Scriptures

Gospel-worthy

September 18, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

Philippians 1:21-30

The House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church is meeting in Quito, Ecuador, this week. One hundred and sixteen bishops from the 109 dioceses spread out over 16 nations have gathered to pray, to learn … and to think …

One thing they were asked to think about came from Don Compier, a liberation theologian who recounted to the bishops a recent conversation he had had.

Compier told them that “he was recently asked by someone in another denomination: ‘If you care about the poor, why are you an Episcopalian? Aren’t you just interested in liturgy?’ Compier reminded the bishops that “our tradition of witness to the concerns for the poor is not well known, even by us.”[1]

What Compier was asking the bishops to think about was, in essence, the same thing St. Paul asks, in a variety of ways, throughout his letters: How then shall we live?

Shall we live as people who are in love with liturgy?

Or shall we live our lives in a manner worthy of the Gospel, as Paul exhorts us this morning?

And what, pray tell, does that even mean, to live our lives in a manner worthy of the Gospel?

For Paul (and implicitly, for the person who asked Compier that question), Gospel-worthy lives begin and end in community.

Gospel-worthy lives are never about us … They are never about getting ahead or getting more, never about adopting the attitude of “I’ve-got-mine-and-I-don’t-care-if-you-get-yours,” never about leaving others behind.

Gospel-worthy lives are about love.

Gospel-worthy lives are love.

Paul makes this clear in what is known as his “love letter to his friends in the church at Philippi.”[2] Everything he writes them is about how we are to live in love and in community because this is what God desires for us.

As Walter Brueggemann, one of the most respected theologians of our times, preached not long ago:

Paul says to his beloved church, imagine your life caught up in the great divine drama in order that you may not imagine your life as a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing, in order that you may not imagine your life as an endless rat race that no one can win, in order that you will not imagine your life as an endless series of accidents that amount to very little. Christians (he says) are people who imagine and receive their lives differently, bracketed and ordered by God’s goodness and God’s resolve for us.[3]

Our lives will have meaning, our lives will fulfill God’s desires for us, if we bracket and order our lives in God’s goodness, in God’s resolve, if we live focused not on ourselves but on God’s beloved community.

That’s what Paul is talking about when he says “living is Christ,” that living is “fruitful labor” for him, that it is “more necessary for you.”

Paul is talking about community, which can only be lived in love.

Even the word Paul uses to instruct his beloved friends in Philippi underscores this. The Greek word for “live your life” is politeusthe – which comes from the Greek word for “city” – polis – which according to one commentator “has the sense of ‘live as a free citizen,’ [or] ‘conduct your public life.’”[4]

So Paul is crystal clear that our lives are never to be about “me-me-me, mine-mine-mine.” Not only are they are always to be focused on others, but, Paul insists, we are to bring our focus as a community.

Because we are the Body of Christ, Paul teaches, we are to act as the Body of Christ.

If all of us were to focus our lives and our love together, there wouldn’t be 52 million Americans living in poverty right now. There wouldn’t be 48 million Americans living right now without health insurance.

If we focused our lives and love together, there wouldn’t be 14 million unemployed people in our own country, there wouldn’t be millions of our children going to school hungry every morning, there wouldn’t be a wealth disparity in this country and in this world that more closely models medieval times than modern times.

If we brought our Gospel-worthy lives to bear on the problems of the world, do you really think there would be 650,000 Somalis about to starve to death in the Horn of Africa right now, because no one will give them food?

Would there really be children who die of easily cured diseases – diseases we can cure for less than one dollar per child – because no one will give them medicine?

If we lived Gospel-worthy lives – and we can easily choose to do so – each person, each beloved child of God in this world – would have enough – not too much, not an over-abundance of things, but enough – enough food and water, enough shelter, enough education, enough money to not just survive but thrive.

Paul “is speaking (to us) about how a community whose common life is founded and sustained by the crucified and risen Christ should live together.” [5] And, he’s telling us, this is our choice to make.

Now, I need to warn you:

Being Gospel-worthy – living Gospel-worthy lives – is dangerous. It gets us in trouble. It upsets the status quo. And sometimes, when we focus our lives in this way … sometimes … we end up in jail … like Paul. Sometimes, we end up dying … like Jesus and Paul.

You don’t think Paul was hauled off to prison – which is where he was when he wrote this love letter to the Philippians – just because he didn’t pay his taxes, do you?

As Paul himself would say, Me genito! By no means!

Paul ended up in jail – Paul ended up being executed – because he upset the Roman apple cart!

Because he kept getting in the face of those in power, he kept threatening those in power, with the Gospel … with Jesus’ instructions to care for those in need, to feed the hungry, to cure the sick and touch the leper and eat with the tax collectors and worship with the prostitutes and the destitute … to give hope to the hopeless and power to the powerless, to include the excluded, to love the unloved.

And that’s just not where the world – or, I should say, where the powers-that-be in the world – want us to go.

The powers-that-be in no way want us to stand up and say, No more. Nada mas. Bas. Basta.

In no way do the powers-that-be want us – members of the Body of Christ – to upset their apply carts.

But we are the Body of Christ, commanded by none other than Christ, to love God and love our neighbor – to live in love and community every moment of our lives, to make choices – every moment of our lives – that are for the common good, not for our own good only.

• • •

This past summer, I was at Camp McDowell, the Diocese of Alabama’s camp and retreat center, helping to lead a week-long summer camp program for 125 seventh- and eight-graders. Our program was focused on how to live together as the Body of Christ.

We called it, OMG, Y’all! (That stands for … wait for it … wait for it …) On a Mission From God, Y’all. (Not what you thought, eh?)

One part of the camp program was a game called “Survival,” in which we asked each small group of about 10 campers to become a “nation,” to which we then gave red and green beads.

Each red bead, we told the campers, represented 1,000 people.

Each green bead, we said, represented enough food for 1,000 people.

No group – no nation – started off with an equal amount of beads.

Some nations had lots of red beads – lots of people – and very few green beads – very little food.

Other nations had enough food to feed their people several times over.

The goal of the game, we said, was for each nation to end up with an equal number of red and green beads – with enough food to care for all their people.

Now, what normally happens in this game is that the nations swap food and people with each other – all the while dealing with disasters or blessings, with locusts or emigration, with tornadoes or gentle rainfall, with drought or bumper crops, with whatever disaster or blessing we decided to drop on them, whenever we decided to do so. What normally happens is that at the end, each nation has enough food to feed its people, but some nations are huge, and others are small.

That’s what normally happens.

Not at Camp McDowell, of course.

There, the kids decided first that they would take care of each other. One group, every time it found itself with a surplus of food, started going to other groups and simply giving their extra food away for free, asking nothing in return. Others entered covenants: You take care of us, we’ll take care of you. Still others formed coalitions, sharing food and people equally.

And then, in the end, in a completely unexpected turn of events (which I have never seen before), the groups decided they no longer wanted to experience famine or overcrowding. So they joined together.

All 12 groups.

Into one nation.

That way, they reasoned, everyone would have enough to eat. No one would go hungry ever again.

May I remind you that these children were in seventh and eighth grade? That they ranged in age from 11 to 14?

These children understood what it means to live Gospel-worthy lives.

And then they lived them.

Let me tell you: Those children in Alabama? They knew how to answer Paul’s great question of “How then shall we live?” Yes, it was just a game in a week filled with games. But they still did it. For them, it was a no-brainer! (Actually, I believe what they said to me was, “Duh!”)

And if those children can do it, can’t we as well? If they can see this solution as a “Duh!” can’t we do the same? After all, we are the adults here!

The children already know this, and they teach us about our call in life. Their answer Paul’s question:

We are called … as members of the Body of Christ … to live Gospel-worthy lives.

We are called to be Gospel-worthy.

Gospel-worthy.

Amen.

Sermon preached on the 14^th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20, Year A, 18 September 2011, at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Blue Grass, Va.

[1] Quoted in “Theology of Liberation” on the blog of The Rt. Rev. Michael Hanley, Bishop of Oregon, http://www.bishop.episcopaldioceseoregon.org/, 15 September 2011. Compier is a professor at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo.

[2] Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, “A Love Letter…concerning a Work in Progress,” First Presbyterian Church, Birmingham, Mich., 6 December 2009, http://www.fpcbirmingham.org/worship/sermons/a-love-letter/, emphasis added.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Susan Eastman, Assistant Professor of the Practice of the Bible and Christian Formation,

Duke Divinity School, Durham, N.C., “Reciprocating Glory,” http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx.

[5] Stephen E. Fowl. Philippians (Two Horizons New Testament Commentary), 79, Kindle Edition.

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Filed Under: Blog Articles, Featured Story, Scriptures, Sermons Tagged With: Camp McDowell, Diocese of Alabama, Don Compier, Famine, Gospel-worthy, Health care, Paul, Philippians, Somalia, Unemployment, Walter Brueggemann, Wealth disparity

Extravagant forgiveness, extravagant love

September 11, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

Matthew 18:21-22

How many of you have found yourself weeping this week?

How many of you have found yourself turning off your televisions and radios, turning past stories in the newspaper, skipping the Facebook comments …

… because you just can’t go there again?

Ten years after the horrible tragedies of 9/11, many of us, myself included, are still filled with grief.

We have moved on from the immediate shock, from the numbness, from the piercing pain that came with the attacks.

But we are still filled with grief.

• • •

This morning’s Gospel lesson from Matthew – chosen years and years and years ago, long before September 11, 2001 – is about forgiveness. In it we hear the story of Peter – poor, befuddled Peter, who never quite gets it but never stops trying – asking Jesus how many times he has to forgive.

“As many as seven times?” he asks, knowing that seven times’ worth of forgiveness would be wildly extravagant.

No, Jesus replies. “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

This is, I tell you, a lesson in extravagance, in the extravagant, wild, radical, never-ending love of God that Jesus proclaims in his preaching, in his teaching, in his healing, and in the end, with his own life.

We are, Jesus says, to forgive extravagantly. More than we want. More than we can imagine.

And yet, on this morning, on this tenth anniversary of terror and murder, that kind of forgiveness seems … well, it almost seems out of our reach.

It almost seems as if God is asking us to do something far greater, far grander than we can possibly imagine, much less accomplish.

And yet … it is what God is asking of us.

Forgive.

More than you want.

More than you can imagine.

I don’t know about you, but I need to admit something, I need to put something out on the table:

I am not certain I know how to do this.

I am not certain I can forgive as extravagantly as Jesus asks.

And I think that is why I am still weeping, 10 years after the fact.

Like you, I remember that day.

I remember hearing the plane fly over my parish in Annandale and saying to the secretary, “Wow, that guy is way off course.”

I remember hearing the plane hit the Pentagon and saying to her, “Man, that guy just dropped a load,” because I thought it was a construction accident.

I remember returning hours later to my apartment, less than a mile from the Pentagon, and finding it filled with dust and ashes … because I had left the windows open – it was such a beautiful day, wasn’t it?

I remember being unable to keep my apartment clean or to sleep soundly for weeks afterwards, because the trucks carrying the debris – the dust and the ashes – drove by my place, day after day, night after night, constantly spreading more dust, more ash, constantly rumbling along.

Like you, I remember the military jets that flew overhead night and day, watching as they left lazy contrails in their wake.

I remember the fear … the grief … the loss …

I remember …

And because I remember … so vividly … so profoundly … I think I cannot fully forgive.

Not as Jesus asks.

Not seventy-seven times.

Not yet.

• • •

And yet …

I want to forgive.

Really, I do.

I want to forgive because it is what Jesus taught us to do. It is what we pray for when we pray in the very words that Jesus gave us: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

I want to forgive, because I think if I don’t, my very soul may be in danger.

But I’m not certain I’m there yet.

Which is why, especially this past week, I have cried.

• • •

You know what is that I cannot forgive?

It’s not the hijackers, Mohammed Atta and those 18 others who turned airplanes into missiles.

And it’s not Osama bin Laden and all who have followed his misbegotten ideas of faith.

No, what I cannot forgive is the hatred that fueled those men to do commit these atrocities.

What I cannot forgive is anyone bastardizing the love of God for all of God’s beloved children.

And what I cannot forgive is the suffering that these men caused, all so they could – they thought – have their own way.

I agree with Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who wrote, in 1955:

“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and a willingness to remain vulnerable.”[1]

The hatred they rained upon us, the deliberate misinterpretation of God’s will, the suffering they caused … for what? I ask you … those are the stumbling blocks on my path to forgiveness.

From conversations I have had with others, from news stories I have read and the very few news shows I have watched or listened to, I think I am not alone in this pain.

And so I think that perhaps now, on this day, the tenth anniversary of that awful day, which we cannot escape no matter how hard we try, I think that perhaps today is a day to … let go.

A day to … set my feelings free.

A day … for release.

For that is what the word forgive means, in the Greek. It means release. To let go. To set free.

Because only by releasing, by letting go, by setting free, do we have a chance … a chance … not of moving on, but of moving forward.

Author and priest Barbara Brown Taylor, writing in 1998 – again, years before 9/11, proclaimed:

When you allow your enemy to stop being your enemy, all the rules change. Nobody knows how to act anymore, because forgiveness is an act of transformation. It does not offer the adrenaline rush of anger, nor the feeling of power that comes from a well-established resentment. It is a quiet revolution, as easy to miss as a fist uncurling to become an open hand, but it changes people in ways anger only wishes it could.[2]

I want fists to uncurl today. Not just my fist, but all fists. I want our hands to be open … to the possibility of transformation … to the possibility of peace … to the possibility of love.

The Rev. David F. Sellery, a priest in Bay Shore, N.Y., wrote about forgiveness in a reflection for today:

Forgiveness, he says, “is the essence of Christian love. … It is not a largesse we dispense by power of our innate superiority [but rather] the grace of God transmitted through us. It is,” he says, “the ultimate witness of Christ’s love in the world.”[3]

Sellery knows that the pain of 9/11 remains. And he is clear that forgiveness is not a “get-out-of-jail-free card for perpetrators.” God, he says, “has not issued an easy-pass for evil in the world to benefit the bad guys.”[4] There is to be justice – as long as it is not revenge.

Sellery concludes: “The choice is ours. We can live in love or we can live in hate. Both are transformative forces. We can become what we value and love or we can risk becoming the evil we obsess upon.”[5]

Forgiveness, it seems, really is about opening our fists to the possibilities of new life.

Writing in The Washington Post last Tuesday, Lynne Steuerle Schofield, whose mother, Norma Lange Steuerle, died on American Flight 77 when it flew into the Pentagon, suggested the same kind of transformation, the same willingness to open our fists to release. She said that with every anniversary, it is as though she is being asked to go to her mother’s funeral over and over and over again. Instead, she wrote:

What if we all spent the 11^th anniversary of the attacks (she is speaking of next year) reflecting on what we admired most about our lost loved ones and trying to emulate those ideals? Or what if we spent time building not another structure in memorial but, instead, building our relationships with others? Or raising money for our favorite charity?[6]

If we want the world to be more compassionate, safer and more equitable, she writes, we have to work to make that happen. We all have to be on board. We should reflect on the characteristics of our loves ones that we want to keep alive, and then we must behave that way.[7]

Our Gospel today, my friends, teaches us about forgiveness. It teaches us about extravagant forgiveness, which can only come from extravagant love.

Not our love.

For our love is, sadly to say, far too often far too small.

But God’s forgiveness?

God’s forgiveness is extravagant. It is overwhelming.

Because it comes from God’s extravagant love.

And it is what God is calling us to.

I may not be there … yet.

But if I can’t forgive extravagantly, perhaps I can love … just a little bit more extravagantly. Perhaps I can, as Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says, be “more inclined toward peace,” at least a little bit more extravagantly.

Perhaps I can relax my hand on the pain that still grips me – and in that moment, release the pain as I reach out to others still in pain, still in mourning.

I think that this morning, I am more like Peter than I realize: I haven’t quite gotten it yet, I still can’t quite go to where Jesus wants me, but I am still trying to understand. Still trying to be extravagant with my forgiveness, my release, my love.

My prayer for us this morning … for those of us here, for the Church as a whole, for this nation and for the world … is that we relax our hands, opening them as much as we can. My prayer is that we focus on the extravagance of God’s love for us, and in the releasing of our pain and sorrow, we set that love free for the whole world to see and know and hear and feel.

We do not have to forget.

We cannot forget.

But perhaps … just perhaps … with the help of our Lord, we can forgive.

Amen.

Sermon preached for the Service of Remembrance on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, at St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church, Leesburg, Va., Sept. 11, 2011. (Proper 19, Year A)

[1] Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea, 1955.

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, Christianity Today, Feb. 9, 1998.

[3]The Rev. David F. Sellery is rector of St. Peter’s By-the-Sea Church and Day School in Bay Shore, New York. http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_129713_ENG_HTM.htm

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Lynne Steuerle Schofield, “A 9/11 event that embraces the future,” The Washington Post, Sept. 6, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-911-event-that-embraces-the-future/2011/09/01/gIQAm6np7J_story.html?fb_ref=NetworkNews&fb_source=profile_multiline.

[7] Ibid.

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Go. Baptize. Teach. Need I say more?

June 19, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

Matthew 28:16-20

Well, folks, this is it.

Rublev's Holy Trinity icon

This is the day when we celebrate the Trinity, that seemingly impenetrable mystery of Three in One and One in Three, something about which thousands and thousands, no, millions of words have been written and which many will tell you is impossible to completely understand.

But I have to tell you, if Jesus were here with us, he would probably be confused. Because for Jesus, the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not a mystery, it’s not impenetrable, and it’s not his focus.

You see, Jesus understood the Trinity because he was one manifestation of the Trinity. So to him, the Three in One and One in Three makes perfect sense.

And if he were here today, he’d probably look at us and say, “Folks, this is not rocket science.”
And then he would wonder …

“Why aren’t you concentrating on that other trinity? You know, the one I gave you as I ascended into heaven?”

But before we go there, before we focus on what Jesus really wants us to focus on, let’s spend a few minutes on the part that Jesus says isn’t that complicated after all but others claim we can’t quite get.

We believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

We believe in One God.

Before anyone tells you this whole concept is too mind-boggling, let me share with you the two easiest ways I know of to explain that Trinity:

(holds up clear glass bowl and glass with blue water)

This is God the Father, the Creator, who brought all things into being.

(pours blue water into bowl, then holds up glass with yellow water)

This is God the Son, who came to be one of us as one of us, who lived for us, who preached and taught and healed and then died for us.

(pours yellow water into bowl with blue water, which now turns green, then holds up glass with red water)

This is God the Holy Spirit, who inspires us, who literally gives us breath – when a baby is born, we all wait anxiously for that baby to breathe in that first breathe, to inspire that first breath – and who tells us what to say, when to say it, and how to say it.

(pours red water into bowl with green water, which now turns amber, then swirls the water around)

Now … you tell me:

Which is which?

Can you separate out God the Father from God the Son from God the Holy Spirit?

No.

Because they are all one.

My friends, that’s the Trinity.

Another way to explain the Trinity so that it makes sense to us?

I am a daughter. I am my mother’s oldest daughter, and even though my mother died nine years ago, I will always be my mother’s daughter.

I am a sister. I have seven siblings … two brothers, two stepbrothers, one step sister and two half-sisters. (It’s a complicated family, trust me.) No matter what happens to me in this life, when I die, my obituary will say that I have seven siblings.

And I am an aunt. I have 19 nieces and nephews, and seven great nieces and nephews, and I am their Aunt LoLo. And no matter what happens in my life, I will always be Aunt LoLo to them.

A daughter. A sister. An aunt.

So here’s the question:

How many of me are there?

One?

Or three?

As Jesus would say, “It’s not that complicated.” Because it’s not!

And again, if Jesus were here with us, he would ask us:

“Are you paying attention to that other trinity?”

You know …

The one where he stood on the mountaintop in front of his disciples and said:

Go make disciples.

Baptize them.

Teach them to obey.

….

Go.

Baptize.

Teach

That’s the trinity Jesus cares about.

Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus spend any time worrying about and explaining how God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are together, are one being, are God. To Jesus, it makes perfect sense. Just as me being a daughter, a sister and an aunt all at the same time makes perfect sense.

But Jesus does concentrate on that other trinity – Go. Baptize. Teach. – all the time.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus was constantly teaching us how we are to live our lives, what we are to do with our lives.

Go make disciples …

Jesus talked about it, he modeled it for us, he got into debates over it (remember Zebedee’s wife, trying to ensure that her sons, James and John, got the coveted seats at the right hand of Jesus in heaven? Remember all those debates with the Pharisees about healing people on the Sabbath? Remember how the Pharisees tried to trick him into saying blasphemous and illegal things about paying taxes and being sent by the Father? Remember how they railed at him for eating with prostitutes and beggars and fishermen?).

Jesus was very clear: If we are going to follow him, we cannot do so in a vacuum. We are not to be blind imitators, but active ministers – constantly modeling God’s love for everyone, wherever we go, so that they, too, can see God’s love in action and commit their lives to that love.

Baptize them …

Do you remember what happened when Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan? He heard God on high say to him: This is my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased.

Go baptize others, Jesus tells us, so that they can hear God’s voice as well, so that they can experience God’s love, so that they can commit themselves to that love.

Teach them to obey …

Jesus was a teacher. Pure and simple, that’s what he did: He taught. Every moment of his life, by word, thought and deed, he made sure that we understood what it was that God wanted us to do.

And the key thing he taught was that we are loved, and that we are to love. We are to love each other not just as ourselves – I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again: There are some days when I don’t love myself very much, and on those days, I can tell you, it’s really hard for me to love anyone else – no, we have to love each other a whole lot more than that. We are called to love each other as Jesus loved us!

Which means we are the ones called to feed the hungry until there are no more hungry people in the world. We are the ones who are to give water – clean water – until everyone’s thirst is slaked. We are the ones who are supposed to heal the sick and raise the dead, comfort the prisoner and lift the poor out of poverty.

Not someone else, my friends.

Us.

This is our job, our way of life, because Jesus said so!

Jesus’ Trinity is not some convoluted, impenetrable mystery that sidetracks us from our calling in life.

Jesus’ trinity is the Great Commission.

And the Great Commission is our set of marching orders.

You want to know how to live your lives as followers of Jesus?

Look no farther than Jesus’ final words to his disciples.

Standing on that mountaintop, preparing to ascend into heaven, Jesus very clearly, very succinctly tells them – tells us:

Go make disciples.

Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Teach them to obey all the commandments I have given you.

I’m telling you, this is not rocket science. This is not some esoteric debate about how to figure out the Three-in-One. Because Jesus is not interested in that kind of religion.

Jesus cares about, Jesus loves God’s people.

So, standing on that mountaintop, Jesus lays it all out for his disciples:

My work is done here. I’ve taught you everything you need to know, shown you everything you need to be shown, modeled a way of life for you, even modeled a way of death for you. Everything I’ve taught you, shown you, modeled for you? It’s all about love – God’s love for all of God’s beloved children.

Now it’s your turn, he says.

You go out into the world and love God’s people.

You show them how much God loves them.

It’s your job … your life … now.

You want to understand the Trinity on Trinity Sunday?

It’s as simple as this:

Go.

Baptize.

Teach.

Need I say more?

Amen.

A sermon preached on Trinity Sunday, 19 June 2011, Year A, at St. Paul’s, Bailey’s Crossroads, Falls Church, Va.

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Filed Under: Blog Articles, Featured Story, Mission, Scriptures, Sermons Tagged With: Baptize, Great Commission, Matthew's Gospel, One in Three, Preach, Teach, Three in One, Trinity

Walk on, walk on …

May 10, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

Luke 24:13-35

(Before the service at St. Philip’s, I was introduced to the congregation as a former missionary in Haiti. I also had gotten lost on the way to church, and had to ask for help getting there.)

Before I served as a missionary in Haiti, I served in Sudan, in the Diocese of Renk, for four years. While I was there, I lived on the border between the North and South, on the border between Arabs and blacks, on the border between Muslims and Christians. It was a very tense time, because the civil war had just ended and they were beginning their movement toward independence, which happens on July 9 of this year.

Where I lived, we liked to refer to as “beyond the back of beyond.” That’s how far away it was. It was 250 miles south of Khartoum on the White Nile River. It was 250 miles to the next white person, and it was 250 miles from chocolate ice cream. If I wanted chocolate ice cream, I had to go on the terrible roads up to Khartoum, but to do so, I had to pass through up to 50 military checkpoints, with a bunch of people who didn’t like me. They didn’t like me because in Sudan, I had five strikes against me before I even opened my mouth. I was a white, female, Christian, American priest. At every checkpoint, there would be somebody who had an issue with one of those five.

So I would stay in Renk – after I would fly into Khartoum, I would go down to Renk, and I would stay there and not go back and forth to Khartoum because it just got to be too dangerous. It was not just dangerous for me; it was dangerous for the Church in Sudan, because the government in Khartoum – the government – is a fundamentalist, Islamic government, and was actually friends with the late Osama bin Laden. They had real issues with Americans, and they did not like Christians, and they were not impressed with white, female, American priests. What the government would do is check up on me, and through checking up on me, it would spy on the Church, because the government in Khartoum despises Christians and it despises the Episcopal Church of Sudan, which is the fastest growing portion of the Anglican Communion in the world.

I was there for three months and then I got thrown out because the government likes to play these games. Then I received permission to come back and when I got back, I got what is called my “residency visa,” which made me fully subject to all the laws of Sudan. Being an American wasn’t worth spit. And it made life even more difficult for all of us, so I stayed for six more months, then came back to this country for some work, and then went back to Sudan.

I had been there long enough that there were days when it was difficult. There were days when I wanted to know whose stupid idea this was, for me to move to Sudan. (Mine.)

And then April came. April is truly the cruelest month in Sudan. It’s 140 degrees every day. We were living on the edge of the Sahara Desert. We had a gallon of water per day in which to bathe. I had to filter every drop of water that I drank or it would kill me, because it came out of the While Nile, which is filthy. There was no electricity. There were no fans. I taught under a tin roof. And I reached a point where my faith began to waver some.

I didn’t lose faith in God.

I didn’t lose faith in Jesus Christ.

What I lost faith in was my call, and whether I actually belonged there in Sudan.

And so I wrote an e-mail to a friend of mine.

Now because we had electricity on a very sporadic basis, and because the Internet was just beginning to spread over Sudan, there were days when nothing would go out over the Internet. It could take weeks for an email to go out. I had a friend who wrote to me every day and I would write a message to her.

Now … I would write them, but they wouldn’t go anywhere. One of the emails I wrote to her was actually 32 printed pages long. Every day, I would say, “Well, the Internet’s not working, but let me tell you about today.” In that 32-page-long document, I wrote to her and I said, “I am not certain what I’m doing here any more. I am not certain that this is what I’m called to do. This is hard. And we’ve had nothing setbacks. Even though we have a peace agreement, we do not have peace. It’s really, really difficult right now.”

My friend, God bless her, wrote back to me (and I have to quote this, because I get this quote wrong all the time), she sent back to me a quote from a U2 song – y’all know U2, the band, and Bono, its leader? – that’s called Walk on, walk on.

All my friend sent to me was the song’s refrain:

“Walk on, walk on …

“You are packing a bag for a place none of us has been

“A place that has to be believed to be seen.”[1]

You are packing a bag for a place none of us has been,

A place that has to be believed to be seen.

That song could be theme song for this morning’s Gospel from Luke, the story of the two people on the road to Emmaus. They are walking along, having left Jerusalem. Now remember, this is the third day. They have been followers of Jesus. They have seen Jesus perform miracles. They saw him feed the 5,000 – heck, they helped Jesus feed the 5,000. They have seen him cure people, restore sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, and speech to the mute. They have seen the lame leap for joy. They have experienced the love and the joy and the hope of this man, whom they were convinced was the Messiah, and then … then he was arrested. He was beaten. And tortured. And crucified. And they laid his body in the tomb.

These two people are walking along the road, and all of the joy, and all of the love, and all of the hope, is gone. It’s in that tomb. With Jesus. Even though the tomb is now empty.

The baggage that they are carrying … this suitcase that they are carrying … is filled with despair … and loss … and very real fear that either the Roman authorities or the leaders of the Pharisees are going to come after them, because they have been followers of Jesus.

If you read this in the Greek, I want you to know, Luke is very, very clear. The word that he uses for walking along the road to Emmaus is not the normal verb for walking.[2] The normal verb that you use for walking is peripateo, which means to walk along with some energy. The verb that Luke uses instead is a verb (poreuomai) that talks about trudging along, carrying a heavy load. So these two are walking along, very slowly, trudging, and the baggage that they carry is despair, and fear, and hopelessness.

And then this man appears on the road with them (this is not unusual), and he says, “So, what are y’all talking about?” (I’m from the South; that’s how we say things down there: “What are y’all talking about?”)

And what do they do? They basically diss him, and say, “What are you, stupid? Are you the only guy in town who doesn’t know what was going on?”

Now, let me tell you something. The Romans, they crucified people all the time. Crucifying Jesus would not have made the front page of the Palestinian Gazette. So, really, anybody could have missed the news. But they insult him anyway.

And the Risen Lord says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Didn’t you guys get it? You were followers. This is all old information. You were followers. I mean, don’t you pay attention to the Scriptures?!”

So he opens up the Scriptures to them, beginning with Moses, about how he fulfills everything that has been written in the Scriptures. And their hearts are burning within them, but they’re not quite certain why.

When they get to Emmaus, it’s evening, and trust me, you do not want to be walking around at night in a place like that, just like you don’t want to be walking around at night in Sudan. You just don’t do that. Never mind the wild animals, you’ve got bandits out there. So they do what any good Palestinian would do: They provide hospitality. They say, “Come on in. Spend the night with us because you do not want to be out on the road at night.”

So Jesus comes in and he then does what we call the four-fold method: He takes the bread, blesses the bread, breaks the bread and he gives them the bread. It’s what we do in the Eucharist: Take, bless, break and give. And in that moment, they suddenly realize that this is the Risen Lord! And then he disappears from their sight.

Suddenly, they are excited, because they realize they have finally seen the Risen Lord, and maybe … maybe … it’s time to empty that suitcase that they have been carrying, and get rid of that baggage! Maybe it’s time to set aside the fear, and the hopelessness, and the despair!

They hightail it back to Jerusalem, where the other disciples are. Now, the word that Luke uses in the Greek for “hightailing it back to Jerusalem” is very, very clear as well. It’s darned near running! It’s like a quick trot. Because they’ve got this good news that they need to share!

Now, I ask you to spend a moment thinking: How often in your life have you been filled with despair? How many times in your life has something happened that has caused you to lose hope? Something that has caused you to be afraid? What baggage do you carry in your life that causes you to trudge along the roads of your lives?

We’ve all had this happen to us. We’ve lost a job. Somebody in our family has gotten ill. Perhaps a child has run out into the street to get a futbol and was killed. We’ve all had these moments of deep, deep despair, when we have lost all hope and we cannot find joy, no matter how hard we look. That moment in your life is the moment that these two disciples were at on the road to Emmaus.

Now, how often in your life has somebody shown up at that moment when you were down in the depths, in the pit? How often has somebody shown up in your life and said, “Let me carry that burden with you”? How often has somebody shown up and said, “Let me take that away from you. Let me give you hope again. Let me restore you to joy. Let me fill you with love.”

Has that every happened to anybody? When you’ve been down in the pit and somebody has come along?

My friends, when that happens to you, you are seeing the Risen Lord. That’s when you see the Risen Lord. When somebody comes along, and says to you, “I will carry that burden with you.” When somebody comes along and says to you, “Do not despair.” When somebody comes along and says to you, “God loves you. And God loves you. And you. And you. And you. And you. And God loves you … and you … and you … and you … and God loves you.”

We see the Risen Lord in our own lives, all the time, but we do not always recognize the Risen Lord in our lives, until our hearts burn within us and we realize that the despair we are feeling? We need not carry on our own. That the pit into which we have fallen? Others have been there, and they know how to get us out … and they will lead us out. When we can no longer find joy, and somebody comes along and says, “Look! Look at this gorgeous spring day.” We know that God is alive and well in the world when you look at the nature around us – even as you’re sneezing from all the pollen.

You know that there is hope in the world when y’all make these beautiful peace cranes to send to the people of Japan, who are in the pit, who know despair, and who are living in sheer terror that one of those nuclear plants is going to melt down. You are sending the same message that the disciples received on the road to Emmaus.

We are all walking along a road, going to places that people have never been. We are all going to a place that has to be believed to be seen.

Bono’s anthem is the anthem for the road to Emmaus. We are always on that road where we have to go someplace that you have to believe to see.

Sometimes we are the people … sometimes we are the ones … who carry the load for others. Sometimes we are the ones who reach our hands out and say, “Hi. Let me help you with that.” In those moments, we represent the Risen Lord to those who are most in need.

We don’t get to see the Risen Lord the way the disciples saw him. We don’t to see the Risen Lord the way these two men walking along the road to Emmaus saw him. We don’t get to see the Risen Lord the way the 500 got to see him. We don’t even get to see the Risen Lord the way Paul got to see him, when Paul was still Saul and was on that murderous mission, going off to Damascus to arrest a bunch of people who had said they were seeing the Risen Lord, and then he met the Risen Lord face to face while he was sitting on his butt in the middle of the road.

We don’t get to see the Risen Lord in that way. You know why? Because the Risen Lord is in each of us. And it is incumbent upon us – it is up to us – to make the Risen Lord known to each other. To strangers you meet on the road. To your friends and your family. To the babies you’re holding in your laps. (To the person who gets lost on Sunday morning and says, “Really, church is starting in nine minutes and I can’t find it! Do you have any idea where St. Philip’s might be?” And the first person says, “No.” “Do you know where Chapel Road is?” “No.” “Do you know where any church is anywhere in this town?” “No.” “Would you like to come to church with me?” “No.”)

This is our call in life: To make the Risen Lord known.

We take the burdens from other people.

We bless those burdens.

We break those burdens, so that they are not so hard to carry.

And then we give them … we give those burdens back filled with love, and joy, and hope.

You want to see the Risen Lord, you look at each other. You look at yourselves in the mirror. The Risen Lord is within you. There are days when you are the Risen Lord to others, and there are days when others are the Risen Lord to you.

We are on a journey, my friends.

We are on a journey to a place that no one has ever been, to a place that indeed has to be believed to be seen.

Amen.

A sermon preached on the Third Sunday of Easter, 8 May 2011, Year A, at St. Philip’s, New Hope, Pa.

[1] (Walk On, Walk On, U2, lyrics by Bono)

[2] Sarah Henrich, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., This passage ‘R Us, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=5/8/2011.

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Filed Under: Blog Articles, Easter, Featured Story, Scriptures, Sermons Tagged With: Bono, Despair, Emmaus, Hopelessness, Risen Lord, Sharing the burden, U2, Walk on

Pansies and ‘pistos’

May 1, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

John 20:19-31

Last Wednesday night, I was at an Episcopal church for the installation of the new rector. I sat in a pew with the rest of the clergy, and at one point during the service, the priest next to me reached over and pulled out a card that had been filled out by someone and returned to the pew holder. It was a newcomer’s card – you know, the kind where the parish welcomes you and asks you to share some information about yourself. These cards are supposed to go into the offering plate, but this person put it back in the holder. Because the writer didn’t actually offer the usual information.

This note was actually a plea:

The Doubt of St. Thomas, by He Qi.

“Can anyone tell me if Jesus is real? (it read).

“Can anyone prove to me that Jesus is real?

“I’m sitting here surrounded by people who believe, people who have faith … and I don’t know if I can believe.

“I want to believe, but I can’t.”

This plea was written on Sunday morning, on the first day of the week – on Easter morning. There this person sat, in the third pew on the Gospel side, surrounded by hundreds of other people shouting, “The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”, not knowing how to believe!

I do not know who wrote this note – it was signed, “Anonymous.” Below that, the author had written, “I’m learning to believe.”

I do not know if this person was male or female, black or white or Latino or Asian, young or old, gay or straight.

All I know is that on Sunday last, on Easter, Thomas showed up at an Episcopal church and in the midst of celebration, surrounded by believers, said, “Wait just a darned second …”

We call today “Doubting Thomas” Sunday. Poor Thomas. Just because he wasn’t in the upper room when the Risen Lord first appeared to the disciples, we mock Thomas for wondering what was going on, and we hang an epithet on him – “Doubting” – as though nothing else he had ever done – none of the faithful following of Jesus, none of the declarations of “let’s go also, that we may die with him” – ever happened or even matter.

But a little warning here:

Nowhere in John’s presentation of the Risen Lord’s appearances in the upper room does the word “doubt” appear.[1]

The Risen Lord does not say to Thomas, “Do not doubt, but believe.”

What Jesus says, instead, is that Thomas is apistos – without trust or faith. He was just like those other disciples, who had been apistos as well. They were untrusting just like Thomas (remember, when Mary Magdalene came to them that very morning with the news of the Resurrection, they for darned certain didn’t trust or believe her, because if they had, they wouldn’t have still been huddled behind locked doors in that upper room, praying no one would find them!). They had not been pistos – faith-filled – until the moment the Risen Lord had bid them his peace and showed them his wounds.

So when Jesus showed up the second time, a week later, what Jesus literally says to Thomas is, “Do not become untrusting (or faithless) but trusting (or faithful).”[2]

So you see, it’s not that Thomas doubted. It’s that he wasn’t quite ready to trust again – not this soon.

Remember, Thomas had been with Jesus for a large part of Jesus’ ministry. He had walked with Jesus, heard him preach, seen the miracles, felt the hope, saw the love, reveled in the joy …

And then …

Well, then, Jesus was arrested, tortured, killed.

And all those words, all those miracles, all that hope, that love, that joy … all of that had died on the cross and been laid in the tomb, and now … now … just three days later, the other disciples want Thomas, who has given up all hope, to hope again? They want Thomas, who saw his trust violated, to trust again? Just three days later?

You know what Thomas was thinking, right?

Give me a break!

Thomas needed more than just the word of the other disciples – because he had believed once and been burned, and he wasn’t going to get burned again, at least not that easily. It took another appearance by the Risen Lord to convince him.

Sounds just like that person who showed up at that church on Easter Sunday, doesn’t it?

Can anyone prove to me that Jesus is real?

Thomas two thousand years ago … an anonymous person on Easter Sunday 2011 … they’re asking the same questions, they’re caught in the same bind.

They want to believe.

They just can’t.

Which leads to the question:

How many witnesses do you need to believe the truth?

How many witnesses do you need?

Let’s do a little experiment in faith, shall we?

Let’s see what happens when together, we do something rather unbelievable, and you have to convince others – let’s say, the people at the 8 a.m. service, because I wasn’t here for that – that what is about to take place actually took place here this morning.

Do you see these flowers here?

They are pansies – I know this because I went to a nursery yesterday and specifically asked for them.

They’re pretty, are they not?

They’re lovely harbingers of spring.

They come in an assortment of colors, which I have carefully chosen, because believe me, colors make a difference.

Why?

Let me show you …. (eat pansies)

Mmm … quite tasty, actually.

And yes, just to let you know, it is perfectly safe to eat pansies. Not so much other flowers, but pansies are fine.

Now … if one of you were to call someone who came to church at 8 o’clock this morning and tell that person, “You’re not gonna believe it! The preacher ate pansies in the pulpit!” that person probably would not believe you.

Because unless I’m sorely mistaken, preachers do not normally eat pansies in the pulpit. It simply isn’t done.

But that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? (eat more pansies)

Now … if, say, ten of you were to call that same person who came to church at 8 o’clock this morning and tell that person, ““You’re not gonna believe it! The preacher ate pansies in the pulpit!” there’s a good chance that person still won’t believe you. Because, after all, ten of you could be pulling off an elaborate joke, right?

But what do you think would happen if all of you were to call that person who came to church at 8 o’clock this morning and proclaim, “The preacher ate pansies in the pulpit!”?

Do you think they would believe? Because all of you were witnesses, and all of you proclaimed the truth?

My friends, I assure you: If enough of you testify to the truth, others will believe.

And the truth is, this morning, I am eating pansies in the pulpit.

So again, the question: How many witnesses do you need to believe the truth?

Going back to the Scriptures and the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, how many witnesses do you need to believe the truth of the Lord’s Resurrection? Because we have witnesses. We have lots of witnesses.

We have the women who went to the tomb on the first day of the week and met the Risen Lord.

We have the disciples, hiding in fear in the upper room.

We have Thomas, who eventually did trust enough to believe.

We have the various other followers of Jesus, who met the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus … in their villages … out in the open …

We have the 500 to whom the Risen Lord appeared at once …

And then we have Paul, who then was still Saul, who was on a murderous mission to persecute those who claimed to have seen the Risen Lord, and who met the Risen Lord while sitting on his butt in the middle of the road to Damascus …

Exactly how many witnesses does it take to convince you that the unbelievable is believable?

What does it take to make us move from Thomas’ “I do not trust your story and therefore will not believe” to Thomas’ proclamation, “My Lord and My God!”?

Do I need to eat more pansies to make the unbelievable believable?

Because I will, if that’s what you need.

Just as the Risen Lord made many more appearances to his disciples, which John did not write in his book, because that’s what those disciples needed.

To have their trust restored, to be able to believe again, to become pistos again, Jesus came back, again and again, so that his disciples could know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that he was raised from the dead.

My friends, we are not the witnesses to the actual Resurrection.

But there were witnesses – lots of witnesses, hundreds of witnesses – who saw the Risen Lord, and because of that they became pistos – they trusted again, they believed again.

And because they trusted and believed, we trust, we believe.

That’s why we’re here this morning – because we trust and believe their eyewitness accounts, the ones they have been passed on to us.

So what are we going to do with this trust, this faith that we have received?

How are we going to tell the story in such a way that those who do not yet believe – like that anonymous person who wrote that poignant note last Sunday – can indeed learn to believe?

How are we going to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ Jesus?

We don’t get to hear the story of the Resurrection just so that we can put that story in our back pockets. We hear the story, we become pistos, so that the whole world can hear the story, so that all can become pistos.

It’s kind of like me eating these pansies in the pulpit.

It’s a good story, but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t do something with it.

So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go home and pick up the phone and call someone from the 8 o’clock service (let’s call him “John”) and I want you tell him that the preacher ate pansies in the pulpit. I want you to convince him that this really happened.

And then, I want you to talk a little Gospel. Talk about where you have seen the Risen Lord in your life, today, and everyday. Convince him that the Lord is risen indeed. And talk about where he sees the Risen Lord in his own life.

I guarantee you, there are more Thomases out there. Thomas might even sitting right here this morning. Any one of us could be Thomas.

Whoever Thomas is, wherever Thomas is, he needs to hear from us. He needs to hear that the Lord is risen indeed.

Our mission is to tell the story in such a way that those who are apistos can become pistos, those who aren’t sure, who don’t trust, who want to believe but can’t quite get there, become certain, dare to trust and do believe.

I’ll even give you some pansies, if that will help. (eat pansies)

Amen.

Sermon preached on the Second Sunday of Easter, 1 May 2011, Year A, at Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Dunn Loring, Va.

[1] This discussion is based on Brian P. Stoffregen’s Exegetical Notes on Crossroads Christian Resources, http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/john20x19e2.htm, accessed 26 April 2011.

[2] Stoffregen’s translation, along with The new Greek-English InterLinear New Testament, United Bible Societies’ Fourth, Corrected Edition, 404.

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Filed Under: Blog Articles, Easter, Featured Story, Scriptures, Sermons Tagged With: Apistos, Gospel of John, Pansies, Pistos, Resurrection, Risen Lord, Thomas, Trust, Witnesses

Tweeting Resurrection

April 24, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine asked on Facebook what we would say if we had to Tweet the Good News of God in Christ Jesus on Easter morning.[1]

You all know what Twitter is, right? It’s that instant messaging service in which you can say whatever you want in 140 characters or less, including spaces and punctuation.

I have to be honest: I have not been a fan of Twitter. I find it to be terribly narcissistic, that most of what goes out to the world is useless, vainglorious nattering.

But Twitter now has a place in our lives. Look at the role it has played in the Arab Spring … in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon and Syria. More than 26 million Americans alone use Twitter … tens of millions more people use it around the world, and tens and tens of millions more people follow it without every posting a thing.

Which means that if we can come up with a really, really, really great Tweet on Easter, we could reach tens of millions. And if our Tweet is really, really, really, really great, we can reach maybe even hundreds of millions of people!

All we have to do is figure out what to say about the Risen Lord in 140 characters or less … including spaces and punctuation.

So here’s our challenge on this Easter morning:

What should we say?

How should we announce the greatness of this day?

The Women arriving at the Tomb, by He Qi.

Should we edit Peter down and say, “Jesus Christ is Lord of all, raised from the dead on day three. He is ordained by God as judge of all. All who believe receive forgiveness”? (That’s 138 characters, by the way.)

Meh … too complex.

Perhaps we could turn to the Psalmist: “The right hand of the Lord has triumphed! The right hand of the Lord is exalted! This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”? (That’s 139 characters.) But … that’s not quite clear, is it? And it is very triumphalist. So this won’t work either.

Now we could quote Paul, the apostle who never met Jesus in the flesh, only the Risen Lord on the road to Damascus. His Tweet could read: “You have been raised with Christ. Set your minds on things above where Christ is. For you have died, your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Ha! That one is exactly 140 characters!)

Um … I’m thinking this isn’t the good news we were looking for.

So what about quoting the Risen Lord himself? “Jesus says: Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” (Ninety-five characters – pretty concise.) Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell people that Christ is risen, does it?

There’s the message from the angel: “Do not be afraid. He is not here. He has been raised.” That’s fairly straight-forward, and it only takes 53 characters.

It is Good News, but is it enough? Does it really convey what we want it to convey? Is it enough to convince people that this is the Good News of their lives? I don’t think so.

So even though we know what the Gospel, the Good News of God in Christ Jesus, is and what it means, we still don’t have a message to Tweet that is good news for our readers.

And we do want to convey good news, because this is our job. We don’t just get the Good News this morning … we have to give it as well. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, on the day he died for us, “It is finished.” He was saying that his work on this earth was done, and now he was turning it over to us.

Make no mistake: This is our job. We have to spread the Good News to a world that does not know the Good News is even there! There’s a whole world out there that hasn’t quite gotten the message. For far too many people, this day isn’t about resurrection. It’s about Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies!

But Jesus gave us this job, and we’d better get working.

So tell you what.

Let’s roll up our sleeves, and let’s build a Tweet together.

Let’s figure out how to share with the whole world the Good News we receive on this holiest day of our lives.

We can start with the words of the ancient song, the Exsultet, which can only be sung on Easter.

The Empty Tomb, by He Qi.

(chant)

Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels,

And let your trumpets shout salvation

For the victory of our mighty king.

Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth,

Bright with a glorious splendor,

For darkness has been vanquish’d by our eternal King.

Rejoice and be glad now, Mother Church,

And let your holy courts, in radiant light,

Resound with the praises of your people.

That’s a pretty good message, don’t you think?

A little long, though … it kind of blows the 140-character limit.

So let’s reduce it down.

Let’s just make the first part of our Tweet say, “Rejoice!” That’s eight characters – still plenty of room to work with.

But to be effective, we have to be clear why we’re rejoicing.

What is it that makes us so happy on this holy day?

Is it the knowledge that Jesus died for us? For each of us? Personally?

Yes. But what does that mean?

That God loves us, perhaps?

That is why Jesus died for us, you know – because he loved us.

So I think that might be the next part of the message.

“God loves you.”

That’s another 14 characters, so we’re still in good shape.

But even though that message has been repeated many times before, there are still some people who don’t quite believe that God loves them. Some people don’t believe Jesus died for them, and others say, “Yeah, OK, he died for us, but how does that prove that God loves us?”

Well, we have that answer, don’t we? It’s pretty simple, actually:

Jesus’ tomb is empty.

(chant)

This is the night,

When Christ broke the bonds of death and hell,

And rose victorious from the grave.

The women went to the tomb on the third day so they could anoint Jesus’ body, but he wasn’t there. He was gone. It was the angel who told them the God’s-honest truth: He has been raised from the dead – just like he told you.

In that rising, my friends, God proves his love for us by not just defeating but by annihilating the one thing we fear the most: death itself.

Jesus loved us so much he died for us – for each one of us, right here.

God loves us so much he destroys death for us – for each one of us, right here.

So let’s make that the next part of our Tweet:

“The tomb is empty! Jesus Christ, who died for us, is risen!”

That takes us up to 83 characters. Meaning, we still have some room to get more of our message across.

So let’s explain some more why this is all Good News.

(chant)

Easter Morning, by He Qi.

This is the night,

When all who believe in Christ

Are delivered from the gloom of sin,

And are restored to grace and holiness of life.

How blessed is this night,

When earth and heaven are joined,

And man is reconciled to God.

And there you have it.

The gloom of sin, which leads to death – emotionally, spiritually and physically – has been lifted. Our lives, which sometimes can seem so empty, so pointless, so difficult, so draining, are restored to grace and we are made holy again.

Any separation from God that we may have experienced in our lives is over and done with. We have been reconciled to God. Our relationship has been put to right, we have been brought together, our accounts have been squared. We are reunited with God, and all our differences have been patched up and resolved.

By dying for us, Jesus wiped the slate clean.

By raising Jesus from the dead, God keeps that slate clean … forever.

And that is Good News indeed. Why, it’s such Good News that I think we ought to praise the Lord for it.

So let’s put an “Alleluia!” in our Tweet. We’ve got the room.

And look! We still have some room left.

He Is Risen, by He Qi.

So let’s go back to where we started. Let’s put in another “Rejoice!”

Put it all together, and I think we just might have our Tweet. I think we are ready to proclaim to all the world what makes us so very happy on this Easter morning.

“Rejoice! God loves you! The tomb is empty! Jesus Christ, who died for us, is risen! All of us are reconciled to God! Alleluia! Rejoice!”

And we did it in 135 characters, thank you very much! I think my friend on Facebook would be pleased.

Yeah.

We have Good News to share this morning:

God loves us, and we can prove it. The tomb is empty, Christ is Risen. Alleluia!

And you can Tweet that!

Amen.

Easter sermon, preached at Trinity Episcopal Church, Arlington, Va., 24 April 2011, Year A.

[1] The Rev. Mark Delcuze, Rector, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Beverly Farms, Mass., “Tweeting the Resurrection,” 13 April 2011, https://www.facebook.com/mark.delcuze?sk=notes

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A man on a mission: ‘It is finished’

April 22, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

Good Friday 2011

“It is finished.”

If you had been standing at the foot of the cross and saw the man you called “Lord,” the man you believed was the Son of God, crucified and dying, what would you think those words meant?

If all of your hopes and dreams were pinned on this one man, the one you had followed throughout Palestine, the one you listened to so closely, the one you watched cure the sick and raise the dead … what would you think those words – “It is finished” – meant?

Would all your dreams be dying up on that cross with him? Would all your hopes die up there as well?

Mary stood at the foot of the cross – Mary, Jesus’ mother. Surely she thought this was the end of all her hopes and dreams, watching her child die.

Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene stood there. Surely they heard those words and thought, “It’s over.”

The beloved disciple stood there. He must have thought, with great heartbreak, “We were wrong.”

What would you have thought, if you had been at the foot of the cross that day 2,000 years ago, outside the gates of Jerusalem, when you heard Jesus say, “It is finished”?

(sing)

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

My brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Good Friday, 2,000 years after that day when Jesus died, we are standing at the foot of the cross.

I want you to pay no attention to the fact that we already know (or, we think we know) the rest of the story. Forget about Easter morning for a moment, and concentrate on what it is like to stand at the foot of the cross.

Stand there … with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, and the Beloved Disciple …

Stand right next to them …

And think about what Jesus meant when he said, “It is finished.”

(sing)

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

As you stand there, with all your hopes and dreams dying, remember:

This is John’s Gospel.

This is the way John tells the story.

Which means …

There’s a different take that we have to examine on this particular Good Friday.

In Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels, we hear the wounded and suffering Jesus call out, “Eloi! Eloi! Lema sabachthani?” “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus promises paradise to the thief crucified with him, and then cries out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!”

But in John’s Gospel, Jesus simply says, “It is finished.”

This is no sigh of defeat. This is not a cry of despair.

This is Jesus as John saw him, Jesus a man on a mission from God, a man who knew, from the beginning, exactly who he was, and what he was doing, and why he was doing it.

In John’s Gospel, we see a triumphant Jesus hanging on the cross, doing exactly what he was called to do, clear-minded, with a single, driving vision of which he never lost sight, from which he never wavered.[1]

Nowhere in this Gospel do we hear any pleas for release, any prayers to “remove this cup.” Nowhere does Jesus doubt that this moment on the cross is exactly what God planned, exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

John’s telling of the arrest, torture and crucifixion of Jesus is confident … vibrant … even a bit sassy.

Remember, at the Last Supper, he said, “One of you will betray me.”

At the Garden where they came to arrest him, he identified himself as “I AM,” taking for himself the name of God.

Standing before the high priest and Pilate, he practically taunted them: “You say that I am.”

He gets no help carrying the cross to Golgotha.

On the cross itself, he takes care of last things: To his mother, he says, “Woman, this is your son.” To his disciple, he directs: “This is your

16th century icon

mother.”

After that, knowing that it was finished, he said, “I thirst” – in order to fulfill the Scripture.

He sucked the wine out of the sponge, then proclaimed, “It is finished.”

And then he bowed his head and breathed his last.

Do you hear anything of defeat here?

Any doubt?

Any hesitation?

No!

Because this is John’s Gospel, and in John’s Gospel, Jesus knows exactly what he is doing, every step of the way, every moment of the day.

“It is finished” is not a plea of defeat.

It’s Jesus cry of triumph!

(sing)

Were you there when they pierced him in the side?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they pierced him in the side?

Now … understanding that in John’s Gospel, Jesus is a determined man on a mission from God … standing there at the foot of the cross with the women and the Beloved Disciple … now tell me, what exactly do you think Jesus meant when he said, “It is finished”?

Yes, Jesus died a terrible, painful, brutal, humiliating death. Do not lose sight of that.

But Jesus didn’t look at it that way – not in John’s Gospel.

For Jesus, “It is finished” is a statement of glory.[2]

As commentator David Lose writes,

“The great irony of John’s passion is that in Jesus we see God’s strength, majesty and might revealed amid the pain and humiliation of crucifixion. … John’s depiction of the Passion of our Lord reminds us that, ultimately, Jesus is Lord. Through him, God overcomes any and all obstacles – including death – in order to redeem and restore us.”[3]

Which means that when we hear Jesus say, “It is finished,” what he’s telling us, from that pain-filled place on the cross, is that his job is over.

He has shown us how to live – in love.

And he has given us a vision – the vision – on which we are called to focus, every moment of our lives.

Everything Jesus did, everything he said, everything he taught, every miracle he performed and prayer he prayed was done in the sure and certain knowledge that this is what God wanted done.

Just as Jesus never wavered, so we are not to waver.

(sing)

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Yes, we are called to witness the crucifixion this day, to wonder and cry.

And we should be filled with trembling. We should be trembling all over!

Because Jesus just turned the whole job over to us! He’s given us the whole shebang!

Everything he did? All that preaching and teaching and healing and bringing back to life?

He’s done with that.

Now it’s our turn.

Yes, we should be trembling right about now, because now …

… Now we are the ones who have to do what he did, we are the ones who have to take up our own crosses, we are the ones who have to die to all the things that get in the way of our lives in God!

Now we have to preach the Gospel, the Good News of God in Christ Jesus!

Now we have to teach the world how to live in unity and peace, instead of discord and war!

Now we have to heal the sick and bring life – new life – to all those who live in death! We are the ones who are to give hope to the hopeless, who are to love the unloved, who are to fulfill the dream of God.

So yes, we should be trembling right now, because Jesus just put all his work on our shoulders and in our hearts. And that frightening thought should make us tremble!

Robert Fulgham once famously said, “All I really needed to know I learned in kindergarten,” and in many ways, that is true.

But the reality is, everything we really need to know? We learned it all from Jesus.

That’s why Jesus was so triumphant on the cross.

That’s why Jesus said, “It is finished.”

Because his part – his earthly part of teaching us, of training us, of inspiring us? That’s done.

Crucifixion by Theophanes the Cretan

Jesus had a job to do and he did it.

Now, he’s given the job to us – and trusting us to do it.

So, yeah, we should be trembling – heck, we should be quaking in our boots right about now!

Because we have no more excuses.

Jesus was a man on a mission from God, and he wants us to go on that mission as well.

“It is finished”?

It means that from now on, we have to do the work that Jesus did, because Jesus has called us, because Jesus trusts us, because Jesus is counting on … us.

We are on a mission from God, my friends.

It’s not Jesus’ job any more. His part? It is finished. Over with. Done. Fini.

Now? Now it’s all up to us.

Amen.

Sermon for Good Friday, 22 April 2011, Year A, Trinity Episcopal Church, Arlington, Va.

[1] Professor David Lose, Marbury E. Anderson Biblical Preaching Chair, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., “Commentary on the Gospel,” Good Friday, 22 April 2011,

http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=4/22/2011.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

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Who are you in this Holy Week?

April 17, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

Matthew 26:14- 27:66

In the past two weeks, I have received news of the deaths of two men who were beloved to me, news that shocked me and caused tears to form immediately in my eyes and in my heart.

One friend was the priest who raised me up to priesthood, who in his sometimes gentle and sometimes gruff ways formed me to be the person and priest I am today. Last Sunday morning, I served at the church where he celebrated for more than two decades, and for the first time I was privileged to sing the Eucharist at the table where he taught me so much. As I sang, I thought of Bob, and I smiled, and later told others, “Now I know why he loved to sing at that table so much – it’s holy.” By the time I finished singing the Eucharist, unbeknownst to me, Bob was in the hospital, having suffered a heart attack.

Three days later, he was dead.

The other man was a friend who had counseled me through some tough times, advised me through some marvelous times, and who could talk baseball with the best of them. Russ had served as the chancellor of the Diocese of Virginia for more than two decades and was beloved by all in that diocese. Whenever we met, he would stop whatever he was doing, turn his full attention to me, bestow that marvelous Southern gentleman smile upon me, and wrap me a hug. He had cataract surgery two Tuesday mornings ago.

At home, resting up afterwards, he suddenly died.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Bob and Russ since they died. I know who they were in my life, but as I grieve their loss, I am left to wonder who I was in their lives.

This, my friends, is an important question for all of us to contemplate, this question of who we are. Who are we in each other’s lives, in God’s life, in Jesus’ life?

It is an especially important question to ask today, on the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday, as we move from exultation to devastation, from life to death.

Who are we – who exactly are we – in this Holy Week?

Take a moment and consider:

Who are you in this Holy Week? …

Are you one of the people cheering Jesus on as he rides into Jerusalem, waving palms and throwing your cloak on the ground, pinning all your hopes on this man, proclaiming him the Messiah?

Is that who you are?

Or are you one of those in the crowd five days later, caught up in the bloodlust, screaming in a frenzy, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”?

Who are you in this Holy Week?

Are you Judas, a faithful disciple – and make no mistake, he was faithful. Jesus called him, Judas followed, and Judas was with Jesus for a substantial portion of his ministry. Judas was there for the miracles and the healings, the preaching and teaching, on the road and in the Temple. He was present at the Last Supper. And then … he betrayed Jesus … because Judas’ vision of the Messiah blinded him to the vision of the Messiah.

Judas wanted a Messiah all right … but Jesus wasn’t the Messiah Judas wanted.

Is that who you are?

Or are you Simon, now called Peter, the Rock, who like Judas followed Jesus when Jesus came calling, who like Judas sat at table with Jesus and broke bread with him, who like Judas was in the synagogues and on the street, who just like Judas failed Jesus at the most critical moment, and who just like Judas betrayed the Lord …?

Is that who you are?

Perhaps you are Caiaphas, the High Priest, threatened by this upstart, ragged, itinerant preacher, worried that if he continues to preach this scandalous gospel of his, your people might die as a result?

Or maybe you are Pontius Pilate, who is already having a hard time controlling these stubborn Jews who refuse to honor Caesar (for God’s sake, couldn’t they just go along to get along?), worried that if you don’t do something with yet another so-called Messiah, if you don’t satisfy this bloodthirsty crowd, you will lose both your job and your head?

Is that who are you in this Holy Week?

Are you Barabbas, the murderous zealot already condemned to death and suddenly set free, asking no questions, but taking your freedom and running for the hills?

Or are you Simon of Cyrene, the man who came to town to sell merchandise for the high holy days and who suddenly is dragged into this drama and forced to help this man you’ve never met, about whom you know nothing?

Perhaps you are one of the disciples, so committed to the Lord that you gave up everything to follow him everywhere – except to the cross?

Or are you one of the women, risking your very life to stand at the foot of the cross, knowing that Roman law said you, too, could be executed for the crime of simply knowing Jesus?

Maybe that’s who you are!

Maybe you’re one of the thieves crucified with Jesus, one on his right and one on his left, mocking him to the end, because in the end, all three of you are going to die anyway, and you might just as well get in your licks while you can, right?

Or are you one of the Roman soldiers who beat, taunted and crucified yet another unruly Palestinian causing trouble, not caring about who this man is because you are just following orders?

Are you possibly one of the people in the crowd – a chief priest or a scribe or an elder – taunting Jesus because he refuses to save himself, even though he saved so many others?

Is that who you are?

Are you the Roman Centurion and his cohort, feeling the earth move and seeing the rocks split and the tombs come open, and in great terror proclaiming at the last, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

Or are you Joseph of Arimathea, helping to take down the body of your beloved Jesus, and laying him your own tomb, wracked with grief because all your hopes have come to an end?

Who are you in this Holy Week?

….

On this Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday, in this sacred week of our lives, I can tell you who you are. I can tell you who we are.

Each of us, at some point in our lives, is every single one of the players just named in this incredible drama.

At some point in each of our lives, we have rejoiced and shouted the praises of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest! And at some other point, we have rejected God … or wondered where God was … or cursed God … or betrayed God …

At some point in our lives, we’ve all put our families, our wants, our needs, our desires, our dreams ahead of God. We’ve made God wait and we have presumed to tell God that God is wrong …

The good news is, those given moments? They are not God’s final answer to our question.

Because God’s final answer is this:

We are beloved children of God.

We can be faithful stalwarts one moment and falling-down failures the next, but it won’t change the essence of who we are, the core of our being.

We are God’s beloved.

And God loves us so much … so much … that God not only sent his only begotten son to live with us, God sent his only begotten son to die for us. For each of us. For all of us. That’s God’s final answer to our question of who are we in this Holy Week.

My two friends, who died so recently, Bob and Russ?

They taught me a lot of things. They taught me that I wasn’t always perfect, that I didn’t always do just the right thing, that there were days when I fell down and days when my friendship faltered – but because they loved me, they never gave up on me. They never abandoned me.

The same is true with God, and this week, this Holy week, is the week when God teaches us the same thing.

We will not always be perfect – even the disciples weren’t.

We will not always do the right thing – even the disciples didn’t.

We will fall down – like Caiaphas and Pilate.

We will falter in our faith – like Peter and the frenzied crowds.

But God does not give up on us. God does not abandon us just because we have failed in some way, great or small.

As you try to figure out who you are in this holiest and most important week of your life, remember the lesson that my two friends taught me.

Remember that no matter what role you play – that of faithful follower or brave witness or even miserable betrayer –

Remember:

God already knows the answer to our question:

We are God’s beloved.

Amen.

A sermon preached at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Syracuse, N.Y., on the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday.

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Set free to love and serve the Lord

April 10, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

John 11:1-45

In 1988, a controversial movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, was released. It was based on a novel written in 1960 by Nikos Kazantzakis, and is,

in reality, the author’s and director’s great “What if …?” exploration of the life of Jesus. “What if,” they ask, “Jesus had given in to temptations offered him? What if he hadn’t died on the cross?”

I can tell you that many, many people were quite upset about this movie, because it is very challenging to them. The question of “What if …?” forces you to examine your faith, and to examine everything you know about Jesus.

But regardless of how you feel about the movie as a whole, there is one scene in it that is absolutely stunning in its power, the scene of the resurrection of Lazarus.

In this scene, Jesus goes to the grave of his friend Lazarus, the one whom he loved, led by Mary and Martha, followed by his disciples, surrounded by mourners. Once there, he orders the people there to remove the stone at Lazarus’ tomb.

Remember, Lazarus has been dead for four days by now; Lazarus’ sister, Martha, objects, warning Jesus of the stench. (I do so love the King James Version of this Gospel: “Lord, by this time he stinketh!”) And indeed, when some of the men open the grave, the stench of Lazarus’ rotting body causes everyone present to gasp and cover their noses and mouths, and watching, you find yourself waiting for that next scene, showing people becoming ill.

But that doesn’t happen.

Instead, Jesus takes a deep breath, goes to the entrance, to this black hole cut into the side of a hill, says a prayer to his Father in heaven, and calls to Lazarus: “Lazarus, come out!”

Unlike in today’s Gospel, where Jesus cries out in a loud voice but one time, Martin Scorsese, the film’s director, has Jesus call twice, in a much gentler voice: “Lazarus. Lazarus! Come out. Come out!”

But nothing … happens … So Jesus crouches by that black opening of the tomb, staring into the darkness while the silence – and the tension – builds. The only noise is that of the flies, buzzing around the body in that lightless tomb.

For 15 … seconds … nothing happens.

Jesus stares into the darkness and twice more, very gently, calls out: “Lazarus … Lazarus …”

Still, nothing happens … for another … 10 … seconds …

And then … suddenly …

… a hand shoots out of the grave!

Everyone jumps back in shock, including Jesus …

… who then reaches into the grave with a trembling hand, takes Lazarus by his decaying hand, and begins to pull him out. But Lazarus resists and actually pulls Jesus part-way into the tomb. So Jesus uses both of his hands and braces himself and tugs Lazarus out of the darkness of death and back into the light of life …

… Thus proving, in no uncertain terms, that it is never too late …

… It is never too late for Jesus to reach into the darkness of our lives, into the graves in which we find ourselves buried, to resurrect our lives and to give us new life.

It is never too late for Jesus to unbind us from all that holds us in our graves and in the darkness and set us free

Even when we have been in the graves of our lives so long that decay has set in, even then, it is never too late for Jesus, because we are never beyond his reach.

• • •

Russian Icon. The Raising of Lazarus. 15th century. Novgorod school. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

This recounting of Lazarus’ death and resurrection, which appears only in John’s Gospel, is a story of resurrection, of new life, of being set free – by God – from everything that buries us, from everything that binds us, everything that separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, everything that keeps us from living the life that God dreams of for us.

Face it, we all spend time in the grave, we all live in darkness at times, we all find ourselves bound up … by fears, by anxiety, by grief and mourning, by despair and loneliness.

This is the Washington Metro area, and we know what it means to live with anxiety. We’ve been stuck at Orange Terror Alert since September 2001. We know that, right? For us, it’s just the norm. But anyone who comes here to visit from someplace that is not under Code Orange wonders if there’s something going on that they should know about.

How many of you pay any attention any more?

And how many of you drive on (Interstate) 95, or 395 or 495, and see those signs, “Report suspicious activity”? Really? How do you define “suspicious”? I’d love to report people speeding and weaving in and out of traffic, but I don’t think that’s what Homeland Security has in mind.

How many of you here ride the Metro? I know we take the Code Orange level for granted, but how would you feel if you saw someone get off one of the trains and leave behind a knapsack under a seat? Would you feel anxious? More anxious than normal?

And how many of you receive a paycheck from the federal government? Or have someone in your family, or know someone, who gets one? Talk about anxiety and fear! I don’t get a paycheck a federal paycheck, and I was checking every 10 minutes on Friday night, waiting to find out if the government was going to be shut down, or if an agreement could be reached. How much anxiety and fear did you experience on Friday, wondering if you would have enough money to pay your mortgage come Tuesday, or whether you would be able to make the down-payment on the tuition so your high school senior could go to the college of her choice? Or feared you would not be able to pay your credit card bill? All because our leaders seem to have forgotten that they are supposed to be servants of the Lord, and are not Masters of the Universe?

And then at the last possible second, just in time for the 11 o’clock news, our leaders announced that they would not shut down the government and we could all breathe a sigh of relief.

Oh, yes, we know anxiety here and we know how it can plunge us into the depths of darkness and feel like a grave to us. We know what it means to be bound up.

But I am telling you, Jesus is standing right here … right here … this very minute, with us, calling each of us by name, reaching into the graves of our lives and pull us out of that darkness, using both hands if necessary, so that we can be restored to the light.

Jesus is right here, because he loves us just as he loved Lazarus.

And he is crystal clear: “I am the resurrection and the life.” And all who believe in him have life … because he loves us.

Now, I don’t want you to leave this place today and say that the preacher told you could wander through life, throwing your arms in the air and proclaiming to everyone, “Jesus loves me! Isn’t life great?”

Because Jesus does not pull us out of the grave just so we can wander around and practice happy-clappy Christianity. Because Christianity is not supposed to be happy-clappy. And for darned sure that isn’t what it means to be an Episcopalian. Resurrection is serious business.

Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, and he is in our lives, giving us the same gift he gave to Lazarus: new life so that we can go forth into the world to love and serve the Lord!

This new life that Jesus gives us is a life of service. It’s a call to us to delight in God’s will, to walk in God’s ways to the glory of God’s name!

Being set free is not about us – it’s about God and God’s dream for us.

We are set free so that we can exactly what God is calling us to do …

… to feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty …

… to make the blind see and the deaf hear and the mute sing and the lame leap with joy …

… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor not once every 50 years, but every year!

Jesus is standing at our graves, my friends. He has said the prayers over us. And he is calling us – each of us – by name.

He is reaching into the darkness of our lives, grasping our already decaying hands and pulling us … tugging us … dragging us out of our graves …

He is taking us out of that darkness that binds us, and setting each one of us free.

He is calling us …

Lazarus!

Do you hear him?

Amen.

• • •

A sermon preached on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A, 10 April 2011, at St. George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Va.

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Being known … and still loved

March 28, 2011 by Lauren Stanley

Stephen Broadbent's "Samaritan Woman at the Well," sculpture at Chester Cathedral, England. Sculpted in 1994.

How often have we looked at someone and in that one look, made a snap judgment, placing that person in her place because of the way she dresses, deciding that because he is so good-looking, he must be a good guy?

And how often have we had someone take one look at us and make a snap decision about who we are, because of how we look, where we are, how we act in that one second of our lives?

“You could just tell that she was …”

“I knew just looking at him …”

Snap judgments, we call them.

No matter how many times we discover — later on — that we were wrong, that the scruffy-looking one had a giant heart for helping others, that the good-looking one was really a cad, we still make snap judgments about people all the time.

The first day I dared to venture out on my own in Haiti – completely on my own, with only my newly learned Creole and my bravado to accompany me – I made it only one block before I was surrounded by Haitian men.

“Miss! Miss!” one very tall man yelled. “Buy my painting?”

Soon every single one of these men was saying the same thing: “Miss! Miss! Buy my painting? No, buy mine! I give you a very good price. American money, no problem!”

These men, who had never seen me before and who presumed that because I am white I was (a) American, (b) rich, (c) willing to part with my money, and (d) willing to part with way too much of my money because I was (a) American and (b) rich, made a snap judgment about me. They never asked my name. They never engaged me as a real person.

To them, I was merely a quick buck – a buck they desperately needed, to be sure, so that they could support themselves and their families – but a buck nonetheless.

When Jesus and the Samaritan woman met at Jacob’s well in Sychar, there was a whole lot of snap judging going on.

The woman made snap judgments about Jesus:

•Just another man used to ordering women around;

•An outsider (she didn’t know him, and trust me, in small villages, everyone knows everyone);

•A Jew (most likely because of his dress and perhaps his accent – otherwise, Samaritans and Jews pretty much looked and sounded alike);

•And therefore an enemy of sorts (Jews and Samaritans hadn’t gotten along for almost 600 years, ever since the Babylonian exile – it was an old theological argument about whose worship was better, purer, truer, more faithful …).

The disciples, who show up a tad later in the story, made their own snap judgments about the woman:

•A woman and therefore a lesser human being (sorry, ladies, that was a fact in the days when our Lord and Savior walked the earth);

•An enemy of sorts (remember what I said before about Samaritans and Jews – we’re talking about almost six hundred years of enmity here …);

•A brazen woman (men and women did not speak to each other in public if they didn’t know each other, and since Jesus was their Lord and Teacher, she obviously must have been the one to initiate the conversation, which only a brazen woman would have done);

•And an outsider in her own village (she was drawing water alone, something that women do in groups for all kinds of reasons, the first being the community that forms when people are doing arduous work together).

And Jesus? Well, he, too, made a snap judgment. But his was of a different sort, for he looked at this woman and instantly – instantly – saw who she was and what she was:

Jesus took one look and knew that she was a beloved child of God, in need of all the love and affirmation that only God could give her (because, obviously, her community wasn’t showering her with its love).

It was Jesus’ snap judgment that counted in the end … that overruled the snap judgments of both the woman and his disciples, that declared that despite what the woman thought of herself, despite what the disciples thought of her, despite what anyone thought of her, this woman was a beloved child of God.

So this woman, who came to the well to slake her physical thirst – to satisfy her need for actual water – ended up having her spiritual thirst, her need to be known and loved, satisfied instead.

She already was known – oh, my, was she known in Sychar. Everyone knew that she had had five husbands and was now living with another man – without benefit of marriage. Everyone knew that obviously, she had sinned in some way, for why else would she have been widowed so many times, or divorced so many times, or some combination thereof? And everyone knew that since she by living with a man without benefit of marriage, she obviously was a sinner!

But she didn’t want to be known that way. I mean, who would? Who wants to go through life having others look at you and find you wanting, in just a glance? Who wants to be thought of as a lesser human being, as a sinner, because of circumstances beyond your own control? Who wants to feel unloved in a world in which love is in such short supply as it is?

This Samaritan woman at the well? She was dying of thirst for a little bit of love. And here comes Jesus – an outsider himself, traveling through a foreign land – who looks at her and instead of finding her wanting, knows her to be a beloved child of God, loved from before time until the ages of ages.

He knows her story, he knows her life, so well … he knows that what she wants more than anything else is to know that she is loved, despite the circumstances of her life, despite any choices she has made, despite any sins she has committed. Jesus knows that God looks at her and makes God’s own snap judgment: I love you.

My friends, the bad news is: God knows you. God knows everything about you … everything.

The good news is: God knows you. God knows everything about you … everything.

And God still loves you.

Exactly as you are …

Even when you make mistakes …

Even when you sin …

Even when others do not appreciate you …

Even when others shun you …

God still loves you.

The only snap judgment that God makes about us – about each of us – is that we belong to God. And because we belong to God, we are known … and in that knowing, we are loved.

You want to slake the thirst you have, that we all have, to be known and loved?

Well, know this:

God knows you and God still loves you.

Now, I don’t want you leaving this place today and going home saying, “The Episcopal preacher at church said today that we can do whatever we want, because God loves us.” No! Don’t say that, because God does judge us! God has high standards for us. God’s desire, God’s dream for us, is that we become the people God has created us to be: People who love. People who love God, people who love each other, not just as ourselves (that’s hard enough to do on the days when we love ourselves, but on those days when we don’t love ourselves? Well, on those days, it’s really easy not to love our neighbors), but as Jesus loves us.

Which means that God wants us to live our lives as God’s beloved children in God’s community of beloved children.

Not by looking at each other and making snap judgments based on societal standards that could not care less about what God wants.

Not by shunning each other.

But by caring for each other.

By loving each other.

It’s a tall order, isn’t it? To love one another as Jesus loved us, as God loves us?

Living lives of love means that we have to stop making snap judgments and start living in community. We have to talk with each other. We have to listen to each other. We have to get to know each other, not on the surface, not by our looks or our dress or the color of our skin or our accents … but deep down, by our stories.

Because only then can we really know each other. Only then can we really love each other.

• • •

Patrick, Frantzy and Tony Fleresca, my good friends in Haiti.

Those young men on the street in Haiti, the ones who surrounded me and tried to sell me their paintings, who viewed me as nothing more than a quick buck to be made?

Their names are Frantzy. And Tony. And Patrick. And Enil and Hercules. And Ernest and Salwa and the other Enil …

After I convinced them that I was not going to buy art from them, that I lived there now and was not a rich American tourist or aid worker but a missionary and priest, we started to get to know each other. We told each other our stories. We began to look out for each other. We began to take care of each other.

When we stop looking at each other as objects and start getting to know each other, start learning each other’s stories … well, that’s when we begin to live into the image in which God has created us, an image of love and community.

Trust me:

God knows our stories.

And God still loves us.

And if that knowledge doesn’t slake your thirst, doesn’t satisfy your deepest needs, I don’t know what will.

We are known.

And we are loved.

Amen.

A sermon preached on the Third Sunday of Lent, 27 March 2011, Year A, at Bensalem United Methodist Church, Bensalem, PA.

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Filed Under: Blog Articles, Featured Story, Haiti, Scriptures, Sermons Tagged With: Acceptance, Haiti, Inclusion, Jacob's well, Judgment, Love, Samaritan Woman

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