March 26, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Tonight I want to speak to those who have come here for the first time, to those who have for weeks and months been faithful to their formation  and preparation for the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist. The ancient rites being celebrated in every Catholic Church on earth tonight are all about one thing. They tell one story. They happen because God wants us to understand one thing. To make it unmistakably clear, I want to share.with you a story I read this week about his father t left me humbled, silent, and grateful. The story was told about his father by a young man named Matt. “The fire radio woke my father from a well-deserved sleep and notified him of a car accident that had just occurred a quarter-mile from our home. He was accustomed to being awakened by emergencies. This sort of night was familiar to him as a , veteran firefighter Dad was the first to arrive, several minutes before the ambulance. He found an overturned car and a driver who was confused but conscious. Quickly moving to the passenger’s side of the vehicle, he assessed the condition of the unconscious victim still trapped inside. From his years of experience he knew immediately that the injuries would be fatal. There was nothing in his experience however, that prepared him for a more horrifying discovery: the victim was his son. After what seemed like a lifetime for my father, the ambulance crew arrived, freed my brother from the car and transported him to the nearby hospital. A death watch followed When it saw clear that Joe was brain dead, my father ordered the removal of advanced life support and Joe died a few hours later. He was 16.The driver of the vehicle, my brother 17 year-old friends, Kenny, was treated for minor injuries and released. Soon afterward, he was cited for si criminal infractions in connections with the accident, including vehicular homicide because he was driving under the influence of alcohol. The follower November, Kenny pleaded guilty to the charges and was awaiting sentencing Under the Victim/Witness /act just passed in our state, my father was invited to submit a statement about the impact of the event on him and his family that the judge would take into consideration. My dad said that he would do so and asked to deliver it in person. On the day of sentencing, Dad rose and faced the judge and inn a quivering voice told the court that the night of the accident had been the most horrible time of his life and he continued: “My son, Joseph, was a bright, good-natured young man with enormous potential. The emotional impact of this event on my family has been devastating. Today the driver of the vehicle stands before you awaiting sentencing. He has admitted to his guilt. He was Joseph’s friend, yet through the thoughtlessness of his actions, Joseph is dead. He did not approach that terrible night with the thought of harming anyone, least of all his friend, but the result is that one young man is dead, our family has suffered, his family has suffered, and not least of all, he himself has suffered. Now he must bear the knowledge of what he did for the rest of his life. That burden is far greater than any punishment this court could dispense. For this reason, I respectfully request that this court hear the appeal of the victim’s parent and family and impose the minimum possible sentence” The judge granted the request. The young man received a six-month suspended jail sentence and two years of probation and was ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service. The father in this story was able to see the future, not the past. In the living friend of his son, that father was able to see more than the kid who killed his son. If that was all he could see, there would have been no hope. Joe’s death was Kenny’s doing, but it was not Kenny’s being. The father in this story was able to tell the difference, and in this story, we begin to see how it is with God, and what this night is all about : faith and hope. This is night is about our being, not our doing Faith give us the eyes, with which to see the world as God sees it. Even though faintly we see our brothers and sisters in this life as God sees them. We can begin to understand that the totality of someone’s doing no matter how awful they may be is never the total of someone’s being. Every man and every woman everywhere is always loved as much by God as any other man or woman everywhere. That love is the wonder of this night and it is worthy of our greatest efforts to understand. The world is a desperate for the radical forgiveness of which Jesus spoke. It is the kind of forgiveness the young driver in this story received. Healing is always found in God in an act of forgiveness, and tonight we are healed once again as we recall another father who through the death of his son, forgave the seemingly unforgivable, allowing a shaft of light to pierce the darkness of a weary, angry world.

March 25, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK Isaiah 52:13-53:12 + Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9 + John 18:1-19:42 “And God said: “It is good.” There was a formless void. There was darkness, and there was water With these images, the writer of Genesis gives us God’s first word.  “And God said: 11it is good.”   Encouraged by those images, and formed in that word,  we look at the scene John has put before us. It was chaotic and forri11ess: The darkness is there always in contest with the light. The water is there – from six stone water jars in Cana to a well in Samaria. From Pilot’s wash basin to a lance-opened wound in the side of Christ. And God looked at it all and spoke again: “It is good.”   But what is good about an dead innocent man betrayed by friends, abandoned by those closest to him, rejected by those who should have known better? What is good about an execution Roman style? What is good about ambition, jealousy, and torture? What is good about choosing a murderer over a healer? Nothing at all.   These are not the things that make this day Good. In themselves, they are enough to make it “Guilty Friday” or “Gruesome Friday ” Left to ourselves, it would better be called: “Bad Friday” or “Shame Friday ” But this day is not about us and what we can do to one another, to the innocent, and to good people.\ This day is about God. It is God who makes this day Good, and the best we can do is acknowledge it and be glad. This day is more than holy It is Good because God looks at the mess we have made, and God speaks again. The same Spirit that moved over the waters of chaos at the beginning moves over the chaos of our sinfulness. The same Spirit that moved over the formless void moves over the void of our failures over the darkness of our shame, and once again it creation time! Once again God looks and says that it is good! It is not good that we kill, not good that the innocent suffer not good that we betray the prophets among us not good that power is abused but it is good because out of all this God can create again what He promised at the beginning. And so because we know what God can do with a bit chaos and darkness, we look at the Passion of Christ and see more than destruction and death. We see what power there is in Love – God’s love for His only Son. We are the object of that Love: a love that is steadfast, everlasting, unimaginable, and all embracing. No matter.what chaos we make-of God’s creation or. o matter how much death  we bring and suffering we cause, . God’s Love looks upon us all, and the divine voice speaks again that word of  blessing: “It is good.” It is good to be here. It is good to be children of God. It is good to hear the Gospel. It is good to be redeemed and raised up.It is good to be forgiven and forgiving. It is good to be holy, washed, anointed, and enlightened.  It  is good to remember, to give thanks, to be sorry, to be touched by God and to  touch the cross. It  is  a good day It is a Good Friday

March 24 2005 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK Exodus 12:1-8,11-14 + 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 + John 13:1-15   I was reading recently about Martin Luther King. It seems that there were times in his life when discouragement was overwhelming, when·the attacks of people upon his intentions, reputation, and efforts at human rights were ridiculed; when he was• threatened and cursed, humiliated and reviled. When the experience of helplessness and hopelessness would haunt his days and nights, he would often repeat to himself over and over again the words: “I am Baptized.·I am Baptized. I am Baptized.” The reminder would renew him, restore his dignity, his vision, hope, and courage. Such a reminder is good of us as well, especially now as we assemble here the next three night to celebrate and be renewed by the Paschal Feast. When the Israelites would find the going tough in the desert, Moses would remind them of what had happened and what God had done for them. To make certain that they would never forget, every year they ate the food, told’the story, and shared the blessing prayers that delivered them and bound them to God and God to them. We continue to do the same thing. We get discouraged and we fail to live as disciples of Jesus. We grumble. We doubt, and we get afraid. We find ourselves helpless and sometimes hopeless in the face of evil. Sometimes we even do forget long enough to lose ourselves, our dignity, and our identity with the result that no one would have any reason to suspect that we too are “followers of that man.” But tonight, tomorrow, and the next, we shall go into a tomb of sorts in order to come out in glory with the dawn of Easter We are Baptized! The eternal reality of this fact does not allow us to give up, give in, or forget. We are Baptized, and so we get on our knees and wash feet because we are no greater than our master, and He taught us well. We are Baptized, and so we give and give and give to care for the poor who have no one to look to except us just as they looked to our master We are Baptized, and so we want nothing more than to fulfill the Father’s Will and see that everyone knows the healing and all embracing love that prompted the Son of God to leave the Father and bring us home. We are Baptized, and so the covenant symbols of Christ’s Body and Blood are precious to us, sacred and powerful to bind us together and hold us in unity Before them, fall on our knees just as we kneel before each other, but in those symbols the divine and the human are in Covenant are in Communion: Holy Communion, and the Incarnation is fulfilled. What we have to remember is too much for one night. The story is too long, the meaning is too great to ponder in just this hour. And so we shall do it tomorrow and the next day because we are Baptized, because what we celebrate is not simply something that happened in the past a long time ago, but something that continues to happen as we die and rise with Christ and iive .in His presence, His peace, and His love.  Nothing should keep us quiet tonight.  Nothing should keep us away tomorrow and the next. Nothing should keep us from the holiness to which we are called, because we are Baptized, washed in blood·,washed in water, and washed -in the Spirit of new and everlasting life. When you get lazy, when you get tired, when you get discouraged, when you get alone, and when you get helpless; it is time to remember: we are Baptized. We have a claim.on God, we have a share in His power, in His glory, and.in His Life, now and forever.  If you believ that, it is going to make a difference,· a big one, a lasting· one.

March 20, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 50: 4-7 + Philippians 2:6-11 + Matthew 26:14-27:66

Matthew leads us to raise an important question. Is Jesus an innocent victim of sinful, violent, and jealous human beings? Or, does he experience this violent death because God willed it? It’s a question often avoided, but it still lurks in shadows, and it leaves many profoundly confused about God, about suffering, and about the death of Christ itself.

There is little doubt that Judas, who was probably a member of a right-wing, zealot faction betrayed Christ because he felt betrayed.

He wanted nothing to do with this peaceable, loving, man whose inclusive and patient ways disappointed him. Judas probably felt betrayed by Jesus, not the other way around. He wanted a Messiah who was going to come in, clean things up, and put things in order, and get rid of the Romans. When he got the picture of what Jesus really wanted to do, he not only wanted nothing to do with it, he wanted to silence the plan.

The Chief priests considered themselves the sole interpreters of God’s Will. They were the interpreters of tradition, not this upstart from Galilee. He had no right to bring a message that challenged them,

threatened the nation’s relationship with Rome and their security.

He had to be stopped, and for them, the end justified the means.

The Will of God however was not violent, nor does the outcome of this conflict indicate that God’s willed the death of Jesus. It is a distortion of everything Jesus revealed about his Father to think that God would find any of that pleasing.

For Jesus, it was God’s will that conscience prevail, that truth not be silenced by power, and that peacefulness, love, and forgiveness prevail over everything and anything that threatened the unity of the human family. The poor were to have a place at the table now, not when their dead. The cry of the helpless and powerless was to be heard over and above the roar of the mighty. Women, children, sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, the unfaithful, the broken, jobless, and abandoned were gathered up, and they received the gift of his power – a power he never used for himself. This was the will of God. It was the beginning of the Kingdom of God.

There is not one hint in all of revelation to suggest that the will of God has changed; that God has anything to do with or is anywhere near violence, hatred, oppression, or the selfish ambition of power abused. When we proclaim the Passion of Christ, whether it is from Matthew of from John, the point is not the violence nor the injustice.

To get all hung up on nails and thorns, and whips is to fail to grasp the message and see what the death of Jesus was really about. The point of it all is that one of us has put the will of God above everything else, and broken the cycle of violence and hatred, fear, ambition, and selfishness. It is possible that the peace, the forgiveness, and the all-inclusive love of God can prevail, and when it does for everyone of us, there will be resurrection and real life forever and ever.

March 13, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Exodus 17:3-7 + Romans 5:1-2,5-8 + John 4:5-42

We all have places we would rather not go back to. Times and places in our past, in our childhood; relationships that have gone sour and broken; topics of conversation we would rather avoid,

and things we have left unresolved.  The disciples remember that rock-throwing crowd with blood in their eyes. They don’t want to go back there, but Jesus does, and he’s going. In the mind of the disciples, what’s the use? Lazarus is already dead. It’s too late for that. Those disciples are thinking: “You want to risk our lives to look at a dead man?”

It is a good idea to tell the story of Lazarus coming from the grave

two weeks before we tell the story of Jesus coming from the grave,

because they are not the same, and the difference is important.

One is resuscitation. The other is resurrection. We know which one we need. The resuscitated Lazarus will die again. That’s not for us. The resurrected will rise to new life never to die again. That is a much better option, and the option we have in Jesus Christ.

“Let’s go to Judea again”, Jesus says. Not because he wants us to die for a good cause or because he wants to suffer, but because he wants us to be part of what God is doing in the world. He wants us to be there when he comes to Bethany, and says,

“Take away the stone.” It is no insignificant detail that Lazarus comes out tied hand and foot. The voice of the Lord is that powerful! Those bindings could never hold him back.

But I have wondered about the scene of this gospel for a long time. I have wondered about Lazarus and what it was like for him.

It is easy to imagine Martha and Mary with their prayers answered,

their brother restored to them, their friend finally coming to their rescue. At last they get to benefit from one of the great powerful signs they have seen and heard of time and again. But what about Lazarus? What if he didn’t want to come out? What if he liked it in there, preferring the tomb to the reality of his life? It hardly seems fair. Now he will have to die a second time. The first time was bad enough. He’d lingered and suffered for several days. Who would want to do that twice? I have even thought that when he heard that voice cry: “Come Out.” He said, “No, I don’t want to.”  “I like it in here.” I wonder if he thought: “I don’t want to go back to those bickering women who are always courting your favor while arguing about who helps in the kitchen?” For many of us, a quiet place away from demands, work, schedules, expectations, the needs of others who might depend upon us is a very tempting option. In some ways, Lazarus and the disciples were both in hiding: one in the tomb, the others outside of Judea – hiding from the rock throwing crowd and the consequences of choosing life with Jesus.

They wanted it safe and easy, but it was not to be so.

Jesus confronts them both with their inclination to withdraw from people, from pain and effort, and from anything that might shatter their comfortable existence. There is something in us all that makes us want to hide, to withdraw into out busy calendars and schedules, but that is not life, and Jesus came to call us to COME OUT of that and have life.

The tomb cannot be our final resting place. The command of Jesus is loud and clear today. To those of us who might be hiding

or tempted to slip into a tomb somewhere he says: “COME OUT.”

To those who have made the journey to Bethany with him, there is even more of a message. We are either Lazarus called to come out and get on with living, or we are commanded to untie those who have no life because they are bound by poverty, by ignorance, by race, culture, or anything that keeps them from really living.

We are commanded to set them free — to loosen their bindings,

to untie them, so that together we may, go with Jesus to participate in the work God is doing in this world.

So, the fifth and last figure of the Old Testament rises up today with his image of dried bones — an image that too often describes the way we feel or the way we look. He offers the promise of a time when it will not be so, when this world will not be a desolate place of suffering, death, violence and fear, and in Lent’s last week, this is our promise as Jesus invites us to get up and go with him to a place that might look like death; but really holds the promise of Life for those who want to join him in doing the work of God. To do so, we must come out of our little tombs and be about the work of unbinding and setting those free who do not have Life.

March 6, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Exodus 17:3-7 + Romans 5:1-2,5-8 + John 4:5-42

The promised land, the holy ground is at hand, but Jesse and Samuel in the Old Testament cannot see it. They do not at first “see as God sees.” When they do everything is different.

The youngest, the least one, the one no one would have thought of,

David, is chosen, anointed, and then leads Israel to become a great nation enjoying God’s presence, God’s gifts, and God’s protection.

He unites the tribes, suppresses the enemy, initiates a reign of justice, builds a new city of peace and brings the covenant to its temple. His anointing ages later in history gives identity to the one who is to come: “The Anointed of God”, who also comes from Bethlehem.

The holy ground can still be seen, but it takes a blind man to lead us. because that blind man sees as God sees. He does not look at appearances. He does not see what looks good, what is in style,

what will make him look cool, or appear to have good expensive taste. In the meantime, those who think they can see, who judge by appearances, who need to look good in order to feel good know nothing of being good or of being in the presence of goodness.

At Lent’s center – midway through these forty days, we came face to face with images of baptism because that is what lies ahead for us. A discussion on sin misses the point. It is a tactic of diversion – talking about HIS sin keeps them from their own. Those people who confront the man who can see will not look at their own sin.

They are too concerned and too busy about his sin or the sins of his parents. So, they fail to discover the divine presence in their midst and the holy ground upon which they stand. No miracles for them.

Our Lenten Journey with David leading will make us a great nation-a holy people. Even though we may not look like it sometimes, and even though some may think us unworthy, or we may feel inadequate to the task and anything but holy,

that is what we are called to be by the God who made us his own and will not rest until we are home again in His presence in His paradise in obedient to His Love and His Will.

David was anointed; the Blind Man was anointed and washed in the pool by the command of Jesus. We too are anointed people who have washed in the pool of Baptism. We are soon to lead others along the same path

and rejoice with them in the presence of our God in this Holy Place where we hear his word and speak to him in gratitude and love. The dust of our beginnings becomes the mud of our anointing and the darkness of sin gives way to the dawn of salvation.

These are the mysteries we are about to celebrate in two weeks

during the week we call holy because of God’s action and our response. The nights of Triduum are not nights to stay home.

As long as there is one empty seat in this church on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, or at the Vigil, this church is empty, and ingratitude and indifference have had their way among us. To take Holy Communion week after week; to bring our children with excitement and joy to their First Communion and stay home on the night of Communion’s Institution is a shame. To make the sign of the cross day after day and stay home on the night when that cross is venerated and its story proclaimed is a curious display of inconsistent values. To be too busy or claim it’s too long to keep Vigil on Saturday is to side with sleeping apostles who can’t keep company with Jesus as he suffers, dies, and rises for us all.

Next week it is Ezekiel whose prophesy describes us, whose vision sees us made new because of how we have lived in faith these forty days. It is a new spirit that we seek, a new that we are given, a new life that is promised. Our hope this season is that with the light of Christ and his Spirit, we shall see as God sees, and been seen by God as David seen, called, anointed, and blessed.