Month: March 2024

Easter, March 31, 2024: Isaiah 25:6-9; Acts 10:34-43; Mark 16:1-8; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

The journey of Holy Week is intense. We walk with Jesus and his friends through triumph and despair. Thursday night and Friday, I find, are devastating. Watching the stripping of the altar, attending a service in a church empty of all its usual decorations, both provide a physical reminder of the terrible things that happened to Jesus. The gospel narratives are all in the third person, so we can only imagine what is in the minds of Jesus and of his followers.

What we do know is that after Jesus was crucified and buried, his followers were both frightened and grieving. They spent time with each other. This is what we do when we grieve: we try to surround ourselves with others.

Today’s gospel makes this clear: in Mark’s account, Mary Magadalen, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go together to annoint the body-to do the things they did not have time to do before the sabbath. They are doing what needs to be done, but they are not alone. And they are together when they are told the news of the resurrection, and told to give instructions to the others to go meet Jesus in Galilee.

We live in a society that is very focused on the individual. But when things are difficult, we need each other. We need community. We saw this in the hardest parts of the pandemic, when all sorts of groups of friends sought each other out for conversation and community: it may have been online, but it was necessary. The good thing about going through the hard times together is we can celebrate together.

So today, we celebrate.

He is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Palm Sunday/The Sunday of the Passion, March 24, 2024: Mark 11:1-11 or John 12:12-16; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; The Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 15:1-39; Psalm 31:9-16

Today we experience what I’ve come to think of as whiplash Sunday: we begin with the joyous procession into Jerusalem with palms, and end with the death of Jesus on the cross. These are two familiar gospel stories, but back to back it’s always a bit discombobulating. We are presented with the readings as if it’s two separate services, the Liturgy of the Palms and the Passion, but we do them together.

So it is useful to turn to the other readings we do to get some perspective. Our reading from the Hebrew scriptures in the Passion part of the service is from Isaiah. Isaiah says he has been given “the tongue of a teacher”. And the Lord God “wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught”. So we need to listen. In Philippians, Paul reminds us that Jesus “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited”.

These are not obvious movements. Those of us who are teachers, in any way, how do we learn to listen as those who are taught? How do we turn ourselves into our students? How do we hear as they hear? What is it we hear? And even more, how do we not take our positions–maybe not equality with God, but in the world–and not exploit it? These are challenges.

If we listen, pretending we do not know what we know, we hear a movement from celebration to tragedy. We hear failures of courage, but we also see people angling for personal power and position. In a section we did not read, Jesus is betrayed by Judas. Peter denied knowing Jesus. Pilate knew Jesus did not deserve to be crucified, but went along to oblige the crowd. There were failures to go around. We hear how quickly we can move from triumph to grief.

Most of us have not suffered as Jesus suffered. If we have, we have not done so willingly. But most humans, at a certain point, have suffered. We know that happiness and joy are transient, that life will also include grief and sorrow.

Of course, we know the end of this story. We know that Jesus will rise from the grave. We know that through his death and resurrection we are saved. But we need to get from here to there. That is what we do in the coming week.

Still, as we go through this process, we can listen. When we experience pain and suffering, Jesus was there too. We are not alone. In the week ahead, we walk with Jesus on a road that leads to the cross. This week, our job is to be there, and know that we are not alone.

Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 17, 2024: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33; Psalm 51:1-13

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it in their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

Our readings today include Jesus telling his disciples of his impending death. But they also give us hope. In Jeremiah, we hear God’s promise of a new kind of covenant, one in our hearts. God promises that the Israelites will not need to be taught about God, but will all know him. Furthermore, “I will remember their sin no more”. If God is in our hearts, he is always there, and we are never alone.

In the passage from John, Jesus never responds to the Greeks who want to see him, but in the midst of his last sermon in John’s gospel, he reminds us of the way things that seem like losses actually multiply. Jesus’s example, and that of the saints who have followed him, mean that we get to be the many grains of wheat that come from one that died. We take their example, and do our work in the world. I have found that kindnesses beget other kindnesses. Today we talk about paying it forward, but that is how one act of generosity leads to others.

Next Sunday we will read the story of Jesus’s passion, and move into Holy Week. We will hear again of Jesus’s last meal with his disciples, his arrest and trial, and his death on the cross. And in two weeks, we will proclaim with confidence, “He is risen”. In the meantime, may we know God in our hearts, and may we find ways to be the fruits of the wheat that has died, and spread God’s love with all who we encounter.

Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 10, 2024: Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Today our gospel includes John 3:16, which for many evangelical Christians is the central text of their faith: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” I remember my surprise when one of my students, a faithful evangelical, tested my Christian identity with it. I failed: I was a good Episcopalian who had never been told that John 3:16 was the be all and end all. But I’ve come to appreciate it. The promise of eternal life for believers is powerful.

But this is not the only gospel passage that talks about salvation and eternal life. If there was a proof text in my church growing up, it would have been not a verse, but a passage, Matthew 25:34-40:

‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’

One major strand of theological debate over the past 2000 years has been about the relationship of these two passages, both of which promise eternal life. Is it faith, or is it works? Is it what you believe, or is it what you do, how you treat “the least of these”.

It seems obvious to me that in some ways the answer is both. And that it works both ways. For some, like Francis of Assissi, belief turns us to serving others. For some of us it works the other way: serving others gives us a glimpse of God that supports belief. In either case, faith and works are not in opposition.

The rest of the passage in Matthew is perhaps more challenging than the first part. After all, we can all feel good about the times we have helped “the least of these”. We’re fine. Or maybe not:

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, ⁴² for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt. 25:41-46)

Most of us at some point have not helped someone who needed help, whether a homeless person on the street, or someone begging for money, or someone else. And we’ve always had a good reason: our own resources and needs, time, or even fear.

When I acknowledge my failures, I am deeply grateful for the simple promise of John 3:16. But I always try to keep myself in mind of Matthew’s words too. They give me guidance in my life.

This post is in memory of Susan Pickles, who quizzed me on John 3:16, but was eventually surprised that I cared about scripture. In 1997, her husband killed her and her two children as she sought a divorce.

Third Sunday in Lent, 3 March 2024: Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22; Psalm 19

I always find it interesting how a Sunday’s readings echo and connect to each other. Today is particularly striking. It is the middle of Lent, and we are reminded in today’s Psalm that “the Heavens declare the glory of God”. We also read the Ten Commandments. The pairing reminds us that God’s commandments are tied to the glory of God: we obey them in part because of the world God created. The psalmist also tells us that “the law of the Lord is perfect”, and the Lord’s statutes are just and “rejoice the heart”. “The commandment of the Lord is clear and gives light to the eyes”. Law here is not punitive, but part and parcel of the goodness of the Lord.

The conversation between readings continues as we move from the Hebrew scriptures to the gospel and epistle. Today’s gospel is John’s account of Jesus throwing the merchants and money changers out of the temple. In doing so, Jesus implicitly turns back to the commandments we have read in Exodus: the center of worship is God, and all the buying and. The problem in the Temple is not the worship of God, it is everything else that is happening.

Paul reminds us that the message that Jesus offers makes no sense to the two audiences Paul is most interested in: Jews and Greeks. For Jews, Jesus’ death on the cross–an ignominious end if ever there was one–is the stumbling block. For the Greeks, it is foolishness: Jesus does not enter the wisdom tradition in the way they expect. And if we forget what we know, the message is indeed foolish: God came in the form of a man who died on the cross? Jesus told us to treat everyone as if they were him? We really have to treat everyone as if they might be Jesus? Everyone?

While Christianity has spread worldwide, the central message of love Jesus preaches can still feel foolish. Most Christians don’t do it. Churches have a long tradition of deciding who is worthy of love, or of help. They always have (and had) reasons for doing so, just as those who set up their stalls in the Temple had reasons to do so. But Jesus calls us back to the center, just as he did in the Temple.

So, the challenge is how will we be foolish this week?