Pentecost Sunday: A Commission to Join in New Creation

Fr. Morgan Reed “Pentecost Sunday: A Commission to Join in New Creation”

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Genesis 11:1-9

Acts 2:1-21

Introduction

         Good morning friends. Welcome to Pentecost Sunday. Jesus has ascended and on this day we commemorate His sending the Holy Spirit to the church to continue his work. While the kids aren’t in CGS, I want to start doing something new. I want to invite the kids down for a children’s sermon. Kids, come on down.

Kids’ Sermon

         How many of you enjoy playing in the sand? Me too! What do you like doing in sandboxes? If we were to try to build a sandbox together, what kinds of things would we need? [Let the kids answer]. If we just had a pile of wood and pile of bags of sand, could we do it? What would happen if I poured the sand on the ground with nothing to hold it in? What would happen if I put boards up with out nailing them together and put sand in it? What happens if I just put a bunch of bags of sand on top of each other? Would that make a sandbox? NO! That’s right, we need a plan and the right tools to get things done. It’s not enough to think hard about it, or to just get the supplies. We need someone with a plan and the right tools to help us build it. We’ll have to cut the boards with a saw, hammer or screw together those boards with drills and screws or hammers and nails. We need a sharp knife to open the sandbags and someone who is really strong to dump all the sand into the sandbox. What happens after we build it? We can finally play! We fill it with toys, we spend time in it. We enjoy it.

         In today’s passages we heard about how people made a mess of things in the world. But the thing is, even when we make a mess of things, God still loves us. He made us and he wants us to ask him for help and to enjoy his goodness in this world. I would even say that the joy of play is learning the reality of heaven, but when people want to do things their own way and not listen to God, they start to break things and make everything more chaotic and complicated. In our Genesis reading today, people became separated from one another, and they separated themselves from God. They forgot how to play in the goodness of God’s presence.

         Pentecost is where the Holy Spirit, God himself, comes to make things new for all people. He will reorder the chaos they’ve made and reconstruct the things we have broken so we can play in His presence and have a full life with God once again. He is the one who has all the supplies, the knowledge, the wisdom, the tools and the power to bring us back to himself through Jesus. Today, remember that God loves you and has given his Holy Spirit to help rebuild what is broken. Thanks for listening kids. You can head back.

As I look at our texts with all of us, let me pray for us:

“In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

1. Hubris, destruction, and the need for a new history — Genesis 11

         We read today from Genesis chapter 11. It’s a strange story which shows humanity’s recapitulation of the ancestral sin: refusing God’s goodness to opt for our own autonomy and authority. The peoples who were born from the descendants of Noah migrated east and wanted to build a city. As Alexei pointed out in his sermon last week, there weren’t the abundance of rocks that there had been where they came from, so they innovated and figured out how to make bricks and mortar with what they had. They say “Let’s build ourselves a city, have a tower with its height in the sky, and make a name for ourselves.”[1]

         God comes down to visit the city. In contrast to the book of Acts today where God comes down to indwell a people, God here comes down to look at it. In his mercy, so that they did not create a scenario which they could not come back from, he scatters the people and creates confusion by dividing their languages. This whole narrative is a critique of Babylonian culture and human pride. Babylon viewed themselves as the height and pinnacle of human civilization. It also served as a warning to Israel in the future that the divisions, wars, and animosity towards strangers and foreign nations were a result of a choice to reject the good life with God in creation. In this narrative there is no small token of hope. There is no fig leaf, no mark to keep one safe, no rainbow. This is the first judgment narrative in Genesis with no hope of blessing. History has to be rewritten. And this is why the narrative begins in chapter 12 with introducing us to God’s calling of Abraham.

         The whole narrative hinges on a wordplay. The people say “Let us make bricks” (נִלְבְּנָה) in verse 7. Despite their ingenuity and hubris, God says “let us confuse” (וְנָבְלָה) their languages. The group in Babel saw themselves as “the whole earth” and now they’d be scattered through the whole earth. God’s purposes will be accomplished despite the arrogance and defiance of proud people. Abraham begins a new history which gives humanity hope that all things will be put right again. Since the time of Abraham, the descendants of Abraham have been looking for that servant who would come and restore these cracked icons and destroy the dividing wall between heaven and earth and between our many earthly divisions caused by fear and pride.

2. God comes to dwell and put the two parts of creation (Heaven and earth), back together again. Shalom— Acts 2

         Jesus is the hope humanity was looking for and his work is continuing through the Holy Spirit in the church in Acts 2 and beyond. God indwells a people in the Holy Spirit and begins reversing not just the curse of Babel, but the effects of the ancestral sin of humanity. I was reading a book this week on the counter-world that we long for in the Psalms, and the author points out some of the brokenness that seems so commonly a part of the human story.

         Living with the mindset of scarcity, there is not enough out there for all of us, we have not done enough, we are not enough, and all of this heightens our anxiety. And once we are anxious and fearful, we are met with messages that keep us in this state of alert and people can sell us narratives and products we think we need to keep ourselves safer, healthier, more loved. Our anxieties then push us to control more of our lives, control our situations, control the people around us. In a world of scarcity and anxiety it is not hard to discover that greed becomes the means to keep us safe. We need more and more to keep up appearances, to make us feel important, to help us feel safe. The author says, “Thus the ideology of anxious scarcity generates artificial needs, so that unthinkable luxuries are quickly redefined as necessities...”[2]

         Our greed gives us the illusion that we are self-sufficient.  In our self-deluded self-sufficiency we think we can make it on our own or we fear rivals and competitors and say “I have to be self-sufficient”. God told Israel that once they got into the land and had eaten their fill and built fine houses, they should not exalt themselves and think that their wealth came by their own hand.[3] God makes no sense and has no relevance to those bound to a high-control, greedy, self-sufficient, and a frenetically-paced world. This leads us to denial. Buying that advertised razor and having a better shave won’t give me the perfect life that commercial promises any more than re-posting that one thing on social media will satisfy my rage and longing for safety and prosperity. But we do it anyways. And then the denial finally begins to give way to despair where our world feels like the bottom has dropped out of it and we are incapable of care and hospitality, unable to keep thoughtful attention and an even temper, and without hope. We cope with the hopelessness with a cultivated amnesia, addiction or other coping strategies to forget the hurt we have experienced. This produces only disconnection: disconnection from God, others, and even ourselves. Ultimately the disconnected world becomes a world without norms “because without God and without tradition and without common good, everything is possible.”[4]

         Whereas God visited Babel to look at it and then thwart their plans, Jesus is God’s visitation of the world to inhabit it, re-create it, and bring unity to heaven and earth — the two realms of creation. The book of Acts continues the narrative of the things Jesus did. The work of Jesus was continuing in a people who were filled with God’s very presence as the new temple for the Holy Spirit to fill. The point of Pentecost is not the injection of energy into a people, it is God’s coming to dwell with his new covenant people — a new Sinai. It is a fulfillment of promises long ago. What started with Abraham in Genesis 12 has found its fulfillment in God’s homecoming.

         Pentecost launches a worldwide mission to put the world right again. You and I are filled with the Holy Spirit and part of this mission. Pentecost Sunday always feels like a re-missioning. What brokenness have you encountered this week? What disappointments? In any given week there are a number of reminders that the world is not as it should be. And in the midst of these places, the Spirit is working. Have we asked him what he wants to do in us? Have we sat with others in community to discern the work of the Spirit?

Conclusion

         God has come, the Spirit is here. The church has what she needs to become the mature body of Christ and to continue the works and teachings of Jesus in a world bound to anxiety, greed, self-sufficiency, denial, amnesia, and disconnection. The fractures of humanity are being healed in the church as the place of new creation. In our own strength, innovation, and pride, we will only sow chaos into creation, but God’s Spirit has been poured out into the church to bring about new creation. As God rebuilds, we come to know the profound joy of the work of the Spirit in the church and as we know this joy, we come to learn the stuff of heaven where we learn to play again where God dwells.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, Master Carpenter of Nazareth, on the Cross through wood and nails you wrought our full salvation: Wield well your tools in this, your workshop, that we who come to you rough-hewn may be fashioned into a truer beauty by your hand; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, world without end.  Amen.

[1]                Genesis 11:4.

[2]                Walter Brueggemann, From Whom No Secrets are Hid: Introducing the Psalms, 10-11.

[3]                Deut. 8:12-17.

[4]                Walter Brueggemann, From Whom No Secrets are Hid: Introducing the Psalms, 12-14.

Ascension Day: Earth and Heaven Shall Be One

Fr. Morgan Reed "Ascension Day: Earth and Heaven Shall Be One"

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Acts 1:1-11

Introduction

‍ ‍Good evening friends. Thank you for coming tonight to the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord. The book of Acts is bookended by references to the kingdom of God. In Acts 1:3, Luke summarizes Jesus’ resurrection ministry of presenting himself alive, appearing to the disciples over the course of 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. Then at the end of the Book of Acts, Paul preaches in Rome and lived there two years. In verses 30-31, it says that he welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God...” Everything that happens in the book of Acts then is bound up in this theme of God’s kingdom.

         Everything in the world looked the same, but now was imbued with new creation significance. When Jesus ascends on high, he brings his humanity — what is earthly — into the abode of God. And he does this to bring the presence of God — what is heavenly — back into the abode of man by the Spirit so that heaven and earth are one. As we look at the Ascension in the book of Acts, let me pray for us.

         In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our redeemer. Amen.

The Kingdom is being restored (cf. Dan 7), but not as you’d think

         St. Luke opens the book of Acts with an address to a person, or at least a symbolic person, named Theophilus, meaning “Lover of God.” This is part two of the story of Jesus which really begins at the ascension. Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. Up to this point everyone had been baptized by John the Baptist’s baptism. They had joined in this movement of repentance and joined Jesus as Messiah to see God’s kingdom on earth. Jesus had made these mysterious promises about the promised Holy Spirit. This is the one who would indwell them and empower to live out God’s kingdom as this new covenant Israel under the Kingship of Jesus as the Lord’s Messiah.

         In verse 6 we get to the heart of a very important question. The disciples ask “Is this now the time you will restore the kingdom?” They are thinking back to the prophecies in the Scripture about God riding in victoriously through the desert as in Isaiah 40 or the spirit of God rushing back into a restored temple in Jerusalem as in the book of Ezekiel. Or famously, the passage in Daniel 7 where a human, a Son of Man, rides in on the clouds and sits next to the Ancient of Days and reigns from God’s throne over the pagan nations who are symbolized by 4 beasts. They want an earthly king to destroy all the oppressors and usher in a reign of justice and peace where God and His Messiah reign from heaven’s throne.

         Jesus doesn’t say “no, that will happen later.” His answer is more nuanced. He tells them essentially not to worry about the when because it is the wrong question. Also, they shouldn’t worry about the contours of how the kingdom will look. That is God’s business. It will eventually envelop everything, but it starts small — Remember the whole mustard seed parable. His answer to them is that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon them. Then after this happens they will be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. What this means is that the kingdom is here, and it is going to look different than they thought; it will start smaller than expected, but also more cosmic than they understood. The Spirit will fill them as the new temple and not a building. From that temple, the work of God will be made known as the nations encounter the place where heaven meets earth, which is the body of Christ, the Church!

         Heaven is not just a place far off; it is the unseen realm of God, the “age to come” that overlaps and interlocks with this present evil age. Jesus, being fully God, enters into the present evil age, taking on the fullness of humanity to defeat sin and death. Then as he ascends to heaven in a resurrected body, he assumes, takes up, creation into the abode of God. This is the good news of the kingdom! The image of Daniel 7 is prominent in the ascension as Jesus’ ascension proclaims to the world that Jesus reigns over all earthly authorities. And from his reign on high he gives the Spirit to the Church. Now, God’s abode comes to bear on creation’s abode. Earth had been taken up into heaven and heaven is brought to earth; yes, the kingdom is here, but not as we would expect.

         The disciples are called to be Spirit-filled witnesses to this kingdom. Their transformed lives, and those of their households and neighbors are the testimony that Jesus is King and his kingdom has come. This reminds me of a quote from C.S. Lewis in his Letters to Malcolm, “When the wind roars I don't just hear the roar; I "hear the wind." ...The distinction ought to become, and sometimes is, impossible; to receive it and to recognise its divine source are a single experience. This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore. Gratitude exclaims, very properly: "How good of God to give me this." Adoration says: "What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!"”[1] It is because of this quote that the word coruscation entered my vocabulary, some instantiation of something that points me back to a cause or source. I will often joke about coffee being a coruscation of divine love.

         And while I’m partially kidding, coffee actually serves as an excellent example. Coffee is a cherry, with two halves that make up its pit. It’s grown slowly at high elevation and once it is harvested, it goes through a process of stripping the fruit from the green pit. The easy way is to soak it in water, loosen the fruit, and then wash the fruit off. This is called wet-washing. It is cheap and fast, but you lose flavor. The other way is to dry it out in the sun then rake the fruits so that the fruit loosens and falls off the pits as its raked. This is the sun-dried method. It tastes much better, but is more labor intensive. Some beans have a natural deformity, called a peaberry, where instead of two halves of the pit, all the mass is concentrated into one little pit. This is about 5% of the beans. These are collected separately and roasted for sale as “peaberry” coffee. It is much more expensive. All that to say, I was with my old manager years ago and he got this special sun-dried, peaberry coffee from the mountains of costa rica. He brewed us a french press of it and I could smell strong floral notes and when I tasted it, the finish tasted like eating blueberries. What I was tasting wasn’t just coffee, I was sitting in the shade of a mountain jungle of Costa Rica. My senses were experiencing the land this beautiful bean came from. Gratitude says “Thank you Lord for the cup of coffee”. Adoration would say, “What is the nature of the soil, weather, surrounding plants, and countryside to produce this delicious cup of satisfaction and olfactory euphoria?” Gratitude for the kingdom is good, but adoration for the Spirit’s work is even better.

         When the Holy Spirit is at work in the church we are not just experiencing a moment of divine power, we being reoriented to heaven breaking into our realm. Jesus reigns from on high and the Holy Spirit is the same one who makes us to reign with him and who brings that heavenly reign to bear on this broken earth. In the sweet moments of forgiveness and grace, of healing and restoration, of peace and joy, of the serenity of God’s presence in trial, the Spirit is reorienting us to the kingship of Jesus on earth where death is defeated and sin is no more.  

Conclusion

         As we celebrate our Lord’s ascension, we are called to be witnesses of the kingdom. This doesn’t mean we are taking up worldly weapons to bring about an earthly empire. Christ will ultimately be all in all and through all, but we shouldn’t concern ourselves with when that will happen. Jesus has ascended and the kingdom is here in ways we don’t often anticipate and that if we’d pay attention to, would point us to how his presence will ultimately fill this earth. Our call now is to be witnesses of the kingdom who name brokenness and grace. We need to be truth-tellers who can accurately and carefully diagnose brokenness and who can simultaneously point out the grace of God and how the kingdom of God is coming to bear upon our present reality by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has ascended; he has brought creation into the abode of God and has brought the divine realm into creation’s abode. The good news of the Ascension is that Jesus reigns, the kingdom is here, and earth and heaven are being made one.

Let us pray:

O heavenly Father, you have filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

[1]                Letter 17.

Easter 6: A Healthy Community for Sharing Jesus

“Compassion” by Joy Gonzales — © Made Seen. Used with permission. https://www.madeseen.com/

Fr. Morgan Reed "Easter 6: A Healthy Community for Sharing Jesus"

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I Peter 3:8-18

Introduction

Good morning friends. I’m Fr. Morgan Reed, the Vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. This week I heard a podcast interview about the history of the church growth movement.[1] The father of the church growth movement was a gentleman named Donald McGavran who had worked out church growing strategies on the mission field in India. He wanted to help churches grow mature disciples and multiply so that an area would be saturated with the gospel. He brought these principles back to the US to instruct missionaries, but the principles made their way into American protestantism which had an unintended consequence. Before 1970 there were less than 20 mega churches with a Sunday attendance of 2000 or more. By 2010, there were nearly 1600 megachurches with at least 2000 in attendance in the US. McGavran’s principles had been taken over and used to grow large churches rather than multiplying church. As churches have grown larger, have they made more disciples? The proof of effective discipleship for him would not have been in attendance, buildings, and cash, but in holiness and a church’s ability to multiply itself. How are the members of a church loving one another, how are they becoming more faithful men and women, moms and dads, neighbors, colleagues? How is their testimony of Christ’s work evident in the community of faith and in their individual witness in their lives? The proof of health is in the community, and that is precisely what St. Peter is driving at in our passage this morning.

         The church is to proclaim the goodness of Christ in its communal life and in the individual testimonies of each of its members. It is not something new, but it is something to be reminded of. As we look at 1 Peter, let me pray for us:

“In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer, Amen.”

8-12 Love well — A rule of life to practice witness to Christ

         As a reminder, St. Peter is writing this letter to Christians scattered throughout Asia Minor. These Christians have changed how they live because they now follow Jesus as Lord and King. They have put their pagan ways behind them and now do not look like their neighbors anymore. Because of their difference from the broader culture , they have become a persecuted minority. Peter is addresses the church and their conduct.

         They should have a unity of spirit. This is the idea of a like-mindedness. We are not working against one another but for the good of one another. We don’t have to agree on every matter, but I think about it as a fundamental coherence in how we approach each other and the various ministries of the church. This is why, when people have good ideas, I have them work through a ministry plan form. I want them to think about how their idea applies to the unique charisms of this church so that we work together rather apart.

         He calls them to be sympathetic. When Peter uses sympathy, the picture is of someone entering into someone’s suffering with them in a way that they need for healing. It reminds me of when my son and I went fossil hunting at Calvert Cliffs state park. It was low tide and the swamp was exposed. I looked up and my son had gotten his feet stuck in the swamp and I could see his water shoes floating on top. I responded quickly and jumped in after him only to realize that what looked like solid ground was very silty mud that acted like quicksand and I went in about thigh high. I went flat onto my belly and army crawled over to him to help. It was a good lesson in what to do with quicksand and it took me jumping into the muck with him to show him the way out. The church needs to be a place where people are willing to jump into the muck of life with us and help bring us back to the one who can bring us out of it. Christ is God incarnate who jumped into the mess of humanity to bring us back to God. We continue Christ’s work of suffering with someone, to help someone knows that Jesus sees them, and we continually bring them to the one who can show them the way forward.

         The church should have brotherly love. Not every person will be equally safe or even easy to be around. That is the hard reality of being people on a healing process. But, I heard a phrase somewhere that I appreciate called “exhale friends”. These are the few people that when you’re in their presence you feel like you can breathe a deep exhale because your nervous system is calm and you know you can be vulnerable with them because they have space for you. Whether or not you have people like that in the church, aim to be that person for others. Aim to be an exhale friend. Similar to this kind of love, Peter also tells them to be compassionate with one another. The idea of compassion here reflects the ways lovingkindness is used of God’s love for his people in the Old Testament. There is a way in which we become aware of God’s love for us and give this love to others.

         Finally, he tells them to be humble-minded. Someone can’t wish or think themselves into humility: “I’m really trying hard to be humble today.” This is a characteristic of our Lord who had an accurate understanding of himself and submitted himself to his father’s will. Humility is a right estimation of oneself in the context of the will of God. It isn’t self-abasement or self-hatred. It is a recognition of who we are, our proclivities, gifts, responsibilities, and our limits as we look for Jesus’ presence in the daily things he calls us to. A humble person doesn’t live out of insecurity, but by being securely rooted in their baptismal identity, with a rightly esteemed self-understanding of their place in God’s kingdom.

         The church is to practice living out its witness of the kingdom of Jesus in community. That practice looks like growing in like-minded purpose, jumping into the muck with your brothers and sisters, becoming an exhale friend, loving as God does, and rightly esteeming ourselves and knowing our human limits in the kingdom of God. The reason he spends time on this is because this is what will hold the church together when a culture that is antithetical to the goodness of Jesus turns against the church. This will keep the church from imploding, fighting back with the depraved weapons of the world, or completely assimilating to the culture around it.

13-16 Do what is good and speak hope with gentleness — Ensuring an enduring witness to Christ

The church is called to practice these things well so that they become the presence of Jesus for the world around them. As I mentioned a few weeks back from the early Epistle to Diognetus, Christians were those who got married and had babies like their neighbors. But unlike their neighbors, they did not leave their unwanted babies exposed to the elements to die. They shared their tables in hospitality like their neighbors. But unlike their neighbors, they did not treat their wives as property or a commodity to be traded. Christians practice doing and becoming what is ultimately good in the church so that we can hold out what is ultimately good for the neighbors around us. In this way we follow what St. Peter says “but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

         I remember growing up with videos in youth group of a guy who would stand on a platform and ask people if they’d stolen or if they’d lied. And then it was a bit of a “gotcha” moment where he’d say “well see, according to the Bible you’re a liar and a thief, if you’ve broken these commandments, you’ve done them all. You’re a sinner.” Then he’d move them to their need for Jesus to get out of hell, but not until he’s made them think about how bad they are. I’m not saying God cannot use that, but I want to move far away from that kind of 4-spiritual-laws, tract carrying, revivalist type of evangelism. It lacks connection, gentleness and reverence. At the same time, we must speak the truth because Christ is indeed Lord and we do not want to sacrifice the kingdom of God on the altar of insecurity, fearing that we might offend someone by telling them exactly what they need.

         As we create rhythms of being with God and being with others, practice the virtues that St. Peter listed out in the beginning of chapter 3, learn to listen well and hold space for others, then listen to the Holy Spirit and point them to Jesus, we gain the tools we need to help others outside the community of the church see Jesus. As we coach sports teams, deepen friendships with coworkers, and meet neighbors, we have the opportunities to listen to peoples’ desires, fears, and hopes. These are gifts to honor and to bless, and we should point out the things others are longing for and show them the goodness of Jesus in those places, just like St. Paul did in our Acts 17 reading today. This kind of evangelism is kind, humanizing, takes a long time, and enters into peoples’ mess with them to show them the one who can deliver them.

Conclusion

         To sum up, St. Peter has been helping the churches see how they live out life in Christ in community in the face of a culture that opposes them. They shouldn’t assimilate to it or fight it with the violence and abuse which it has experienced. Instead, they entrust justice to God either in this age or the age to come because, as Peter quoted from Psalm 34, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. Because we can entrust ourselves to a good and faithful creator, we are called as a church to grow in like-minded purpose, jump into the muck with our brothers and sisters, become exhale friends, love others as God does, and rightly esteem ourselves while knowing our human limits. We practice in the church what we live out in the world. The goodness of Jesus is presented to others through the testimonies of us who know Christ and who can hold others’ stories with gentleness and curiosity. Let’s bless people’s good desires and simultaneously hold out for them the goodness of what God ultimately wants to bring them into.

Let us pray:

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace to take to heart the grave dangers we are in through our many divisions. Deliver your Church from all enmity and prejudice, and everything that hinders us from godly union. As there is one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so make us all to be of one heart and of one mind, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and love, that with one voice we may give you praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God in everlasting glory. Amen.

[1]https://careynieuwhof.com/episode-802/

Easter 5: Long for Jesus and Live With Integrity

Fr. Morgan Reed "Easter 5: Long for Jesus and Live With Integrity"

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I Peter 2:1-12

CONTENT

Introduction:

         Good morning everyone. I’m Fr. Morgan Reed, the Vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. On this fifth Sunday of Easter we are back in first Peter where we spent some time about 3 weeks ago. As a reminder, these are converts to Christianity. Some think that they are Gentiles who may have converted first to Judaism, and then to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. They do not fit the surrounding culture they are in. These are small churches spread throughout Asia Minor as a Diaspora community in different cities. Peter writes from Rome, which he calls Babylon, as an exile to fellow exiles who are longing for home with Jesus. As they face trial and persecution, Peter writes to encourage them using two different images to help them keep focused on their life in Christ. One has to do with their longings and desires. The other has to do with their identity. What he wants them to do is to crave Christ like a newborn craves milk, to be built on Christ as the foundation of a new temple, and then to hold out the goodness of Christ by how they live. Like these churches, we are also called to desire Jesus’ presence and work and to rest in, and root ourselves in, our baptismal identity as the people of God in the midst of this chaotic world.

         As we look at 1 Peter 2, let me pray for us. “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.”

I. Crave Christ like a spiritual newborn (1-3) — And don’t get distracted with evil.

         The Apostle Peter reminds these Christians of the strange gift of their suffering and persecution, that it has a purifying effect and has a way of making them more keenly aware of the kingdom of God. Desiring Jesus like a newborn desires milk means that we don’t have time for evil and giving in to inordinate desires. In the first few verses of chapter two he tells them to get rid of malice, hatred, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Sit with that for a moment. What if the church really did that!!! I remember when I was a young intern at a church, the first part of every staff meeting would be spent reading the comment cards from the Sunday before. There were comment cards in the pews for people to give feedback...and my how they did. Sometimes it was useful: the music was too loud, or there was a misspelled word on the slide. But sometimes it became someone’s opportunity to unload their grievances: I hate the color of the carpet, someone’s child was distracting, the pastor’s tie was ugly... Aside from being an intern, I was also a referee in the church basketball league. I remember reading one from a guy who was one of the basketball coaches and I thought “who cares what this guy has to say? I have to toss him out of every single game because he has angry fits, swears loudly when he doesn’t get his way, and treats everyone horribly.” I’m not saying I had the right response, but that was my 19-year-old gut reaction. Looking back, I think that man had a lot of undealt with trauma and his family suffered as a result. But the bifurcated nature of his spirituality and actual life revealed the disorder of this man’s internal life. He cared about small details on a Sunday but seemed to neglect his own inner healing.

         If this man had a desire for Jesus as his guiding and foundational desire, I would have expected him to care about the impression he made on his team, the referees, the parents because his longing would be for them to know the Jesus he knows. Desire is good, sometimes we act on it the wrong way, or fulfill it in disordered ways. Sometimes our disordered ways keep us from looking at the primary brokenness that needs healing. We are all going to have missteps, but we still need to spend time with Jesus rightly order our desires around the guiding principle of knowing the healing presence of Jesus. Winning at all costs is not a healthy guiding principle, and it was probably a good indicator of something in his story he needed to work on. 

         There has to be a fundamental integration between the worship we offer and the lives we live. One commentator says, “When a church yearns for spiritual nourishment, that church will not be involved in bitter disputes with hypocritical showings or deceitful communications.”[1] The church isn’t a place to look nice for nice people, say nice things so people think we’re nice and to say things in really nice-sounding ways so that people are placated with hollow promises and empty platitudes. This is a place to be undone together and fully admit how much we need Jesus. This is a family who points us back to recalibrating us toward virtue and blessing what our desires show us of our longing for Jesus. As we pray for one another by name, hold space for each other’s journey of healing with Jesus, speak truth to one another in love, and listen well, we become the kind of authentic and vulnerable community where people long for Jesus together like an infant desires its mother’s milk. 

II. Ground yourself in what the church is and what it is becoming (4-10) — Jesus is the most important stone in the temple

         Our desire for Christ and to put away malice, slander and evil, comes from who we are in Christ. St. Peter now changes his metaphor from desiring milk, to being made into a temple. In verses 4-10 he is using the language of the Old Testament — which was their Bible— to encourage them in trial.[2] When you read Isaiah 43 or Hosea 2, you’re hearing the prophets look forward to a time when God would restore the nation of Israel, be her king, and her temple would be rebuilt. Peter is understanding these passages to say that all these exiles in their little gatherings are part of something much greater. It would have been a discouraging thing to be a persecuted minority because of ethical decisions they made to follow Jesus. They did these things, though, because they are part of something greater. God was rebuilding the temple, but rather than stones, it is made of people. Jesus is the great cornerstone. And not only is God making a new temple of people, it is not just in Israel. This temple is all over the world. These Christians in their little communities belong to God and to one another all over the Empire. The followers of Jesus in Bithynia are meaningfully connected to the believers in Rome and in Antioch. Just as today the Christians of this church are connected to Christians around the world.

         Over the last 5-6 years I have loved watching God build us all into part of this temple together. None of us would have known each other except that this church was coming into being. I am more of who I was made to be in Christ because I have sat with you in my office, because I have served with you on a Sunday, shared a meal with you, because I’ve played board games with your kids, hiked with you, etc. We are more ourselves as Christ has made us to be because of our connection one to another. It’s not all happy and positive. Sometimes I’ve made missteps I’ve needed to apologize for and I know you have as well. This is part of being a family in christ together that pushes each other closer to who we are meant to be in Christ.

         And this is not limited to our local community. We are actually part of something bigger. Under our Bishop’s care, we are part of a diocese with other congregations in VA, NC, MD, and DC. Our Diocese is part of a Province that has fellowship with other provinces around the world. We have been supporting missionaries who work in the Middle East to translate the Bible and resource church planting. These missionaries work both in our Diocese and in a newly formed Province that serves Christians around the world who come from a Muslim background. This connects our little mission with God’s work amongst a minority ethnic community in the Middle East. I would love at some point to connect us with these believers face to face so that we can pray for them and picture them in our minds. What an encouragement to them as they experience persecution to know that this church is connected to them and what they are doing. God is building a temple that transcends geopolitical boundaries, political alliances, subcultures, and ethnic divisions.

         We are constituted into what Israel is meant to be in the Jewish Messiah. Being built into a spiritual temple, we, the people, are the place where the nations encounter the space where heaven and earth meet because we are a people living under the reign of Christ, being newly created and transformed by his acts of love and healing. Stories of all kinds of divine image-bearers, being restored by Jesus, comprise a compelling vision that people need. This is why we are here together. We are figuring out how to live our different vocations out together: Teachers, florists, military personnel, administrators, chiefs-of-staff, philanthropists, entrepeneurs, musicians, artists, household managers, single, married, divorced, widowed, with kids, without kids, young old, from all over the world, with different ethno-linguistic backgrounds.....all of us trying to discover Jesus together in this little enclave of the Kingdom of God. And as we are discovering Jesus we proclaim in word and deed the mighty acts of the one who called us out of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved son.

Conclusion

         St. Peter is encouraging the church to continue in the hard work of holding up the goodness of Jesus in face of being persecuted. To do this well they must long for Jesus like a newborn longs for milk. To do this is to put away the evil and slander that distracts people from knowing Christ. Then he roots the individual church in the larger picture of God’s plan. This picture reminds them that what they are doing matters, even when things get hard. They are being made into a temple across the world on the foundation stone of Jesus for God to inhabit so that people experience the work of heaven in our earthly lives. We are a people constituted for the praises of God’s mighty deeds, which involves the hard work of daily conversion, noticing Jesus, and naming our need for his grace and help. The encouragement for all of us this morning is to be this kind of community who longs for Jesus and lives with integrity, and to be the kind of community who roots one another in our identity as the temple of God, from which stories of God’s mighty acts paint a compelling picture of the goodness of Jesus for the nations and neighborhoods around us.

Let’s pray:

Gracious God and most merciful Father, you have granted us the rich and precious jewel of your holy Word: Assist us with your Spirit, that the same Word may be written in our hearts to our everlasting comfort, to reform us, to renew us according to your own image, to build us up and edify us into the perfect dwelling place of your Christ, sanctifying and increasing in us all heavenly virtues; grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake.  Amen.

[1]                Scot McKnight, NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 104.

[2]                Exod 19:6; Isa 43; Hos 2:23

4th Sunday of Easter: The Good Shepherd and Abundant Life

Fr. Morgan Reed "4th Sunday of Easter: The Good Shepherd and Abundant Life"

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John 10:1-10

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning dear friends. I’m Fr. Morgan Reed, the Vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. The fourth Sunday of Easter is called Good Shepherd Sunday where we focus on Christ’s good shepherding, listening to his voice, and following him into abundant life. 

         I was thinking back this week to 2008. Ashley and I had just gotten married, she had finished school, and we packed up a moving truck to drive across the country and move into a new apartment in downtown Chicago. We made it through California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, and then made it half-way into Iowa. That year the  Mississippi river flooded and halfway through Iowa we started seeing more and more towns under water along the highway. We came to a sign that said I-80 closed ahead. About half of Iowa was closed along I-80 and this was before Google Maps existed. We were tired and so close! We pulled off the highway and went to a truck stop to buy another paper map and figure out our way. As we sat down and were figuring it out, a trucker came by and said, “you all can follow me across the Illinois line.” It was so kind, but also risky. We drove through very narrow farm roads through corn fields behind this truck and it felt like it would never end! Finally there was a break in the corn fields and we finally saw a main road again. We crossed into Illinois and were only a few hours from Chicago. I’m so grateful to that kind trucker! He was a reminder that God was watching over us.

         Even in getting to Chicago, we had to start over making friends and connections, we had no car, no jobs, and we were processing a lot as a couple who was still in their first year of marriage. We may not know why God’s taking us along certain paths, and we may wonder if we’re ever going to get there, but Jesus is our good shepherd who will lead us and guide us into pleasant places of peace and abundance even when the journey involves dark valleys. Perhaps you can remember times when it felt like a risk to trust Jesus. Maybe you’re on the cusp of a moment like that right now.

         We do go through deserts, trackless wastelands, and deep dark valleys — but we do not go it alone. We go through it with the one who knows the way out. There are many voices of false shepherds who will prey on our fears of scarcity. They may even promise shortcuts through the valley of deep darkness, but they do not have what is best for us in mind.

         Jesus, our Good Shepherd, calls us into abundant grazing lands, but it takes recognizing his voice and following him into the place of abundance rather than scarcity. As we look at our Gospel passage this morning, let me pray for us. “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock, and our redeemer. Amen.”

A. 1-5 Hear and recognize the voice of the shepherd

         Jesus tells a parable in verses 1-5 about his sheep who are in a sheep pen. Hearing his voice, they follow him. This follows the story of Jesus healing the blind man in chapter 9. The blind man, like Israel, was looking for the tender shepherding of God. But just like Ezekiel 34, the people were encountering religious leaders who only wanted to consume them and exploit them. But Jesus is the Messiah and Good Shepherd.

          Our lectionary helps us see Jesus’s shepherding here through the lens of Psalm 23. He is the one who creates the scenario of safety in which his sheep can lie down in the grass beside running water. Hebrew writers in the Old Testament didn’t make the body/soul distinction that we find in later hellenism. Rather than “he restores my soul,” the idea is “he brings me back.” In those times that we are prone to wander, to believe the lies that people have told us, to turn from God in our desire for self-sufficiency, when we wonder where we have gone wrong and if there is ever a way back, Jesus will tenderly bring us back. He suffered and died for us, and has risen to conquer death and sin for us. He has entered the dark valleys with us to show us the way out. By the resurrection, the dark valleys become the places of redemption where we become more acutely aware of our need for the shepherd’s presence.

         I would love for this to be a place and community that points people to the good shepherd. As people are formed in worship together, do Formation Groups, enjoy cookouts together, and rest with one another, I would love for this community to be a place of safety where you exhale as you walk in on a Sunday and your nervous system can calm down.

         Listen for Jesus’s voice in prayer, scripture, in the testimony of the ancient church, the sacraments, and in the spirit’s work in this fellowship. His voice is heard through others who help us see the goodness of Jesus’s shepherding and what he’s bringing us into. Knowing Christ’s voice means being able to cut through the distractions and distortions of the voices of thieves and robbers: pushing back against theological error and heresy, naming, working through, and rejecting the lies that those close to us have cursed us with, and resisting the temptation to shift the blame when an acute sense of guilt might otherwise produce works of repentance. Jesus wants to bring us back to abundant grazing lands and we need to listen for his voice.

B. 6-10 Follow the shepherd into the pastureland and find abundant life

         After hearing his voice, we follow him. In following him, we will come into the green pastures of abundant life. 

         In verses 6-10 Jesus explains the parable, which his followers don’t seem to understand. Jesus contrasts himself with robbers who exploit and do not do what is best for the sheep. They steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus says “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

         As we think about abundant life, we should consider what life looks like when we follow Jesus into good pasturelands. I watched this show once where cattle ranchers had to take their cows on a perilous journey between one of two pastures depending on the time of year and where grass is available. They had to get a herd to go across rivers, through valleys, along beaches, and ward off predators to get the cows to the places of pasture. The journey is far from fun...in fact it is unsettling and sometimes terrifying for the cows. The rancher’s presence is necessary for defense, comfort, and guidance.

         We are always in need of Jesus’ defense, comfort, and guidance as he brings us from pastureland to pastureland. Walking with Jesus as a good shepherd means that we will encounter hardships. And those hardships become the opportunities to build a deeper trust in the care of our Lord. The alternation of Jesus’s presence through the dark valleys and into the green pastures is a portrait of a growing follower of Jesus.

         Following Jesus as our good shepherd also encourages us to live in the abundance of the pasture rather than the scarcity of our grass patch. There is a word in this for pastors, but I think it is also a word for all of us because it is a disposition for any vocation. There are pastors and leaders who make decisions based on keeping specific people, especially if they give a lot of money. Prayerful vision and discernment aren’t driving the ship— instead they’re worried about staying in their little patch of grass rather than risking to see what pasture might be there for them if they’d just let Jesus lead.

         There is another scarcity lie people fall into. When someone says “I’m not going to be like my parent” or “I’m not going to be a manager like my old manager” or something similar. This limits us from the unique ways we are made and the gifts we’ve been given. Instead, we can begin with using some stories of harm experienced under a family member or boss and begin to name what happened accurately. Share those stories with safe people: a therapist, spiritual director, priest, or trusted friend. As you name accurately what happened, and Jesus begins to heal your wounds, you will begin to be more fully yourself to be the parent or manager, baseball coach, or whatever else you are called to be. This is abundance.

         Following the good shepherd into abundance will give us the courage to risk doing what is right because our fears are rightly aligned. We risk engaging in productive conflict because we fear someone not knowing the goodness of abundant life in Christ more than we fear losing a relationship. If we are parents, our longing is for our children to experience the goodness of God even if it means getting upset with us. Sometimes we have to put up healthy boundaries “Your hands were made for kindness, not hitting”. Sometimes we have to give consequences “If you break this expensive thing then I’ll be garnishing your allowance for some time.” And while we hold space for our children’s anger, we continue to help them understand that we love them when they’re angry and they’re receiving consequences. They’re anger and our fear of breaking the relationship cannot be the guiding principle of parenting. We won’t do it perfectly, but when we mess up, will we metabolize our guilt and embarrassment and risk apologizing to repair the relationship? We engage in abundance when we give thought and intention to how our children experience the world and us. We have to risk spending time to do our own internal work because what our kids experience of us will inform what they experience of Jesus. There is too much at stake to just coast along unreflectively in our brokenness.

         We all need the healing and abundant life that is beyond the borders of our little grass patch, but we often don’t want to leave our dwindling grass patch because we don’t see the pasture and we don’t know how to get there. Trust the Good Shepherd, listen for his voice, and follow him.

Conclusion

         On this Good Shepherd Sunday, some of us are in the middle of two pastures: wandering in trackless waste lands or dark and frightening valleys. Some of us might be doing the hard work of healing and we are on the edge of the valley where the sun is starting to rise on the meadows in front of us. Some of us are holding way too tightly to our little patch of grass and afraid to go on the journey with Jesus because we don’t know what challenges await us. Remember that Jesus is the good shepherd who wants to lead us to abundant life. Listen for his call in the scripture, in his saints, in the places of encountering his presence thoughtfully each day, in the sacraments, and in the voices that speak hard truths for our welfare — even if we don’t like the tone of that voice. Don’t be deceived by thieves who want to exploit and consume us — nice voices whispering platitudes that will ultimately distort our loves and ways of understanding the world and the God who made it — and make us less human. And when we hear the voice of Jesus, let’s follow him into the places that are hard because where he is taking us is a place of rest that we long for so deeply.

Let’s pray: “O God, whose Son Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd of your people: Grant that, when we hear his voice, we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Second Sunday of Easter: How We Build Matters

Fr. Morgan Reed "Second Sunday of Easter: How We Build Matters"

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John 20:19-31

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning dear friends. Happy second week of Easter.

         Just this last week I was working from my office when I heard a knock on the window. One of the preschoolers, who is friends with our son, wanted to tell me something. I opened the window and she said, “Morgan, we are building a track to run on but we need sticks to make the track.” She had only found one, and she knew that my son and I like to hike, so she assumed I would know where to find sticks. I encouraged her to look under the trees. She found some sticks, set up her race track, and she and her friends ran and enjoyed running in the beautiful Springtime sun. Some days I really long for the times where my greatest challenge in a day would be where to find sticks to make an imaginary racetrack. But as time goes on, life gets more complex, we are given more responsibility, and we have to make harder decisions. If that weren’t challenging enough, we live in a world on this side of Eden, where people continue to walk along ancient, broken pathways, apart from God, cloaked in darkness and deception, looking for a way home.

         It’s into this brokenness that Jesus enters our humanity to deliver us from sin and death. This deliverance wasn’t just for the wealthy who could buy their way out of trouble, or the intellectually superior who could rationalize their way out or the darkness. This gospel of king Jesus came to every man, woman and child; slave and free; Jew and Gentile. But as people began to follow this resurrected Lord, it began to put them on a collision course with the ways their families, subcultures, neighborhoods, and nations were impacted and influenced by the kingdom of darkness. There is a risk of exclusion for the follower of Jesus as they hold out what is ultimately good in the face of deception. This was the experience of the early Christians to whom the letter of 1 Peter is addressed. What this letter shows us is that God is building a new family in Christ for a new hope where trials become a strange gift that burns away and purifies our distractions, clarifies our mission, and helps us hold out the goodness of Christ for the world. As we look at the beginning of this letter, let me pray for us.

         “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, Amen.”

1. The resurrected Christ has begun a new family of hope (3-5).

         The resurrected Christ has established a new family. Peter had been set up as a leader among the apostles, an ambassador of Jesus for the church. He served for a time in Jerusalem, but this letter is written a few decades later, probably just prior to Nero’s persecutions which would bring Peter to his death in the mid-60s. The church is about 30 years old at this point and Peter commissioned this letter to be written down and circulated by his ministry partner, Silvanus. He writes from Rome, which identifies with Babylon of old. He is in a pagan  city, part of a pagan empire and is aware that he is a pilgrim and not at home. He writes as an exile to others who are exiled, whom he calls the Diaspora (1:2) who are in various cities in Asia Minor, which is in Modern-day Turkey.

         The Christians he writes to are likely Gentiles that were converts to Judaism, then came to believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. They would come to be persecuted by both Jew and Gentile as a result.[1] These were not influential and wealthy people. Peter even mentions slaves and women, who would have been expected to worship the household gods of the father of the family. These Christians, who were following Jesus, though they weren’t highly influential or of high status, were a part of the new Israel, the people of God, those whom God had called and set apart to make his glory known!

         It’s these people, of which also are you and me, that have been born anew by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are all looking for the promised land together as exiles in a foreign land. The church is at its best when it becomes a community that provides refuge for the vulnerable rather than those who misuse power. I can appreciate this. It is hard to build the kind of performance that will attract and maintain the  presence of high profile individuals in a church. Some churches try; but for me, the most fulfilling moments of ministry have been with individuals or in smaller groups: coming to your homes for a house blessing, or visiting you with communion in the hospital, or sitting with you in the office and hearing your stories and praying with you, or hearing your confession. I love seeing the church enter into this with one another: creating a meal train so that you can bless one another with your cooking and your presence to one another, the ways you open your homes to one another for hospitality — including Formation Groups, watching the BBQ team smoke a brisket for the church, weeping with one another in prayer, encouraging one another, having vulnerable and sometimes hard and honest conversations, and making repair with one another when harm has been done or relational rupture occurs. This is what creates a stable outpost of the kingdom when the culture continues to shift and change. It is a gift to see this church become such an outpost of the kingdom of heaven, a divine family which provides comfort for the vulnerable and that provides an appropriate amount of discomfort for those who are far too at-home in this world.

         How one builds the household of God matters. We can say the right words to articulate a great goal, but if the means to getting there are not the way of Jesus then we have missed it. The goal of the church is not to do something, but to become something. “Success”, then, is measured by how one experiences Christ when they meet us rather than average Sunday attendance. If the pastor or leaders are abusing power, or if the church’s activism is divorced from the theology of the church, or if a church focuses all its efforts on issues of secondary or tertiary theological importance while being divorced from seeing the kingdom come in the neighborhood, or neighborhoods, around her, then how is she a community of hope where the resurrected Jesus is made known as a comfort for the vulnerable? 1 Peter reminds us to slow down and consider how we build.

2. Trials are a strange gift of purification and opportunity (6-9).

         We have seen first that the resurrected Christ has begun a new family. This is the family we need to feel “at home” in our pilgrimage in this world. Second, trials are inevitable, but they are also a strange gift. St. Peter helps the church avoid two extremes: attempting to overthrow the Pagan culture through political violence, and viewing the ethical demands of the Gospel as inconsequential and capitulating to culture. Because the church seeks to engage the world with the transforming love of Christ, they will experience some amount of persecution and trial as they hold out the goodness of the Gospel of Christ in a world content with its self-deception.

         This reminds me of a quote from one of the apostolic fathers, the Epistle of Diognetus, which says, “...They live in their own countries, but only as nonresidents; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign...”[2] The text also describes the ways that Christians safeguard their allegiance to Jesus by refusing to use their bodies and creation for disordered purposes. It says “They marry, like everyone else, and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food, but not their wives.”[3]  In other words, Christians bless what is good and walk with others as far as they can without doing harm to themselves or others as image-bearers of God. Jesus ate with sinners, but did not join their sin. He held out the goodness of the kingdom and invited them in. Those who follow Jesus will walk with their neighbors as far as they can, but will have to draw the line of shared culture somewhere. And when a follower of Jesus puts up a boundary, they risk exclusion and persecution.

         Peter’s audience became scapegoats for the ills of the area. In their day, the refusal to worship the local gods may have been seen as the reason for a lack of prosperity in a village, so it would be easy to lay any misfortune on the shoulders of the Christians in the village. But this suffering, Peter says, is hopeful. Suffering brings clarity to our mission as followers of Jesus and purifies us from what distracts us. This doesn’t mean we delight in the suffering itself, but it does mean that entering trial well reminds us that redemption is coming. It also invites the community of Jesus to come and support us in trial as family.

         It means ultimately that we live with integrity as people whose guiding principle is the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Jesus. Nothing else deserves our ultimate allegiance other than king Jesus. We have responsibilities to our church, our country, our earthly family, and our neighbors, but everything is rightly ordered by the guiding principle of Jesus’ life, death resurrection, ascension, and his coming again — The Gospel.

         I don’t want to cheapen the persecution of these Christians by comparing religious persecution to the stripping of privilege or inconvenience. I remember a discussion once of America taking away tax benefits from clergy and churches. Would that strip away of some of our privileges as Christians? Yes. Inconvenient? Yes. Is it persecution? No. Babylon is going to Babylon and Rome is going to Rome.  

         There will be times where allegiance to Jesus puts us at odds with our community and leads us to exclusion. Be mindful that exclusion does not occur because of an indignant or combative spirit. Come with curiosity about someone’s story. Ask good questions, present gospel convictions with clarity, but in a way that allows others to experience the discomfort of contractions in a disordered world. Spirit-led, compassionate questions hold out the goodness of the kingdom and they don’t merely win an argument. Go slow, be patient, and be compassionately un-anxious like Jesus if they refuse to change. There may come a time when one has to risk losing a job, face legal challenges, or upset someone close to them because of their ultimate allegiance to Jesus. The hope in 1 Peter is that in the church you are part of a privileged community because it is a saved community. As we fulfill the god-given task of announcing the good news of Christ, the church becomes the ark of salvation where deliverance is found and we will experience the tender compassion of the Good Shepherd.

Conclusion

          Jesus in his resurrection has created a new family. As we show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith, we may experience some amount of persecution, or exclusion because Christians will be those who welcome other sojourners and invite them to follow Jesus too. Be encouraged if you don’t feel “at home” right now. We are those who feel like foreigners in our homeland and at home in foreign lands. We invite people to come as they are and to be changed by the power of Jesus. May those who long to be comfortable, gain power, garner influence, and be at-home in this world, find the church to be a community where they are disquieted and made to know that this world is our place of pilgrimage to discover Jesus. May the church become that place where those afflicted because of following Jesus find life and comfort from their new family in the outpost of the kingdom of God.

         Let us pray:

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1]                Scot McKnight, 1 Peter (The NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 23.

[2]                Epistle of Diognetus, 5.4-5.

[3]                Ibid., 5.6-7.

Easter Sunday: Jesus the King and Cultivator of the Garden of God

St. Ephrem the Syrian's Second Hymn on the Resurrection

Fr. Morgan Reed "Easter Sunday: Jesus the King and Cultivator of the Garden of God"

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CONTENT

Introduction

                  Good morning dear friends. The Lord is risen! This is our second year of hearing a homily from the ancient church. One of our values at this church is to live out the church’s tradition. We do this in the way we use the Book of Common Prayer, sometimes we’ll do a study, and this morning we will hear an ancient teaching-hymn, called a madrasha, from St. Ephrem the Syrian. The female choirs would have sung this as a form of teaching to build up the church.

Who is St. Ephrem?

         St. Ephrem was born in the 300s in a town called Nisibis, which is modern Nusaybin in Turkey. This was a border town which went back and forth in its allegiance to either Rome or Persia. He lived there until Persia took it in 363 and forced out the Christian population. Ephrem and others headed west to the city of Edessa, or modern Şanli Urfa, in Turkey. He lived there for 10 years and died in 373.[1] He was a deacon and catechetical teacher under four amazing bishops.

Our Hymn

         Ephrem sees two books of revelation: the Scriptures are one, and the natural world is a second book to learn and study. There are two dimensions for him: spiritual and earthly. The spiritual dimension is pictured through the lens of the Garden of Eden. The two dimensions, of paradise and physical earth, exist side-by-side, overlap, and interlock. The natural world then becomes a tapestry of divine gestures to help us adore the mystery of God. Because of this theology, Ephrem’s poems are filled with natural and biblical imagery. Ephrem’s second hymn on the resurrection, which we will read this morning, is about the celebration of Easter. I made my own translation, but then realized the other day that the amazing Sebastian Brock had also made a translation back in 2006 in a book of assorted Syriac writings.[2] I’ll put a link online to where you can find his translation. This morning I’ll read my translation for us. There are twelve stanzas to this hymn. We are invited to meditate on the Scripture and the cross through the spiritual Garden. It’s as though we see Eden’s realities as we look at earth’s realities. Paradise is filled with blooming flowers, but then as we zoom back out at earth, these blooms find their counterparts in the people of God and their praises. We are all flower arrangers in the garden of paradise through the resurrection. Stanza 2 invites us into the celebration of the Easter festival, much like we are doing this morning. Everyone has a part to play in the worship of the resurrected Lord. The reference to chaste women are the female choirs. There are children singing, lay people offering righteous lives, and clergy fulfilling their functions in the church. All of this is compared to flowers in paradise.

         Ephrem mentions Nisan, which corresponds to our month of April; Passover occurs in Nisan, which is when Christians celebrate Easter, or Pascha. I was excited for some thunderstorms today because the month of Nisan and its thunderstorms form a counterpart to the thunderous praises of God’s people celebrating Easter. As thunders produce earthly flowers, praises produce the spiritual flowers of love and good deeds. In stanzas 6-8, he moves to the interweaving of the flowers of paradise into crowns that will be set on the heads of those who enter paradise. Ephrem, in entering worship, is given a crown; the donkey from the triumphal entry is crowned with them; every person in the worshiping assembly is crowned with them. But the flowers are not just flowers, they are the beauties of the obedience of the disciples of Jesus from every age and stage woven together into a celebration of God’s paradise in the lives of the saints (stanzas 9-10). The poem ends in stanzas 11 and 12 with a contrast of the victorious and resurrected King Jesus with all the kings of the earth. Jesus is the great king of flowers and his crown is perfect in its beauty, which feels redemptive as he has now traded his crown of thorns with the flowers of paradise. He has commissioned God’s people to weave the crown. The final stanza is a prayer for our king to accept the crown we weave and to “give peace to the lands that were destroyed,” and to “rebuild the churches which were burnt...” This likely means that this madrasha was composed in Nisibis in a period following one of the devastating raids of the Persians. God can make the barren places fruitful again. It is true in the war-torn and oppressive regions of the world, and it is true in the places of the human heart that have been ravaged by sin and death. We long for Christ in his resurrection to make all things new and to give us flowers that we can continue to weave into a crown for his glory.

         None of us will fully grasp this hymn on the first read through. Don’t worry. I’ll put the whole transcript online when we post the audio. Here’s the hymn:

Ephrem Hymn on the Resurrection II[3]

1) Your law was my chariot

which revealed paradise.

And your cross was my key

which opened paradise.

I gathered fruit from the garden of delights;[4]

I came from paradise and amassed

roses and eloquent blooms 

which are scattered throughout your festival,

in the songs, over the people.

Blessed is He who crowns and was crowned

2) Behold, the joyous festival

which consists entirely of mouths and voices.

The chaste women and men were in it 

like trumpets and horns.

Infant girls and boys were in it

like harps and lyres.

Their voices were woven together and they ascended,

and all of them reached heaven.

They gave glory to the Lord of glory.

Blessed is He for whom the silent have thundered.

3) Behold, earth thundered below

and heaven thundered above.

Nisan mixed together the [thunderous] sounds

above and below.

The voices of the holy Church mixed

with the thunder-peals of Divinity.

And amidst the glow of her torches,

the flashes of lightning mix;

the tears of sorrow were with the rain

and the Paschal fast was with the new growth.

4) In the ark shouted

all the voices from every mouth.

Outside of it were strong waves,

while inside were pleasant voices.

Voices, according to each pair,

sang in it together in purity;

Our festival is a type of this,

in which the unmarried boys and girls

have sung in a holy way.

Glory to the Lord of the Ark.

5) In this festival, which each person offers

his victories as his offerings,

it grieves me, my Lord, to see

that I stand here empty-handed.

But my mind has been soaked by your dew

and it experienced a second Nisan.

Its flowers became offerings for me:

braided together into all kinds of wreaths,

and placed over the door of the ear.

Blessed be the cloud which rained down upon me.

6) Who has seen flowers being collected

from the Scriptures as though from hills?

With them the chaste women fill

the spacious recesses of the mind.[5]

The sound [of the songs], like a servant,

scattered holy blooms over the assemblies.

The flowers are holy;

receive them into your senses

as our Lord [received] the anointing of Mary.[6]

Blessed be the One who was crowned by his handmaids.

7) Flowers, beautiful and eloquent,

children have scattered before the King.

The colt was crowned with them,

the path was filled with them.

They scattered praises like flowers

and hymns like lilies.

Even now in the midst of the festival

the assembly of the children have scattered for you, my Lord,

hallelujahs like flowers.

Blessed is He who was praised by the children.[7]

8) Behold, our hearing is like an armful,[8]

of the voices of children.

The recesses of our ears, my Lord, are also filled

with the hymns of the chaste women.

Let each one of us gather up all the blooms,

and intermingle them with his own

flowers that bloomed in his own land,

so that for this great festival,

we might weave a great crown for it.

Blessed is He who invited us to weave it.

9) Let the bishop[9] weave into it

his homilies as his flowers;

the priests, their stories of victory,[10]

the deacons, their readings,

the young men, their alleluias,

the boys, their psalms,

the chaste women, their hymns,

the leaders, their charitable deeds,

and the laity, their manner of life.

Blessed is He who has multiplied victories for us.

10) Let us prepare to recount the victorious ones:

the martyrs, apostles, and prophets,

whose flowers are like them,

their blooms are shining,

their roses are abundant,

the fragrance of their lilies is sweet.

They gathered from the Garden of Delights

and brought the choicest of flowers

to crown our beautiful festival.[11]

Glory to You from the blessed ones!

11) The crowns of kings appear poor

before the wealth of Your crown.

Into which purity is interwoven,

in which faith shines,

in which humility emanates,

into which holiness is mixed,

in which great love shines forth.

Great King of flowers,

how perfect is the beauty of Your crown?

Blessed is the One who has commissioned us to weave.

12) Our King, accept our offering

and grant us salvation in return.

Give peace to the lands that were devastated,

rebuild the churches which were burnt,

so that when great peace comes,

we might weave together a great crown for You,

as flowers and those who weave them

come from all sides

that the Lord of peace might be crowned.

Blessed is he who has acted and is able to act.

[1]                Reader more at https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/entry/Ephrem

[2]                Ephraem, et al. Select Poems. 1. ed, Brigham Young University Press, 2006. Eastern Christian Texts 2. Pages 169-179.

[3]                TJ Lamy, Sancti Ephraem Syri hymni et sermones quos e codicibus Londinensibus, Parisiensibus et Oxoniensibus descriptos edidit, Latinitate donavit, variis lectionibus instruxit, notis et prolegomenis illustravit. Volume 2 of 4. Pages 750-756. Hymn 19 <https://archive.org/details/sanctiephraemsy02lamygoog/page/n405/mode/1up>

[4]                A play on words with the garden of Eden. ‘edne (delights) sounds like ‘den (Eden).

[5]                A reference to the madrashe sung by the women’s choirs for the instruction of the people.

[6]                John 12:1-3

[7]                Matt 21:15-16

[8]                The idea is like having an armful of flowers.

[9]                i.e., the chief shepherd

[10]              A type of homily like an encomium or panygeric. This may also refer to a successful life of ministry as a priest.

[11]              The word ܟܘܠܠܐ refers to the crowning that happens when someone is victorious. It is a short-hand way of referring to martyrdom “Receiving the crown”. The festival of receiving the crown is attested elsewhere as a commemoration of a martyrdom. In this stanza, the idea is that the martyrs, prophets, and apostles are the ones who frame the festivities. It is their lives and deeds that frame the work of the church and how this festival calls them to the same works as the saints of old, whose deeds are pictured as flowers blooming from Eden.

Great Vigil of Easter: God at Work In the Darkness

Fr. Morgan Reed “Great Vigil of Easter: God at Work In the Darkness”

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Matthew 28:1-10

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good evening friends. On Thursday we were reminded of Christ’s institution of the Eucharist and what it means to serve Christ and one another in the kingdom of God. Last night’s service drew us into the mystery of salvation in what happened on the cross. This morning we joined together to walk the way of the cross through the stations of the cross. When Christ died on the cross, creation responded with darkness, and yet God was not absent. Into the darkness, the light shined and the darkness did not overcome it. Jesus was at work in the darkness, conquering Sheol and rescuing humanity from the clutches of sin and death which would ultimately be done in the triumph of His resurrection. 

         There is an ancient Christian baptismal hymn from the 2nd century, part the Odes of Solomon, which sings of Christ’s victory. This hymn says, “And I opened the doors which were closed. And I shattered the bars of iron, For my own shackles had grown hot and melted before me.”[1] The early church has always made this connection between the death that Christ died, the work of his conquering of Sheol, the victory of his resurrection, and how you and I are joined to Christ and his work through our baptism. Tonight we had the privilege of praying for Les as he has walked with Jesus into baptism; in doing this we also renewed our own baptismal vows. We have died and risen with Christ.

         From our passage tonight we see two important truths: 1) God is at work in the dark, and 2) Christ’s resurrection is our commission to the work of new creation.

         As we look at Matthew 28, let me pray for us, “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

I. Earthquake, Angel, guards, and empty tomb — God is at work in the dark (1-6)

         God is at work in the dark. When we left St. Matthew’s Gospel text Last Sunday, the final verse was that the stone had sealed the tomb and guards were there to guard it. The extra measures of security were because of fear and unbelief. Under the cover of darkness, just as dawn was about to begin, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come to the tomb. As they arrive on scene, there was an earthquake. And as the earth is shaking, an angel descends from heaven to roll back the stone. Heaven and earth are both testifying that the Lord is risen. 

         The angel of the Lord proclaims the good news to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come see the place where he lay.”[2] Far from abandoning the one who died on the cross, God heard his prayer. Jesus the Lord of heaven and earth, who had created all things, had been crucified on a pagan cross. After Jesus was buried, the disciples head off. How could the joy of those travelers on Palm Sunday ended with this? I can imagine that over several days they were processing their grief, feelings of guilt over abandoning their teacher, wondering what they had just been through over the last several years, and still holding onto some slight hope that maybe Jesus would actually rise like he said.

         Satan has been working hard from the beginning of humankind to weave sin and death into the fabric of all humanity. The work of God in the darkness of Jesus’ death is the dismantling of the systems and powers of the kingdom of darkness. The stone is rolled away to reveal what God has done for these faithful women searching for him. This testimony that Christ has risen has changed their fear to joy and has changed their story forever.

         Jesus had given glimpses of new creation and the kingdom of God in his ministry. His resurrection from the dead shows his followers that the age to come is here. Death is defeated and sin is no more. The systems and structures of evil present outside of us and at war inside of us no longer have the final word because Jesus is alive. One church father says, “Pray, brothers, that the angel would descend now and roll away all the hardness of our hearts and open up our closed senses and declare to our minds that Christ has risen, for just as the heart in which Christ lives and reigns is heaven, so also the heart in which Christ remains dead and buried is a grave.”[3] Where are these places of doubt where we need the revealing of the resurrection? I remember a friend saying they never wanted to have kids because they were afraid of what this world would do to them. It was a place of doubt and unbelief. Some doubt that God will begin to heal them if they begin to get honest about the parts of their stories that shaped them. Some are afraid to apologize to their kids because they’re afraid they’ll lose a sense of authority. Some have addictive coping strategies to keep them from facing their fear of vulnerability about what hurts. Disordered fear and unbelief are two sides of the same coin; and they are pervasive, but they’re also a defeat-able enemy. I don’t want to pass over the risk involved in each of these kinds of scenarios, but I do want to name that these are the dark places of doubt where Jesus’ triumph will put death to death. And because Jesus is alive, we can pray for God’s help in rolling back the stone to reveal the goodness of Jesus’ living presence in these places where fear and darkness reigned.

II. Commissioning of new creation (7-10)

         The empty tomb is a place of commission. The women are charged with the task of going to gather the disciples to tell them to meet Jesus up in Galilee. They leave the tomb quickly with fear and great joy: fear for the magnitude of the miracle they’d experienced, and joy for what the resurrection means for them and the world. As the women travel on the way to meet the disciples, Jesus meets them. Our text says that Jesus greeting them by saying “Greetings”. If this were 21st century America it would feel like “Oh hey”! The women recognize who they are speaking with and they take hold of his feet and worship him.

         Worshiping Jesus is a beautiful paradigm for following Jesus. Grab hold of his feet and worship him. Come to know him. Read the Gospels, hear what he has to say. Read the rest of the Scriptures. Create spaces of silence and stillness in his creation and know his love for you. Discover the ways he fills out the Old Covenant in Scripture; look for his unsearchable glory that is sung by multitudes of heavenly choirs of saints and angels around his throne. Join this song in the mystery of the Eucharist; discover the resurrected Jesus in everyday moments. Discover and name the places of darkness, fear, and doubt. Hold them in the presence of the one who has conquered the kingdom of darkness.

         After worshiping Jesus, he tells them not to be afraid, but to go and tell his brothers that he’s risen. That Jesus calls the disciples his brothers here is significant. It follows on the heals of their utter failure and their desertion of him in his time of need. Jesus had predicted their failure in Matthew 26:31. But in 26:32, Jesus predicted that after their failure he was go to Galilee after he was raised up. His mention of “brothers” here is gently restorative. He is restoring to brotherhood those who had deserted him. The good news of Jesus’ resurrection is the good news that death is defeated, sin has no more power, and the age to come has broken into this present evil age. The new day has dawned in the darkness of an empty tomb, these women were entrusted with this news by a heavenly messenger and Jesus himself. These apostles to the apostles would bring this good news to the twelve, and from Galilee, the new creation of the kingdom of Jesus would go forth to all the world.

Conclusion

         This night reminds us of the power of the resurrection. God is at work in the darkness to overcome the power of darkness with the light of the resurrected Christ. All things will be made new. Our places of doubt, death, and fear will be transformed into the places where the glory of God shines forth. As we walk along the paths God has called us to, we take hold of the risen Christ and gain perspective for the journey. He has commissioned us to live into the age to come, the life of new creation in the resurrection, and to bring this good news to others as we live it out for ourselves. This is what we have renewed in our baptism vows. As we celebrate the mystery of the resurrection, remember that Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of new creation: God is at work in the dark, and Christ’s resurrection is our commission to the work of new creation. Alleluia!

Let us pray:

O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that we, who have been raised with him, may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever.  Amen.

[1]                Odes-Sol. 17:8-9. Charlesworth, pp. 74–5, and 76, n. 11.

[2]                Matt 28:5-6.

[3]                Peter Chrysologus, Sermons 75.4; Manlio Simonetti, ed., Matthew 14-28 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture; Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2002), 306.

Palm Sunday: Palms, Praises, and the Death of Tyranny

Fr. Morgan Reed "Palm Sunday: Palms, Praises, and the Death of Tyranny"

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Matthew 21:1-11

CONTENT

Introduction

         We began our time together today shouting hosannas with the crowds and then moved quickly to the Passion reading which gives us a sense for how quickly this all took place. The great complexity in Matthew 21 is that the Hosannas are completely appropriate as praises even against the backdrop of the crucifixion and that the entry into Jerusalem would appear to be anything other than triumphant. And yet this is the way that leads to eternal life. God can honor the peoples’ good longings and desires while also seemingly saying ‘no’ to them in order to say ‘yes’ to something better; God is dealing with a problem far deeper than any of them comprehended through a story that no one anticipated.

         As we look at Matthew 21, let me pray for us, “We praise you, Almighty God, for the acts of love by which you have redeemed us through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. On this day he entered the holy city of Jerusalem in triumph, and was hailed as King by those who spread their garments and branches of palm along his way. Grant that we who bear these palms in his Name may ever hail him as our King, and follow Him in the way that leads to eternal life; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

I. The paradox of Jesus’ kingship  vv. 1-9

         Jesus and other Galilean travelers from the north are heading to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover festival. They are near the Mount of Olives, just over the Kidron valley, and Jerusalem begins to come into view.

         There is a buzz and excitement about the ministry of Jesus. Is someone coming who will finally overthrow the political corruption that is ruining people’s lives and causing so much pain? Is there finally a king coming who will straighten out the factionalism that is exploiting people in the temple system in Jerusalem? Everyone has ideas about what the age to come will look like when Messiah reigns from Jerusalem.

         The disciples are asked to borrow a donkey for Jesus to ride on and they retrieve a young colt and its mother. Matthew says that this was to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah, “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”[1] There are several allusions here: After David’s son, Absalom, had taken over the kingdom by rebellion and was later killed, David rides a donkey back into Jerusalem to reclaim the throne.[2] Solomon, who succeeds David, rides on David’s donkey to be anointed.[3] Just before the time of Jesus, Simon Maccabeus had cleansed the temple and Jerusalem and the Jews entered it with praise. Simon decreed that each year they were to celebrate the removal of Israel’s enemies with praise and palm branches.[4] If riding on a donkey shows the paradigm of a humble, davidic ruler, then the palms become the symbol to commemorate and anticipate God’s victory over his enemies.

         While it is true that this rider on a donkey felt very Davidic, it is also very curious how the donkey-rider of Zechariah will be the one to overthrow the Roman Empire! Jesus did not ride the donkey into Jerusalem to be enthroned like David or like a Maccabean ruler, but to be killed on a pagan cross; but this enthronement was overthrowing a tyranny much deeper than the one they could see.

         This reminds me a little of a car we used to have. We had a car that used to leak so much oil. I was buying motor oil in costco packs! Who should be buying that much oil? Mechanics — To use on many cars. You know who shouldn’t be buying that much motor oil? One person, for one car. I took the car to the mechanic and come to find out, the engine block was cracked. At the time I think they quoted me about $4k for parts and labor, which is about as much as we paid for the car! This spurred us on to getting something new. The leaky oil was an indicator — the problem was way deeper than an oil leak. There was no way to fix the surface problem without going in and replacing the whole engine.

         Rome’s corruption was not actually the root problem. It was indicative of a deeper and more cosmic problem that had affected Jew, Gentile, and all creation! The answer was not merely the overthrow of a pagan nation. This cosmic problem required cosmic kingship to bring union to heaven and earth.

         Jesus wasn’t riding a golden chariot, wearing expensive purple, a ruler who loved a good fight with other aspiring rulers or nations, someone who loved to boast about his accomplishments, who sought after war, or looked for a bloody battle to fight in. Instead, he is a friend of peace who rides a donkey in tranquility in the face of spiritual opposition.[5]

         I think the way that Jesus subverts others’ expectations is instructive for us today. We all have dreams of what the age to come should look like right now. What this passage teaches is that those are good and God-given desires and longings. The way that God brings those things about is likely not what we’d expect. There is no glorious enthronement, no new creation, no kingdom, no resurrection, without the way of the cross. Jesus’ way to the cross was a slow dismantling of the kingdom of darkness as death itself was being destroyed.

         Practically, what this means is that no family dysfunction, no empire, no individual brokenness gets the final word anymore. Jesus has conquered and will conquer. Rome was only a problem insofar as it was doing the work of death, but a foreign enemy was not the ultimate enemy. God is bringing about new life: the palms are promises and the Hosannas ring true; but it is in a more cosmic way than any of the Galileans would have anticipated. Our praises are never hollow, but we will often find ourselves in the midst of the process of salvation we don’t fully understand.

         I see glimpses of new creation in your stories. As you follow Jesus, I love hearing your testimonies: Every time you tell me about a breakthrough in a conversation you’ve had with a spouse, every time you tell me about an answer to prayer, every time you tell me about a child who is doing hard things or helping others, every time you share how Jesus has shown up in your grief or in other unexpected ways. There might be ways that we want Jesus to show up, like “fix my marriage, or fix my job situation, or fix my child, or fix my finances, or fix this country”. We long for new creation in lots of places. These are good longings, but we cannot control the trajectory of how new creation comes about. The dysfunctions might just be the indicators that God is at work below the surface and deliverance might be something far deeper than we expected. These moments might be the road to the cross and ultimately the road to resurrection where we see the glory of Christ as the victorious king.

II. Power and the submission to enemies vv 10-11

         In verses 10-11 Jesus comes nearer to Jerusalem. While the Galilean Jews are excited travelers who have come to know Jesus’ importance, Jesus remains less known and less trusted by the Jews in Jerusalem — up to, and including, the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. We often think that the crowds who celebrated were the same that flipped and shouted ‘crucify him,’ but these were different Jewish communities from different regions. The Southern Judeans shared the apostle Nathanael’s original prejudice: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

         Judea was under the rule of a Roman prefect whereas Galilee was under the Herodian dynasty at this point. Seeing this Galilean coming down south and claiming to be king may have felt like an overreach to impose authority over the southern district. The title of King of the Jews would be a very destabilizing claim. This is what would get brought up again at his trial. This is a threat to Roman rule, it is a threat to the temple religious system, and to the Sanhedrin. The folks in Jerusalem have every reason to be suspicious of this exuberant Galilean crowd bringing “their” prophet into Jerusalem with a royal procession.

         Jesus’s kingship can certainly feel destabilizing, but the Jerusalemites and the Galileans give us two paradigms of how to receive it. We can either give God praise with an openness to what Jesus’ kingship might mean, or we can hold onto everything tightly no matter how broken it is and view Jesus with suspicion. The Galileans would have to continue to hold onto hope in the kingship of Jesus even as he is handed over to those who will crucify him. Those from Jerusalem would have to open their hearts to the idea that maybe God is doing more than what I can see right in front of me.

         All of us struggle with wanting to control things to varying degrees. Sometimes it’s wise, but sometimes it’s a refusal of Jesus’s kingship. It can feel safer to hold onto what is broken or is hurting us than to hand it to Christ. We try to curate our lives on social media so that we can control what people think of us. We can try to control the situations our kids will encounter or keep them on a rigid routine to avoid feelings of parental guilt. We can occupy ourselves to death, using workaholism to mask the difficult realities we don’t want to talk about. As Jesus rides in, whether it is through reading Scripture, hearing someone speak hard truth, or a still small voice that is whispering “God is doing something better than this,” do we receive it with Hosannas, trusting in Christ as king to lead us to somewhere ultimately good? Or do we receive it with suspicion clinging too tightly to what is broken because we don’t trust that Christ’s kingship is better than the system we’ve propped up?

Conclusion

         Palm Sunday invites us into into a week of walking the way of the cross with Jesus. This road to the cross is the humble road to kingship where the Son of David, the Son of God, will bring about new creation where sin is no more, and even death will die. Our temporal and earthly sorrows are indicators that the kingdom of darkness is still active in the world; yet the surprise of Jesus’ kingship is that his victory reaches to the depths of the cosmos even as it touches the human heart. Our deliverance from sin is a foretaste and deposit of the ultimate goodness that will reign over all things. The Hosannas remind us that a new day of salvation is dawning for those who follow the way of Jesus.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

[1]                Zech 9:9

[2]                2 Sam 19.

[3]                1 Kings 1:38-40.

[4]                1 Macc 13:51.

[5]                cf. an incomplete patristic work on Matthew: Manlio Simonetti, ed., Matthew 14-28 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture; Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2002), 125.

Lent 5: Seeds of Joy in the Soil of Sorrow

Fr. Morgan Reed "Lent 5: Seeds of Joy in the Soil of Sorrow"

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John 11:18-44

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning friends. Today is Passion Sunday. It begins this two week time within Lent that includes Holy Week. If we have joined Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days, we are beginning to narrow down now to the road to the cross. This is why we veil the cross. As we look at the events that happen on the way to the cross, what will eventually be accomplished on the cross can be seen, but only dimly, as through a veil.

         Today’s passage is all about God’s presence in our “if only” moments. We all have these “if only” parts of our stories: if only I could have said these or those words before my loved one had passed, if only I could have parented differently, if only I had understood my family system before I entered marriage, if only I had made better vocational choices, if only I had gotten married earlier or started trying for kids earlier, if only I had made better financial investments before now. All these “if only” parts of our story involve real grief and at the same time they are not the end of God’s will or goodness for us. They are the spaces we sow with tears where we can anticipate Jesus bringing a harvest of joy.

         Today’s passage is what God does with “if only” moments. Jesus comes and raises Lazarus as a 7th and final sign in the Gospel of John. This story reminds us that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. In him death will be overcome and those “if only” moments are places of redemption where God’s good kingship will be known where we once saw them as a place where hope had failed. The raising of Lazarus will be the moment that Jesus will cling to to know that the Father hears him even as he is about to enter Jerusalem to meet death.

         Let me pray for us as we look at St John’s Gospel: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

17-27 Naming where we need Jesus to show up (If only....)

         The scene opens in Bethany, which is a short distance from the city of Jerusalem. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus live there. This is a family that Jesus loves. They were well-known in the area. Jesus hears that Lazarus is ill, and yet he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. I’m sure he was praying for Lazarus and for God’s will, but in his decision to wait two days, Lazarus succumbed to his illness and dies.

         When Jesus approaches Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus missed the funeral. Mary is still in a period of grief for her brother and is remaining at home. Martha and Mary are upset. Martha does something about it, leaves the house and meets Jesus to get some answers. She essentially says, “Jesus, if only you had gotten here earlier; my brother would not be dead.” You can feel the tone of her question: “Jesus, where were you? I thought you cared?” The exchange between Jesus and Martha gets into the theological reason this story is included. Jesus tells her that her brother will rise again. Martha, like the Pharisees, believes that her Bible teaches a general resurrection of the faithful. She believed her brother would be a part of that, but that doesn’t give much comfort right now.

         Jesus is not skipping past or bypassing her pain. When I lived in Dallas I had a 19 year old coworker who tragically took his own life after battling with mental health issues for a long time. I went to his funeral which was held at a megachurch that met in a mall-turned-church in one of their “side chapels”, which was an old movie theater. The pastor’s sermon felt so hollow. He basically told the congregation all the ways my friend lived such a full life and that we should be joyful that he is in the presence of Jesus. But his life had just begun. I would much rather have my friend back and figure out how to address his mental health challenges. Sometimes I also want to come to Jesus and say “Jesus, if you had been there my friend would not have died”. And it is also true that I can say that God has used the memory of this young man to help people: I’m sure he made an impact on people he knew, money was donated on his behalf to bless others, the few years I knew him have shaped how I view mental health, and I have so much more compassion for what it is like to be a lost 19 year old boy who is struggling to ask for help. Jesus didn’t make the situation better, but he was present to redeem a tragic end. This young man’s life and story have within them the redemption of resurrection life because Jesus is present.

         Jesus is telling Martha that our hope is not just in some far off general resurrection. Our hope is in Jesus, who is the resurrection. The resurrection isn’t just a concept, it is a person — and that person is Jesus Christ. Martha believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. Jesus brings the age to come into the present evil age. And the reason why this is our hope is that Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows — and he triumphs over death. To enter into the age to come does not deny the reality of suffering and death. Jesus redeems suffering and death as the places of redemption where His kingship comes to be known.

28-37 Jesus bears our sorrows and knows our grief (Jesus wept...)

         Martha calls for her sister Mary to come because the Teacher is calling for her. Jesus meets them outside the village and those who were mourning with Mary come with her to see Jesus. They thought she was heading to the tomb to go and weep there, so they follow her. This is part of early Judaism’s mourning rituals. There were family and friends who surrounded her to weep and they often hired professional mourners.

         Notice that when Mary gets to Jesus she says the same thing “Lord if only you had been here my brother would not have died.” Jesus was moved very deeply at the sight of Mary crying and all those who were mourning with her. He asks where they have laid Lazarus. On the way to the tomb, verse 35 says Jesus began to weep. What was he weeping for? Jesus had just given sight to a man born blind! And Jesus knows what he’s about to do. And yet, I do think these are real tears. I love the explanation of the 4th century Potamius of Lisbon and I’ll summarize it: Jesus wept in fulfillment of this aspect of human love, offering sympathetic tears. He wept to moderate the grief of those mourning. He wept because of the extent to which humanity had fallen under the shadow of sin and death. He wept because God had given humanity every beautiful fruit and flower of the garden and they’d been cast out and exiled because of sin.

         Jesus knows our tears and has borne our sorrows. In reflecting on this passage, NT Wright says, “The Word, through whom the worlds were made, weeps like a baby at the grave of his friend. Only when we stop and ponder this will we understand the full mystery of John’s gospel. Only when we put away our high-and-dry pictures of who God is and replace them with pictures in which the Word who is God can cry with the world’s crying will we discover what the word ‘God’ really means.” He is truly a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And while there is grief, the grief is productive and the sorrow is redemptive.

38-44 The Father hears us in the face of death (the Father hears...)

         Jesus comes to the tomb and tells them to remove the stone. It’s been four days and people have no expectation that Lazarus will rise. In fact, they believe he has begun to decompose. However, in the days where he would have been decomposing, Jesus had been praying for this moment. Jesus reminds them that belief is the precursor to seeing the glory of God — much like the story of the man born blind who had to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Jesus says something  striking. Knowing what he is about to do he enters into prayer: “Father, thank you that you have heard me”. This is a moment he’d been praying about even though everyone thought he was two days too late. He was right on time. God hadn’t heard his prayer just for Lazarus to be raised, but for the right moment and opportunity for the glory of Jesus’ connection to the Father to be made known. He says “Lazarus, come out.” In a culture that knew about incantations, Jesus offers no spell. He names his friend and gives a simple command. Lazarus obeys his Lord and rises up out of the grave. This moment would be the sign that though Jesus enters our sorrows on the way to the cross, he would return them to us as the joys of redemption. The cross and resurrection are why the Psalmist can rightly say that those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.[1]

         St. Ephrem says, “[Jesus’s] tears were like the rain, and Lazarus like a grain of wheat, and the tomb like the earth. He gave forth a cry like that of thunder, and death trembled at his voice. Lazarus burst forth like a grain of wheat. He came forth and adored his Lord who had raised him.”[2].  

Conclusion

         In this final sign Jesus has taken our moments of “Jesus if only you had been here”, then he weeps with us, and turns our griefs into moments of redemption where the Father hears us and his glory is made known. As we close, I want to pray the chorus from a song I love from the Porter’s Gate that summarizes what I’m saying. Please pray with me:

“The kingdom’s come // and built upon

wood and nails // gripped with joyfulness,

So send [us] out, // within Your ways

knowing that // the task is finished.

The dead will rise // and give You praise -

wood and nails // will not hold them down!

These wooden tombs, // we’ll break them soon

and fashion them // into flower beds,

The curse is done, // the battle won

swords bent down // into plowshares,

Your scar-borne hands, // we’ll join with them,

serving at // the table You’ve prepared.” Amen.[3]

[1]                Psalm 126

[2]                Commentary on the Diatessaron.

[3]                From Work Songs, released October 6, 2017 . WOOD AND NAILS. By Keith Watts, Isaac Wardell, and Madison Cunningham; Vocals: Audrey Assad and Josh Garrels; Guitar: Isaac Wardell; Piano: Tyler Chester; Celesta: Orlando Palmer; Bass: Jay Foote