Passion/Palm Sunday

March 24, 2013

Luke 19.28-40; Luke 22.14-23.56

 
+ I’m sure I’ve shared this with you in the past. But growing up as a kid of Scandinavian descent, there were not a lot of popular role models for us.  For me, as a kid who read a lot of comic books, I had two choices.

Hagar the Horrible. And the Mighty Thor. So, as you probably guessed, I was a huge fan of Thor comics.

Thor, as you might know, was the Nordic god of thunder. With his mighty hammer Mjolnir, he fought and battled ice giants, fire demons and Valkyries and even his sneaky, evil brother Loki. Loki always reminded me of one of my own brothers.

Thor in a sense embodied what a god should be. He was strong. He was mighty. He even looked like a god with his winged helmet, his flowing blond hair and that giant hammer, which created peals of thunder.

But even Thor had his bad moments. He could be moody. He could be depressed. He fell in love and was often romantically led astray by some human female.  And he had a rocky relationship with his father, the sky-god, Odin—the one-eyed uber-god of Valhalla.

 Still, Thor is what we expect of a god.  From our Christians perspective, Thor is everything Jesus is not. But then—and here’s the rub—Thor was not really ever one of us. Yes, he sort of seemed like us—he had emotions.  He got angry or sad. But he was different than us. He was superhuman. He was like any other superhero—like Superman.  And he would never have dreamed to condescend to mere human stature. And certainly he never would die like us.

 I think Jesus’ disciples expected Jesus as the Messiah to be like a Thor-figure. They expected their Messiah to be one who would come in with a sword (or maybe a hammer) in one hand and thunder in the other and would smite the enemies of their world. The Jesus we encounter in first Gospel reading for today, the Jesus who enters Jerusalem amid shouts of glory, was somewhat closer to that ideal. Here was their Messiah—loved and lauded, victorious in his triumphant entry into the holy city of Jerusalem.  It all seemed to finally come together for them in that moment. Now, finally, Jesus would triumph.

 But the Jesus we find at the end of our Gospels for today was not anything like that ideal.  The Jesus we find at the end of our Gospel reading is as unlike Thor and the Apostle’s understanding of the Messiah as we can get. This beaten, tortured, murdered man could not possibly be God.

 But that’s the twist here. What we really see on that cross—that twisted, tortured human being—is something more familiar than any superhero god or apocalyptic messiah. What we see on that cross is us. It is us tortured It is us murdered. It is us defeated.  

 And when we see it, all we can do is turn away.  We turn away because we don’t want to look into that mirror. We don’t want to see the painful reflection we find there.

 But we must. We must look at it. We must go through this coming Holy Week and carry the weight we have been given. We must wash the feet, and be betrayed and carry the cross and die and descend into the darkest depths of all this week will bring.

 Because what happens next Sunday is also us as well. What happens on Easter is our victory in the face of defeat. What happens on Easter is our life in triumph over death. With Jesus’ resurrection is our resurrection as well.

 But that’s then, that’s next Sunday. For now, we are here. We are here, at the beginning of this week. We are at this manic phase in our emotional and spiritual roller coaster ride.  We’ve been here caught in this low emotional place before in our lives—sometimes many times. And we will probably be here again. And we, like Jesus, are given a choice. We can turn away from all of this. We can refuse to look in that mirror. We can run in the opposite direction. We can hope in our superhero god and messiah to come and rescue us and take all this bad stuff away.  

 Or we can trudge forward. We can look long and hard into that battered bleeding face of our God, who stares back with eyes very much like our eyes. We can accept the folly of this strange faith we have chosen to be baptized into.  

 Because in doing so—as we know from our previous journeys on this manic ride—this is the ultimate victory. Love over hatred. Forgiveness over resentment. Positive over negative. Light over dark. Life over death.  This is what awaits us when we stare into that brutalized face, into those pain-weary eyes, and looking deeply, we see our own reflections staring back.

 So, let us go forward. Let us follow Jesus as we must.    Let us shoulder the cross on our lacerated backs. Let us lift that weight onto our tired and weary legs And let us walk—slowly and surely—through the darkness of this coming week toward the glorious dawning light that awaits us next Sunday.

 

5 Lent

March 17, 2013

John 12.1-8

+ I am in the habit of often asking people a very intimate question. No, it’s not THAT kind of intimate question. But it  is a weird, intimate question.  I am in the habit of asking people about what their funeral plans are. Many of you have heard me ask you that question.  Yes, I know. It’s morbid. But, as I’ve learned over the years, you can a lot from a person by the plans they’ve made for themselves following their death. And as a priest, I always encourage people to think about this issue, discuss it with one’s loved ones, write it down and make definite plans. And of course, I always encourage to make sure those instructions are on file here at the church.

When my father died, he had everything planned to the detail. The funeral service, the hymns, the gravestone was set up and inscribed at the cemetery.  He had even purchased the urn in which his ashes were buried.

Now, my dad died very suddenly, and was certainly not ill before he died. But he was just one of those people who was always prepared. He was like the quintessential Boy Scout.  And I can tell you, because he was, it made my job much easier when the time came for making those final arrangements for him.

Certainly, I have my own arrangements already made. They’re in my in my will, and I express my wishes quite often to people. I am of the frame of mind that believes that the body, whether just buried or cremated, should be treated with a certain level of respect and care and should be properly buried or interred in some way.

In today’s Gospel, we find Mary doing something that sort of encompasses this view of the sacredness of the body.  We find her coming before Jesus and doing a very unusual thing: she anoints his feet. And Jesus, even more strangely, reprimands Judas by saying that Mary is doing nothing more than anointing his body for burial.

As we near Holy Week—that final week of Jesus’ life before the cross—our thoughts are now turning more and more to these “last things.”  Yes, it’s all starting to sound a little morbid. And no doubt, poor Judas was also thinking Jesus was getting weirdly morbid himself.  But, Jesus is reminding us, yet again, that even the simplest acts of devotion have deeper meaning and are meant to put us in mind of what is about to ultimately happen.

Mary sees in Jesus something even his disciples don’t—yet.  She sees—and maybe doesn’t fully comprehend, though she certainly intuitively guesses—that Jesus, in his flesh and blood, is different.  There is something holy and complete about him.  She might not go so far as to say that he is God in the flesh, good Jew that she is, but certainly she is leaning in that direction.

For us, as Christians who do believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, we know that issues of the flesh are important. Because of the incarnation, because, in Jesus’ flesh and blood, we have come to know God, we know that our flesh is also special.  If God would deign to come among us and take on flesh like our flesh, then our flesh must not be such an inherently horrible thing.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is from one of the early Church Father, John of Damascus.  John wrote a truly remarkable thing while defending the veneration of icons—or holy images of Jesus and the saints. There was a time in the church when people felt there should be no images of Jesus because it violated the commandment to make no graven images.  John wrote in defense of icons:

“I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring that matter which works for my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God."

Why so many Christians view matter or the flesh as such a horrible, sinful thing baffles me.  And there are Christians who believe that. There are Christians who believe that these bodies of ours are sinful and should be treated as wild, uncontrollable things that must be mastered and disciplined and ultimately defeated.

Why we as Christians get so caught up with this awful ridiculous view that the flesh is this awful, sin-filled thing we carry around is frustrating for me. In fact, the belief that the flesh is bad and the spirit all-good is a very early church heresy, that was condemned by the Christian Church.

We have all known Christians who do think that flesh is a horrible, sinful thing—who think all we should do is concentrate only and the spiritual.  For those of us in the know—even for those of who have suffered from physical illness and suffering ourselves in this flesh—we know that the flesh and the spirit truly are connected.  We cannot separate the two while we are still alive and walking on the earth.

Still, I do always love the quote from one of my personal heroes, the Jesuit priest and paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from his incredible book The Phenomenon of Man:

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

I think we could just as easily say that we are spiritual beings having a material experience.  I, of course, don’t see that as a downplaying our flesh.  Rather, I see it as truly the spirit making the material holy.  Our flesh is sacred because Jesus makes it sacred.  He made it sacred by becoming flesh, by showing us in his incarnation—in his in-flesh-ment, shall we say—that these are bodies are good.

And if we have trouble remembering that our flesh is sacred, that God in Jesus cares about us not just spiritually but physically, we have no further place to look that what we do here at this altar, in the Eucharist.  Here, we find Jesus, in the same flesh and blood that Mary herself anoints in today’s Gospel reading.  Here, he comes among us and feeds our flesh, as well as our spirits.  And, we can even go so far as to say that by feeding our flesh, he becomes one with us physically as well as spiritually.  

This is part of the reason why I think that even following our death we should honor what remains of this flesh because it is sacred.  We shouldn’t just toss it away or frivolously dole it out or in any other way disrespect it.  We should be respectful to our ashes and those of our loved ones, for truly God has worked through the flesh of all the people we have known in our lives and, by doing so, has made them each uniquely holy and special.

Next week, on Palm Sunday, we will begin our liturgy with joy and end it on a solemn note as we head into Holy Week.  Holy Week is a time for us to be thinking about these last things—yes, our spiritual last things, but also our physical.  As we make our way through Holy Week, we will see Jesus as he endures physically and spiritually, from the a spirit so wracked with pain that he sweats blood, to the terror and torment of being tortured, whipped and nailed to a cross.  As we journey through these last days of Lent, let us do so pondering how God has worked through our flesh and the flesh of our loved ones.

Yes, we are spiritual beings enjoying a physical experience.  We are spiritual beings  enjoying a pilgrimage through matter. Let us rejoice in these material experience.

Let us be grateful for all the joys we have received through this matter in which we dwell and experience each other.   And let this joy be the anointment for our flesh as we ponder our own end and the wonderful new beginning that starts with that end.  

 

4 Lent

Laetare Sunday
March 10, 2013

Psalm 32; Luke 15.22-24.

+ I know this might sound absolutely nuts to you. Especially with me standing before you dressed in pink (or “dusty rose” as my liturgics professor from seminary called it). But here it is.

I am a bit of a rebel. I know. It sounds crazy. I should—you would think—be a part of the so-called “Establishment.”  I am, after all, a priest in the Episcopal Church, a vanguard (at least at one point in our collective history) of  White Anglo-Saxon Protestant normalcy. Few of you have seen me wear anything other than my clerical blacks and collar (or cassock).

But I really am a rebel. And have always been. My poor mother can tell you horror stories. I know a few of our Vestry members and Wardens can tell you stories of my rebelliousness.

Growing up I was very headstrong.  If I didn’t want to do something I did not do it, no matter what anyone said.

But at age 13, an event happened that completely turned my world upside down.  At thirteen—in fact, it will be 30 years this Mary—this nominally Lutheran boy decided to become a Catholic priest. Now, I know this isn’t your average form of rebellion.  But for me, becoming Catholic and becoming a priest was the ultimate form of rebellion.

While people my age experimented with different kinds of music, so did I. Of couse, I LOVEd alternative music very much—and in 1983, New Wave was by far THE thing in my life. I was also getting pretty enraptured by Gregorian chant or 18^th century hymns,  While other teenagers were maybe tempted try some, shall we say, exotic-smelling herbs, I was getting high (spiritually high) from incense.  And while my friends were going to concerts, I sat enraptured during Mass.

But my rebellion was probably hardest on my poor parents.  I think there were times when they might have thought it was easier having a kid who actually did go the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll road, rather than the celibacy-incense-and-high-Mass route.  I don’t think they understood what I was doing, or why.  It was a kind of rebellion that simply boggled their (and most of my peers’) minds. 

Now I am not saying that I was the Prodigal Son to my parents. I’m not because in my rebellion I left and never went back.  I stand here before you, thirty years later exactly what I thought I would be—a priest.

But turning away from what my parents’ held dear, turning away from generations of good Protestant upbringing, was not easy.  There were times when I realize that the route I chose was very different than that of all of my friends who went on to have so-called “normal” lives and “normal” jobs.  And there were many times when it was downright hard.  There moments when I looked at their faith and the life I could’ve had and thought: maybe it would have been easier. And there were times when I rebelled against my vocation (before I was ordained of course).

I think, to some extent that is why I can relate so well to the story of the Prodigal Son.  We have all been down that road of rebellion and have found that, sometimes, it is a lonely road.  Sometimes we do find ourselves lying there, hungry and lonely and thinking about what might have been.   That’s just the consequence of being a rebel.  And if you think I might not be rebellious in some ways even now—if you don’t see me as counter-cultural in some way, then I don’t think you’re really looking. Let’s face it, people: I stand before you, a vegetarian, Anglo-Catholic Episcopal priest and poet, dressed in pink vestments, who lives in a house decorated in mid-century modern wonder. Name me one other person like that in the entire world. And if you can, I really want to meet that person! 

In our Gospel for today, we find the Prodigal Son having some big goals and some pretty major hopes and dreams.  First and foremost, he wants what a lot of us in our society want and dream about: money. He also seems a bit bored by his current life.  He is biting at the bit to get out and see the world. He wants the exact opposite of what he has.  And that’s a difficult place to be.  He only realizes after he has shucked all of that and has felt real hunger and real loneliness what the ultimate price of that loss is.

God does occasionally lead us down roads that are lonely.  God does occasionally lead us down roads that take us far from our loved ones.  God does lead us down roads of open rebellion sometimes.  And sometimes God allows us to travel down roads that lead us away from God. But every time we recognize our loneliness and we turn around and find God again, we are welcomed back with open arms and complete and total love.

Just this past week, in a class I taught, I had a student who got very upset with me over the fact that I am not despairing over my atheist friends’ lack of faith. As you know, I LOVE atheists. I think they’re cool, and true rebels to some extent. Talk about what might’ve been if I hadn’t followed the road I did.  There but for the grace of the God I might not be believing in, go I.

This student, who was red-faced in his frustration, said to me, “you should be crying over your atheist friends. They have turned their backs on Christ. They are lost.”

I, in return, said what I always say when confronted with such thinking: “No,” I said (and you’ve hear me say this a million times, I know). “Just because one turns their back on Christ, does not mean Christ ever turns his back on them. And as long as Christ does not turn his back, I have no reason to despair those friends.”

And I believe that, firmly and without doubt.

The Good Shepherd will always find his lost sheep. And will bring them back.  And this comes from one of his sometimes-lost sheep.

There’s another aspect to the story of the prodigal son that is not mentioned in the parable.  The prodigal has experienced much in his journey away.  

There is a wonderful poem by one of my all-time favorite poets, Elizabeth Bishop, called “The Prodigal,” which explores a moment in the life of the Prodigal Son as he wallows about in pig sty [I will include the entire poems at the end of this post]  It puts a wonderful perspective to the depths the Prodigal Son falls.

As the Prodigal turns back and returns to his father’s house, we know one thing: that the prodigal son is not the same son he was when we left his father.  The life he returns to is not the same exact life he left.  He has returned to his father truly humbled, truly contrite, truly turned around.

And that’s the story for us as well.  In my life I have come to appreciate my family’s ancestral Protestant faith, to some extent.  And I have come to appreciate and respect the lives my friends and peers have chosen for themselves.  It’s not mine, but I respect it and appreciate it.  I no longer see my life as a rebellion against those things.  I now see my life has an embracing of those things—a healthy respect and appreciation of those things.  But those things, I realize now, are not right for me.  They are not me.   This—for better or for worse—is me. And I am happy with it and for it.

God at no point expects us to say the same throughout our lives.  Our faith in God should never be the same either.  In that spiritual wandering we do sometimes, we can always return to what we knew, but we know that we always come back a little different, a little more mature, a little more grown-up.  No matter how old we are.

We know that in returning, changed as we might be by life and all that life throws at us, we are always welcomed with open arms.  We know that we are welcomed by our God with complete and total love.  And we know that, lost as we might be sometimes, we will always be found.  And in that finding, we are not the only ones rejoicing.  God too is rejoicing in our being found.

So, let us this Laetare Sunday—this Sunday in which we are called to rejoice—do just that.  Let us rejoice in who we are.  Let us rejoice in our rebelliousness, and in our turning back to what we rebelled against.  Let us rejoice in our being lost, and in our being found.  Let us rejoice especially in the fact that no matter how lonely we might be in our wanderings, in the end, we are always, without fail, embraced with an embrace that will never end. 

A Prodgical

 By Elizabeth Bishop

The brown enormous odor he lived by
was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare--
even to the sow that always ate her young--
till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind the two-by-fours),
the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red
the burning puddles seemed to reassure.
And then he thought he almost might endure
his exile yet another year or more.

But evenings the first star came to warn.
The farmer whom he worked for came at dark
to shut the cows and horses in the barn
beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,
with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,
safe and companionable as in the Ark.
The pigs stuck out their little feet and snored.
The lantern--like the sun, going away--
laid on the mud a pacing aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
touching him. But it took him a long time
finally to make up his mind to go home.

2 Lent

February 24, 2013

Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27.10-18; Luke 13.22-35

+ Last Sunday, of course, I revealed to all of you a fairly substantial change I made in my life. Last week I revealed that I had returned once again to being a vegetarian. Personally, I thought such a revelation was kind of a small thing. I mean, honestly, who would care? Right?

Uh-uh. Not so.

I had a full range of responses regarding it, from some wonderful words of encouragement to some very concerned words. And some people were just afraid that inviting me over for supper might be a difficult thing (not so, I think they found out).

For my part, this whole vegetarian decision has been wonderful. I have been greatly enjoying it. I have been realizing I haven’t really been enjoying the food I’ve been eating for some time. And the food I have been eating since making my decision has been wonderful. So, I’ve been greatly enjoying it.

However, one of my favorite responses this week was from a priest friend of mine who guessed, incorrectly, that I would not be preaching on our Genesis reading for this morning. I was confused when she brought it up to me. Why wouldn’t I be preaching on the Genesis reading?

“Well,” my friend said, “now that you’re a vegetarian, I couldn’t imagine you’d be comfortable preaching about those poor animals being cut up by Abram and laid about.”

Au contraire! I actually love the reading from Genesis this morning. I think, despite its violence, it’s an incredible story.   So, let’s take a look at the reading from Genesis.

In it, we find God making a covenant with Abram (soon to be called Abraham).  God commands Abram to sacrifice these different animals, to cut them in half and to separate them.  I’ll admit: yes, very strange. But, for me anyway,  the really strange part of the reading is that smoking fire pot and the flaming torch passing between the pieces. That really captured my imagination.

If we don’t know the back story—if we don’t understand the meaning of the cut animals—then the story makes little sense.  It’s just another gruesome, violent story from the Hebrew Scriptures.

But if we examine what covenant is all about, then the story starts taking on a new meaning. I love the stories about God and humans making covenants with each other.  I once made a point of studying all the stories in the scripture in which a covenant between God ad human was established. There is something so meaningful and so relational in doing such things.

Covenant of course is not a word we hear used often anymore. In fact, none of us use it except when talking about religious things. But a covenant is very important in the scriptures. A covenant is a binding agreement. And when one enters into a covenant with God, essentially that bound agreement is truly bound. There’s no unbinding it.

In the days of Abram, when one made a covenant with someone, it was common practice for that person entering the agreement to cut up an animal and then to stand in the middle of the cut-up pieces. Essentially what they were saying by doing so was: “let this happen to me if I break our covenant.”

What we find happening in our reading this morning is that it is not Abram standing in the midst of those cut-up animals. Rather it is God.  God is saying to Abram that if I ever break this covenant with you let happen to me what has happened to these animals. God is saying to Abram: “My Word is good. If this relationship between you and I breaks down it is not I who breaks the covenant.”

So, you can understand why I like this reading and how I think we can’t easily go around this image of cut-up animals.

Then, we come to our Gospel reading.  The part of this story that caught me was how the Pharisees came to tell Jesus that he was in danger from Herod.  Or rather, I should say, I was taken with Jesus’ reaction to this news. He is not concerned at all over Herod or even the danger that he himself is in. His concern rather  is for Jerusalem—for the city which, no doubt, was in sight. His concern is for the city he is about to enter and in which he knows he will meet his death. As he does so, Jesus does something at this moment that really is amazing. He laments.  He uses words similar to those found in the lamenting psalms. He uses poetry.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

It is beautiful. And it is powerful.  It’s incredible poetry.  

Knowing what he knew—knowing that in Jerusalem he will be betrayed and murdered—Jesus laments. He knows that what essentially is going to happen in Jerusalem is what happened while Abram slept. He, instead of the animals, will essentially cut up. He will be sacrificed. He will bleed.

And there, on the cross, in Jerusalem, God will once again stand in the midst of a shattered body—the Body of Jesus—and say to God’s people: “See my Word is good. I am remaining faithful to the covenant we have made.”

We, here on Sunday morning, see it again. It is reenacted for us here at the altar. Here we break this bread—this Body of Jesus—this sacrificial lamb. And here, in the midst of that broken body, God again says to us again and again, “See, my Word is good. I am faithful to covenant you and I have made.”

And in the midst of this realization, we too recite poetry.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the word have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

But the image doesn’t end there either. If we only look at this broken body as separate, as other, than it has no real meaning for us. But if we look at that broken body as our own broken bodies and the broken bodies of those around us, especially recognizing our brokenness in this season of Lent, we see the light in the midst of that brokenness. We see that light dancing in that brokenness. We see that light of God shining through even us—broken and shattered as we are. Unless we see that light in our brokenness, this season of Lent is not truly meaningful.  We will be stuck only in the brokenness and we don’t see the renewed covenant God has made with us.

In the shattered, cut-open pieces of our lives, God, as a bright light passes back and forth.  In that “deep and terrifying darkness” God appears to us as a light. All we have to do is recognize God in that midst of that darkness.

That is the meaning of Lent for us. That is the wonderful recognition we see, revealed in our very midst, here at this altar and here in our very lives.

It simply amazes me at times. It amazes how God works in these incredible ways. It amazes me that God, in the midst of my own brokenness, my own fractured being, allows the light to shine through. And not just a glimmer here and there. But a light that dances, that weaves and circles back and forth.

So, let us, in this Lenten season, see that light dancing in our own brokenness. Let us see God working in us and through us. Let us hear God saying to us, in brokenness, “My Word is good.” In doing so, in seeing that light and hearing those words, all we can sometimes do is open our mouths and let them the poems within us sing out to our God.

 

 

 

 

Wednesday after 1 Lent

February 20, 2013

St. Mark's Lutheran Church
Fargo

Luke 21.34-22.6

+ As some of you know, I am huge film buff. I watch some very bizarre films occasionally. But a film that I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with, is the film The Last Temptation of Christ. Some of you might have remembered when it came out in 1988—25 years ago.  It was a very controversial film. There were protests by people who never actually saw the film. There were debates about its merits.  Everybody was talking about it at the time.

It was directed by Martin Scorsese, one of the great living film directors. And it was based on a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, the great Greek novelist who also wrote Zorba the Greek.

The book and film are controversial for the fact that, while on the cross, Jesus is tempted by a very angelic, sweet looking Satan. It is a story of “what could’ve been.” What could’ve happened if Jesus came down off the cross, which he could’ve done at any time in those three hours he was nailed there. What would’ve happened? How would his life have been difference? How would our lives be different?

Of course, the film explores coming down off the cross, getting married, having children, dying an old man, while Christianity still goes on. But probably the most interesting relationship, for me anyway, is that between Judas and Jesus.

In this story, Judas is conniving, yes. Judas betrays Jesus, yes. But Judas, played by none other than Harvey Keitel in the film, is not the person we have made him into in our popular understanding of Judas. In The Last Temptation, he becomes almost a hero. He only betrays Jesus because Jesus commands him to betray him. In fact, when Jesus actually does that commanding, Judas demands from Jesus whether he would do it if he were Judas’ place.

Jesus replies, "No, I couldn’t. That’s why God gave me the easier job [dying on the cross]."
We find ourselves sympathizing with Judas in a way none of us probably have before.

The point of all of this is actually quite simple: Judas is essential to the story of the cross. Without Judas, there would have been no opportunity for Jesus to die as he did.

Now, whether we agree with Kazantzakis’ interpretation of these events, Judas is important to the life (and death of Jesus), and for us as well. I think the reason we all find Judas to be so compelling when we hear about Jesus’ betrayal and death is that I think we see a bit of ourselves in Judas. As quickly as we say, no, I would never have done that,  Judas himself, in our place, would’ve said the same thing.

The fact is, we, like Judas, betray Jesus all the time. We betray him whenever we act in an unChristlike manner. When we no longer embody Christ, when we act arrogant, and self-centered, when we nag and try to control things, when we coerce and try to get our own ways, we are acting like Judas , and we are betraying Jesus. We are hindering  Christ’s Kingdom in our midst.  And we’re all guilty of this.

I certainly have been guilty of this in my life. And because I have, I have found myself not only relating to Judas, but, dare I say, sympathizing with him?

But whenever this might happen, whenever we do find ourselves acting like Judas, whenever we do find ourselves acting in such a unChristlike manner, we do have the ability to do something Judas obviously did not.

Judas responded to his betrayal with despair. He went off and hung himself. We don’t have to do that. For us, as Christians, that isn’t an option. Despair is not an option for us who follow Jesus, even if we have betrayed him some awful way. We know, full well, that, even despite our betrayals, Jesus still loves and will forgive us.

Judas, overcome by the Devil, as we hear in tonight’s Gospel reading, simply refuses to believe that. For him, he has betrayed Jesus and Jesus now is dead, or about to died, depending on when in the chronology of events Judas actually hangs himself.  There is, for Judas in that moment at the tree, no opportunity for reconciliation. The love of Jesus seems, to Judas, as dead as Jesus seems dead.

But even then, the story does not necessarily have to end on this dark note. No story regarding Jesus ends on a dark note.

As some of you know, certainly those who attend the Holy Saturday service at St. Stephen’s during Holy Week, know that one of my favorite topics to preach on and ponder in my own spiritual life is the so-called Harrowing of Hell, or we probably know it better, the belief that Jesus descended to hell. This descent to hell is referenced in 1 Peter 3:19–20 and we, of course, profess it in the Apostle’s Creed. Many early theologians of the church certainly believed in it and even Martin Luther, in 1533 at Torgau, preached a sermon about Jesus’ descent to hell.

Gary Wills, a contemporary Roman Catholic New Testament theologian, once wrote about his belief that as Christ descend into hell, the first person he met—and no doubt forgave—was none other than Judas himself.

I love that scenerio. I love it because, as someone who has been in the place of Judas, I want to know that, even though I have betrayed Jesus, even though I have turned away from him, even though I have given him the kiss that betrays him to those who will harm him, no matter where I go, no matter to what depths of hell that betrayal will send me, even there, he will come to me and find me and forgive me and welcome me.

I think without that final note of forgiveness, the story of Judas is not finished. His hanging from a tree, his burial in the potter’s field his silver helped to buy, is not the end of the Judas story. The end of the Judas story is that moment when he is embraced by Jesus and forgiven. And in that moment, the Judas story truly becomes our story as well.

There is no simple black and white in any of our lives. None of us are purely and fully bad, nor are any of us purely and fully good.

It is easy for us to demonize Judas. It is easy to imagine the end of his story hanging from that tree.  But that is not seeing with the eyes of Jesus. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means, seeing that final moment, that final reunion in that dark place to which Jesus descends. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means going even there and seeing redemption.

That, I think, is a great message for this Lenten season. No matter where we are, no matter to what ends of despair we might find ourselves, even there, Jesus will find us and embrace and lead us back.  

 

I’m going to close tonight with a poem. I don’t normally like to inflict poetry on people. Luckily it’s not one of my own poems, so…it won’t be so bad. This poem comes from one of my all-time favorite contemporary American poets—a poet who actually lived here in Fargo very briefly for two or three summers in the 1960s, while he taught at Moorhead State.

His name is James Wright. He died in 1980. Truly one of our best American poets. And he wrote a poem about Judas that, I think, sums up our thoughts on Judas very nicely:

Saint Judas

by James Wright

When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

 

1 Lent

February 17, 2013

Luke 4.1-13

+ So, I really do need to know: did you all really miss me while I was gone on vacation? Well, you know I missed you all, of course. In fact, last Sunday I was going through some major St. Stephen’s withdrawal.  I don’t know if that makes a good priest or a sick priest.

But, for me anyway, it’s very good to be back. Vacation was a good thing this year, but it was also a bit eye-opening, shall we say. I can’t help but be reflective a bit on vacation. And this one was particularly reflective. Because my hosts had to work a few of the days I was there, I had some time to myself. I was able to borrow their convertible sports car and tooled around the coast by myself a bit.  Doing so, I found myself looking back over this past year since vacation last year and there were some major changes in my life. There have also been some major set-backs this past year, not the least of which was of course some pretty big health issues. I of course suffered a car accident, as well as a  concussion from a fall, and my ulcer. I realized that I am still dealing physically with all of them.  Well, I’m not in my thirties anymore, so of course that makes me think.

As I was thinking and as I was pondering the upcoming season of Lent, I made a pretty major decision in my life. No, it’s not anything major that will affect St. Stephen’s or anything like that. Rather, it’s more of an admission. Or, shall I say, a confession. It’s Lent, after all. My confession is just this:

I have become—a vegetarian.

I actually should say, I have become a vegetarian once again. I have been a vegetarian on-and-off many times over the past twenty years. In my mid-twenties, I was a very strict vegetarian for five years. Five very good years. But with my health issues this past year and realizing that I needed to make a fairly substantial change in my life—well, there it is—vegetarianism. I think it’s especially good to make such a change at Lent.

Our Gospel reading for today is especially a good one for making a change like this.  In our Gospel reading for today, we find Jesus telling the Devil, in no uncertain terms,

“One does not live by bread alone”

He also says some other very important things. “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” and “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

At first glance, we might find these confessions a big vague—at least in relation to our regular day-to-day life.  But, there is, of course, so much wisdom in what Jesus is telling the Devil.  

Do not live by bread alone.

One of the things I think most of us find so hard to grasp—especially those of us from a more Protestant background—is this conception of fasting and abstaining from certain foods.  This season of Lent is the prime time for us to look long and hard at our eating practices. I am not necessarily encouraging everyone to be a vegetarian. But I am, of course, encouraging all of us too look at our eating habits and think about them. For most of us, myself certainly included, we simply eat without giving a second thought to what we’re eating and why.

Certainly we have doctors who tell us this is one of the leading causes of a good many of our health problems in this country.  When we realize how high the rate of obesity and related illnesses are, we know that food is a major factor in our lives and in regard to our health and longevity.

In the face of that, this quote from Jesus resonates.  In the desert, the devil tempts him.  Jesus has been fasting and is no doubt extremely hungry. Someone has to be pretty hungry to tempted by stones. The devil seems to say to him, You have the power.  Turn these stones into bread and you can eat. And Jesus certainly could have done just that.

But Jesus knew that this was the time for him to abstain from food.  This was the time to remind himself that what gave him sustenance was not the bread that goes into his physical body, but rather what sustained him spiritually.

And that is important for us. It is important to look at what eat physically. It is important to remind ourselves what sustains us spiritually.

When we look at issues like obesity and eating disorders, we realize that there is often a psychological reason for our abuse of food.  We do eat for comfort.  We do eat physically thinking that it will sustain us emotionally.  And when we do, the fact is, eating loses its purpose.  Eating for sustenance. Eating for health. Those are thrown to the wayside. Eating becomes a way for us to sooth ourselves, to focus attention back on ourselves.

A time of fasting is a time for us to break that habit and to nudge ourselves into realizing that what should be sustaining us spiritually is the spiritual food we receive from Jesus.  It is important to ask ourselves, what really gives us comfort? Whatever it is, that is what we should be clinging to when we need to comfort.  Yes, we need physical food. But we also need more than physical food. We over-depend to some extent on our physical food. We eat more food than what we need more often than not.  And we eat sometimes without being mindful of those who are not able to eat.

While we eat more than we need to sustain us, there are those who do not have enough food to sustain themselves.  And it is important for us, as followers of Jesus, as followers who follow Jesus out into that desert, to be mindful of those who are not able to turn rocks into bread, who do not have an abundance of food from a supermarket with shelves and shelves of food, or from refrigerator that overflows with food.  There are people who do not have the luxury of eating to soothe themselves, to comfort themselves with food.

For us, if we have to use physical food to help us emotionally, something is amiss. Something is wrong. The challenge become finding that balance. And that balance is found in our spiritual food. It is found in our spiritual sustenance.

We fast during Lent to show that we are not using food for personal, self-centered gain. We fast to show that we really depend on spiritual nourishment, and that without spiritual nourishment, we are not whole.  We fast during Lent also to remind ourselves of those for whom fasting would be a luxury.

I once had a relative that used to fast every time she really wanted something important from God.  Fasting has nothing to do what we do.  We cannot manipulate God and make God do what we want—by fasting or by anything else we can do or say.  None of us are in the position to do that.  And if we could, even if God could be manipulated, I’m not certain we would truly want to serve a God that can be manipulated.

Fasting is about turning away from ourselves for a while, and focusing on God and others.  That is the gist of what we hear in today’s Gospel reading. Self-denial, fasting, giving up something for the sake of our spiritual growth ultimately to help us draw closer to God and one another.

Now, I have to be clear, self-denial is not self-hatred. It is not a time to beat ourselves up for some failure we have done. It is not a time to feel bad ourselves or to be ashamed.  God, who loves us so fully and completely, doesn’t want us to do that.

Self-denial is about turning from self-idolatry. It is about tuning away from thinking we are the centers of our universe. It is about turning away from that belief that it is all about the all-mighty ME. And we all do that. We all build ourselves up and make ourselves into something we aren’t at times

Lent is a time for us to realize that we must turn from an inordinate love of self and refocus our love on God and on others.  This is what Lent is really about.

“You shall not live by bread alone,” Jesus tells the Devil—and us.

Rather, let us feed on that Bread from heaven. That bread we share here at this altar. And that bread we carry with us into the world. Carrying that Bread into the world, let us share it with others in love.  Let us share it, and in sharing it, let us fulfilled and made whole.

 

 

Sylvia Plath, on the 50th anniversary of her death

Today is the 50^th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death. Some people over the years have asked why I have fostered such a weird obsession with her. The reason is very simple: she was the first poet that ever “clicked” with me.  And the poem that caused that “click” was “The Moon and the Yew Tree.”I first read it in high school and I can remember like it was yesterday the first time I read it.  It was a poem that I truly “got.” Later, I wrote my Master’s thesis on how that poem was not only Plath’s transitional poem, but a poem that “allowed” me to write in many ways. This poem, for many years, became the goal of all my own poems. For me, it was, in many ways, the poetic ideal.

While Plath’s poetic career has been overshadowed by a weird mythology, not to mention the scandal and gossip of her private life, the fact remains: she was an incredible poet who wrote poems I still find myself gasping over at moments. Her skill, her vision, her genius are evident in those poems.

I will admit that, for most part, I have outgrown Plath. As contemporary poets go, Elizabeth Bishop’s influence has far outshone Plath’s for me personally. Still, I can’t help but feel a certain need for homage for Plath on this day.  And as I re-read “The Moon and the Yew Tree” today, I am still just as amazed by it as the first time I read it some twenty-seven years ago.

The Moon and the Yew Tree

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky --
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness -
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence.