into the church, into relationship with others where together they shall seek the Lord and share his glory.
We gather here this Easter day as sinners forgiven, as people who have seen Lord and turned toward him. Yet we are also people who have turned back around a time or two for one reason or another We are, in every way, this woman who is so much a part of the Easter Story. Our faith is not perfect. We do not always recognize Jesus, and do not always face the one who calls us by name. Yet we are here in the midst of others like ourselves, like Peter and like John, drawn by faith into the church, into a relationship with others who come again to an empty tomb.
Her message is our message today “I have seen the Lord.” Our faith does not necessarily mean knowing a lot about Jesus, it means knowing Jesus. It does not mean arguing about Jesus, it means meeting Jesus. In its purest form, it means the certainty that Jesus is alive, alive in our midst, in this room, in our hearts, and alive in the presence of the God who has visited us in him and draws us to himself.
Two people in John’s Gospel rise up as lovers and the first believers. Love and Faith are indivisible when it comes to Jesus. It is love that leads Mary to believe that Jesus is risen. It is love that marked the life of John who also saw and believed. So it must be for us as well. love of Jesus will lead us to faith and love of one another will lead us to glory.
March 24, 2002 Isaiah 50:4-7 + Philippians 2:6-11 + Matthew 26: 14-66
The Passion of Matthew reflects and deep and intense search for Justice, and when we proclaim it evecy three years, it ought to renew and deepen our own intense desire for Justice. Much of Matthew’s material is taken from Mark, and the additions that are unique to Matthew reflect that early Jewish community’s passion for Justice and their Old Testament rooted conviction that the suffering of the innocent cries to heaven for justice, and we shall find there, a source of Justice that will free and restore the innocent and confront those who have persecuted them so.
The death of Judas, the introduction of Pilate’s wife, the washing of the procurator’s hands, and the spectacular events following the death of Jesus offer us insight into Matthew’s intention. The issue is the fundamental quest for Justice and vindication of the innocent sufferer. So, the Passion according to Matthew is a presentation of the ultimate trial of the righteous Victim, and Matthew provides in his Passion Narrative the evidence of innocence in the face of this unjust death.
Listen to this Proclamation then from that view.Be moved by the injustice and the conspiracy against the innocent one, and be upset by the complicity between the Jewish authorities and the Roman officials.It is the year to be shocked again by this travesty – a travesty that continues,for this is not just a stocy of the past.We do not yet live in the age of perfect Justice,and we have not the right to be passive as long as there is any injustice oppression of the innocent.The innocent stlll suffer evecywhere,and the unattended suffering of so many still cries to heaven.
We who are Baptized and profess belief in Jesus Christmay not allow the passion of the body of Christ to go unchallenged, for doing so puts us in the same complicity as those who handed him over. falsely accused Him, and cried for the release of Barabbas in His place.
Here then, Matthew’s call to action in the search for Justice.
March 17, 2002 Ezekiel 37·12-14 + Romans 8:8-11 + John 11, 1-45
A Samaritan woman, a blind man, and now the third of our unlikely teachers, is a dead man. Unlike the others, he says nothing. The conversation in this dramatic piece of John’s gospel goes on all around him, but he remains silent. Perhaps it is in contrast to the Silence of Lazarus that the Word takes on such power You get a sense in this story that there is a lot being said. Messages are being sent from Bethany to where ever Jesus is. The Apostles are talking among themselves. Martha and Mary have things to say, and true to form, Martha is in charge. The bystanders are talking too, and John can’t resist making them look the fools. First they criticize Jesus for curing a blind man on the Sabbath, and now they pick because he failed to do something about this illness for Lazarus.You get an impression that it’s noisy, that everyone is talking, and no one is saying anything. Finally into all of that noise and comes the Word, and with that, things get down to business.
It is not a miracle that John presents in this Gospel today It is a sign. This is no “wonder” or “cure” that brings people to faith, this is a sign that takes place in the midst of faith. Faith is already there.What happens in this story is a consequence of faith and of love coming together in this household where there is so much hope and so much trust in the Word. It is the power of that Word we are privileged to see today, the glory of God.
The Word calls out to Lazarus: “Come out” and it echos for all ages and into every generation where there is faith and love. “Come Out” he says to us from the tomb of self-sufficiency that binds us from admitting our need for God and one another “Come out” he says to the tomb of our narcissism and that bings us in hedonistic ways that seek our own pleasure first and above all others. “Come Out” says the Word, out from all the business where there is no time to listen, to be quiet, and to pray “Come Out” says the Word from that tomb of apathy and ignorance and be alive to the plight of the poor and oppressed. “Come Out” he says from the tomb of sin, and guilt, shame and grief, and be free by forgiveness.
The one who speaks to us today does so without words of his own. He comes out in response to the Word and the call of one who loved him, and his response to God’s call in love becomes the sign of God’s glory The Word that calls the dead from the grave is still present where there is faith and love calling us to “Come out” from whatever holds us back from glory and binds us from those who love us. Like the dry bones of Ezekiel’s prophecy, we can hear that Word and be stirred to life again, and this is God’s glory.
Told in Lent’s fifth week we are about to enter in our commemoration of Christ’s passion as we lead our Catechumens and Candidates into the Paschal mystery We cannot do so unless we learn from Lazarus the lesson of love and faith, and hear with Lazarus the cry of Christ Jesus who still bids us to “come out.” More than a miracle, it is a sign to us of what has happened through, with, and in Jesus Christ. We shall, all of us, know the power of faith and love, and we are called in these days by a Jesus who weeps at our tombs and waits for us to come out and go free.
March 10, 2002 1 Samuel 16:6-13 + Ephesians 5:8-14 + John 9· 1-41
Last week we were privileged to witness the conversion of a woman from Samaria as she drank deep in the water of Jesus. We shared her joy in his friendship, and celebrated our membership in the crowd who have come to believe because we have heard for ourselves and know him to be savior of the world. This week in our midst is a man born blind. We watch and listen as Jesus confronts the darkness of sin. In verses just before this story, He has called himself the Light of the Word. What the man receives from Jesus is not simply physical sight, but a deeper spiritual insight of faith.Strangely, he is the only one in this whole story who seems capable of seeing Jesus for who he really is.
Jesus saw a man no one else would see. The disabled, the challenged in his time were invisible. They were at the margins of human life, ignored, restricted, and totally without rights. Those who could see looked past them as if they were not there. But Jesus, the Light can see, and he sees this man and looks into his eyes and into his heart. Like the woman from last week, he is an unlikely candidate for God’s gift, God’s call, and God’s favor, yet he’s the one who emerges from all this power and prestige to reveal and announce the time of salvation and the coming of Light.
It becomes a story of Baptism, and so it becomes our story Anointed and washed in that pool, he moves gradually to understand what has happened to him and who it is that seeks him out. First he says, it is “the mancalled, Jesus.” Then he calls him “a Prophet.” Finally he calls Jesus, “Lord.” As each scene of this story unfolds we follow the steps of grace leading to faith. It is a story of sin confronted by light and a story of salvation for those who seethe Light.
For John, sin is not some discrete failing but a fundamental blind spot with regard to the revealing Word of God. This blindness which means “Sin” is a refusal to be open to God’s action outside of one’s narrow expectations about how God is supposed to behave. It is the stubborn blindness that refuses to be surprised by God. It is the unwillingness to accept something or someone not expected. It is the choice of darkness over the light of life.
Because Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath, those righteous, religious people closed their eyes to him because he did not behave the way they expected. Unlike the blind man who willingly accepted the mud/paste anointing and the water of the pool, these “holy” ones, all religious and proper refused to be anointed with the truth of works and words of Jesus, and that was sin. He did not meet their predetermined criteria or remain within the legal confines of the law they had made so burdensome to others.
A woman from Samaria leads us to the Messiah and a blind man leads us to the Lord. They are unlikely guides unless we are confess that we cannot see and that we need them to show us the way If we will accept Baptism’s anointing and take ourselves to the pool as he asks, this story suggests that he will come to seek us even if our faith may yet be a little incomplete. It is only our stubborn blindness that leaves us in the dark; that makes it impossible forus to see that God may come and God may work in places and in times where we would not choose nor expect to find him. In the smoke and rubble of a terrorists deed, in the tragedy of a child’s death, in the loneliness of broken and betrayed love, Light shines for those who wish to see. God can be there as well as in this church, a glorious sunset, or a beautiful face.
It is Lent’s Fourth Sunday We are now half the way, being drawn as we were, by the light of the Easter Fire. We have been seen by the Lord, even when we could not see, and we have been anointed and washed by his command. We are a people born blind not because of sin, but for the sake of the Glory of God. There is a price to pay for this sight. Cast out, ridiculed and judged harshly by others, those who chose to see will, like David in the first reading, be sought by the Lord and chosen above all others, and they will become children of the light, producing every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.
March 3, 2002 Exodus 17:3-7 + Romans 5:1-8 + John 4:5-42
For three weeks, beginning today, we shall touch upon the most significant symbols of our faith. water, light, and life. With them, we shall confront a thirsty, dark and dying world. Three very unlikely teachers will lead us in these lessons. a woman who has had five husbands, a blind man, and a man who has been dead for four days. It all fits in with what we know to be true, that God uses unlikely people to accomplish divine plans, and sinner is as good a teacher as a saint.
The surprising setting for this week’s lesson has less to do with the woman than it does with the location. Samaritans and Jews are simply not conversation partners, and drinking from a Samaritan’s utensil is more of a violation than the conversation. Centuries of anti feminist thinking have cast all sorts of doubts on this woman’s character, and the fact is, they are unfounded, and there is nothing in the Gospel to suggest that she was any worse than anyone else in the town. Having five husbands was easily possible in those times, and living with another who was not her husband was simply a matter of survival, for a widow or a divorced/abandoned woman to come under the protection of another man was the only way she could live. She could have been any of the women in that town, a Samaritan town, and she’s in her own territory The eye brow raising surprise here is what he’s doing there, not what she’s doing there. It’s her place. She belongs there. So, let’s not make too much out of her past. We know nothing of it. What matter is what happens when she enters into this conversation with the visitor; and little by little, this conversation becomes conversion.
This wonderful, rich story is a great two act play. Act one features the woman and Jesus. It is the main story Act two features the nature of Jesus as Messiah and the universal character of his mission. In the back ground, while Jesus and woman are talking, there is another plot: the woman and the townspeople; and then there is the great finale, a kind of final chorus with all of them gathered together closing the story. And it’s all about water, but we can be just as confused about this water as she was. It is helpful to remember that John uses double meaning words to lead to new and deeper understanding. Being “born” is one of them. Remember how Nicodemus got all mixed up about how he could be born a second time? It’s the same thing here with Water. Jesus is not talking about H20 and the physical sensation of thirst. He has to talk her through that, just as we must reach beyond water to understand the gift Jesus has to offer”Living Water” in the context of this gospel mean the life-giving revelation of God in Jesus. In ancient Jewish writings, the Torah or “Law” was often described as both “the gift of God” and as “living water ” For John, Jesus is the ultimate gift of God.
On Lent’s third Sunday, we proclaim for all to hear what we heard in the Book of Exodus this morning, and what we believe from our own experience: that God has the power to satisfy every human thirst, and any substitute for God will leave us returning again and again to the well.
On Lent’s third Sunday, what we celebrate is the love of God and God’s gift of living water poured out in every human heart, for Jews and well as Samaritans, for sinners as well as saints, for women as well as men, In the wonder of this gift, we become like the woman of this Gospel, filled with a redeeming sense of grace that moves us to run and implore others. “Come and see!” It is not enough to move into recognition of Jesus. Accepting him as Savior is not all there is to it – you must run to others and implore them to Come and See.We are a church of zeal and evangelistic spirit at our very core. The gift of God brings with it some obligations. It is not just ours to hold, hide, and keep. It is a gift to be shared widely and broadly in a most universal way that reflects the universal dimensions of God’s plan in Jesus Christ.
What she finds at the well is a friend. which is someone who knows all about you and loves you anyhow Such an experience, such a gift is rare enough in this life, now and at the time of Jesus, and when people hear of it happening, they come running. As we make our way toward Easter, we do so with a friend, with a God who has chosen to include us, all of us, in the paradise of His love. It is a life that will know no thirst, no hunger, no sadness, no mourning, no fear, and for that matter no end.
A sinner, a woman, a Samaritan comes to teach us that lesson. Blessed are those who have ears to hear
A couple of weeks ago while I was on vacation, I had the privilege of visiting Antarctica. It was an experience that shall never dim in my memory It is a place totally unspoiled by human beings. not one cigarette butt, not a single styro-foam cup, no Kleenex, fast-food boxes, nor brown sky that burns the eyes. When I listened to Matthew’s description of Jesus in these verses, I couldn’t help but think of what I have recently seen, and I recognized that Matthew is struggling to describe “beauty”, the real thing.
It occurs to me that there are two kinds of people who relate to beauty· those who look at it, and those who see it and seek to understand it.Those who look are often the busy ones who have to be tapped on the shoulder, or called to “Look at that.” and then may or may not glance up from what they’re doing to see whatever it is that has excited another They are the ones have no time to look up and gaze at a sunset, who look at life in terms of what they can do and what they can get. They use music to cover the noise of a machine or the traffic, and their feet never cross the threshold of a museum.Those who see beauty are those who recognize a gift. They are sometimes stunned by the western sky They will put down what they are doing to listen, to gaze, and to wonder. They are like Peter, James, and John in Matthew’s gospel today, stunned by beauty, speechless, awed, and filled with wonder
Matthew is desperate in this text to describe beauty He shares with us the experience of Peter, James and John, and his own for that matter, of moving from seeing this great beauty to understanding.They have put down all the useless things of their lives. They have set aside the mind-set of “function as value”, and they have climbed this mountain to sit before beauty, and there in its presence, they understand.
They understand finally that this beauty is the presence of God, and that what they see is all that human kind can handle. They see in the beauty of Jesus what others cannot, because they have begun to understand true beauty as it reveals the divine artist.
In the context of Matthew’s gospel, the Transfiguration, or as I would call it today, “The encounter with Beauty” comes just after the first prophecy of the Passion. Those disciples have come face to face with the passion of Christ, and they have been invited to see in it the beauty of Divine Love rather than the ugliness of human violence. This is what it means to understand beauty .
Our Lenten days this year can be, if we so chose, a time to see beauty and understand it. We may, ifwe chose, walk with Peter, James and John into the face of beauty They did more that day than look at Jesus. They saw beauty, and they understood it as a reflection of the divine; and we may do the same. The Passion is put before them, and they see the Transfiguration.
What this understanding allows is for us to look at the cross, see victory, and understand Love.What this understanding allows is for us to look at our own suffering, our broken hearts, disappointments, and failures,see the beauty of divine mercy, and understand forgiveness.What this understanding allows is for us to look into the face of poverty and misery, see the face of the divine creator,and understand compassion.What this understanding allows is for us to look at those the world would pass by because they do not produce, look pretty, nor provide us with anything we want, see the face of the divine creator,and understand the Kingdom of God.
This is our Lent in it’s Second Week:a invitation to put down the busy things and tasks that keep us from seeing beauty and understanding it;the things that keep us from Love, forgiveness, compassion, and the Kingdom of God.