The day has been long anticipated. The papers have been written and graded. The finals have all been taken. The graduates line up in matching robes and ill-fitting mortarboards. The programs have been printed and dean of students has practiced pronouncing the names. With solemn music and wise words from the commencement speaker, the graduates are sent off into the world. Almost as soon as the diploma is in their hands, the questions is asked, “Now what are you going to do?”(Or more likely, “Did you find a job yet?”)
It seems we have no time to rest. Each accomplishment leads to another place of beginning. We graduate, we move, we get a job, but always there is a new start, and the need to make sense of it. There is a part of us that would like to rest: to be done. But we know that is a fantasy. Life keeps changing and we have to keep up or stop living. As a Christian community we wonder what we will do next. We know that we cannot rest on the accomplishments or glory of the past (as much as we’d like that.) We can’t live off of memories or spent endowments. We have to live into an uncertain future. There’s no more delay. It’s time to move on.
The disciples were already changed by the resurrection of Jesus. They had been hiding in their upper room. Now they are walking around the temple with boldness. However, they are in an in-between time. Jesus has ascended into heaven and the disciples are waiting for what will happen next. One of their number – Judas, has betrayed Jesus and killed himself. They do not ignore his loss. They do not remain stuck in their feelings of betrayal. They look to the work that needs to be done as they know it to be done and they discern that they need to complete their numbers. They choose another to replace Judas.
They do not yet know what the church will be. They have no idea what kind of work they will be called to do. They only know that Jesus chose twelve, and they would still need twelve. This is not a major theological issue, but there is an important principle. When we are in times of uncertainty and we seek to be faithful, sometimes the best thing to do is the little we already know how to do.
We’re worried about money and members. We could wait for specific directions from on high: from God, from the bishop, from your brilliant Priest-In-Charge. But we already know what we should do. We know that we have to pay our bills – and we are. We know that the church will grow as we seek to grow in our own faith and as we invite others to join us – and we are doing this.
Our anxiety is heightened because we have yet to see familiar signs of success. We tend to count the things that are most important to us. We count our money and the numbers of people attending – because these things have traditionally been the marks of health and vitality. In a world that no longer values religious participation (or participation of any kind) maybe we need to measure different values. I count it as a success that most of the good things that have happened in the past few years have been done by all of us. There are individuals who have gifts of leadership among us, but all our acts of caring, or helping, or planning, or giving, or singing – have been contributions of many to the whole. Our success has been together.
When Jesus is finishing his last meal with the disciples, before he is about to be arrested and crucified, he prays for them. He prays for their unity – that they remain connected to God and to one another. He prays for their protection – not that they can escape from the dangers of the world but that they might be free to act in the world. Jesus prays for their joy – that they might have the joy that Jesus has to face suffering to find resurrection. Finally he prays to send them out to do the work that Jesus has begun – to reconcile the world to God.
Jesus does not pray for our comfort. He prays for our work. He prays that we will do what God desires for us to do. Because of this prayer, there are some things we should expect. Jesus prays for our unity – we can expect unity to be hard work. Jesus prays for our new life. The new life he promises comes through resurrection and it isn’t easy. Jesus prays for protection from evil – we can expect to face evil in our work. Jesus prays that God will send us out just as God sends Jesus out. It is a glorious calling. It is a wonderful and blessed vocation to share God’s good news. Just remember how Jesus was received – it’s not easy work.
We can’t know the future. We know the work to which we have been called. It is good work but difficult work. We will never know who we reach or what impact we make on those around us. We can’t even be sure that our work will lead to the continuation of this worshipping community – but we do the work anyway.
We are like that graduate who crosses the stage and receives a diploma. We’ve been given responsibility along with our blessings. We don’t know how life will unfold for us just yet. Unlike that graduate, we are not alone. God acts in our lives more powerfully than any alumni association. We are given God’s Spirit to guide and strengthen us. We have been given to one another in this community of faith. We walk with God together as we share our gifts and seek to share God’s love.
We do not know the future. We know that God has been faithful to the disciples in the past. God has been faithful to us in the past. God will be with us as we live into the future.
Today is the sixth Sunday of Easter. It is also Mother’s Day and Rogation Sunday. So we get to celebrate the resurrection. We set aside time to remember our mothers. Rogation Sunday is the Sunday before Ascension Day when priests would go around the bounds of the parish blessing the fields for a fruitful harvest. I wonder how I can tie all of this together into a sermon? As it turns out, every year I buy my mother a plant for Mother’s Day. In my actions I remember new life and growing things while I offer a token of appreciation to my mother! Somehow it all comes together.
All of these observances are later additions to the words of Jesus. In today’s gospel he is making his farewell address to the disciples on the night he is about to enter his time of trial and passion. We sort of step backwards in time to remember what Jesus said before he left the disciples. They were confused and afraid and Jesus reminds them of those things that are most important.
The final instructions are, “love one another.” Love is the most important thing. There are plenty of distractions and dangers in life, but in the end the most important thing is that we love each other. This is the foundation on which we build our families. This is how our mothers help us begin a rich and satisfying life. We learn how to connect to others as we learn love from our mothers and parents so we can grow into independent adults. We might learn facts and data in school. We learn how to work in the world in our jobs. We learn how to explore our faith together in this community. We learn how to love by being loved.
As parents we want to give our children every good thing. We buy them nice clothes and try to provide a safe and comfortable home. We try to live in a good place and offer them opportunities to try new things and discover their talents. The most important thing we give our children is love. We can miss many of the other things we wish we could give our children, and they will still grow and thrive. If we give everything else and fail to love, our children will be lost.
This is a lesson for us as a community that thinks of itself as an extended family. We have our dreams for this place. We wish we could fix all the broken things in this building. We want to hand down our treasures to the next generation. We worry that we have lost our place of prestige in the wider world. If we could fix all of this and we lack love – what is the point? If we never really solve every problem, but we manage to love one another, we may not preserve the church we know, but we will have given the most important gift.
Our purpose is to share God’s gift of love and reconciliation. It would be nice if the world suddenly became interested in Anglican chant and prayers written in the days of Shakespeare. We’d love it if people could get a taste of the beauty and majesty of our worship. We are tapping into the deep roots of the past every Sunday we worship. We pray with generations of faithful Christians. We succeed, not in our perfection of some plan of worship, but in how we help people approach God and apprehend God’s deep love for them.
Our simple goal is to fill the church with more people (who will hopefully help us with all of our expenses.) When we hear stories about people being open to God’s work of reconciling and loving the world, the outcome is often unexpected. Peter was surprised. God showed him a dream of unclean animals and commanded Peter to eat, God then commanded Peter that he must never declare unclean what God has made clean. Immediately, Peter is sent to preach to a devout gentile man and his household. Cornelius and his whole community accept Peter’s words with joy. They receive the Holy Spirit just as the disciples did on Pentecost – so they are all baptized. Peter was assuming that all Christians must first be Jews. God always has bigger plans than we do.
We have many immediate challenges. Perhaps the most difficult challenge is the ability to keep being faithful while things are not easy. Even as we have to make difficult budget decisions, we also need to widen our vision. We have to ask more than “how will we survive?” We have to ask, “Who else needs to be here?” We have to keep loving even as we are trying to figure out the answers. We have to keep seeking reconciliation even as we don’t quite know what will happen next.
This seems difficult. We’ve got too much responsibility. We need to remember that love is not the burden. What we need is the courage to love even when we don’t have easy answers and certain paths to follow.
We have seen this. Consider how a new mother loves her child. Except for extraordinary circumstances, a mother wants to hold and cuddle her child. New parents are obsessed with their new family member. They make every sacrifice (including sleep) to provide and protect. No one makes them they want to do it. Part of the learning for new parents is finding a balance. The first impulse is to love – without knowing the right way – without knowing the outcome.
I have a priest friend who received a sort of mezuzah on his ordination. Instead of the traditional Hebrew scripture, it contained a portion of the gospel reading today – “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last …” This is encouraging and humbling. God has chosen us to share in the work of reconciling the world. It’s not about us; it’s about God’s love. God did not call us to feel good about the accolades we obtain. God loves us first so that we can offer God’s love to everyone we meet.
This is the fruit that God promises. We know love and we share it. Nothing else matters as much as this.
I grew up in an area of the state that used to have many apple orchards. The trees grow in rows and are carefully pruned. They look nothing like the ornamental trees many of us have around our homes. They are kept short, and the branches are intentionally thinned to allow sunlight to reach the entire tree. The purpose is to grow more apples and to have a healthier tree. To look at, they might seem ugly, but they grow great apples.
My grandfather was an avid gardener. He had a grape arbor and trained it along the back of his yard and grew some grapes every year. We took a cutting from his vine and planted it in our backyard. We never learned how to prune it or train it. It sort of grew in a big bushy heap. The grapes were always small and bitter. The rabbits ate them but we never did. I grew up with a first hand knowledge of how bad pruning ends badly.
The idea of pruning may be on the edge of our experience, but Jesus is sharing a common idea to his audience of people who live off the land. Pruning is necessary if you seek a harvest. Jesus inserts himself into the image. He is the vine and we are the branches. He reminds us of two very important principles. We need to abide in the vine. This is obvious from the image. Any branch that is not attached to the life-giving vine will wither and die. The second principle he tells us is that our purpose is to be fruitful. We abide in the vine so that we can grow into disciples.
We also hear examples from the early church about fruitful disciples. Consider how Phillip uses the life-giving message of the gospel. He meets an Ethiopian eunuch. Phillip is willing to engage in a conversation with a stranger. This stranger comes from a land at the edge of the known world. He is a eunuch, a castrated slave who works in a foreign kingdom. All of these differences would normally keep these two men separate. Phillip is able to cross all of the differences because he is moved by the life-giving purpose of Jesus. He is not sharing his opinions or his hobbies. He is sharing the knowledge of who Jesus is and what he has done. Phillip is so free that he is also able to offer baptism. Phillip doesn’t wait for instructions or look up the rules. It seems good to offer everything he knows – so he does.
John reminds us in his letter that love is a sign that we abide in God. Because we desire to love and reach out and share what we have and what we know – this is evidence that we know God. John also reminds us that we are motivated to love, by love. We do not act out of fear. We don’t do good things because we fear that God will find out if we don’t. We reach out in love because we abide in God’s love.
We hear about the possibility of pruning and maybe we recoil a little. We don’t want parts cut off, nor do we want to be cut off ourselves. It sounds painful and difficult. When Jesus gives us the image of the vine and the vinedresser, he is not warning us what will happen if we don’t get our act together. He is describing what we can expect from God on the way to becoming more fruitful.
This is not some theological backdoor way to explain away all the suffering of life. This is not some sort of test that we must pass to prove ourselves to God. This is not about suffering at all. This is about living more deeply, more intentionally, more completely as disciples of Jesus. We should know that God loves us and wants us to be our best selves. The pruning is part of the way to fruitfulness.
We have our share of troubles. We should not confuse our troubles with the work of faithfulness. We all have to live with loss and pain. Jesus is not describing the senseless loss of illness or disaster. He is describing the intentional work of growing into the image of Christ. We are living through an economic crisis and everyday we face the problems of sickness and aging. These things are not the pruning Jesus talks about. He is inviting us into a deeper and more life filled relationship. To live more deeply, to abide in Jesus, we have to let go of those things in our lives that are not fruitful. If we ask, Jesus will help with the pruning.
As a community, we are seeking to live more faithfully. As it turns out, this way of life is not immediately popular in the surrounding culture. We might be able to fill a few more pews if we taught a message of comfort and ease. We might attract a few more members if we didn’t need to do so much work. Jesus reminds us that the purpose of pruning is more abundant life. Perhaps this is the dormant time for us, when pruning has the best result. Right now, the plant looks sparse and there is little evidence of life.
This is exactly what pruning looks like. The orchard trees look spindly and small. The grape vines look as if all the life has been cut out of them. The vinedresser knows what he is doing. Jesus reminds us that abundant life doesn’t always come easy. It requires patience and persistence. We should not measure our success before the time is right. Until the time of harvest, our measure should be how well we are attached to the life-giving vine. If we are (and we are) we can expect that Jesus will continue to give us life and it will lead to the fruitfulness that he desires.
All of this comes from God’s love. Just as we are eager to adapt our lives for the people we love, God is willing to work with us as we adapt to the ways of God’s love. We should not expect immediate fulfillment because we are not taking a short cut. We are following the path of life that is all the more abundant because it takes time and care. We are growing into God’s love. This is enough for any soul to want.
The Lord is my shepherd. The first phrase of Psalm twenty-three brings up the whole of the psalm for us at once. Instantly, we see an image of a shepherd-Jesus with staff in hand, perhaps even carrying a lamb in his arms. It is the oldest artistic representation of Jesus, carved in the rock of the catacombs in Rome. We recall the care of our good shepherd. Jesus will provide for us. He will guide us and protect us. The psalm ends with the hope of the feast of victory, the place of blessing that will be our final destination.
Jesus tells us he is the good shepherd. As he tells us this, he contrasts himself with the hired hand. The good shepherd will do whatever it takes to protect the sheep. The hired hand will only save his own skin. The picture Jesus gives us is more than a reassurance that we will be comfortable. Jesus tells his story for a purpose.
Jesus reassures us and he reminds us of the tremendous sacrifice he makes on our behalf. There is more to the image of the good shepherd than this. There are the sheep. We are to follow the shepherd in faith. We are to trust that he will bring us to good pasture and still water. We should expect the reassuring nudge from his staff whenever we stray. There is a warning that the path of the shepherd is not always easy. True, we end up in the place of blessing, but along the way there are dangers. We will pass through the valley of the shadow of death. There are wolves that threaten us – which the good shepherd drives away, no matter the cost.
This is how we are no longer sheep. Jesus provides for us and guides us to bring us through real dangers. We are not ignorant sheep. We are not called to a place of amnesia and painlessness. We are warned about all of the dangers and struggles of life so that, with the help of our good shepherd, we can overcome them.
The image of the good shepherd is more than sensitive caring. The good shepherd is courageous. We are called to show the same courage. The disciples are transformed with the Holy Spirit. They are able to proclaim the good news about Jesus. When they are brought before the religious authorities, they can speak with courage, even though they know that resisting the status quo might get them killed. (In our readings from Acts since Easter, the disciples have healed a lame man and then the authorities question them. They tell the court that they heal through the name of Jesus. The court tells them to stop teaching about Jesus and they say that they will speak about him anyway.)
John reminds us (in his first letter) that we must show what we believe through our actions. He does not suggest a retreat into comfort and security. The way we act should reflect what we believe. We are to show love and not just talk about it. The sacrifice we are called to make is no sacrifice unless it costs us something.
We have a true message of hope. It is hope based in the reality of life. Jesus gives himself for sinners, not perfect people. The good shepherd guides us through terrible ordeals. In the end, we may acknowledge blessing, but we must first pass through the valley of the shadow of death.
The picture Jesus gives us should not cause us to be passive – as if the only thing to learn is that Jesus leads and we follow. We are also children of God and we are called to grow into the image of Christ. I am not your shepherd. I follow him too. (Maybe I’m just the sheep dog?) There are times when I am called to exercise authority and leadership. There are times when many of you are also called to exercise authority and leadership. Jesus is always our leader and we are always his disciples. He calls to follow and to emulate him. We are given authority to be ambassadors of good news to a world that is lost and scattered – like sheep without a shepherd. We know the good shepherd.
We proclaim a new way of living. We have been given the power to choose how we show love. How we love reveals how God is acting in our lives. Our call to love guides our choices about what we choose to do with our time and resources. Our call to love guides how we interact with people in our lives. Our call to love gives us the courage to love the stranger. Our call to love opens our eyes to see injustice around us and to respond with God’s sacrificial love. Our call to love is where we find the courage to overcome the things we fear and move out of comfort and safety.
For all of this we need courage. Courage is not the absence of fear. We show courage when we act in the midst of fear – while we are surrounded by real threats and the outcome for us is uncertain. We need courage to abandon our excuses. We are poor and few in numbers. We do not have ready answers to all the problems that beset us. We need to trust the good shepherd and follow him into the place of the unknown. This is where we find our courage. Jesus leads us through the things we fear because he has gone before us. He knows the way. He has overcome death with life and he will bring us to the blessing of resurrection.
Saturday was the start of fishing season in Connecticut. Southford Falls State Park is stocked with trout. Saturday morning there were hundreds of fishermen side by side after the same twelve fish. What made them think that they would be the lucky ones? Does anyone remember the past Powerball jackpot? The total came to 670 million dollars. It is an unimaginable figure. The chances of winning were equally unimaginable. You would have an equal chance of getting hit by lightening four times. Yet how many people bought a ticket believing they had a chance? Apparently two people and a group won equal shares. I was not one of them.
Sometimes we are able to believe the unbelievable. When we do, the things we believe in say a lot about us. The two hundred fishermen were probably enjoying a beautiful spring day. The first day of the fishing season was just an excuse to get out of the house. The hundred million Powerball tickets tell us about our fantasies of wealth and security. We think that having enough money will make us happy. It’s worth a shot anyway.
A more serious question for us is about our faith in the resurrection. We gather each week to proclaim new life. We proclaim our faith in God. Unlike the lottery or fishing season, our faith in the resurrection of Jesus defines how we live and who we are. It happened long ago and we are not first hand witnesses. No wonder we are tempted to trust in lottery tickets more. At least we can hold them in our hand.
We often keep our doubts secret. We are ashamed when we have trouble believing what we have been told. We have a hard time figuring out how we apply eternal salvation to our daily lives and obligations. We are lucky to have first hand accounts of the disciples that describe their struggle to believe.
The disciples are gathering in their upper room and there are rumors and stories about Jesus being alive. There is no doubt that he died. The accounts of his execution are quite clear. But there are women who found and empty tomb. Peter has seen some evidence. Two disciples claim that they have seen him on the road to Emmaus. As they are talking and sharing, Jesus stands among them. Everyone is surprised and terrified. Only a ghost of Jesus could leave the grave and appear out of nowhere.
Jesus talks to them gently. He urges them to let go of their unbelief and trust what they see. In their joy they are still unbelieving and wondering what it all means. Jesus eats some fish (opening day in Judea?). Jesus opens their minds to the scriptures and he reminds them of all the things he had told them. It begins to make sense. Jesus encourages them and begins to explain how they will share what they know throughout the whole world.
I find it encouraging that Jesus sends them out without confidence and certainty. Even the closest friends of Jesus had trouble imagining everything Jesus promised them.
Faith is more about what we choose than what we know. It’s not that we are irrational – faith is about things that we cannot prove. Our proof is generations of witnesses. Our proof is the difference God has made in our lives. Our proof is the inspiration of God’s Spirit – pointing us to the right way to live. We know that Jesus lives because we live.
We live in a time when we are anxious and discouraged. The world has lost its need for us. We are no longer the place to be or be seen. The culture worships youth and the next new thing and we offer tradition and ritual. The world we live in wants certainty and success. Instead we offer the hard work of conforming ourselves to the will of God. The economy around us is geared toward the making of money and accumulation of things. We proclaim that we belong to a completely new economy – the household of God.
By any common standard the church is a failure and out of touch. Maybe this is a good place to be. We make no claims to popularity or to wealth. All we have is what we believe. Even the beautiful things passed down to us are only the testimony of people who have believed before us. We live in a time when we get to proclaim a contrary message. It is not the hoarding of things that will save us. It is not money or armies or the loud assertions of pundits that will bring us to a better place.
Jesus offers new life – resurrection life. We no longer have to live for the relentless pursuit of some sort of manufactured good life. We are offered a way of life as children of God. We can turn our will towards becoming new people and creating new ways to live together. It is not easy, but it is worth the effort. The disciples began scared and barely believing what Jesus told them. They spread the good news through the whole world. They have shared their message with us. We can keep the good news going.
Jesus has risen from the dead and so can we.
This morning the tomb is empty. We tell each other the story of the resurrection. We also tell many other stories. You could say that we are telling stories about storytellers. This is important because we’d be nowhere without storytellers. Our whole faith and everything important we believe – we know all this because someone told us the story.
There are always certain elements to a good story. There is always a challenge to the protagonist that upsets the status quo. There is a choice that the hero makes that shows his or her true values. Finally there is an outcome that moves the story to a conclusion. In God’s story, we are always brought back to a place of blessing and new life. Sometimes it seems a long way off. Sometimes it seems impossible. But God always finds a way.
We’ve all come here today in the midst of our own stories. We all have chapters in our lives where God has done something unexpected. What was your story? What great challenge did you have to face? What choices did you make along the way that made a difference? How did your story change you? How did your story bring you here today?
Peter was challenged to share God’s message to gentiles. I realize that this seems silly now, but it was an unimaginable barrier to Peter. He had a recurring dream of God inviting him to eat all sorts of ritually unclean foods. In the end God commanded him to not reject anything God declared clean or holy. Peter made the choice to visit a stranger and to share the good news even though he didn’t know what would happen. To everyone’s surprise, the gathered people all welcomed God’s good news and they believed and were transformed. It was the first step towards welcoming the likes of you and me into God’s new world.
The apostle Paul writes about the testimony of many witnesses. The choice of many people to share what they knew is the foundation of what you and I believe today. Paul reminds us that each generation has to pass on their faith to the next. We can’t set up some sort of program that will preserve the church forever. We have to share what we’ve seen. We have to share what we’ve learned. The next generation will have to do the same. God is always at work. We’re not passing down heirlooms. We’re passing down our lives.
On the first Easter morning, Mary is given some hard challenges. She is grieving for her dead teacher. She goes to the tomb early in the morning, hoping to finish preparing the body of Jesus. She does not know what she will find. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to do what she intends. She is making a brave choice because the other followers of Jesus are hiding in fear. They fear (perhaps rightly) that if they publically declare their connection to Jesus they might end up with the same punishment of death.
When she finds the tomb empty, she tells the other disciples. Peter and John run in and out, but May stays by the tomb and asks what happened. She is confused and sees angels and someone she thinks is the gardener. When he says her name, she knows that it is Jesus. Because she chose to be brave, Mary is the first witness to the resurrection.
The empty tomb is the surprise ending to the Easter story. It is still empty. We are still witnesses of the empty tomb. We are still challenged to share what we have seen. Will we have the courage to speak about the God we have met along the way? Will we have the courage to speak of our faith in a world of skepticism? Will we have courage to be generous in world of anxiety? Will we have the courage to love in a world trapped in fear?
We are witnesses of these things. The story of the first resurrection has been handed down to us by generations of Mary’s before us. We are also witnesses to the things that God has spoken to us and the things that God has done in us. We have lived through many challenges. We have made many difficult choices. Sometimes we have chosen well and sometimes poorly. Yet God is always at work in us. God is always loving us. The outcome is the unfolding story about how God is saving us.
No expects the tomb to be empty. We all have our plans for God. We think we know just how God should help us. It rarely turns out that way. Our plans all fail and we despair. The empty tomb is a surprise. God does the unexpected. When we let God work in us the outcome is new life.
When we tell the story, maybe there is more going on than the effect we have on the one who is listening. In the telling, we are changed. We discover the love of God in the plot we didn’t see at first. We realize how much we depend on God. We see that God has blessed us despite ourselves. We have added nothing to the riches we have been given.
Even so, we are invited to enter into God’s story. God would make us characters in a new narrative. With all our failures and limitations, we are the followers who have been chosen to share the treasure we have discovered. We are the witnesses beside the empty tomb. That empty tomb may be for us an escape from addiction – a recovery from an illness – a lifetime of service to our family or our community. Somehow God has inspired us to get to this point in our lives. We wouldn’t have made it here without God.
This is our Easter. This is what we must find the courage to proclaim.
Tonight we remember stories. We remind ourselves of how God worked in the lives of people in the past. We remember times that looked desperate. We remember how fortunes changed for God’s people in ways that they never suspected. There was a great natural disaster and God saved people and animals in a great ship, an ark. There was once a time when people were enslaved and God drew them out into freedom and crushed their oppressors. There was a time when people were scattered and their future – their nation and their faith – looked all but dead. God gives a vision of a new people being created out of the death of the old.
We also remember our first story. We remember the story of the resurrection. This is a difficult story. Christmas is easier for us. Our yuletide stories are all about gifts and the transformative power of generosity. It’s very human. We can see how others appreciate the gifts we offer. We can feel how generosity transforms us. When we give ourselves the freedom to act, we can understand what God does in giving us Jesus and we can imagine how we might copy God.
Easter is a little distant. The story of holy week is much more somber. We don’t rush to embrace the suffering of Jesus. It’s difficult to comprehend the depth of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. We can barely describe what the resurrection means. Our finest theological statements about Easter sound like good guesses. The story ends with an empty tomb. There is nothing to copy. There is no way to recreate the feelings and hand them to someone else.
We have joy. We have a sense that we are loved. There is an assurance that, since God has broken the power of our worst enemy, the rest will work out. Whatever challenges we face, the most difficult challenge has been met and God has prevailed.
If there is any common theme in all these vigil stories, it is how God has brought people to a new place, a better place, the place God desired from the start. I think we struggle because we are always trying to get back to where we were. God wants to bring us the place we need to be.
A while back, we were using a process called public narrative to tell our stories. Each of our stories contains a challenge, a choice and an outcome. I offer you the opportunity to think about your own stories. Think of a time when God has acted powerfully in your life.
Without sharing your story with all of us, consider the outcome. I would guess that for most of you, whatever struggle or challenge you faced; when God worked powerfully in your life, the outcome was that God brought you to a new place. I would even guess that the new place to which God brought you was an unexpected place. God brought you to a place of unexpected blessing. Whatever you asked of God, God brought you the place you needed to be – even if it wasn’t the place you expected.
I don’t know your stories. You may have had a very different outcome. I would like to remind us of how many of our stories are like our other resurrections stories. We go through tough times and we see no relief. We struggle and fight and it only seems to get worse. Sometimes, when God acts, we are surprised. Something changes. Something serendipitous, lucky, miraculous, turns the course of events in a new way and our world is changed. We can only marvel and give thanks. We find ourselves with a new job, greater health, a new family. We don’t deserve it and here it is.
We find ourselves looking for explanations for the empty tomb. There are none. God doesn’t ask for our advice on how to save the world. God just does it. We are left with the blessing and the gift of sharing the blessing. Unlike Christmas, we can’t copy God’s gift by buying something at the store. We are given the privilege of sharing the resurrection we know. Of course, we share the story of the resurrection of Jesus. And we are also called to be eyewitnesses to how God has worked in us. We are given the work of sharing what we personally know of the resurrection – how God has worked in our lives.
We don’t really need candy or eggs. We don’t need to rush to Walgreens or send out cards. We only have to share good news. We get to share how God has loved us.
Today we receive our palm branches. We reach back into the most ancient of customs and declare our allegiance to our King. This custom of carrying and waving palm branches goes back to Roman times when victorious generals would be welcomed with branches of palm. Judaism also has a tradition of pilgrims carrying palm branches as they go up to festivals to mark their allegiance to God and their hope for a return of a king like David. This was why the crowds were ready to greet Jesus with palms – they were already on their way to Jerusalem. They were already thinking about their hope for a messiah.
In the early church, the palm of victory became a symbol of martyrs. It later became just one of many adornments in Christian art, but in the early church, depictions of martyrs often showed them carrying palm branches. They had achieved victory over the flesh and offered themselves to God.
The palm branch is a symbol of God’s work. Jesus is our messiah. God does save us. Jesus will be our true and righteous ruler for eternity and we will live in peace. The palm becomes for us a sign of victory over the forces of evil. Many of you will take your branches home. You might put them over a mirror or a picture. It is a sign of God’s protection. The Roman tradition calls this a sacramental – it isn’t a sacrament, but it has a similar effect. It is an outward sign of God’s work.
You may remember that traditionally we take these very palms next year and burn them. The palm branches are used to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday. The sign of God’s victory will become a sign of our sin. The symbol of God’s victory becomes ironic. We hail Jesus as our king and then we participate in killing him.
Unfortunately, we don’t need to look only to the past to find our failures. We often start out with good intentions. We want to make the world a better place. We want to live well and in peace with our neighbors. Despite good intentions we find ourselves fighting wars across the world. We want to establish peace and we end up killing the innocent. We want to live in safety and a teenage boy is shot and killed. No one intends death or pain, but we can’t seem to help ourselves.
This is our human problem. We love God. We long to be good and righteous and just and loving. We all fail. This is the lesson of Lent. We take on discipline and devotion and the only thing we learn is how far we have to go. The difficulty goes far deeper than our selfishness or our fear. We are limited. We are ignorant. We are unable to feel the pain or needs of others – because we simply cannot comprehend the vast need of the entire world.
Our salvation does not come from our perfect devotion. Our salvation comes from the one we killed. We are saved despite ourselves. Jesus gives us hope and he gives us a path to follow. We hesitate because it doesn’t look like success. We think that God’s plan should have reasonable steps that are clear to follow. We expect some share of sacrifice on our part, and we think that if we all pull together, God will make something of our devotion.
It does not work that way. Jesus offers us the path of all or nothing.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death--
even death on a cross.
The way of Jesus is the way of giving up everything to God. We fail because we want to serve God our way. We want to define the rules and we want to decide who participates and how. All our good intentions fail because we keep sitting in the place of God. Jesus shows us that we have to get off our high seat and take the form of the servant. We have to be willing to become obedient to the way that God shows us. We may be called to let go of everything. But this is not the end.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus submits to our humiliation. God uses the humility of Jesus to exalt him and to save us. This is how our palm branch becomes a sign of blessing. Jesus earns the true praise we offer.
We often come to God in order to fix our problems or to feel better. We intend to put on a good show every Sunday in order to praise God and to give ourselves a little boost for the week. The spectacle of Palm Sunday shows how far we are to what God intends for us. Yet God uses our unfaithfulness to bring about our transformation. We realize that our new life will not be won through easy praise and cheap gifts. Our new life costs us everything and we have nothing to offer except ourselves.
I got a new phone and answering machine yesterday. The old one was staring to sound garbled and I couldn’t make out the messages. The new phone looks very much like the old one. It has all the same buttons – but they do different things. I used to be able to redial the number of the last caller without thinking. Now I have to look up how to do it in a manual. Someday I’ll be able to do what I need to do without looking it up. I’ll know it by heart.
Jeremiah talks about a new day and a new covenant – a new agreement with God and the people of God. In the past, everyone had to refer to the law – the agreement written in stone. In the future, our agreement with God will be written on our heart. We will know it “by heart.” We already have a taste of this in our current relationships. We still write up agreements when we lease an apartment or buy a car. But we do not need agreements to live with our close friends or to live with our families. When we fall in love, we don’t need a contract to tell us how to love. Someday we will love God the same way.
Jesus is coming close to his end and his purpose. Some Greeks wish to see Jesus. These were probably Greek speaking Jews who had come to Jerusalem for the festival. They probably did not speak Hebrew or Aramaic. They were looked down upon by the local population as collaborators with the Roman and Greek culture. When they seek to see Jesus, perhaps this reminds Jesus of the promise of God to draw everyone to the holy mountain. One day God will be known by everyone and everyone will seek God.
This is why Jesus is moving towards his end and his purpose. He is going to give himself so that a new agreement can be made. He is going to give himself so that God’s new law can be written in our hearts.
Jesus reminds us that the seed must die in order to bear fruit. We see much evidence of this in the world around us. The extraordinary warmth of the past week has turned the dead earth into new life. All at once the crocuses and the daffodils are blooming. Only a few days ago the ground was lifeless. Those of us who attempt gardening know that the seed looks dead and shriveled. The bulbs that bloom in the spring won’t do anything if we leave them in a bag in the basement. (In fact, you have to plant them in the fall and hope the deer don’t dig them up!) Only when they are buried will they be transformed. The plant that shoots out of the ground bears no resemblance to the shriveled brown thing that was planted.
The colorful new life we are beginning to see around us is a promise of something new. Jesus reminds us of that promise. The way things have always been done is not for ever. Jesus promises new life if we are willing to let the old familiar life die.
Maybe we are a little discouraged. Maybe we feel like dead seeds. Maybe we feel as if we are very far from the promised new covenant. We still need the law written in stone because our hearts have not yet been changed. We need to refer to the manual because we still don’t know what the buttons on the new phone are supposed to do. It’s OK for now. After all, it is lent. This is the time when we take a close look at ourselves. This is just the time to measure where we are and compare that to where we need to be.
Jesus is just beginning his work. He will ask extraordinary things of us. Jesus asks us to follow. We have to become like the seed. We have to give up love of this life in order to live new life – eternal life. For us it sounds impossible, but that is how God made the seed. God made it to die so that it could be transformed into something else – a flower, a tomato, a bushel of wheat. We are also promised that we will be transformed into something else. We are promised that we will be people with the love of God written on our hearts.
We will never reach this state by determined effort. This is where my phone image fails. Following Jesus is not at all like memorizing a manual. We are transformed by faith. The best we can do is to put ourselves in a place where God can work in us. Jesus is given to us as an example. At first, this doesn’t seem to be much help. It’s easy for Jesus – he’s the Son of God! Jesus is an example to us not because he is perfect, but because of his submission to God even though he was perfect. Jesus could have commanded a legion of angels or cast away his enemies with a wave of his hand. Instead, he simply accepted what God asked of him.
God asks us to accept by faith the promise of a new heart. This promise doesn’t carry threats of punishment or fear that we will fail to measure up. The worst danger is that we keep trying to earn it when God wants to give it. Our challenge is to give ourselves up to the promise we do not yet understand. God loves us and wants us to love in return.
All of the discipline we have been working on in lent brings us to this very thing. It’s never been about our worthiness or our passion and energy. It’s always been about God. God is always seeking us. God is always nagging us. God is always longing to meet us again.
God grows in us a new heart – just as God makes the flowers spring up out of the dead earth.
Today is mid-lent, sometimes called Refreshment Sunday or Mothering Sunday. In some places in the Anglican Communion people visit their mothers, or at least go back to the church of their birth – or their mother church. Some people eat simnel cakes. I was once in a church where they baked them every year. I don’t know what recipe they used, but they were hard to bite into. You certainly had to take them on faith.
We’re given strange images of faith this morning. The people of Israel are still wandering in the wilderness. They are complaining to Moses that they have no water and they are sick and tired of nothing but manna on the menu. God sends poisonous snakes to bite the people. They cry out to Moses to pray for them.
I have trouble with the idea that God sent snakes to punish people. I wasn’t there so I hesitate to reject what is written. I also wonder if we aren’t getting a first-hand, honest report of what happened. Isn’t it true that we lose our way when we give in to complaining? Isn’t it true that we blame God for whatever mess we get ourselves into? And isn’t it true that when we find ourselves in a tough place we can’t fix – we turn to God and beg for help? I think the passage preserves our nature quite honestly. I still don’t know how much the passage portrays an angry and punishing God – but there is more to the passage.
God instructs Moses to fashion a bronze snake and set it on a pole, so that people can see it. Anyone who sees the bronze snake will be healed and live. The story tells us how God heals and not just about how God punishes. It is a story of faith and not only a story about judgment.
There is a story in Greek mythology about the staff of Asclepius. He was the son of Apollo and one who practiced medicine. His symbol is a snake wound around a staff. The snake is a symbol of resurrection. As the snake sheds its old skin, a new creature if reborn. The staff is also helps to steady and hold up the one who carries it. The staff of Asclepius is the symbol of our medical profession even today.
The bronze snake of Moses shows up again in the apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon. In it, the writer compares the bronze snake to the Torah.
Wisdom 16:5-7
5 For when the terrible rage of wild animals came upon your people and they were being destroyed by the bites of writhing serpents, your wrath did not continue to the end; 6 they were troubled for a little while as a warning, and received a symbol of deliverance to remind them of your law's command. 7 For the one who turned toward it was saved, not by the thing that was beheld, but by you, the Savior of all.
The story of the people in the wilderness becomes a kind of lesson in how to turn to God and be saved. It’s not the snake that saves; it is God who gives life.
Jesus is having a conversation with Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews who is probably a member of the Sanhedrin. In the middle of the night, they are discussing what it means to have new life. Jesus tells Nicodemus that we need to be born again. We hear that famous verse that is often referenced on posters at sporting events – John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Jesus sets the context for this famous verse in the story of Moses and the bronze serpent. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
In Lent, we are preoccupied with our faults and our failings. It’s good to be reminded that our call is not to self-abasement, but to faith. We are not saved through our perfection. We are saved by turning again in faith towards the source of our life and hope. Repentance is all about our turning around. God’s love is shown in that we have something life giving to turn towards.
“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” If we believe in God we receive the life God wishes to give us. If we do not believe in God, that lack of belief is it’s own condemnation. How can we accept God’s gift if we don’t believe it?
In all our problems in our journey of life, we keep looking to ourselves. We keep trying to fix ourselves and become better people. We have a fantasy that we can arrange things so that we need never fear nor ever be in want. We are only fooling ourselves. Instead, God would have us live by faith. The real work of lent is not in making ourselves perfect, but in growing our capacity to trust God.
Jesus tells us that looking up to him is the way to life. In the protestant tradition we look up to the empty cross. We remind ourselves that God’s work is done. Jesus has died for us and He has risen from the dead. We have many worries for ourselves and for our church. We wonder if we will make it. Perhaps we even cry out to God in our prayers to save us.
God has already answered that prayer. The light has come into the world. Jesus has given us life. Our call is to be light. Our call is to live. Along the way, we have to give the rest to God, and trust that God will keep bringing us to new life.
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