The Body and Blood of Christ   +   June 18, 2017

Deuteronomy 8, 2-3, 14-16 + Psalm 147 + 1 Corinthians 10, 16-17 + John 6, 51-58

St Peter the Apostle and St William Parishes in Naples, Fl

To celebrate this feast, we used to call “Corpus Christi,” we have to confront a cultural barrier. Moreover, to enter into the mystery of what is being revealed in John’s sixth chapter requires more than just reading the words. What John is addressing here is human hunger, not necessarily food. Yet, we live in a world of fast food and junk food in a culture that too often eats in the car or at best, on the run; and when the wrappers are thrown away, there is still hunger. Curiously, and for me disturbingly, even in restaurants, people hardly relax to savor food and conversation. What we often find is iPads and cell phones in one hand with a fork in the other. What we are also beginning to admit is that the junk food is exactly that. It is not real food because it supplies no nourishment and is often harmful to eat. In the meantime, hunger remains.

It isn’t just junk food that we consume either. We feed our minds with trivia, news that is mostly opinion rather than fact. Instead of consuming great literature, most people seem content to devour trivial, shallow trash picked up at the check-out stand attracted by sensational headlines and photos of superstars. In the meantime, hunger remains.

Some people are awakening to this reality, and they make changes. They train themselves to walk past the processed food aisle. They turn off the TV, giving up the prepackaged opinions of hate radio and the shouting of left or right extremists. They look for and hunger for people who are engaged in real living, people whose lives are about more than work, eating, entertainment and sleeping. Some folks are looking for real food, because they are hungry for what matters, for what give life.

There is in every human life a hunger for God, and to desperate, starving people wandering in a desert, God gave food, manna every day. They had to take the “manna risk” of doing things God’s way, and not returning to Egypt. Then again in God’s own time, Jesus Christ came to feed the hungry. The Gospels are filled with accounts of this. To people who followed him into the desert, he offered ordinary bread. To the leper hungry for companionship, he offered the bread of healing. To a lonely woman at Jacob’s well, he offered the bread of human kindness and satisfied her hunger for acceptance. To sinners he offered the bread of forgiveness, and satisfied their hunger for salvation. To the rejects and outcasts, by mixing with them and sharing their bread, he offered companionship and so satisfied their hunger for self-worth. To a widow burying her only son, and to Martha and Mary who had just buried their brother, he offered the bread of compassion, and showed them that even in death we are not beyond the reach of God’s help. To Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector who robbed bread from the tables of the poor, Jesus invited himself to his table. Then, awakening within him a hunger for a better life, he got him to share his money with the poor.

This Eucharist we gather to celebrate here week after week is real food for us that can satisfy every hunger. “Flesh and Blood” is a way of referring to a human being, not just tissue and fluid, and that is what this Feast is about: being human. Way more than processions and walking behind a monstrance, this feast is about the mystery into which we drawn here, the Body and Blood of Christ. This is what gives us the strength to walk in the power of Christ’s presence day after day aware of our dignity, our communion, and our responsibility for one another.

When we hold out our hands and accept the broken bread, we are daring to take hold of a body that was broken in death and rose in freedom. When we drink the cup, we pledge ourselves to solidarity. That is the meaning of drinking from the same cup. We become one with the losers, the powerless, the have-nots, the “dregs” of society, the sinners for whom Jesus drained the cup of suffering. So today we focus on what we easily forget: that every Eucharist must create in us a great sense of unease about disunity, discrimination, and hypocrisy in the body of Christ. It must make us bold in assuming the work of Jesus with the gifts of his Spirit. This then, is the gathering place, a stopping place, a resting place for us who are on the way to Kingdom of Justice and Peace.

The Most Holy Trinity   +   June 11, 2017

Exodus 34, 4-6, 8-9 + Psalm Deuteronomy 3, 52-56 + 2 Corinthians 13, 11-13 + John 3, 16-18

St Peter the Apostle and St William Parishes in Naples, Fl

With this Sunday’s focus on the Most Holy Trinity in mind, I came across this little story several weeks ago. It seems that a farmer went into the city, and while walking down a busy street he suddenly stopped and said to a friend who was with him, “I can hear a cricket.” His friend was amazed and asked, “How can you hear a cricket in the midst of all this noise?” “Because my ears are attuned to his sound,” the farmer replied. Then he listened even more intently, and following the sound, found the cricket perched on a window ledge. His friend couldn’t get over this. But the farmer showed no surprise. Instead he took a few coins out of his pocket and threw them on the pavement. On hearing the jingle of coins, passers-by stopped in their tracks. “You see what I mean?” said the farmer, “None of those people could hear the sound of the cricket, but all of them could hear the sound of the money. People hear what their ears are attuned to hear, and are deaf to all the rest.”

It’s a powerful little story that left me thinking about what I see and what I hear; what I look for and what I listen to. For me it is impossible to look at a work of art and not wonder about the artist or listen to a magnificent piece of music and wonder about the composer, how they thought of it, imagined it, and then crafted it. This is the way that creation proclaims God, its Creator. To look on creation and not see the Creator is to be blind to the meaning of the whole of creation and of ourselves.  Yet sadly many look and see nothing. They listen and hear nothing. Jesus spoke about God as a merciful and forgiving Father. He spoke about himself as the Son of the Father. And he sent the Holy Spirit to us to help us live as his disciples and as daughters and sons of God.

Complex and profound as it is, the Trinity is not something we explain. It is something we reveal by our lives together as a church. We can see the Creator through creation if we simply look and wonder. We can hear the voice of God in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. His words speak to us about our privileged place in creation as the Father’s most beloved and chosen ones. We experience the creative, healing, and loving Spirit of the Father and the Son when we are with them and with each other as church and as the Body of Christ. The gift of this Spirit comes to those who are gathered together in that room. That assembly, that unity, that bond they share is where the Spirit is found, celebrate, and best revealed, and it is the same for us. When we are gathered together, one with each other with the Father and with the Son, we experience the Spirit with all of its power, its peace, and its joy.

As the farmer said in that story, “People hear what their ears are attuned to, and they are deaf to all the rest.” The same applies to what we see. People see what they are looking for, and they are blind to all the rest. We are a people who look upon creation and all of God’s people. We see the beauty, the promise, and the face of a loving God who in one final act of love came to give life and light where there was darkness and death, and then remain with us always through the Spirit that binds us as one with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost June 4, 2017

Acts 2, 1-11 + Psalm 104 + 1 Corinthians 12, 3-7, 12-13 + John 20, 19-23

Aboard the MS Maasdam and at St Peter and St William Parishes in Naples, FL

For years, I have listened to this Gospel story and put myself in that room and in that company. Now remember, these are the people who did nothing and said nothing as Jesus was hauled off, mocked, abused, tortured, and killed. They knew he was innocent. They did nothing. In fact, their leader even denied knowing Jesus. Putting yourself in that room requires some real self-knowledge. I have tried, and I have come to feel that the doors were not necessarily locked for “fear of the Jews” which is John’s code language for the opponents of Jesus. Besides, those doors were not the only thing barricaded. If I had been through what they had been through, my heart would have been barricaded as well, because my heart was broken with disappointment and shame over what I had done and failed to do.

Hope was locked out as well, because hope was broken. We’ve all been there, disappointed and protecting ourselves from more disappointment by expecting the worst rather than allowing any more disappointment and pain. But the fact is, they had already heard that the tomb was empty. Allowing hope over what it could mean was out of the question. Yet just possibly he was risen, alive, and there were reports to this effect. So, in shame possibly more than in fear, they locked the doors. When you have betrayed a friend, failed to come to their aid, and even denied knowing them, the last person you want to see is that friend. It’s not hard to imagine why that door was locked.

Then the tomb breaker is in their midst. So much for locks and barricades! Hope will not be stifled. Peace is the greeting. But, this gift of peace that he brings is far more than we imagine with our English language definition of that word. The greeting and the gift he announces is not about the absence of war or conflict. It is the opposite of chaos. It is the right ordering of all things and all relationships. The people in that room were in chaos. He has come to take them out of chaos, which is a kind of re-creation. He is going to make something of them, and for that matter he is still doing so with us.

As John tells the story, Jesus comes with his wounds, because a risen Lord with no wounds would not have much to say to the wounded people in that room or anywhere else. It has always struck me that people who have suffered the most are comforted and attracted to images of Christ that are anguished and bloody. I have also observed that some who have suffered little in life prefer to surround themselves with images of Christ that are sentimental and hardly human.

There is a story told about a man who died and arrived at the gates of heaven. The guardian at the gate said: “Show me your wounds.” To which the man answered, “I don’t have any.” The guardian then said: “Did you ever think that anything or anyone was worth fighting for?” And with that, there was silence. The one who stood in the midst of that chaos knew that his sisters and brothers were worth fighting for. Our wounds tell us who we are like the tattoos on the hands and arms of Jewish people. The bumps, scrapes, and scars of lives well lived tell the story. For some life seems to drain out of them through their hurts. They become bitter and lifeless. They have no hope and no future. They never really live again. For others, new life comes from these broken places, and this is resurrection; and it is a call to go, be broken and suffer a bit for the sake of another. Peace be with you.

Ascension of the Lord May 28, 2017

Acts 1, 1-11 + Psalm 47 + Ephesians 1, 17-23 + Matthew 28, 16-20

Aboard the MS Maasdam

 Jesus is the great boundary crosser. First, from the Father to a birth in Bethlehem. Then through his entire life he crossed every boundary humans had ever erected by touching the sick and unclean, by passing through Samaria and there talking with a woman, and finally by crossing the greatest divide from death to life returning from the realm of death with freedom and authority to tell us to do what he has done. All nations are to be included in the Kingdom we proclaim. There will be no exclusions; no boundaries of race, gender, or ethnicity are to be obstruct the plan of the Father for all God’s children to be one.

Matthew takes us to Galilee today not because of its geographical location, but first of all because it was the place where his mission began. The place where he first met and called those disciples. He calls them home to the place of their first enthusiastic response where their hopes first soared and fired their enthusiasm. He also takes them to Galilee because it was an unsophisticated and marginalized region. He takes them to that world of the less privileged as the starting place for their work.

What we celebrate today with this Feast of the Ascension is the fulfillment of a promise that Jesus makes to all his disciples. It is a promise intrinsic to the Easter mystery that only after they had stopped clinging to his physical presence, only after his Ascension, could the promise of the Father to send the Holy Spirit be fulfilled. The promise of the Father to us is more than a promise that Jesus would remain with them always. The promise is for that new advocate, that new birth of life that comes with the Holy Spirit.

So often when we are parting company we say to each other: “Keep in touch.” And so often we say, “I promise”, and then we don’t. Now comes the Ascension when Jesus leaves and says: “Keep in touch”, and with the coming of the Holy Spirit which we celebrate next weekend, we can and we do stay intimately and always “in touch” with Jesus.

The disciples needed to see Jesus ascending just as the old prophet Elisha was only able to inherit Elijah’s prophetic mantel after he had seen his master taken up into heaven. As long as Elijah stayed with Elisha; as long as Jesus remained with the disciples, they never would have taken up the work of the master. They would simply have been content to watch and let him do the work. He’s gone now, yet his Spirit is with us. At this altar we wrap ourselves, in a sense, in his mantel. We take up his mission looking for those who are lost or left behind and longing for the comfort of his presence. We stand in his place offering forgiveness, a welcome, compassion, understanding, and we feed the hungry never sending them away. Our desire is always the will of the Father. Matthew’s Gospel begins by naming Jesus as “Emmanuel”, “God is with us”. At the end, he repeats the promise: “I will be with you always.”

Easter 6 May 21, 2017

Acts 8, 5-8, 14-17 + Psalm 66 + 1 Peter 3, 15-18 + John 14, 15-21

Aboard the MS Maasdam

There is something tender and deeply personal within the verses of today’s Gospel. We know it is the Last Supper, and while the disciples are in denial Jesus is not. They are about to part. Something is happening that cannot be stopped now, and it will change everything. Jesus has spoken to them again and again about being the Way, about the Light, the Bread, the Truth. These are all descriptions of himself and what he wants to offer them. He has asked them to believe him, to trust him, and to follow him. Now he asks something much greater. It is the only time in all of the Gospel narratives that Jesus speaks this way and asks this of his disciples. It will happen one more time, but that will be after the resurrection. Today he asks them to love him. This is now a conversation of the heart.

This conversation is about something far greater than friendship, the love of husband and wife or the love of a parent and a child. Jesus is talking about love in the way that the Father and the Son love one another. Theirs is a relationship that comes from a mutual devotion. It comes from their unity. In the relationship Jesus has with the Father obedience has nothing to do with rules. It is about sharing the same desires because there is no difference between them. They both long for, desire, and will the same thing.

After inviting us follow him, Jesus asks us to love him which is a great deal more than believe in him. He is not asking us to obey rules, he is asking us to share his heart. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” is a request for love, not obedience. We do not keep his commandments so that he will love us; we keep his commandments because he loves us and love makes it easy.

There is a wonderful song by Andrew Lloyd Weber that kept going through my mind as I was reflecting on these verses. It’s called: “Love Changes Everything.” You may know it, and I may have started it going through your minds as it did mine for hours the other day. “Nothing in the world will ever be the same” are the words that conclude each stanza of the song, and that is exactly what John’s Gospel suggests for us as he describes that night around the table and sums up for us the one thing Jesus came among us to accomplish: simply to entice humanity into falling in love with God.

If we were to put more simply the opening verses of this Gospel, it would read: “If you love me you will love what I love and want what I want.” This is the mystical union between the Father and the Son into which we are invited today. This is the kind of love Jesus asks of us, that we want what the Father wants, and this makes keeping the commandments a matter of the heart, a heart willingly invaded by God.

Easter 5 May 14, 2017

Acts 6, 1-7 + Psalm 33 + 1 Peter 2, 4-9 + John 14, 1-12

St Peter and St William Church, Naples, FL

About two or three years ago I was in a great museum with two families who are dear friends. Another friend who is a guide and docent was leading us around talking mostly to the children at my request. She led us into the Egyptian section which caused me to roll my eyes, but then she asked the children what they thought of the statues representing the gods. The children took some time to explore and came reporting that: “They don’t look real.” Then she led us into the Greek and Roman section, and after a few stories about mythology, she sent the children around to explore. Then she asked them again what they thought of those gods. They said: “They look angry and violent.” Then we went up to a gallery with very early Christian art, and she asked the same question. “They don’t look like real people” was the answer. Finally, we ended up in the Renaissance section, and to the same question the children said: “They look real and beautiful.” What the guide led them to see is that after the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, something changes in terms of how we see God. I think of that afternoon in the museum today when hearing Phillip’s request, “Show us the Father.”

The sculptors and artists reveal what humans have done since the truth about us was revealed in the story of Adam and Eve. Being made in the image and likeness of God requires some humble obedience, but we seem to prefer the other way around and make god in our image. Those children got it right. In describing the gods they saw, they were really describing the people who made them: angry, violent, and fortunately not quite real.

When Phillip says: “Show us the Father” he expresses one of the deepest longings in the human heart. We want to see God, the real God, not a god who could pass for one of us. We want a God who is perfect in every way. God’s response to that plea was to take on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, and the consequence of the incarnation was to restore us, God’s beloved creation, to our original condition as the image of the real and true God. Progress has been slow and resistance is great. The scribes and Pharisees resisted clinging to their preference for a harsh and judgmental God enforcing their rules and regulations. For a time, the apostles resisted with their efforts to rain down fire and destruction upon those who did not welcome them. Our resistance is marked by our failure to embrace the model of what we were created to be: perfectly and beautifully human as revealed in Jesus Christ. The Son of God does not only reveal the Father. Jesus also reveals what it is to be perfectly human as well.

The excuse we make for our failures: “Well, I’m only human” is the first and most obvious sign that we are resisting. Being “human” is not something lowly, inadequate, or sinful. It is not an excuse. It is testimony that we have not believed, understood, or accepted the wonderful mystery of what is revealed through the Incarnation. Being human is the highest, most perfect and God-like of all God’s creation. Nothing else created was in God’s image.

When Phillip cries out, “Show us the Father”. Jesus says, “Look at me. The Father and I are one.” When we want to see the Father, we should be able to look at one another, a people made holy and redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ. When someone is seeking God, why should they look any further than into this holy place when we have filled it with our presence. The key teaching of John’s entire Gospel is here in these words. Jesus is God’s only self-description, God’s only command, and God’s only dream for humanity. In other words, if we shape our life on Christ, not only will we be fulfilling God’s will, we will become the kind of humans God has always dreamed of reflecting God’s love to all we meet. Anyone who meets us, a people born in Baptism and fed on this Eucharist, should have seen the Father and need look no further. This is what God wills and dreamed of in God’s  own creation.

Easter 4 May 7, 2017

Acts 2, 14-41 + Psalm 23 + 1 Peter 2, 20-25 + John 10, 1-10

St Peter and St William Church, Naples, FL

There is a turn to be noticed with today’s Gospel. It is a turn from reflection upon the Resurrection toward a reflection upon Pentecost. Midway through the Easter season, the lectionary suggests that we now look ahead after being refreshed and renewed by a look back. This turn also suggests that now we look at ourselves having faced, like the apostles, the risen Christ. In the context of this season then, the image put before us today is an image of us as a church just as much as it is an image of Christ. Having been purified and filled with the Spirit, having been fed on the Eucharistic Body of Christ, having been raised up into the gift of everlasting life, we are now the Shepherd/Church continuing the work of this Shepherd Jesus who has breathed his life into us.

There comes a time in every one of our lives when we stop expecting someone to take care of us and begin to do the caregiving. That is what this Sunday says to us. The character, the mission, the identity of the Church that is born on Pentecost is being sketched out with this image of Jesus as Shepherd. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we do Christ’s work. If someone is lost, we go for them. If someone is hungry, we spread the table. If someone is in danger, we protect and defend them. What we see in the Good Shepherd is what we must see in this church. What people imagine and hope for in a good shepherd they must find in us.

In preparing us to continue his shepherding, Christ taught us about compassion which is not learned without suffering. Unless we have suffered and wept, we really don’t understand what compassion is nor can we comfort someone who is suffering. In teaching us about shepherding, he taught us about sacrifice as the surest sign of love. Unless we give and sacrifice for one another no one is going to know about real love and the love of God for us. That man who walked in darkness teaches us that unless we have walked in darkness we can’t help wanderers find their way. But when we have suffered we become pathfinders for others.

Leaders of the church call us today to pray for and reflect upon religious vocations. Good Shepherd Sunday is traditionally a reminder to listen for the call of God to service and sacrifice. Until the courageous and prophetic voice of the Church is louder than the seductive voices of consumerism, materialism, and self-serving pleasures we will continue to want for Shepherds because we have lost our own true calling as a pastoral church. The lame, the sick, the blind, the sinners, the poor, the hungry and the thirsty came to Christ the Good Shepherd. Now they come to us, and they must not go away empty. The more each one of us begins to look and act like a real shepherd, the more shepherds there will be. Just sitting in a pew on Saturday or Sunday fulfilling some felt obligation isn’t going to make any difference at all. Shepherds come from shepherding homes where there is goodness and kindness, and those homes make a pastoral parish. So that whenever we gather in this place because of our goodness and kindness to each other, every soul will be refreshed, every cup will overflow, and the presence of the Shepherd will never be in doubt.

Easter 3 April 30, 2017

Acts 2, 14, 22-33 + Psalm 16 + 1 Peter 1, 17-21 + Luke 24, 13-35

St Peter and St William Church, Naples, FL

We believe that the Word of God is a living Word that speaks to every age and time, to every person and to every church. This is not history in this book.  This is not some well-known old story that we tell every year after Easter. It is not just a scene that has fascinated and inspired artists of every style throughout history. (I say that because last week I spent a little time exploring paintings and artistic representations of this scene on the internet). There are a lot of them, and they all express a different piece of this story that I suspect spoke to them and provided some inspiration just as it speaks to us and can provide inspiration again.

So, as we pick up the Word of God today, and God speaks to us this year and in this place, there is a challenge to our faith just as there was a challenge to the community for which Luke wrote this story passed on to him by others. There are two details that I believe God would have us ponder: there was a conversation going on; and they were willing to welcome a stranger.

The other day I was having lunch in a local restaurant, and at the table next to me there was a couple that I presumed were husband and wife. At least I hoped so. She was looking at and poking the screen of her phone the entire time, and he had an iPad and was doing the same thing. For a while I wondered if they were texting each other, but given the fact that now and then one would smile and tap all the faster with no response from the other, I decided that this was not the case. They never said a word to each other the whole time. In fact, they spoke to the server more than to each other. The sad fact is that this example is not too unusual or surprising. It is not just a matter of technology and our addiction to it. It is the fact that we are losing the ability to have conversations, and our children are even more unable to converse with anyone. Too often what we assume to be conversations are really simply a series of announcements, and often when not speaking, we are not listening. We are just waiting our turn to talk. Discourse and the art of a real conversation that involves listening, seeking understanding and responding is a lost art in this day and age. What might start as a conversation avoiding some unpleasant topics easily turns into a shouting match or cold silence.

Conversations require reflective empathetic listening and responding with charity and some degree of honesty and intimacy. Conversations that are real often result in conversions, which is the whole point: a change of mind and turning toward another not just with the head, but with the heart as well. Those two walking to Emmaus were having a conversation, and because of it, something happened that brought them great joy. They changed their minds about what had happened. Someone joined them, there was another presence that entered that relationship because they were speaking, listening, sharing their feelings, disappointments and hopes.

Then comes the second detail. They welcomed a stranger. In a world that is becoming more and more hostile toward strangers, a world that is less and less hospitable, God speaks today raising a question about how we shall ever really experience the presence of Christ when we hardly ever converse with each other, and refuse to welcome strangers.

We should not be romantic or defensive about this second detail. The world in those days was dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous than  our own times. Travel at night was even more dangerous as there was lawlessness, banditry, and danger everywhere especially for those alone outside a city in the dark. Yet, they joined in a conversation with someone they did not know, and they welcomed that stranger into their midst and to their table.

Luke passed this Emmaus story to us inviting us to share in this astonishment and recognition. He points out that as long as they converse and debate among themselves they make no sense of things. Only when they encountered a stranger with different ideas do their hearts begin to burn with understanding. As long as we talk only with people like ourselves who say what we want to hear and share our own view points and limitations, we too will suffer from “slowness of heart.”

Moreover, it was only after an act of hospitality, their invitation to Jesus to lodge and eat with them, that they came to recognize Jesus in the breaking of bread. In this story we see the effects of Luke’s Greek education, which held that truth can best be found through extended dialogue. As long as we talk only to ourselves, there will be a barrier that well may keep God from speaking to us. As long as we resist welcoming strangers we shall probably continue to long for and not find the presence of Christ and the Peace his presence always brings.

God says to us this year and this place: “Start talking to each other again and listen, and when a stranger comes along with new ideas, welcome them and know that I am with you bringing the gift of Peace once again.”

Easter 2 April 23, 2017

Acts 2, 42-47 + Psalm 118 + 1 Peter 1, 3-9 + Luke 20, 19-31

St William Church, Naples, FL

As many of you in this church here in Naples, Florida know, taking up a new way of life can be a challenge greater than ever imagined. I discovered this when I first stepped into the seminary. I left behind my own private room at home and that night was sleeping in a dormitory with 30 other 20 year olds. It was noisy and it didn’t smell like home. Instead of a big closet for all my things, I squeezed into a locker. Then suddenly, eight years later I’m a priest. While there were eight years of formation preparing me for that day, it was not enough. Then came retirement, right? The biggest change of all. Old ways of thinking, old ways of acting all had to go. It does not matter if a person is a recovering alcoholic or a newly wed. Beginners everywhere learn quickly how many of their behaviors spring out of old habits. After a lifetime, these habits and patterns are difficult to change, let alone eradicate.

So there they are, that group of disciples facing the biggest challenge and change of their lives. It was bigger than walking away from fishing boats or tax collection tables. After all the preparation and conversations with their master, they were not quite ready, and the change was slow and erratic. It would seem from the scriptures that they even tried to go backward and return to the fishing boats for a time. Among them Thomas is singled out as an example. He is so much like the rest of us who live in a world of “seeing is believing.” He so much like the world that relies on the predictable and is always skeptical in the face of good news. There are habits of thought revealed here that have to go for people who believe in the resurrection.

Those disciples in that room and Thomas as well had been living in a measured world that was predicable and secure. There were few surprises, and little reason to expect one. Their leaders enforced the status quo and found their security in doing so. Then Jesus of Nazareth walked into this scene, and suddenly he is touching those sick and considered unclean. He treats women with respect, even to the point of sharing a drink with a Samaritan woman. He surprises them by feeding multitudes with what seemed to be insufficient resources, and calms the wind and the sea with a word. Then his death, which they wanted to avoid and deny, left them helpless and hopeless. They saw him dead, and they believed he was. What they believed rested only on what they saw. That cannot be so for those who live in the resurrection times.

Living in resurrection requires a complete transformation. John the Baptist and Jesus called for metanoia, which is poorly translated as “repentance.” It means far more than that.  “Change of mind” is more like it. Thomas had to change his mind, and that is what we hear about today. A new way of thinking that gives no room for old habits and expectations is what it takes to live in resurrection times. The first reading this week gives a superb example of this. The early Christians in Jerusalem shared a life that was starkly different from communities outside the church. In their prayer and care for each other, they gave the world an example of radically changed thinking. The victory of Jesus was not just over death, but a victory over death’s grip on the human mind. There is now, in the resurrection times a new age of mercy. That Jesus returned a second time for the sake of one disciple is that shepherd who leaves the 99 to search for the lost. That Jesus returned to gather up Thomas and extend the mercy of the father to one who was slow to believe and stubborn in his old way reveals the mercy of the Father who sent his Son find what was lost and bring them home.

For all of them it was a surprise, and it broke their old way of thinking that dead meant dead and gone forever. Those who live in resurrection times are people who live for the surprise, the constant surprise that all things are made new. New life requires committed belief that Christ’s resurrection is a foreshadowing of our own. As this belief in our own resurrection grows in us, old habits rooted in fear of death and loss start to lose their power. We can forgive and teach others to do so; we can experience peace even in the midst of conflict; we can find reasons for faith when all around us despair; we can become servants of Christ’s mission, sharing his risen life with all we meet.

Easter Sunday April 16, 2017

Acts 10, 34-43 + Psalm 118 + 1 Corinthians 5, 6-8 + John 20, 1-9

St Joseph Church, Union City, OK

This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad.

This day, our faith, and this church are all about an empty tomb and an empty cross; and the world in which we proclaim this Gospel of emptiness is an empty world full of empty lives. The fact that there is even entertainment on television that peers into the empty lives of people who hoard everything from food to stuffed animals and trash gives all the evidence we need that there is a great empty void longing to be filled. Some of those lives are filled with resentment, anger, and memories of past wrongs and hurts leaving those who hoard these ills longing to be filled all the more.

This is all backward. It is a tomb that should be empty, not human lives. The one who filled that tomb came out to fill an empty world and empty lives. We have to get that right. Until we do, the cross will not be empty either. Until we get it right, God’s children will still be suffering. Until we put an end to greed, innocent people will still cry out in thirst feeling abandoned by God because the mission we have been sent to accomplish is still not fulfilled. It is a cross that should be empty not human lives.

As the Gospel story goes, there are three people early in the morning on that first day. They were feeling empty with broken hearts, broken dreams, sad, disappointed, fearful and helpless. They see an empty tomb. Suddenly, slowly, but surely their lives are no longer empty. Together their lives are filled with hope and a sense of mission. What they were promised would come true. He had not left them.

As the story goes, the burial cloth was left behind, and part of it was neatly rolled up in a place by itself. The disciples observed this detail, and they did not forget it. Then, John remembered it too, and he put that detail in his Gospel. The description of what those two apostles found in the tomb was important at the time because it put to rest the argument that the body of Jesus had been stolen. No one would have taken the body without the wrappings. It would have been disgusting. Had the body been stolen, it would have been taken as it was, wrapped up. No Jewish enemy of Jesus would have touched a corpse. So, that detail was important then, and it is still important today when we proclaim this Gospel. Lazarus comes out of a tomb needing to be set free, and people are told to unbind him and let him go. Now, having been obedient to the Father, having faithfully put the will of the Father before his own, Jesus rises up unbound, a free man, and he leaves behind an empty cross and an empty tomb.

The story of those three people is the story of this church and its people. We all have our past hurts, disappointments, and brokenness. We have all had times of emptiness too, but today we are reminded by an empty tomb that our lives need not be empty, and nothing can hold us back from sharing in the mission those three assumed on that first day of the week: a detail that suggests a new creation!

Like them, we have to get it right slowly but surely. No more crucifixions. No more innocent suffering, no more people feeling alone and abandoned. The crosses of this world must be emptied, and empty lives must be filled by the one who left that tomb empty for one reason to fill us with his love for the Father. Our empty lives are now filled with a mission and purpose. An empty world must be filled with life, with light, and with hope for peace. There is nothing to hold us back from that future, nothing at all that matters. Those still filled up with the stuff of this world or clinging to past hurts and resentments, are more like Lazarus than Christ, and we must unbind them and let them go free for we are all living at the dawn of the new creation, the first day. The tomb empty and everything that could hold us back is left behind. There is but one message we have on this day for this world: This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad!