The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A: Waiting Tables

In Honor of the Ordination

of

Dianna LaMance Deaderick

and

Patricia Marie Gotautas

to the Sacred Order of Deacons

in Christ’s One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

Acts 7:55-60 
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-161 Peter 2:2-10 
John 14:1-14 

He looked up to heaven and saw what no one else could see: Jesus, standing by a golden throne, in the empty blue of the Palestinian sky.

It had only started a few months before, following that great Day of Pentecost, when the streets of Jerusalem were filled with thousands of pilgrims from around the Empire: Galileans, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Jews, Cappadocians, Pontians, Asian, Phrygians, Pamphylians, Egyptians, Cyrenes, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. That day, three thousand people, from around the Empire had heard about Jesus of Nazareth and had been baptized in his name. Peter's words of redemption, hope and forgiveness had pierced their souls and nothing would ever be the same.

But of course, everything was still the same: Tiberius was still on the Roman throne, and Caligula, that man of lawlessness, panted in the wings, waiting for his uncle to die. The followers of Jesus were still a hated and heterodox sect of Judaism, who insisted, despite all evidence to the contrary, that their leader, whom they considered Messiah, was still alive. The twelve men who led them all claimed to have seen him, alive, and munching broiled fish and bread, washing it all down with great swallows of the red wine that they claimed he could even make from water. Joining them, amid the jeers of both the Bible-thumpers and intellectuals, was not the sort of choice one made sanely, weighing the evidence. For the evidence screamed a warning: run the other way.

But he had not run. He had buried himself under the water of the Jordan, as certain as the water which dripped off his head, that their message was true. And not just true in a narrative sense: true in the great galactic sense that the Universe had been re-ordered on that bright spring morning fifty days before. And he knew that day that there was something to this Jesus story, something so wondrous and graceful and joyous that there could be no going back to his home, his old life, the day to day numbness of life under the hope-crushing boot of Empire and Religion. He was called to love mercy, do justice and walk humbly before his God.

So when the followers of the Way, as they began to call themselves, settled in for good in the Holy City, Stephen was one of the voices that proclaimed that being a follower of Jesus meant more than just taking on some sort of religious vow: it meant that your life was suddenly lost and that there was a cross with your name on it outside the safety and purity of the Temple gate. Stephen was one of the voices who heard the hard words of Jesus about the “other sheep:” the women, the lepers, the drunks, the hookers, the gamblers, the insurrectionists, the collaborators and the poor, shoeless little children whose bellies ached for food but whose souls were full of Spirit.

Because, the followers of the Way, the ones who were risking the wrath of both Empire and Religion, of both Law and Prophets, lacked one thing: they did not understand the call to justice. And who could blame them: they had the Bible on their side, a thousand years of tradition, a great scroll of finely scripted liturgy that proclaimed the Lordship of Yahweh for a Hebrew-speaking Covenant People descended from Abraham, and bound eternally to salvation. But Stephen and a handful of others saw that, unless the Way distinguished itself from the rest of the Jewish people and embraced those who slightly less than pure, it would only fade into the irrelevant noise of a world more concerned with people who did things right than with people who longed for all things to be made right.

So when the Phyrgians, Asians, Cappodocians and all the rest set themselves up in a sprawling refugee camp it was Stephen and six of his friends who claimed that the Good News proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth had nothing to do with Religion or Empire and everything to do with mercy, justice and humility. Even the Twelve were no match for the Gospel.

In spite of the fact that believers were pooling their resources together to help the poorest among them, the widows in the refugee camp were hungry and all because they spoke a different language from the majority of the followers of Jesus. Stephen and his friends knew that the Twelve could sermonize all they wanted about repentance and baptism and the prayers, but as long as even one of the baptized suffered, the whole body of the Way suffered.

For they knew that Cross was borne not by Jesus alone, but by everyone who felt the marks in his hands and in her feet and side. Following his Resurrection, Jesus had first appeared, not to the Twelve, but to the women among them, and in fact, one particular woman, the one who had anointed his head and feet with an alabaster jar of the world's most expensive perfume. The one unafraid to touch him, the kiss him, to declare him the single most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on. The woman who refused to stay an outsider. The widows in the camp were outsiders to the Aramaic-speaking followers of Jesus, but if they stayed that way, the Gospel itself was imperiled.

The Twelve were concerned with more important things: “It is not right” they said with all the seriousness of Apostolic Order, “that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait at tables. Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.”

The People of the Way thought that was a good solution. The Twelve, holy as they were, would devote themselves to making sure that the prayers, the word, and the liturgy were duly celebrated, that baptisms continued in the Jordan, that the great enterprise of Temple, Law and Tradition continued among the Jesus people. So they brought Stephen and his friends Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and the Syrian Nicolaus before the Twelve who laid hands on them and declared them servants of the Table. They would serve to make Christ and his redemptive love known, by their word and example, to those among whom they lived, and worked, and worshiped. They were to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world. From the moment the Twelve laid their holy, religious hands on the Magnificent Seven, the Church would never be the same: there would always be the voice of Servants of the Table, the ones who knew clearly that the life, death and Raising of Jesus meant, not a new religion, not simply Word and Prayers and the Apostles' teaching, but the loving of mercy, the doing of justice and the walking in humility to the place where their own Cross awaited them. To be sure, they worked to feed the hungry, but they had another dimension to their new vocation: to prevent the followers of Jesus from believing that it is more important to pray in the presence of poverty than to eliminate it.

And that's how Stephen found himself, on a high place, outside the walls of Jerusalem, his eyes focused on something in the blue sky that only he could see. Earlier that day he had dared to preach in the Synagogue of the Freedmen and declared that the word of all the Prophets and Yahweh himself were fulfilled in the life of Jesus, the Nazarene prophet whose presence still hung over Jerusalem a year after his death. Fury poured forth from the good, pious and holy people who were trying to pray and listen to the Scriptures that day. How dare this waiter—who could not even speak proper Aramaic—come into their place of worship and speak such unholy words. Had not the Chief Priests themselves ordered turned the Nazarene over to be executed by the Roman authorities? Had the Nazarene not died, on the hill outside the Temple, a sign of his false claims? Were they still not the Chosen Ones of Yahweh, the Children of Abraham, the inheritors of an Eternal Promise, the People of the Covenant, of the Land that stretched from sea to shining sea?

He'd been hauled before the same Sanhedrin who had condemned the Nazarene and there he stood, unrepentant before them all. He began a long and winding sermon that took them through the entire sweeping story of salvation, beginning at Abraham, through

Moses, David and Solomon. After declaring that God could not be confined to a building, no matter how holy or beautiful, he fairly spat his sermon's climax: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.” Then he did it. He committed the act that would forever mark the short, glorious and tragic life of the first martyr of Christianity. Stephen, the waiter, the Deacon, the martyr, looked into that bright, empty unbroken Palestinian blue and told them: “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

That was all the crowd of promise keepers needed. They covered their ears and rushed him, a buzzing angry swarm of hornets, intent on only one thing: destroying this despicable man who dared to blame them for the injustice that they had committed. They dragged him outside the walls of Jerusalem, to demonstrate once and for all what justice looked like: like a rock, soaked with the blood and brains of anyone who would dare question whether that is really justice. The text gives us a tantalizing peek at the future of the Gospel when it notes, almost as a footnote, that “the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.”

As the rocks smashed his skull, Stephen struggled to his feet. He raised his hands high to the blue vault above: “Lord Jesus,” he cried, “receive my spirit.” Another rock knocked him to his knees. “Lord,” he whispered, as his eyes rolled back into his head, “please don't hold this against them.” Then he crumbled into a tiny, dying ball of mercy, justice and humility.

The calling of these first Deacons might have passed away into the lost memory of the ancient Church had it not been for one blessed and ironic fact: the Apostles only wanted to get back to feeling holy and not have to encounter the unpleasant reality of a world that cries for justice. Yet, when they laid hands on the Seven, they managed to unhook the Gospel from Religion and turn its power loose on the world. From then on, the Church would understand that in order to devote itself to Word and Prayer, it had to to devote itself to waiting tables. It had to live a forgiving Gospel, an inclusive Gospel, a Gospel that reconciled and made all things new. That young man Saul, who stood there, arms folded, in approval of the murder of the young man Stephen, would later gaze into the sky in Syria, and see what Stephen saw. He would lead the Church into the fullness of the forgiving, inclusive and reconciling Gospel. And though the text does not say it, nor did Saul ever later discuss it in his writings, by the time he became the Apostle Paul, he, too, was preaching the message of Stephen. Some Gospel seed must have taken root in his heart that day.

The history of the Order of Deacons in God's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is the history of the Church on its journey to discovering Gospel truth. As the message spread throughout the Empire, Deacons were deployed to the little house churches that sprung up everywhere the message was preached. They had a special role: to serve the poor, the sick, the hungry, and the imprisoned in the Name of Christ and to act that role out liturgically in the Mass for all God's people, wearing their stoles over their shoulders, like the towel Jesus used to dry his disciples' feet at the Last Supper. That's why Deacons proclaim the Gospel and set the Holy Table for the Eucharist. That's why Deacons' sermons are so very different from those of Priests. The Deacon's call is outward, towards the world, and the Priests' inward towards the Church. Because Deacons had a special and prophetic call to remind the Church that as a Body each of us is likewise called to do this, they often came into conflict with the hierarchical structures of the Church. By the time of the Middle Ages, the first Order of Ministry after the Apostles was reduced to a temporary, transitional step towards the Priesthood. Finally, by the mid-20^th century, the Church heard once again the message of Stephen and his friends, and the Diaconate was re-established, this time, one hopes, once and for all.

There have been times that the Church has forgotten the simple truth that the Gospel is not pie in the sky when you die, but is the hard, sweaty, dirty work of transforming the world now. And each time it does, the Holy Spirit raises back up the ancient order of Deacons to pick up a towel and start waiting tables. Amen.

The Second of Easter Year A: Bearers of Forgiveness

Acts 2:14a,22-32

1 Peter 1:3-9

John 20:19-31

They slipped through the alleyways, after the sun had set, each from different directions. They were careful to keep their keffiyah pulled forward, over their faces. They were certain that every centurion recognized them, every policeman was following them. They spoke to no one along the way, ten silent shadows, fearing the light, taking refuge in the darkness. But they all made it to the tiny house with the upper room, overlooking the garden. A quick rap on the door and it opened, silently, and each stepped inside, locking it behind them.

They crept up the stairs and stood around the room, candles flickering against the drawn shutters. Every footstep outside raised the hairs on their neck, the whinny of every horse echoing like an equestrian army from the streets below. They whispered their stories.

Peter was first. “We went to the tomb this morning, before the sun was really up. Magdelene had woken John and me up. She said that she had gone there earlier and that Caiaphas had stolen the body. We ran there, and there was nothing inside but the shroud he had been wrapped in. I can't believe those people. It's not bad enough to murder the greatest teacher in all Israel, but now this. I don't even love this country anymore. I feel like I don't belong here.”

John interrupted. “I went inside, because Rocky, as usual, was making some kind of excuse.” Peter started to object, but he held up his hand. “I'm talking. I looked around the tomb, and even in the gray dawn it was really strange. There was the linen cloak neatly folded up in the corner, and the shroud, rolled up like someone had taken it off him. I left Mary sitting there, crying, and Rocky just standing in the doorway, his mouth open, but, for once, not saying anything.” He glared at Peter with red-rimmed eyes.

“You didn't even stay with us when he died. I took his mother to my house. She never stopped crying until this morning when her sister and Magdelene came back and they all left.” Peter was looking at the floor. “But as strange as that was, what was even stranger was that they came back later and said they saw him, and he was alive.” Peter was staring off into the corner. In the darkness, you could make out the tears streaming down his face.

“Women, hysterical creatures. They came by my place today too,” said one of the others. “And they told me the same ridiculous story. That they saw Jesus, in the garden, and he was alive.”

Opf course, it was impossible. They had seen the trial. They had watched his torture. They had seen him nailed to the patabulum and hoisted like a signa militaria over the city. They had seen his feet nailed and heard the crowd mocking him. They watched as the last hope of Israel choked on his blood and died. And they stood, on the hill, as two old, rich men bore his body away. He was dead, no matter what the women said, no matter that the tomb was empty. Besides there had been an earthquake on Preparation Day and another aftershock that morning. It was all too obvious that Caiaphas had taken the body from the tomb and dumped it somewhere. It was just one more insult from the man of iniquity.

Everyone looked at Peter. Peter looked at no one. John touched his arm. “Simon,” he whispered. No one called him that, but his wife, and Jesus, in his more serious moments. Peter's shoulders heaved in great jerks, as he sobbed, his face in his hands. John felt a strange mixture of anger and pity.

“Has anyone seen Judas?” Someone asked finally, to break the awkwardness of the moment.

“He's dead,” answered another, and related the tale he had heard in the market.

“I just don't understand. What was he thinking?”

“He was a thief. Don't you remember how he used to carry the money pouch? How do you think he afforded those nice sandals and those trinkets he was always buying from the traders?' The others nodded.

“Well,” said Simon the Zealot. “it's a good thing he took his own life. That saves me from running him through with my sword. The filthy traitor.” The others agreed. “I hope he rots in hell.”

“Wait,” said one, “Where's Thomas?”

“Who knows? I saw him for a moment, this afternoon, and he wouldn't even look at me. He's probably gone back to Galilee.”

“Another traitor.” They all stared at Peter, accusation heavy in the air. Peter just moaned in anguish.

The cool night air stirred around them and the shutters flew open. The flames on the candles bent as if the night itself was trying to blow them out. The perfume of ten thousand roses filled the room and their knees went weak at the sweetness of it. From behind them, in the shadows, came an old, familiar voice.

“Peace be with you.” They turned, and stared. Even Peter stood, before falling prostrate to the floor.

“Peace be with you,” said Jesus. “As the Father has sent me to you, I am sending you to all the others.”

They crowded around him, shouting, forgetting their fear, their tears, their accusations, their hatred.

“Is it really you? Are you really alive? But how?” They touched him, tentatively at first, then hugged him, kissed him. He pulled back his tunic, so that they could see his wounds. He was laughing in that way he always did when he had told some silly joke, or bested some adversary in a theological jousting match.

“I'm alive.” He smiled. “I told you, for three long years, but you weren't listening. So, now, for once, hear me out. Come close.” They gathered around him. He blew on them.

“Now, breathe, deeply, my friends. Take the Holy Spirit deep within. Learn now that you can forgive, for there is much forgiveness needed, and it needs to start here. Whatever you forgive, will be forgiven, and whatever you don't forgive will just lie there, festering forever.”

A week later, they would gather again in that room, with Thomas, who hadn't gone away at all, but whose heart was still filled with anger and doubt about it all. And Thomas too, would learn the power of Resurrection to undo sin, to create a fresh new world, to bring forgiveness.

Thomas, the great evangelizer, who would later take Christianity far into Asia, has been unfairly dubbed “Doubting Thomas.” But he was not different than the other apostles, he was just a little late to the party. They had all doubted Magdelene's story, they had all doubted, even John and Peter who had seen the empty tomb for themselves.

John's story of these two appearances of the Risen Jesus in the week after Easter is not about the banishment of Thomas' doubt, but the enthronement of forgiveness as the centerpiece of the story of Jesus and his followers. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams put it like this: "There is no hope of understanding the Resurrection outside the process of renewing humanity in forgiveness. We are all agreed that the empty tomb proves nothing. We need to add that no amount of apparitions, however well authenticated, would mean anything either, apart from the testimony of forgiven lives communicating forgiveness."

The Resurrection of Jesus was not a final act of victory over the paper lion of Rome or the corrupt religious leadership of Palestine. That had been taken care of two days before, when the anointed King led his followers, not to an armed uprising, but to a willing death upon a Cross. The mightiest army in history could not crush the Spirit of freedom which revealed the stark illegitimacy of military might. The holiest of religious practice could not condemn the Holy One of Israel by simply calling him a blasphemer. He had received their blows and their indictments, bowed his head and forgiven them. The victory over Empire and Religion was complete by three o'clock in the afternoon on that Good Friday when all the sinfulness of the world was swallowed up in the broken body of a dead prophet.

Easter was for the disciples. They could not be sent forth into all the world, bearing the Gospel of forgiveness, until they themselves had experienced Jesus' forgiveness. They had all run away into the shadows. They were all complicit in his murder. None of them had testified at his trial. They had all allowed their doubts to triumph over faith in God's promises. None of them had believed that this was part of the plan of God all along. Even Judas, who had engineered the betrayal, when faced with the reality of it, walked into darkness rather than accepting the light.

So there could be no future for the Gospel of God's Reign without its vanguard grasping that Jesus had, of his own volition, chosen death, and they were forgiven for their unfaithfulness. In fact, there could be no Pentecost, no outpouring of the Spirit, until they themselves breathed the perfume of forgiveness and stood ready to forgive the world.

The Empty Tomb, and all the appearances of Jesus for the next forty days, were not primarily about how seeing the Risen Jesus brings faith, for Jesus tells Thomas, “"Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Faith can only come when we realize our own complicity in the evil which stalks the world and accept the fact that God has forgiven us for what we have done and what we have left undone.

When Jesus says: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" he is not setting the Church up as some grand office of Who's In and Who's Out, the merchants of who was saved and who was lost, but as the bearers of forgiveness for all the world. Their sole job was to paint the world in bright Easter colors. As Eugene Peterson puts it in his paraphrase of Jesus' words, The Message: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?"

Indeed, what will we do with the sins we have not forgiven? We can bundle them all up and carry them around, but we will only find ourselves dangling from a noose, like Judas. If only he had stuck around for another day, and had slipped furtively through the night with the others, perhaps we would be taking communion this morning in the parish church of St. Judas Iscariot. Instead, we can only weep for the one who willing chose to die, rather than live in forgiveness. It was in his failure to accept that he was forgiven, for he knew not what he had done, that Judas died alone, strangled by the sin tethered around his neck.

Our very own Easter story is completed when we rise again, shining bright with the knowledge of forgiveness for every sinful act, for every sin that could ever be conceived and tell all the world that it, too, is forgiven, that the Empty Tomb stands eternally as the reminder that in Peter's words: “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

That salvation is not ours alone, but belongs to everyone. As the Father has sent Jesus, he now sends us. Amen. 

A Homily for Palm Sunday Year A

What Should I Do With Jesus? 

• Matthew 21:1-11

• Isaiah 50:4-9

• Philippians 2:5-11

• Matthew 26:14- 27:66

No one could remember who started the chant. Later, some people said it was one of the Galilean women, in town for Pasha, the old women, who rock back and forth when they pray, in ancient dance with the Spirit. Others said it was one of the Zealots, their hands resting on their hidden daggers, daring the Romans or the Temple police to interrupt. Others said it was one of his, maybe the one who betrayed him, stirring up the crowd with a shout of insurrection.

But whoever started it, the crowd began to repeat it, until it became a deep rumble, an earthquake, a roaring of the sea. “Hosanna!” they cried in unison, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh!”

They clapped as they chanted, and people began to lay down their cloaks, and covered the Roman bricks with palm branches. “Hosanna!” they stomped. “Blessed!” they cheered. “The one who comes in the name of Yahweh!” they shouted.

He sat awkwardly, sidesaddle, to keep his feet from dragging on the ground. The little donkey's ears pricked and her eyes darted back and forth among the crowd as they pressed in to touch him. He squeezed their hands as he passed, and kissed the infants they held out to him. He was smiling. His eyes went up to the top of the wall. On one side, a garrison of Romans stood. On the other, the Temple police. Each group glowered at the spectacle on the road.

It took him a long time to pick his way slowly through the throbbing crowd, through the cheers, the songs, the chants, the incense of revolution rising to mix with the smoke ascending from the Temple chimney.

He stopped finally at the gate to the Temple and dismounted. The entire city, it seemed had turned out to see him. His men looked at each other, swords at the ready. The time had come.

Of course, the story doesn't end the way it starts, in triumph. It ends in tragedy. A young man, who had called his people to live a new life of freedom, apart from the crushing boots of Empire or the smothering cloak of Religion, hanged as a traitor, a rebel, an enemy of God and the State.

In the end, there would not be a crowd that called for a new King on David's throne, but a crowd who demanded blood, vengeance, and the swift, justiceless peace that dictators so crave. For in every revolution, there are those who prefer slavery to revolt, order to freedom, quiet to justice. In every revolution, there are those who side with power, who would crush dreams and silence hope. And the revolution proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth was no exception.

For, this preacher of Nazareth, this son of a carpenter, this man of the people, had come preaching the end of the status quo. He had proclaimed the equality of women, the empowerment of the poor and the re-ordering of the social system. He urged people to abandon tribe and tradition and follow him into a new world, where the Kingdom of God was not some prophet's sweaty night-time fantasy, but a living, breathing reality in the here and now.

And for that vision, he was executed.

We've often heard that the crowd of the Triumphal Entry was the same as the crowd outside Pilate's palace. But the record does not say that. Nor does the reality of revolution support it. One has only to watch the unfolding revolt in one dictatorship after another these past few months to grasp how the two crowds exist in the same places at the same time, each with a competing and irreconcilable vision for their nation. Will it have the order of military power or the messy volatility of freedom? Will it end in joyful celebration or in a puddle of blood? Which crowd will win? It all depends on what future the people really want.

When asked: “What should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” the crowd outside Pilate's palace opted for Caiaphas' compromise with power that one man should die, rather than risk the vengeance of the Empire. They regained the peace, temporarily, but in a few short years, the false peace of compromise would perish in the unquenchable fire of the Roman legions.

I wonder which side we would be on. Would we have believed that the the Day of Salvation had dawned or that peace at the expense of justice should be maintained? Would we have been ready to die with him or would we have called for his blood to be on us and on our children? Would we have stood with him at his trial, or denied we even knew his name?

Which crowd would we have been in that day? Which chant would we have shouted to the highest heaven?

For though two thousand years have passed since that fateful week, the question remains the same: What shall I do with Jesus, who is called the Messiah? 

A Homily For The First Sunday in Lent Year A: Into Temptation

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

We imagine him out there, sitting in the shade of some overhanging crag, wrestling with a fallen Angel. We tell the story as if it were all so obvious that his opponent was some red demi-god with a forked tail and pitchfork. But we misread the Gospel when we imagine it like that.

For he was not some Superhero in a cape, with extraordinary powers of resistance. He was a human, as we are, struggling to understand what God wanted him to do with his life. After he wandered off from his encounter with his cousin, John the Baptizer, he was as confused you or I would have been. John had tried to talk him out of being baptized—for John's baptism was reserved for notorious sinners, for tax collectors, hookers, drunks and ne'er-do-wells of various stripes. But he had insisted, impelled by something he couldn't quite grasp. And then there was that mysterious voice, and the white dove who had landed on his shoulder, as he came up from the water.

During his sojourn in the desert, for forty days and nights, he went over the scene, reliving it moment by moment. He remembered his parents' words to him, their quiet re-telling of the story of the shepherds and the Magi. He remembered his bar-mitzvah, when he'd holed up in the Temple for three days, while his frantic parents scoured the Holy City searching for him. He remembered his father's instructions in the carpenter's shop—on how to carve a piece of wood or make a table for a rich man's home. He was tired and hungry and thirsty and pretty much prayed out.

That's when the Tempter showed up. Did he come as an old man, full of the wisdom of the ages? Did he come as a young boy, in search of a rabbi to guide his life? Did he come as a beautiful woman with a smile as bright as the sun and a playful twinkle in her eye? To understand the Temptations of Christ, one must read the original story of sin in the Book of Genesis.

The writer of Genesis opens the story like this: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made.” The temptation of the first humans came not from some alien place, but from within the Creation that God had declared Good. The snake, who is not called “evil” or “the devil” but simply “crafty,” poses a very simple question: "Did God say, `You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman, perplexed perhaps by this talking serpent, is quick to respond, “Oh, no. We can eat from these trees. It's only the tree in the middle of Paradise that we can't eat from. As a matter of fact,” and she eyes the man beside her, “we can't even touch it, or we'll die.”

Notice that she gets the Word of God twisted in her response. There was no prohibition against touching the tree or its fruit—only its eating. And the serpent chuckles. “That's ridiculous. God knows that if you eat this fruit, you will become Gods yourselves. That's why he doesn't want you to do it. Why, if you eat it, you will not only not die, but your eyes will be opened and you will understand Good and Evil.”

The Tempter, in his first appearance in the Bible, is telling the truth—at least partly. Because when the man and woman do eat the forbidden fruit, their eyes are opened and they don't die, at least right then. All that happens is that the universe is rent in two and suddenly, there is Good and Evil when a moment before, there had only been Good. The Tempter quotes God's Word, but in a way that twists its intent. The hapless human couple stands naked before each other and are overcome with guilt and shame.

That's the same way the Tempter tries to engage Jesus. First, an innocent sounding question: “So, you're struggling to figure out if you're the Son of God? Look, you're out here in the desert and you're starving to death. If you're confused about it, why not just find out: turn these stones into bread. For God's sake, man, don't starve to death if you've got the power to do something about it.”

But Jesus has been meditating on what it meant to be called Son of God. And he, unlike Eve, does not get the Word of God wrong:"It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

It is not so easy to break the spirit of someone who has been dwelling in the desert with holy memory. So the Tempter comes back for round two. Suddenly they are standing on the very top of the Temple, in the center of the Holy City. "Look, this whole Son of God thing is really tough. You are going to need every last bit of Divine confirmation you can get. Just throw yourself down there. Because you know the scripture: 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.' After all, if you are the Messiah, nothing bad can happen to you.”

But Jesus is not so easily convinced: "Again it is written,” he replies, “'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

But the Tempter has not lost his thirst for yanking Evil out of Good, and in a flash, they are at the top of the world's highest mountain. Atop it, they gaze out on the Seven Wonders of the World: from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Temple of Artimes at Ephesus. The Colossus at Rhodes, the Great Pyramid of Gaza, Zeus on Olympia, the Persian Tomb of Mausolus, and the Lighthouse at Alexandria.

The Tempter smiles. “Pretty impressive, isn't it? Look, being a Messiah from some backwater village in Galilee, in that ridiculous little province where you live—what do you call it? Oh, right, Palestine. Well, being a Messiah there can't give you any of this. All that's going to happen to you is those people are going to turn on you and kill you. But I can give you what everyone really wants: riches, power and glory. Go back there, and there's a cross with your name on it.”

And Jesus looks him straight in the eye. “Get out of here, Satan! For it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

The Temptations of Adam and Eve and the Temptations of Jesus are not so very different. In each case, the Tempter is offering something that they already had. He is just offering it in a way that will be certain to disrupt the relationship they had with God. And he does it by twisting the word of God so that it says the opposite of what God meant.

And each case, they were only offered what they already had. The couple in Eden had plenty to eat and they knew what Good was: the entire Creation. Jesus had the power to turn water into wine and to feed five thousand people from five pita loaves and two tilapia. So it would have been easy to turn to stones into bread. Jesus had angels who would minister to him—they had been there on the night he was born and they came to the desert that day, as the Tempter walked away in defeat. Jesus may have been from little Nazareth of Galilee, but he already had all authority in heaven and earth. He didn't need to bow to down to the dark power that runs the world's political systems to get something that was already his.

We have these stories in scripture to remind us that our wrestling with dark forces, our Temptations, whether in the Garden or in the Desert, are really just the experience of every human. We are constantly tempted to declare something or someone Good or Evil, though that is the sole province of God. We are constantly tempted to gain power over others or fling ourselves off religious roofs in order to impress others with how pious we are. We are constantly tempted to use the things that God has given us for ourselves rather than for others. And why wonder why we find ourselves so overcome with guilt and shame.

We are tempted to use the season of Lent as a time of Grace-getting, using our penitence as a sort of religious insurance policy, cashing it in to pay for our trespasses. But, as St. Paul notes: the gift of Grace is not like the trespass. This isn't a zero sum game between God and us. We have been given Grace, freely. We may be tempted to turn Grace into religion, but Grace is a free gift.

Scott Peck once told a story about a Northern traveler who stopped for breakfast in a country restaurant in the rural south. You know the place, you've probably eaten there yourself a time or two.

The traveler ordered his favorite breakfast: coffee, eggs, bacon, toast.

But when his plate arrived, he was puzzled by the white stuff in the middle of his plate. “Um, miss,” he said, summoning the waitress.

She came back to his his table, “Yes, sir, is everything all right?”

He pointed at his plate. “What is this stuff?”

"Why sir,” she replied, “them is grits."

“But I didn't order it," he protested.

The waitress smiled her best Southern smile. "Sir, you don't order grits. They just come!"

For the gift is not like the trespass. You don't order it. You don't manipulate it. You already have it. It just comes. Amen. 

Ash Wednesday, Year A, March 9 2011 --A Reward in Full

It was April 1945. The women of Ravensbruck whispered the rumors that the war was nearly over. All the years of hard labor, of torture and terror, would soon be behind them. American troops were advancing on Berlin from the west and the Russians from the east. Any moment now, they would be saved. They were skeletons, their malnourshed breasts giddy with hope.

Until they woke up that morning to the sounds of screams and the shouts of the guards. The order had come from the dying Reich that the camp should be emptied of its inhabitants. The orders came for 20,000 to be marched out and the rest gassed and then cremated. In one of the cells, huddled in the gloom of impending death, sat a woman. Whether she was old or young we don't know. How long she had been there, we don't know. Was she a Polish Jew, a faithful Catholic a Gypsy, a lesbian? (For all of them and dozen other groups bore the brunt of Germany's mad rage at Ravensbruck.) We don't know. But what we do know is this: before the guards came to drag her away, she found a piece of paper and a pen and she wrote a prayer. Then she stuffed it into a crack in the wall. This is what she wrote:

Lord, forgive not only the men of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Remember rather the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering: our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown out of this. And when they come to judgment, Lord, let all the fruits we have borne be their forgiveness.

It's Ash Wednesday and those terrible hear words fall hard on our ears: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Someone makes a crude ash cross on our foreheads and then we go off to work or to school or to shop and later, it all seems a little surreal. For we are not dust: we are living, breathing souls, and this whole ancient rite seems a bit overwrought and hysterical. It does not seem to have much meaning in a world that teems with life. Maybe that's why there are so few people in our pews today. This is so very different from our weekly Mass, where the celebrant absolves us of our sins and Alleluias ring off the rafters.

But not today. Today we are looking directly into the eyes of everyone whom we have wronged in ways great and small, but we have done and by what we have failed to do. Our own failings pile up, corpse-like, in the torture chambers of our heart. We count them and we shudder. Did I really do that? Did I really say those things? Is there still that place in my heart that unforgiveness lurks and eats away at my soul? Yes, and yes and yes.

For that is what Ash Wednesday is about. The confrontation with the most difficult of all sins: the sin of religious observance that is all about what we do, rather than who we are. In today's Gospel, Jesus does not condemn fasting or prayer or giving our money to the poor. In fact, he assumes that people who want to live the values of God's Reign will do them. It is the way we do them that brings us the reward we deserve.

If you are here today to get your forehead swiped like a credit card so you can go on about your life with nary a thought of your own sinfulness, then you will receive your reward. You get to leave here, little bits of ash across the bridge of your nose, and you can take satisfaction that everyone who sees you later will know that you are faithful to the old traditions. You will have your reward in full. Go and rejoice in that.

But if you come to the altar today, trembling in deep awareness of the ways in which you have broken relationships, stored up treasure on earth, ignored the call to justice and refused to forgive those who have wronged you, then you will have your reward in full as well. You will dwell in the light of grace and the awareness that the Reign of God is not about what you do, but about who you are. Go and rejoice in that.

For Ash Wednesday is a bit of a divine prank. We are already forgiven of every sin we have committed, every hurt we have caused, every lustful and hateful thought ever to linger in our dreams, before we ever set foot in this place. We don't need a religious rite to receive divine grace. But if we are willing to open ourselves fully to the divine reality that all our accomplishments and all our failures are just so much dust, we can receive the gift of grace as a treasure, a sacrament, a life-giving touch from the One who looks on in secret and forgives.

The prayer of the woman of Ravensbruck was the prayer of someone who had dwelt fully in the reception of her own ashes. She knew that she was about to join the ash pile of human history. Her prayer was as much for her tormentors as it was for all of humanity. Her forgiveness was a sacrifice that rose to highest heaven. When you receive the ashes today, imagine that they are her ashes, for they are, and yours and mine and Jesus'. And you will have your reward in full.  

A Sermon for the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday

Epiphany 2

Year A

Come and See

Isaiah 49:1-7
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

He couldn't get it out of his head. The crowd was there as always: the devout older women, mumbling prayers quietly; the younger ones, the ones with bloodshot eyes from the working the long night before; the men: sweaty traders, polished businessmen, the occasional lawyer or scholar, and all manner of assorted drunks, thieves, pickpockets, and politicians. They brought their tales of faith and fortunes lost and gained, of trysts in the dark with somebody else's spouse, of petty crimes and grand larcenies. It was the same, day after day. He would pray with each one and pull them into the muddy water with him. He pushed them down, holding them beneath the sacred flood and then pull them out, just as they began to panic under the water. They would smile, every last one of them, as they turned back to the rocky shore. And he would motion for the next.

Then one day came someone he would never have expected. It was impossible—this could not be. For he was not like the others, he was pure. John knew him as well as he knew anyone on the earth. But he insisted and John, struggling against the core of his being, relented. They didn't pray first. There was no confession. John watched him, below the water for what seemed like forever. And when he stood, his white linen robe dripping mud, John took his hand. From out of nowhere, a white dove fluttered and lighted on the man's shoulder. John stumbled back, blinking his eyes. As he walked away, this one whose life was so intertwined with his own, John suddenly realized that he had never known him at all. He looked back at John from the shore and nodded, slipping away into the crowd. In that moment, John realized his work was ending.

The following morning, he was walking along the path back down to the River, he caught sight of Jesus meandering slowly down the river road. John found himself shouting: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  I've been telling you that someone was coming after me that was far more important than I am. This is the one—the one that I've been doing all this work for. When he came to me to be baptized I saw the Spirit land on him just like a dove. God told me this was going to happen, that one day the Spirit would come and mark the One who would baptize you with Spirit instead of water. I saw it, yesterday. I'm telling you: this is the Son of God.” The man in the white linen looked at him silently, and walked away.

The next afternoon John stood on the shore, telling two of his followers, Andrew and a friend, what had happened when Jesus came walking back by. “There he is,” John shouted, pointing through the crowd: “The Lamb of God.” But Jesus didn't even seem to hear. He just kept walking.

Andrew nudged his companion. “Let's see what he's up to.” They nodded their goodbyes and trotted along through the street, toward the city, a few paces behind. The man in the white linen turned. He looked them up and down. “What are you looking for?”

For a moment they were speechless. What were they looking for? Andrew blurted out: “Where are you staying?”  

The man in the white linen said simply, “Come and see.” And they spent the first of many a remarkable night with the man who would change the universe. Andrew left for awhile and his found his brother. “We have found the Messiah, come and see.”

As he and Simon entered the house, Jesus rose to welcome them. “Simon Johnson, I've been waiting for you. Around here, you're going to be called Rocky.”

It's Year A in our Lectionary cycle, which means that most of our Gospels this year will come from Matthew. But this week, we hear from John, the last of the Gospel writers, and in some ways, the most important of all. For John's version of the Jesus story is not written as a biography, or even as history in any meaningful sense of the term. It is written with a single, defining purpose, as he writes in the epilogue: “So that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” It is a Gospel of questions, and questions answered with questions, from “What are you looking for?” to “What is truth?” and “Do you love me more than these?”  

Well, you might say, we answered those questions when we showed up here this morning, so give us something else, preacher. Of course we are here because we believe, at least on most Sundays between 8AM and noon. But this brief little story of the two days after Jesus' baptism shows that there's a whole more to believing than just saying “We believe.”

Let's start with Jesus' first words in the John: “What are you looking for?” Now there's a question to ponder on your bed at night. What am I looking for? True love? A better job? A fix for a broken heart? The replacement of treasure vanished when the banks melted? You're here, in this place, singing all the songs, repeating the psalms, amening the prayers, eating the bread and drinking the wine, and there's that little voice inside that moans: “I still haven't found what I'm looking for.”

Because, as Andrew, Peter and their unnamed friend discover, there is a whole lot more to believing than simply believing. First you have to find out where Jesus is staying.

John uses one of his favorite words here: the Greek verb μενω: which means, to stay, abide, last, remain, endure, continue, dwell. It implies a sense of permanence. John the Baptist recognizes Jesus when the Holy Spirit remains upon him. When Jesus provides enough food to feed 5,000, with bushels left over, he tells the crowd to seek food that does not spoil, but that lasts for eternal life. He promises that he will dwell in those who dwell in him. And every time that Jesus stays somewhere, people faith pops out all over.

We would love to believe that Jesus stays in places like this: beautiful buildings given,as the brass plates say, “the Glory of God.” But Jesus didn't take his new followers into a building like this. He took  them into the city, into the beating heart of humanity and revealed to them that there is where he was staying. Over the next three years, time and again, he would plunge into the muddy waters of people, baptizing himself in their daily lives, giving them small glimpses of what the world could be like if they would only come and see it.

Jesus may come here when we gather in his name, but he stays in the world, a world which he has come into to transform, a world that, in the end, all too often rejects his message. He is staying, not among the religious, but among the rest: a Samaritan woman who had gone through three lousy marriages; another, naked in the city square, on trial for her life, because she had committed adultery, beggars blind and lame, swarms of hungry and sick people. Come and see, he says. This is where I stay. If you're looking for something, something real, something eternal, you are only going to find it out here, among the people. He disciples learn, slowly, that finding Jesus means looking in the places where no one would expect him. Like John the Baptizer, they would only come to know him when they discovered that that everything they knew about him was wrong.

A year ago this past week, the island nation of Haiti was destroyed in an earthquake that killed a quarter million people. The world responded with huge promises of aid. Haiti, we vowed, would be rebuilt. This time, the rich nations of the world wouldn't make the same mistakes that plagued Haiti for centuries. This time we knew what to do. But a year later, a million people are still homeless, and Haiti remains as wrecked as ever. The criminal elite that still rules the nation has worked devilishly to stall or stop or steal the help that has come. Rich donor nations have not paid more than 80% of their pledges. Rebuilding a nation means more than just believing that it needs to be done. It's tempting to believe that Jesus, if he ever was present in Haiti, has surely gone on to more promising fields.  When we ask, “Jesus, where are you staying?” He answers, “Come and see.”

During the past year, Episcopal Relief and Development provided shelter for 10,470 Haitians, medical service for nearly 60,000, food for nearly 30,000, non-food supplies to more than 40,000, water and sanitation to nearly 50,000, and jobs for thousands more. Jesus hasn't left Haiti, even if others have, and we can find him, if we will only come and see.

On a cool spring evening, April 4, 1968, Martin King was hungry. He was in Memphis, where a sanitation strike had paralyzed the city. He knew he had to speak to the workers, the city leaders and to preach a sermon the following Sunday. In room 306 of the Lorraine Hotel, he got up from the desk where he  had been working on his sermon. He shaved, put on his coat and stepped outside his room onto the balcony where James Earl Ray had him in the crosshairs of his 30.06.

Two weeks before that, King had spoken to the sanitation workers and told them: "It is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. I can hear the God of the universe saying… 'The children of my sons and daughters were in need of economic security, and you didn't provide for them. So you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness'." The people who heard Martin speak thought Jesus had left them and it was time to take things into their own hands. Following his sermon, riots broke out across the city. The violence broke Martin King's heart. So he had requested a chance to come back to Memphis, to speak to them again, and this time he would urge them to follow him in a peaceful march, protesting in silent witness the injustice of their lives and livelihood.

He had done that the day before, April 3. That night, at the Masonic Lodge, Martin preached peace and justice like he had never preached before:

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.”

And then came the prophetic moment, for Martin had been staying a long time with Jesus. And he knew that staying with Jesus changes you, just like changed Andrew and Peter and their friend.

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

At 6:01 PM, on April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray squeezed off a single, perfect shot from his hunting rifle. In the days and weeks ahead, some people thought that Jesus had gone on to more promising places, as the cities of the America burned. But Jesus just said, come and see.

This weekend we remember the life and witness of Martin Luther King, Jr. When Jesus asked him what he was looking for, he answered  “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'..That my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

And Jesus said to Martin, “Come and see.”

Today, an African American man is the President of the United States of America. A young Indian American woman is the Governor of the State of South Carolina. Because there were people who were willing to stay with Jesus and finish the work that Martin started. It's not finished yet, and Jesus is still here, bidding us “come and see.”

Yes, Jesus is here in this beautiful place. But more importantly, he is outside those doors, patiently staying, working alongside us to bring his kingdom to our city, our state, our nation, and our world. The work of justice is holy work, and it is not easy work. Sometimes the enemy comes in, sowing seeds of hatred and discord. Sometimes a madman picks up a gun and sprays death into the fields of innocence. Sometimes, we get tired. Sometimes we forget what we are looking for.

But Jesus keeps calling us to come and stay with him and see. If we do, we will find what we're looking for. Amen.