3 Easter

 April 23, 2023

 

Luke 24.13-35

 

+ I’m going to draw your attention to our stained glass window this morning.

 

Well, to one in particular.

 

Let’s look at the window in the back, the window dedicated to Sts. Benedict and Scholastica.

 

And more importantly, what that window will represent.

 

That window represents something we have worked hard to do here at St. Stephen’s.

 

That window represents that very important—the incredibly VITAL—ministry of hospitality.

 

RADICAL Hospitality.

 

And if you want to know what real ministry is about, then this is IT.

 

Real ministry, as we have all discovered, is not about the almighty ME—the individual.

 

It is about US—all of us, the children of God.

 

Radical Hospitality is not easy.

 

Ministry is not easy.

 

Sharing our time, our energy, our physical building, is not easy.

 

Because being radically welcoming means welcoming people we, personally, might not want to welcome.

 

People who irritate us, or rub counter to our own views of what church should be.

 

This isn’t a judgment, mind you.

 

I am preaching to myself here.

 

There have been moments in my time here at St. Stephen’s when I have had to deal with people whom we’ve welcomed here who have taken advantage of our hospitality.

 

People who have used us for their own needs and then discarded us.

 

And that’s one of the pitfalls of being radically welcoming.

 

Being radically welcoming does not mean being a radical doormat.

 

It’s also good to have good boundaries in being radically welcoming.

 

But, through trial and error, through good experiences and bad, radical hospitality is what we do—and do well—here at St. Stephen’s.

 

And we should be glad that we are that kind of congregation.

That is what that window represents.

 

But we’ll talk about all of that in a moment.

 

In today’s Gospel, we find hospitality and spiritual clarity as well.

 

We find this beautiful story of Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple encountering Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

 

Cleopas and the other disciple are, essentially, already in a strange time in their life in following Jesus.

 

The long week of Jesus’ betrayal, torture and murder are behind them.

 

 The resurrection has happened, although, it’s clear from their words, they don’t quite comprehend what’s happened.

Of course, who could?

 

We still, two thousand years later, are grappling with the events of Jesus’ resurrection.

 

But as these two walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, they are kept from recognizing their friend, the person they saw as the Messiah, until finally he breaks the bread with them.

 

Only then—only when he breaks that bread open to share with them—do they recognize him.

 

It is an amazing moment of spiritual clarity.

 

It’s a wonderful story and one that has many, many layers of meaning for each of us individually, no doubt.

 

But for us Episcopalians, for us who gather together every Sunday and every Wednesday to break bread together, this story takes on special meaning.

 

In a sense. we are the disciples in this reading.

 

We are Cleopas and the unnamed disciple, walking on the road—walking, as they are, in that place on the other side of the cross.

 

They are walking away from Jerusalem, where all these events happened—the betrayal, the torture,  the murder and the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb—back to Emmaus, to their homes.

 

Like them, we go around in our lives on the other side of the cross, trying to understand what it means to be followers of Jesus on this side of the cross.

 

What this story teaches us is that, even when we don’t recognize Jesus in our midst, we should always be cautious.

 

He might not make himself known to us as he did to Cleopas and the other disciple.

 

Rather, he might remain cloaked in that stranger who comes to us.

 

And as a result, it’s just so much better to realize that everyone we encounter, everyone we greet, everyone we welcome, everyone we make room for,  truly is Jesus disguised.

 

Which brings us back to our St Benedict window.

 

As many of you know, there are some Benedictine Oblates at St Stephen’s—James, and your truly—and there are many others of us who are truly Benedictine in spirit.

 

I had the good fortune of celebrating my 30^th anniversary last year of being an Oblate.

 

Benedictine Oblates and other Benedictine-minded people strive in our lives to follow the Rule of St. Benedict, an ancient, though very amazing document.

 

In that Rule, there is one particular amazing reference:

 

In the 53^rd Chapter of the Rule, St. Benedict writes:

 

All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

 

That is very, very powerful.

 

But what does that mean?

 

Well, it means that we welcome everyone who comes through our door as someone divine anointed by God, as someone special to God, as one of God’s unique children.

 

It means welcoming everyone who comes through our door as another Christ, present in in our midst, someone who, like Christ, is sent to us from God, whom God has sent to us to speak to us, to be a presence of God’s love to us.  

 

Even when it doesn’t seem like that.

 

Imagine for a moment what an incredible world this would be if everyone could do this—if everyone could practice radical hospitality like St. Benedict.

 

What an amazing Christian Church we would have if we could do the same, if we could welcome every stranger—and every regular parishioner as well—as Christ.

 

Imagine if we welcomed even our very enemies as Christ, that somehow even that enemy was seen as someone special to God and anointed by God.

 

I think many Christians forget this.

 

We are called to welcome all people as Christ, because we do not know when we will encounter him, in whatever guise he might choose to come to us.

 

Now, of course, that’s not easy.

 

In fact, sometimes it’s downright impossible.

 

Without God’s help, we can’t do it.

 

Without God’s help—without the Holy Spirit—we first of all can’t even begin to recognize Christ in our midst.

 

And without God’s help, we can’t seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, as we profess inour Baptismal Covenant.

 

And, let’s face, it’s just easier to choose not to.

 

It’s much easier to grumble and mumble and complain.

 

It’s much easier to backbite.

 

It’s easy not to see those people who drive us crazy, who irritate us, who say things to us we don’t want to hear as Christ, as beloved children of God.  

 

It’s just so much easier for us to see the devil in people, rather than seeing them as children of God.

 

But for us who gather together every Sunday at this table—at this altar—we can’t use that excuse of being unable to recognize Christ in our midst.

 

God in various ways IS in our midst.

 

God is constantly breaking through to us in various ways.

 

When we break this bread at the altar, we find whatever spiritual blindness we come here with is lifted at that time.

 

We see Christ truly present with us—in the bread and the wine,  and in one another.

 

And what does our Eucharist compel us to do?

 

It compels us to embody Christ, to become Christ, to those who need Christ in this world.

 

Radical hospitality DOES make a difference.

 

Greeting people as though they are beloved children of God has incredible results—not in only in our collective life here at St. Stephen’s, but in the lives of each of those people coming among us.

 

We are showing them that, despite the occasionally somewhat ugly reputation the Church has at times—and sometimes deservedly so—we, as God’s children in this world, can do much good as well.

 

We can truly love.

 

We can truly be accepting—of all people, no matter who or what they are.

 

So, today, let us hear—truly hear—the words in the scriptures we have just shared and in the scriptures we will read this week.

 

Let us allow God to speak to us with words that are familiar, with a voice that is familiar.

 

Let us allow God’s Spirit to take away whatever spiritual blindness we might have so that we can truly and completely see those people who share our life with us as beloved children of God.

 

Let us allow that Spirit to take away that spiritual blindness that causes so much harm in the world so that we can fully experience God and show love and respect to everyone we come in contact with.

 

And recognizing each other as God’s loved children, may we also go out into the world, to proclaim that message of God’s love to all.

 

We are living, in this moment, on the other side of the cross.

 

We are living here, with God in our very midst.

 

It is truly a glorious place to be.

 

Let us pray.

Loving God, open our eyes, as you opened the eyes of Cleopas and the other disciple; open our eyes to see this world as you intend this world to be, a place of love, as place in which we honor each other as your loved children. And when we do, let us see your Christ present in our midst, and in ourselves; in whose name we pray. Amen.

 

2 Easter

 

April 16, 2023

 

John 20.19-31

 

+ It’s hard to believe that Easter was one week ago.

 

This Second Sunday of Easter is also called “Low Sunday.”

 

Well, it’s called Quasimodo Sunday, from the old Latin Mass in which the newly baptized were welcomed “as newborn infants.”

 

It’s a time for us to truly sit back and enjoy Easter without all pomp of last Sunday.

 

Because, as we know, Easter lasts 40 days.

 

And we will be celebrating this Easter season until the Feast of the Ascension.

 

For these next few weeks, in our scripture readings on Sunday morning, we will be encountering the newly resurrected Christ.

 

As we do in our Gospel reading for today.

 

But today’s Gospel deals with so much more than that.

 

It deals with that good old friend of ours, doubt.

 

While some clergy people I know, try to avoid discussing issues like doubt or atheism, I actually gladly welcome the challenge, as you very well know.

 

You know how I feel about atheism and agnosticism.

 

I truly believe they are very valid religious expressions.

 

And important ones.

 

And I respect and admire the many atheist people I know in my own life and in society.

 

I have also been very honest with all of you about my own doubts at times.

 

I was an agnostic at one point in my life.

 

And…well…to be blunt…I still am. Kind of.

 

In fact, we all are to some extent.

 

Agnosticism, after all, is simply saying “we don’t know” for certain.

 

And I don’t.

 

That’s why I have faith.

 

I don’t know for certain about many things, but I still go forward in faith.

 

And there is nothing wrong with any of that.

 

Let’s face it, doubt is an important and essential part of our faith life.

 

We essentially can’t have real faith without real doubt.

 

We need that tension in our faith lives to make our faith valid to a large extent.

 

And to deny doubt in our lives is to deceive ourselves.

 

We do doubt.

 

I sometimes do wish at times that my faith was not pocked and spotted with doubt.

 

But, to be brutally honest,  it is sometimes.

 

And I am wary to some extent of those who have no doubt.

 

Yes, we struggle with these issues of belief in our lives.

 

Let’s face it, we don’t get the opportunities that Thomas had in this morning’s Gospel.

 

Thomas refused to believe that Jesus was resurrected until he had put his fingers in the wounds of Jesus.

 

You know what.

I’d be the same way.

 

Well, maybe I wouldn’t insist on putting my fingers in a wound.

 

That’s a bit extreme.

 

But, certainly, if someone I knew and cared for died and suddenly everyone is telling me that person is now actually alive, I would definitely doubt that.

 

And if I knew that person had died and was now standing in front of me, I would still be skeptical.

 

Skeptical of my sanity, if nothing else.

 

Or my eyesight.  

 

So, for Thomas, it wasn’t enough that Jesus actually appeared to him in the flesh—Jesus, was no ghost after all.

 

He stood there in the flesh—wounds and all.

 

Only when Thomas  had placed his finger in the wounds, would he believe.

 

Only then did he experience this amazing moment of spiritual clarity and was able to say,

 

“My Lord and my God!”

 

That’s great for Thomas.

 

But, the fact is, for the rest of us, we don’t get it so easy.

 

We will struggle.

 

It’s easy to doubt.

 

But faith, that’s hard.

 

It’s not easy to have faith.

 

I don’t have to tell anyone here this morning about faith.

 

We all know how hard it really is.

 

It takes work and discipline.

 

We made the choice to come to church.

 

We made a choice to come here this morning, and worship a God we cannot see, not touch.

 

Well, except in the Eucharist

 

We have come together to gather at this altar, to break bread and to share the Body and Blood of Jesus.

 

We made a choice to come here and celebrate an event that our rational minds tell us could never have happened.

 

And not just celebrate.

 

But to stand up and profess belief in it, even if we might have struggles with it.

 

But even if we struggle with it—it’s all right.

 

It’s all right to struggle and doubt and wrestle with it.

 

It’s all right to be, dare I say? a Christian agnostic.

 

A strong relationship to God takes work—just as any other relationship in our life takes work.

 

It takes discipline.

 

It takes concentrated effort.

 

It means living out our faith even when we also live with doubts.

 

It means loving God and loving one another.

 

Of course, that isn’t that easy either.  

 

But, for Thomas, he saw.

 

He touched.

 

It was all clear to him.

 

We don’t get that chance.

 

“Blessed are those who believe but don’t see,” Jesus says this morning.

 

We are those blessed ones.

All of us.

 

Our belief—our faith—doesn’t have to be perfect.

 

We will still always doubt.

 

Will still always question.

 

And that’s a good thing!

 

We are still the ones Jesus is speaking of in this morning’s Gospel.

 

Blessed are you all.

 

You believe—or strive to believe—but don’t see.

 

Seen or unseen, we know God is there—in some way.

 

And God breaks through to us, even in the midst of our doubts at times.

 

How many times have I shared with you those sacred moments I’ve experienced at this altar during the Eucharist, when I break the Bread or stare down into the chalice and I just know, in my heart of hearts, that Christ is present. And real.

 

How many of those sacred times have I, like Thomas, found myself exclaiming,

 

“My Lord and my God!”

 

There are moments when we really do sense deeply that there is just something there—some Presence bigger than us, some reality more amazing that us, some divine Other that is all good and all-loving, Some God who truly does know us and love us.

 

Most of you know of my affection for the Lutheran Pastor and theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber.

 

One of my favorite things that she ever wrote was a re-wording of the beatitudes directed toward agnostics.

 

It goes like this:

Blessed are the agnostics.

Blessed are they who doubt. Those who aren’t sure, who can still be surprised.

Blessed are they who are spiritually impoverished and therefore not so certain about everything that they no longer take in new information.

Blessed are they for whom death is not an abstraction.

Blessed are they who have buried their loved ones, for whom tears could fill an ocean. Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like.

Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried.

Blessed are they who don’t have the luxury of taking things for granted anymore.

Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else.

Blessed are those who “still aren’t over it yet.”

Blessed are those who mourn. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are those who no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex workers and the night-shift street sweepers.

Blessed are the forgotten. Blessed are the closeted.

Blessed are the unemployed, the unimpressive, the underrepresented.

Blessed are the wrongly accused, the ones who never catch a break, the ones for whom life is hard, for Jesus chose to surround himself with people like them.

Blessed are those without documentation. Blessed are the ones without lobbyists.

Blessed are foster kids and special-ed kids and every other kid who just wants to feel safe and loved.

Blessed are those who make terrible business decisions for the sake of people.

Blessed are the kids who step between the bullies and the weak. Blessed are they who hear that they are forgiven.

Blessed is everyone who has ever forgiven me when I didn’t deserve it.

Blessed are the merciful, for they totally get it.

 

Nadia Bolz-Weber really does get it.

 

Because somewhere in those beatitudes, we find ourselves.

 

Blessed are all of us—the agnostics, struggling to believe.

 

Blessed are all of us—who struggle at times, and doubt at times, and stumble and fall at times.

 

Blessed are all of us—who need to touch the wounds and hear the voice.

 

Blessed are us who truly long for those moments when we too can exclaim, “My Lord and my God!”

 

Blessed are us here at St. Stephen’s, who stand up and speak out and who don’t let the bureaucrats and the sycophants and the Bishop wanna-be’s get the upper hand.

 

Blessed are us here at St. Stephen’s who speak out again and again, even despite the opposition from our state government and even from our very own Church, for reconciliation for our gay, lesbian, bisexual  and transgender people in this state and in this diocese who have been mis-treated and disrespected and excluded and treated as less-than for decades by the government and church leaders.  

 

Blessed are we who really do believe but don’t see now.

 

Because we will see.

 

We will know.

 

We will see God, whom we will see face-to-face.

 

Blessed are us.

 

The Kingdom of Heaven is truly ours.