April 25, 2004

Acts: 5:27-32,40,41 + Revelation 5:11-14 + John 21:1-14

There will be sermons about fish, sheep, Saint Peter, sharing food, and breakfast all over the world today. But not here. I know about those sermons because I have preached them in the past. There is a huge treasure of insight, faith, and revelation

in all the details of this resurrection-gospel story. This year however, I would like to root this Gospel into this season, because by choosing it for these weeks between Easter and Pentecost, there is another focus that we might ignore or miss at some other time of the year.

Jesus resurrected in glory is the focus here. His instruction to Peter is an instruction for us all. We stand before Him again and again as a people of denial. Few of us could even claim to have denied Jesus as few as three times! This is the Jesus who was rejected, crucified, and dismissed. He and His message were refused by a world that preferred power, efficiency, order and control to peace, tolerance, and forgiveness. It is this rejected and wounded Jesus who asks: “Do you love me?”

He did not ask them how things were going? He did not say: “How many have you converted?” He did not inquire about their economic success. He simply asked: “Do you love me?” There is no little significance in the fact that Jesus equated loving Him with feeding and tending his sheep. Those words to Peter are repeated in our hearing today so that we may be renewed as a church in our resolve to make our love for Jesus real by feeding and tending others.

I believe that the time will come when this question will be asked of each one of us. When that eternal morning comes and we are finished with the work of our lives, we shall stand before the risen Lord. The whole of our lives, like the whole of night of fishing will be over. He will ask us only one question, and by our answer we shall judge ourselves. If we have lived by faith and conscience rather than by human convention and compromise, we shall be invited to come and eat at the eternal banquet.

Until then, our reading of this story as we look forward to Pentecost gives us hope

that the Spirit poured out upon us will give us courage to face the same opposition met by the risen One and endure the same rejection and dismissal. That is the consequnce of living by conscience. It is what happens to those who question human convention and values. It is what lies in the future for those, like Peter, who will feed and care for those the powerful of this world dismiss. For raising their voices, they will pay a price. They may be called “unpatriotic”. They may be accused of giving aid and comfort to the “enemy.” But a dead child is dead child. God does not know the boundaries and frontiers we draw on the face of His earth. God does not see the differences we make in politics and governments. God cannot possibly notice or care about color or language.

While this gospel speaks of the necessary universality of the mission by its reference to fish in great numbers; While this gospel speaks of forgiveness and redemption by Peter’s rehabilitation; and while it also speaks of the price paid for authentic discipleship, it is proclaimed at a season when we look toward Pentecost with the sure and certain hope that the Spirit will be with us, give us the words to speak, and the courage to fulfill what Jesus asks of those who love him. “Feed my lambs.” “Tend my sheep.” In the face of that command, we can do nothing better today than pray: “Come Holy Spirit.”

April 18, 2004

Acts: 5:12-16 + Revelation 1:9-1112-13,17-19 + John 20:19-31

Thirty-six years ago, this was the Gospel on the Sunday of my First Mass in Thanksgiving at St. John the Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma. It is always the Gospel on the Sunday after Easter. In it we are always promised peace,

comforted by the Easter faith of the apostolic church, entrusted again with our mission as people of God, and stunned by the simplicity and purity of the first creed proclaimed by Thomas.

To really draw from this Gospel its deepest truth, and to penetrate the meaning of the resurrection, we must remember that this Gospel was composed for the third generation of believers. None of them had “seen the Lord”. This narrative then is not just about Thomas. It is about people who are coming to faith in the resurrection and have never seen the Lord. In John’s Gospel, there is no Ascension.

John is unfolding the mystery of the “Glorification” of Jesus Christ. In his understanding, the return of Jesus to heaven has not left the community orphans. In fact, what happens is: they begin to discover how the risen one lives in their midst. Instead of assigning the death, resurrection, and ascension to points in time, John saw a single activity of the Father. The difficulty John confronts is that the whole experience is too good to be true. We approach every extraordinary and wonderful event with disbelief. Whatever it is, it is always too good to be true, and we eventually have to overcome that “disbelief” by surrendering to it. Thomas had to surrender in faith to the One who has been glorified.

Jesus has fulfilled what he promised. He has come again and is seen. The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit has come, and those who gather even with their doubts are to continue the work of confronting sin, which in John’s Gospel is rejection of belief in Jesus as the Son sent by the Father. (See John 8:21-24)

It is “sin” that Jesus confronts here – disbelief  This is about believing, not about doubting Notice that Jesus says: “Do not be unbelieving.” It is dis-belief that is confronted here, not doubt. When Thomas is confronted by the Word in his disbelief, he surrenders – he does not touch the wounds.

The oldest dream in the human heart has come true. We can believe it. It is not too good to be true. Everything that comes from God is “good.” Nothing is “too good.”

In the end, the faith of Thomas; the faith of all who have not seen rests upon individual response in faith to the Word.

Reliance on past accounts is not what matters. They may awaken one to pay attention, to look, to listen; but in the end, the foundation of hope comes from our own belief in Christ risen. We might at first seek signs and wonders, visions, and all kinds of extraordinary ways to believe, but we should not depend on them.

The greatest sign God has given is the resurrection of Jesus itself, and the surest way to come into contact with this sign is the presence of the Spirit in the world,

in a people raised up.

It is why we gather in this holy place. It is why we bring our children here. It is why we tell them of Jesus Christ, His victory, and his mission. It is why we walk through the waters of Baptism and call down again and again the gift of the Spirit.

Christ alive, yesterday, today, and forever. He is not gone from us. He is within us, and like Thomas, we shall come to know him and confront our disbelief in this room in the company of others who share in his glory, who share in his life, and who share in his Spirit.

Thank you for accepting me into this community with such open hearts.

I begin my thirty-seventh year of priesthood with joy with gratitude and hope, because I have come to count on your support and encouragement; and I never feel as though I am without your companionship in these years of my life.

As long as God gives me voice to proclaim this Gospel I shall do so,

but I want you to pray with me today that other voices will be raised from among us. Pray for your children to find the vocation to which God has called them; or pray for yourself that you may have the wisdom and the courage to find yourself standing here if you seek God’s will. 

April 11 2004

Acts: 10:334,37-43 + 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 + Luke 24.12-35

 It is a great privilege and a joy to welcome our visitors and the guests who are with us today. The community of believers who celebrate the Resurrection in this holy place every week welcomes you, and it is a thrill to squeeze together and have you here on this holiest of Sundays.

With the Word of God today, we give clear evidence of what we believe and of what it means: that Christ, the Son of God is risen from the dead, and that we who have come to believe this are rising with him.

What happened to Jesus of Nazareth on the third day after his death on the cross is of no interest to us. There is no information other than the record that his followers found an empty tomb, and some of them claimed to have seen him later. Today’s Gospel from Luke provides that information. The rest of the story directs our attention to what matters most: not what happened, not what happened to that body and where it went; but rather what it meant to rise from the dead, and what it continues to mean. We may not know what happened to Jesus, but we can certainly know what happened to those who have given witness to his death and resurrection.

In his life and his teaching among us, Jesus claimed to be God’s chosen one, the one through whom the fulfillment of God’s promises would be accomplished. If anyone claimed such a thing and died that claim would die with them. But, to make that claim, die, and rise from that death gives legitimacy to the claim; and we can believe it. How we come to believe it rests upon three pieces of evidence.

The first piece of evidence: an empty tomb. It is, at best, a questionable piece of evidence, because what it means is that the body was gone, not necessarily that He was risen. The second piece of evidence: some people claimed to have seen him. Since mystical experiences of people are unique and difficult to prove, this is not a lot to go on either. The third piece of evidence however is something quite different. It is the quality of the lives of those who live out their faith in the Resurrection. We see it clearly in those whose names we know, like Peter who went from misunderstanding the Scriptures to interpreting them; like Paul who set out to put Christians to death, only to become the champion of the “dying and rising Christ.”

We see what happens in the lives of countless women and men today and in our past who are and have been examples of extraordinary integrity in the midst of deceit. We see what happens in the lives of people of dedicated and selfless sacrifice in a world of selfishness and hedonism. We see what happens in people of patience and understanding in the face of violence or forgiveness and reconciliation where there has been personal violation. Such lives are evidence that Jesus has risen from the dead and is alive in the world today.  If an empty tomb is not enough; if the testimony of those who were there is not enough; then the lives of those who shape their values, their relationships, and their decisions upon what Christ has taught us will be. Such lives are our experience of the risen Lord, one who not stop loving, one who not stop forgiving, one who would not abandon his trust in God his father.

This is the day when we celebrate the one who would not give up on us; the one who would not stay dead. He broke the hold that death had over us all. Death could not keep him down, and if we are joined to him, neither can it keep us down.

Our Joy today is selfish in some sense; because we have put on a new life, not new clothes. If new hats, suits, shoes, or dresses were bought for this day, they must simply be signs of the new life we have put on in Christ.

By the grace of God, the power of Easter at work in us will so transform us that people will wonder about us too, will wonder, “What happened”? They will come to believe in the Resurrection because we live through and with and in the one who has Life and whose life we proclaim and make our own.

April 10 2004

Luke 24.1-12

This is the night. There is no other like it. Since Thursday, we have washed feet here. We have fasted in various ways to grow hungry for the words and deeds of this night. We have come in the darkness, gathered at a fire, followed the great pillar of light and proclaimed over and over: “This is the night.” We have spent a long time with our book, listening in the darkness to the stories and poems that unfold for us the plan of God. We have dined on the story of creation, the the deliverance from oppression to freedom, the passionate love of God and the people of Israel, and we have proclaimed the death of the Lord into which we have been baptized, and we proclaim his resurrection. At least, we proclaim that the tomb is empty.

What to make of that empty tomb is what the rest of our lives will be about. What is to come tonight sketches out the shadow of that future. We will call out the names of all our saints, our holy ancestors in this faith; we will invite the elect and those to be confirmed to renounce evil with us and enter into the mystery of redemption by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, we shall lead them to the table,

bring good bread and wine and together, lift up our hearts in praise and thanks to God. Finally, we shall share that meager bread and a sip of the cup of wine made blood, for this is what we are now, all of us, the body and blood of Christ. This is our future, and it is how we shall proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes in glory. We shall live in the communion of saints.  We shall live in contrast and in contest with evil. We shall bring the hungry to feast on the Word and invite them to join us at this table. We shall look into the empty tombs of lonely lives, broken hearts, and the sorrowful; and we shall remember this night and shall bring them hope.

We will remember the words of Paul: “You baptized people are dead people. Christ lives, and that is how we live now, as He has lived among us. Those women who looked into that empty tomb did not know what to make of it until they remembered.

That then is what we are doing here tonight: Remembering. This is the night. This is the night to remember.  This is the night to rejoice. This is the night for us all to rise up, to cast aside the darkness and its deeds. This is the night when Christ born in us, lives in us, and with Him we live forever.

So now, we get on our feet. We call the elect. Invoke the presence of Holy People,

and after months and months of waiting and forty days of penance, prayer, and sacrifice, we go to the water and lead these chosen ones through it to freedom and life everlasting.

April 9 2004

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

“We adore you O Christ and we praise you, for by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.” We have said it over and over and over again. That the world is in need of redemption is painfully clear; and the history of human efforts in that regard is a history of failure. The eventual intervention of God is our best hope, and the cross we so respectfully and solemnly honor and venerate today is the symbol of that hope. Traditional explanations of the cross that speak of “ransom” “sacrifice” or “fulfillment of the Father’s Will” are subject to great misunderstanding that either lead to scandal or reduce the cross to insignificance. To think that the Father demanded the horrible death of His son is scandalous. No parent asks their child’s death before being willing to fix something that is broken, even if it is the whole universe. That is a false image of God that has led too many to reject our faith. God asks for Love and Obedience, not a ugly and violent death. Jesus was killed because he refused to stop loving. He refused to stop his challenge to a world’s way of doing things.

The focus of Christian spirituality is the development of living, loving, dynamic relationship with God. As with every relationship that is living and loving, there is  always “sacrifice” to be made, to be given, to be offered for the other. That sacrifice expresses itself in good works that strengthen the relationship. The result of that sacrifice of love is “consolation”, but that is not its goal. The word “sacri/ficare” means “to make holy.” We usually do that by setting something aside, taking it out of use for the common or the ordinary, and holding it exclusively for God. The consequence of that sacrifice is to “give it up”. Our Christian tradition recognizes that to become holy somehow involves giving something up. The cross was Christ’s ultimate sacrifice. It was the expression of his love, the ultimate self-gift. The only way he could have avoided that death would have been to renounce the love that motivated his life and his work. He refused to stop loving.

Peter suggested once that there might have been an easier way to accomplish that mission of redemption without suffering, and it must have been a very tempting proposal. But Jesus recognized that lie and rejected it. He called it “human reasoning” and contrasted it with “divine wisdom.” His love conquers evil. His refusal to limit his love, his act of sacrifice, leads directly to the cross. It is a love free of selfishness and any hint of self-centeredness. The cross redeems the world because it is the sign of that love, and that kind of love is the only love that can redeem. It is the only kind of love that can reconcile. It is the only kind of love that can bring peace. This is the “peace” that Christ brings to the world.

The peace of Christ is not what the world imagines peace to be. Jesus warns us about that when he says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth;

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  The world thinks of peace as confirming the status-quo, of stopping challenges, of leaving things as they are, or removing conflict.  Jesus did not come to leave things as they are. His mission was to rearrange things, and so the peace for which we pray, the peace that comes from union with God includes profound changes in our lives and in this world.

Too often the “peace” we want is a subtle form of selfishness or hedonism. Not getting that “right” is why the cross so easily turns into a piece of jewelry. The cross we venerate this day is neither gold nor silver. It is wood: the real thing that speaks of the sacrifice of love, suffering, and death. It speaks to us of real, honest, perfect love, the kind of love we can only find in God and hope to imitate. This is a love totally free of self-concern a love that never considers one’s own good. Jesus is that love made flesh.  His entire life was an actualization of that selfless love. He loved the world the way the Father loved the world, and nothing could stop him from loving, not even the loss of peace and tranquility, and his own life. His love made the world holy.

The chaos of this world comes from a false kind of love that is based upon pleasure that gives rise to competition, the pursuit of security and control at all costs, and selfishness. That love cannot comprehend the length and breadth and height and depth of God’s love made flesh in Jesus. That is why the cross confounds the ignorant and shames the world.  It demands conversion, the unity of all humanity,

cooperation, hospitality, vulnerability, a quest of justice; and getting there will involve some birth pangs, death to an old life in which we are broken, and birth to a new one that is more whole. It will require the courage to life God’s love in the midst of chaos and opposition from a world that have everything to lose.

The cross we lift today, the cross we touch today, the cross we kiss today is the sign of love made perfect. It is our best hope for peace, because it is a love that means love of enemy. It is our only hope, and the only Joy that will last. Come, let us adore! Come. Let us be transformed by love!

April 8, 2004

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

We are poised now to begin the Passover. Our slavery to sin, our helplessness, our shame in a life behind us is at an end. Our time in an Egypt of sin is finished. If we have passed the forty days well at all, we emerge from our Lenten journey with nothing, but what we find here today:  Bread, Wine, Water. All that we have clung to, horded, hidden, and prized is gone. What we thought would get us through, thought would serve us well, thought might protect us and comfort us is gone. The things we thought would gain us power, respect, and control have been proven useless. Things like wealth and weapons get us nowhere near peace. The military gets bigger, security gets tighter, and our old and poor get hungry so that we can protect ourselves. Great jobs, benefits, and huge homes never give us good sleep at night. We have to set our alarms, bring in the dog, and have the cell phone at hand,

and even then we keep wondering if everything secure.

This night we emerge from the desert as we shall emerge from the wilderness of this life. Only three things will be left. Three things do not and will not fail us as we pass our days of journey to the promised land of God’s presence: Water, Bread, and Wine. These are the symbols we hold dear, the things that will bring us through. Water for washing. Bread for Breaking.

Blood for loving.

Those men at the table would have eaten without washing. They have been arguing about who of them is most important. So convinced of their privilege, so proud of their rights, so convinced of their importance, they have missed something. In the home of the rich, a servant would have met them at the door and cleansed away the dirt of their travel. But this is not the home of the rich. In such simple surroundings, those who had arrived first would have helped those who came after

with this simple act of courtesy and kindness, but not these men. They would rather compete with one another for the best seat at the table. And so he gets up, and he does what they are unwilling to do, and therein lies the secret – he does what they are unwilling to do.

Bread for Breaking Bread for passing to others Bread to dip into the dish with the master. Bread made from thousands of wheat grains thrown everywhere by a sower of great generosity gathered in a harvest of kindness is not just bread to nourish our bodies, but service to nourish our souls. It is the breaking that makes the difference, the breaking of our hearts at the site of suffering, the breaking our busy day or our precious plans that make a difference for another who may interrupt us with their need. Wine for loving There is no joy, no refreshment, no true delight until the cup is passed and the wine is poured out. One grape makes no wine; but on the fruitful vine, all the grapes crushed together fill the wineskins of life to breaking, and poured out in love, passed in joy, and shared in fellowship, a bond of blood unites and binds together those who gather at the table.  Tonight we gather in this holy place with the things Jesus has left us. They are his testament, his treasure, gifts he has left us in his memory. Neither gold nor silver, property or land: nothing we should hold on to. He left us actions to remember, works of service and humble love, by them we are marked for life. Blood fellowship and a certain quiet joy are the hallmarks of this night’s celebration. This night is different from all other nights. This night Christ will feed us and unlike our Fathers in the desert, we will live forever on this food. This is the celebration on earth as it is in heaven where Christ will comfort us and delight us because we dare to want to be free, to receive love and to share love.

This is all we need: Water to wash away the dust of our journey, a cup of blood and a broken body come to life again. Through these gifts we come to life.

With these gifts we make our way. In these gifts we find our joy. For these gifts now we give thanks.

April 4, 2004

Isaiah 50:4-7 + Phillipias 2:6-11 + Luke 22:14-22:56

“Innocent” is the verdict. Pilate knows it. Herod knows it. A crucified criminal knows it. A centurion knows it. And because of Luke, we know it too. It’s all about innocence in Luke’s Passion, and that suffering innocence might well serve as our focus during these days made sacred by love and sacrifice.

We do not live these days well if we spend them in sorrowful nostalgia, even if it seems sympathetic and well intentioned. The sufferings of Jesus are no more. Our remembrance of those horrible sufferings must renew our sensitivity to the sufferings that continue for those who are today the Body of Christ. The Way of the Cross is still be walked by the innocent, and none more so than the children of this world: 150 million of them by United Nations reports in 2002. Ten million in Brazil alone. Six innocent children die every day at the hands of law enforcement officers in Columbia says the Human Rights Watch. In Indonesia and throughout Asia they slave in sweatshops to keep us in cheap clothes. In Uganda 8,400 children have been abducted to serve as slaves to members of the rebel movement known as the “Lord’s Resistance Army.” Around the world 120,000 children every day are aborted.

Jesus looks us in the eye today knowing that this week we run the risk of dwelling only on his suffering. Every time we read Luke’s Passion he says again:” Weep not for me, weep for yourselves and for your children.” Today this gift of Jesus must prompt us to move beyond gazing at the cross or weeping at its memory. His way of the cross has ended in victory and peace, but the way for those for whom he died is still be travelled. We are to be their companions, care givers, and defenders along the way. And when it happens that we too suffer in innocence by the words and deeds of those we love, we shall make his prayer our own, and his wish of forgiveness prevail.