The Great Vigil of Easter April 15, 2017

Genesis 1, 1, 26-31 + Genesis 22, 1-2, 9, 10-13, 15-18 + Exodus 14, 15-15, 1 + Isaiah 55, 1-11 + Ezekiel 36, 16-28 + Romans 6, 3-11 + Matthew 28, 1-10

St Joseph Church, Union City, OK

There was a first-time ages and ages ago when someone struck two stones together and a spark flew out. I can’t image the wonder of that moment, and what went on in that person’s mind. Then somewhere on this earth at some point in history, someone discovered that if you patiently rub two dry sticks together long enough and add a little human breath a spark would grow into a fire and with that an extraordinary potential was born.

This is the night of the Great Fire-maker, and we have gathered around a fire and a great column of wax to remind one another that Christ is the living spark that springs from dead wood and a stone tomb. Here we are becoming Fire-takers because we want Christ’s life to warm us, and with this light we shall pass this fire to those living in a dark world trapped in tombs of despair, loneliness, fear, and doubt. Above us tonight is the full moon that is faithfully reflecting the light of the sun which we cannot see now, but we know it is there because the moon is bright with the sun’s light. All around us is Christ the Light whom we do not see but know is with us from the light on our faces smiling in hopeful joy.

While this night is complex and rich with more symbols that we can grasp in one evening, there is no missing the simplicity of new fire, new light, a full moon, and new people. This column of wax and light leads us forward into this year of two thousand seventeen which we have carved into the face of this candle. This must be the year when we are made new, re-created, refreshed, and restored to the Garden, the Paradise, the Kingdom for which we were first created. We have reminded ourselves of that place tonight with readings from Genesis. We have remembered how it was that we lost what had been so freely given. We told the story of our escape from slavery and the promises spoken of by the prophets. Great Father Abraham spoke for us all when he said: “Here I am” ready to trust in the Promise Maker himself, because God has a way of keeping God’s promises.

We have just told the story of an earthquake that shook open a tomb which silly unbelievers thought could contain the Son of God. Nothing can keep the Light of Christ in darkness. Nothing can keep the Word of God silent. Nothing can keep the life and the love of God away from the people God has called his own. Like Abraham and Moses, like the prophets of old Israel, and like those women at the tomb, we must stand before the God who is calling. God called Adam and Eve and they hid. Then God called Abraham who said with firm confidence: “Here I am.” Now we stand with the light and the word, and can say with equal confidence, “Here I am”. When we do, an extraordinary potential is upon us again, just like that moment when a spark first jumped from dry sticks and a breath fanned it into fire.

Good Friday April 14, 2017

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

St Joseph Church, Union City, OK

Three of the seven Last Words of Christ come from the Passion we have just proclaimed, and they give us more than enough to think about and pray about as we turn toward the Great Vigil of Easter. The Jesus of John’s Gospel is a man in charge. He is no innocent victim helpless, abused, and silent. He stands before Pilate his interrogator, and he asks the ultimate questions. He carries the cross “by himself” John says. And then, even from the cross he teaches, forms, and shapes us into the faithful people who become his church.

The community he has formed along the way has disintegrated, and here at the cross a new one is born. The mother of Jesus is given a son, and the loved disciple is given a mother. Remember that throughout the Gospels, Jesus always refers to her as “woman” which seems cold and distant. Yet there is behind this a message powerful and important. In the story of creation that we will tell again tomorrow, “woman” is called “Eve”, the mother of all the living. From the earliest Christian times, Mary is understood to be the new Eve. As she was the mother of the human family, the new Eve is the mother of the Christian family, the church. That disciple has no name because that disciple is us, a people given a new mother. Shortly after this takes place, John tells us that Jesus “handed over his spirit.” While we might like to think this simply means he died, it is really John’s version of Pentecost. It is Jesus inspiring, breathing his spirit into this church born at the cross.

This finishes the work of the Incarnation, not the life of Jesus Christ. It finishes the restoration of our goodness, and it restores our intended place in Paradise, the Kingdom of God. Literally “It is finished” means it is perfected. The love of God for us is now perfected in the complete self-emptying and brokenness of the one who completely embraced the whole human condition in helplessness and suffering. The bond between us and God is now perfected. It is finished.

Finally, in John’s Passion there is wine that must lead us back into the mystery of the Eucharist and more deeply into the truth and the mystery of a God who will break his own heart to comfort ours offering us the chance to do the same for each other. Twice before in John’s Gospel Jesus has spoken of thirsting. In the 4^th chapter he is thirsty at a well in Samara. In the 7^th chapter he is at Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, and on the last day of the festival he cries out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.” It is God who speaks on the cross. It is God who thirsts for us just as much as we thirst for God. The idea of God needing or lacking something seems strange to us schooled in an image of God all-powerful; but at the same time, it is impossible to imagine a Creator without the created, a merciful God without someone to show mercy. Our thirst for God finds its completion in God’s thirst for us, a thirst satisfied at the Altar where we become one in the bread and wine, the body and blood.

Holy Thursday April 13, 2017

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

St Joseph Church, Union City, OK

We are so familiar with this story; and Leonardo da Vinci’s 15^th century painting has become such a familiar icon of that night that we hardly ever give it a second thought much less wonder what’s really going on around that table. There had to have been some momentary relief as they escaped the crowds who were always pushing and shoving to get near the master. There must have even been more relief to think that, for at least that night, they would be out from under the critical and watchful eye of those Scribes and Pharisees whose questions, threats, and accusations were getting more and more menacing. So around that table are the ones Jesus has chosen, fragile disciples who were forever getting things wrong, full of themselves and their ambitions, way over confident of their courage, a group with a shady background, and two who would betray him. They look just like us gathered in this church, and we look like them. We get things wrong. We are full of ourselves and our ambitions. We are fragile and not terribly consistent or dependable. We are quick to jump up and recite the Creed, but then something goes wrong when it comes living it. Nonetheless, like them, we are the ones he has chosen, and he knows us just as well as he knew them, and even so, it says here that “he loves us to the end.”

There is a double meaning to those words: to the end in terms of chronology, and to the end meaning until there is nothing left.  This is a quality of love beyond human imagination. The love and the knowledge of Jesus flows from words into action as he washes their feet with directions that they are to do likewise. Make no mistake about this, what I am about to do for you and with you is not re-enacting the Last Supper. I am not pretending that I’m Jesus and some of you are apostles. I am doing what he asked for today in this community because this is what the church does and what the church is, a servant who is not greater than the master. In his talk to them, he says that he is doing this so that they may believe that “I AM.” It means quite simply that he is revealing the Love of the Father for them all, for them all – all twelve before Judas left.

A striking detail that we easily miss because we are too familiar with the story is that sharing of the morsel with Judas. It is a final exquisite gesture of love. He gives that dipped morsel to the most despised character in the gospel’s whole narrative. This never-failing love is not exclusive or selective. This is a love that reaches out to the archetype of an evil disciple revealing the unique God and Father of Jesus Christ who loves this world unconditionally. By washing their feet and sharing the morsel of bread he accepts these failed yet loved disciples.

The departure of Judas sets in motion the events promised by Jesus by which he would show them love to the end – till his death. This is the message the Jesus of John’s Gospel leaves his disciples as they gather at his table on the night before he died. It is the same message he leaves for us who gather at this table tonight. We must see that we have been loved to the end by one we have ignored, betrayed and denied as we come face to face with the remarkable understanding of God, of Jesus, and his self-giving love for us. We are the ones he sends no matter how inadequate we feel or incompetently we behave. We are the ones he loves, has chosen, and the ones he has sent for one reason only. To bear witness to a love that is beyond human imagination, but not beyond human experience.

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord April 9, 2017

Isaiah 50, 4-7 + Psalm 22 + Philippians 2, 6-11 + Matthew 26, 14- 27, 66

St Joseph Church, Union City, OK

 I had a dream that it was the end of time. Billions of people were assembled on a great plain before the throne of God, waiting to be judged. Some were fearful but others were angry. A woman said, “How can God judge us? What does God know about suffering? We endured terror, beatings, torture, death.” Then she pulled up her sleeve to show tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp on her arm. Then a black man lowered his collar to show an ugly rope burn around his neck. “What about this?” he asked. “Lynched for no crime except for being black. We have suffocated in slave ships, been wrenched from loved ones, toiled till only death gave us release.”

Next a girl with the word “illegitimate” stamped on her forehead said, “To endure my stigma was beyond, beyond…” and her voice trailed off to be taken up by others. All had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering God had permitted during their lives on earth. How lucky God was to live in heaven where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping, no fear, no hunger, no hatred. What did God know about human suffering?

They decided that God should be sentenced to live on earth – as a man. But because he was God, they would set certain safeguards to be sure he could not use his divine powers to help himself. Let him be born as Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted so that none will know who is really his father. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will think he is out of his mind when he tries to do it. Let him be betrayed by his dearest friends. Let him be indicted on false charges, tried before a prejudiced jury, convicted by a cowardly judge. At last, let him see what it means to be terribly alone, completely abandoned by every living thing. Let him be tortured and mocked. Then let him die. Let him die so that there can be no doubt he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to very it.

As each portion of the sentence was announced, loud murmurs of approval went up from the great throng of people assembled. When they had finished pronouncing sentence, a long silence ensued. No one uttered a word. No one moved. For suddenly all  knew . God had already served his sentence.

Our God came to live among us. Put God on trial is you will. Shake your fist at him, spit in his face, scourge him and finally crucify him. What does it matter? It’s already been done to him.  It is a great comfort for us to know that Christ, the innocent and sinless one, has gone down the road of suffering before us, and gone down it to the end. On the cross, he gathered up all human pain and made it his own. Though the road of suffering is narrow and difficult, it is not the same since Christ travelled it. A bright light illuminates it. And even though it leads to Calvary, it does not end there. It ends at Easter. Let’s get ready to go there this week.

Fifth Sunday of Lent April 2, 2017

Ezekiel 37, 12-14 + Psalm 130 + Romans 8, 8-11 + John 11, 1-45

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

It seems to me that there are three points of focus in this story we know so well: Jesus, Lazarus, and the two sisters. Each of these characters are at a significant point in their lives, and how they respond reveals something of grace to us as we are led into the Holy Week to come.

Harassed and threatened by the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus has gone out of the territory near Jerusalem to a safer place where he is welcomed and respected. There he can continue his ministry without threat or danger, avoiding the spies who are always trying to trip him up. With the news that Lazarus is sick, he must decide if he should take the risk of going back to Bethany just outside of Jerusalem where his enemies are waiting. I do not believe that he waited two days to make up his mind. I do believe that in waiting until Lazarus was dead he could better reveal the glory and power of God, preparing his disciples to accept, understand, and believe in his own resurrection from the dead. He had already cured many sick people, but calling someone back to life after they had been dead for four days would be something else when it comes to calling people to faith. How long he waits is not really important. What matters is that he went risking his own life for someone he loved. As it turns out, by going to Bethany and raising Lazarus, it is the last straw for his enemies. Now they really go after him, and they don’t have far to go.

Laying in that tomb, Lazarus was waiting. Bound hand and foot, he was helpless, and in the darkness of that tomb, there was nothing to do but wait, and he waits alone. Finally, he hears the call: “Lazarus, come out.” It is a familiar voice that calls, and suddenly he is no longer alone cut off from others and in the dark. Once more the one who has healed and restored whatever is broken calls him back into his family and their friends. Then there is another command: “Unbind him and let him go free.” With that, everything that had restrained him in the past and kept him from real freedom was undone: undone by his friends. When I read those words, there comes to mind a command given to Peter and the Apostles in Matthew’s Gospel: “Whatever you bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” What Jesus commands is forgiveness, and that forgiveness gives us the freedom to really come to life.  Lazarus who was bound and waiting for the Lord and forgiveness is free and restored to life.

The two sisters prayed and turned to Jesus for help. They wanted their brother to be healed and his death avoided. Their prayers were not answered. Instead of doing what too many would do when that happens, they did not turn away from Jesus or lose faith and give up hope. Instead, they reaffirmed their love for him and reaffirmed their faith. What they received was not what they expected. It was even better, better than they could ever have imagined. Had they turned away from him for not doing what they wanted when they wanted it, there would be no story to tell and no hope for us at the threshold of Holy Week.

My friends, let us be open to the Lord, Lazarus, and his sisters today so that they may speak to us again about courage in the face of danger, about waiting and forgiveness, and about how to respond when prayerful requests seem to have failed. In two weeks, we will proclaim once again the Good News of the resurrection. In that proclamation, there are no bindings on the one who rises as there are with Lazarus. Once and for all, all that holds us bound and keeps us from being free will be left behind neatly folded up and finished. There is a message in this detail, and that message today is our hope and the cause of our joyful faith.

Fourth Sunday of Lent March 26, 2017

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

It is about sight not just about seeing. It is about the ability to perceive, understand and recognize what is seen. In these Gospel verses, the ones who can see are really the blind, and the one they call “blind” can see perfectly well. The Pharisees apparently had perfect eye sight, but they were certainly blind when it came to who was in their midst. What they remind us of is that blindness is not just a physical thing. It takes on many forms.

Selfishness blinds us to the needs of others. Insensitivity blinds us to the hurt we cause. Privilege blinds us to the equal dignity and rights of others. Pride blinds us to our own faults. Prejudice blinds us to the truth. Materialism blinds us to spiritual values, and superficiality blinds us to a person’s true worth leading us to judge by appearances. It is not just with the eye that we see. We also see with our mind and hearts; a little imagination doesn’t hurt either. A narrow mind and a hard heart left without imagination make for dark lives and a small world. It is bad enough to be born without eye sight, but to have eyes that do not see or refuse to see is a great tragedy, and the biggest players in that tragedy are theses Pharisees.

In John’s Gospel, there is often a play on darkness and light. Be attentive to that literary devise in the weeks to come. Things happen in the night that are deadly, violent and sinful. The things that happen in the day are full of hope, life and promise. Judas does his work at night. Peter denies at night. Much of the passion happens in the night, and then in the early morning, the Light of Christ appears. Today a man who has lived in darkness comes into the light while others in this story go deeper into the darkness because they refuse to see and believe. They are preoccupied with everyone’s sin but their own. They point a finger of accusation raising doubts about the truth and about a man who has come to believe.

Sisters and brothers, we are a people enlightened by Christ. Given a share in that light at our Baptism, we called from darkness into the light of faith. As that man washed in the pool of Siloam, so have we washed in the pool of Baptism. Standing and living in that light, we must speak the truth with courage and confidence in the face of a dark world that is blind to the presence of Christ; blinded by privilege, power, selfishness, materialism, and pride. What we seek in the Lenten season is the imagination to awaken to a new way of seeing all things and all people as a reflection of the loving God who created and called us his own. What we must desire in this season is the kind of heart and mind that honestly and humbly looks first at ourselves and our sin long before we even think about the sin of others. What we must pray for in this season is greater, stronger, and more daring faith that will make us bold enough to profess that faith in the one who has sent us with this Good News to challenge the darkness with the Light of Christ.

Third Sunday of Lent March 19, 2017

Exodus 17, 3-7 + Psalm 95 + Roman 5, 1-2, 5-8 + John 4, 5-42

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

The woman in this story we know so well is suffering, and the suffering she experiences is shame. I believe that is why she comes to that well at mid-day. She needs to avoid the other women who would be coming there in the early morning or evening to avoid the mid-day heat. She’s there at the hottest time of the day. We have no details about why she has lived with so many men, but the cultural historians would tell us that she was probably a concubine which today we would describe as a sex slave. She is an object used for pleasure. Among women she would have been scorned and despised never knowing any respect or real human intimacy. Then one day, she meets Jesus Christ.

Shame is a sad and ugly secret that eats away at the human heart. It is different from guilt. Shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behavior. Guilt will say: “I’m sorry. I made a mistake.” Shame will say, “I am a mistake.” Left to itself, shame leads to narcissism, that constant unending effort to look good because you don’t think you are good. Shame is an epidemic in our culture. It keeps us apart, makes relationships shallow and temporary. Commitment is impossible because it inevitably means being vulnerable and transparent. It means someone will know about my shame. Then one day, she met Jesus Christ.

Shame needs three things to grow: secrecy, silence, and judgement. Given any amount of these three things, it will thrive and destroy. There is an antidote which this story tells us about. It is empathy. What will break through the secrecy, silence, and judgement is two powerful words: “Me too.” She met Jesus because she came to the well thirsty. He said to her: “Me too.” “Give me a drink.”

At that well, the secret of her life was laid bare. There was someone who knew everything she ever did. He did not call her names. He did not seem ashamed to be talking with her, and he spoke gently and with great respect. At that well, the silence was broken; the silence between God and a sinner living in shame and the Creator who had made that sinner good.  At that well, there was not a hint of judgement. On the contrary, there was understanding and respect. Suddenly she was treated as a person with feelings, hopes, needs, and perhaps a future that was free of shame. Someone wanted something from her that did not leave her feeling like a toy or something to be tossed around, used, and abused. He wanted her faith. He wanted her trust in exchange for living water which in John’s Gospel is always a reminder of Baptism. He would take her shame upon himself and die naked on a cross so that she could go free and finally knowing that in God’s heart she was good.

In all of that conversation at the well, there are two words spoken that get to the heart of the matter: “If only.” Perhaps this weekend we need to hear them again and let them sink more deeply into our souls. If only we knew how much God cares for us and thirsts for us. If only we knew how the judgement of God is guided by mercy. If only we could believe that we are good we could begin to live daringly and boldly, joyfully and confidently in the sure hope that God knows there is more to us than how we look, how we dress, how smart we are, or how successful in business we have become.

At that well, someone was able to see into her secret being, into that part of her which longed for true love, which was pure and innocent, thirsting to be seen as a person and not as an object. She, like all of us is deeply wounded by broken relationships, broken promises, and broken dreams. It does not do us much good to be loved for being perfect. We need to be loved and accepted precisely as sinners. Only the person who has experienced this kind of love can know what it is. Being loved like that gives one surprising energy and courage. It puts us in touch with our true nature, and to touch our true nature is a kind of homecoming that brings us peace.

Second Sunday of Lent March 12, 2017

Genesis 12, 1-4 + Psalm 33 + 2 Timothy 1,8-10 + Matthew 17, 1-9

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

 The old adage, “What you see is what you get” does not always hold true. Until that day on a hill top, all those men had been seeing was a man who had excited and inspired them with talk of a new age and some wonderful signs they could not fathom. But, he always looked like one of them. Then something happened. Six days after talk of his violent death which they refused to accept, six days after Peter answered a question he posed about who people said that he was, something happened to those men. Some like to wonder and propose that this was something that happened to Jesus, a significant moment in his life when he became more deeply aware of his calling. For me, that’s all very fine, but it leaves me and those apostles as spectators. I would rather think and ponder the idea that this is really something that happened to those apostles, people who were following Jesus but not quite sure what it was all about and where it would lead.

Jesus did not become something on that mountain that he had never been before. He was always filled with the glory of God. He did not change and become something new, but the disciples did. They began to see. It is not as though they had been blind, but now they had their vision corrected, so to speak. Their blindness was removed. They saw someone capable of revealing the beauty of God’s holiness who looked like them and like their neighbor from Nazareth, like their companion and friend, Jesus. What I believe is important to understand with this text is simply this: The transfiguration is more about us than it is about Jesus. If something happened to him on that mountain, he never told anyone about it. He simply came down and went back to his calling. Something did happen to those disciples, and it held them together and strengthened their faith leading them through the passion and death of Jesus Christ preparing them to accept and understand the resurrection. I think that without this experience on that mountain, they may never have managed to believe.

What they were discovering through their relationship and by their experiences with Jesus was that they could see things in different ways. Now for them it was not so much a matter of what they saw, but how they saw it. It is the difference of seeing with physical eyes and seeing with the eyes of faith. As long as we see only with physical eyes, we will always be looking for love, restless for life, longing for joy, bound by guilt, and in fear of death.

When we proclaim this Gospel early in Lent, we have the time and opportunity to pay attention to what we see and how we see. It is a matter of deciding if what we see is all we get or whether our seeing will bring us face to face with the mystery of God’s presence all around us. Transfigured eyes do not deny or ignore the circumstance of our life and our world. We still see poverty, racism, injustice, hateful behavior that springs out of angry lives. Yet we also see people like Mother Theresa, who stands in the midst of the most horrible poverty with the shining face of God moving countless people to respond to the helpless people trapped in that poverty. We see heroic men and women who risk their lives for the safety and rescue of nameless brothers and sisters they may never see again. I learned this standing in a bombed out building in 1995 in Oklahoma City. Everywhere you looked there was the ugliness of a man’s hatred, innocent suffering people, and lives shattered forever. What I saw was people rushing into danger to help and the hands of God pulling people out of that wreckage, and that’s what I remember most. That’s Transfiguration.

We all have had those moments; perhaps not as dramatic or historical, but we have had those times when there was more to see than the physical eye could see, when a neighbor or a friend, a colleague or a teacher suddenly seemed to reflect the glory of God to us and remind us that there is always more, that things and people are not always what they seem to be, and that what you see is not always what you get. Most of the time it’s better!

Having passed these for forty days in prayer, fasting, service, and self-denial, may we be Transfigured so that all that we say and all that we do may reflect the glory of God who has called us in children.

First Sunday of Lent March 5, 2017

Genesis 2, 7-9, & 3, 1-7 + Psalm 51 + Romans 5, 12-19 + Matthew 4, 1-11

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

I have always found it important to notice that the first temptation Jesus faces in the desert is about hunger and food. This trusting Son of God will not overreach his humanity. He does not play the “I am Divine” card, so to speak. He works no miracle for himself. The miracles he will work later are for others only.  He quotes the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy to remind us of the Hebrews who grumbled in the desert about the food that God provided every day. Addicted to overeating, junk food, and full pantries, too much of this world is deaf to the Word of God, and the consequence is hunger and starvation. The miracle that will turn stones into bread for the hungry will happen when individuals and nations turn their hearts of stone from indifference and helplessness into compassionate mercy sharing wealth and opportunities with the poor and hungry.

Then comes another temptation to force God’s hand to send angels to catch the falling Son of God as though God is some kind of “emergency response team” only there when you dial “911”. Those who live every day with the knowledge and belief that God’s constant care guides everything we do have no need test God. Those who desire to do the Will of God have no fear. Even if the choices they make are not exactly what God wills, the desire to do God’s will is itself enough. These children of God have other “wings” with which to fly through this life: faith, trust, and hope.

Finally, we go to a privileged place, a mountain top, where God’s presence and power is always experienced by holy ones. There is found a temptation to play God and take over God’s place and power. This Son of God choses to remain powerless, and by that choice he has the power of God to drive away the tempter affirming that only God has real power and privilege. The power we assume is always a sham unless it is God’s power working through us. Later to the top of a high hill Jesus will return when he has faced down the final temptation and been raised up. There he will call us to the place where God dwells. Standing on that mountain with disciples filled with a mixture of doubt and faith just like us, he will give a share in his authority with the command that we are to make disciples everywhere, baptize, and teach all that Jesus has taught with the power to forgive.

My brothers and sisters, we are living in desert times surrounded by temptations. Perhaps a desert is what this world looks like compared to the Paradise to which we are called. We live too often with hearts of stone failing to satisfy human hunger. Because we fail to trust God every day, we panic and try to manipulate God when something big comes along rather than affirming and following the will of God.  We use the gifts, the power, and sometimes the authority we have to protect ourselves rather see to the good of others.  So, as we do every year at the beginning of Lent, we tell this story of temptation with the hope that 40 days of fasting from food and feasting on the Word of God will bring us to the next mountain with pure hearts and clear minds where we shall see the face of God and live.

Ash Wednesday March 1, 2017

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

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

From our very beginning we are dust touched by the loving hand of a Creating God.  We were filled with life and with hope by the Spirit of the God’s breath. But the King we welcomed with palms and glad Hosannas has been betrayed by our infidelity, fragile faith, and broken promises. So, we go back this day to that from which we came. There is a lot of dirt in all our lives the dirt of sin, the dirt of secrets, the dirt of lies and falsehood. Today we remove the masks of our pretense, and the truth is revealed; the truth of what we are without God. For had that loving creating God not breathed His life and His love into us, we would still to this day be nothing more than a handful of dirt blown about by the wind.

At no other time has the truth of our identity been so visibly marked on our skin. On the day of our Baptism, we were signed with the sign of the cross marked proudly as a royal, priestly, and prophetic people. But since that day, through the many years of our lives, that identity has been spoiled and damaged by our sinfulness. This Lenten anointing is a rougher, grittier, and dirtier marking accompanied now by stark words: “Remember,” because we have forgotten!

There is a lot to remember for all of us. The ritual words bid us to remember our beginnings, but there is far more to remember than those ritual words suggest. We must remember what we have done that brings us here, and we must remember what we have not done which might be even greater. We must remember too what this cross means, and what it promises. We must remember who we are as children for God, for we have too often forgotten. We must remember the gifts we have been given by the Holy Spirit, and the promise those gifts still hold for the future and the coming Kingdom of Go

We must remember the Beatitudes and our call to faith as disciples. We must remember one another and those who have brought us to this day by word and example, prayer and sacrifice. We must remember what it means to come to this altar and say “Amen” with outstretched hands and open hearts. We must remember finally where we are headed and the tombs into which we will be lowered, but from which we shall all be called on that glorious morning when the dead will arise arm in arm with the risen one who calls us to life this day.

There is a lot to remember today in this holy place where we shall once again, “Do this in memory of me.”