The Other Sheep. (Easter 4, April 26 2015)

Yr B Easter 4.  April 26 2015.  St. Albans         

Readings:  Acts 4.5-12; Ps 23; 1 Jn 3.16-24; Jn 10.11-18

Jesus said to them, “I am the Good Shepherd.”  That part is clear.  Jesus is the good shepherd, the one cares for the sheep, the one who knows the sheep, who lays down his life for them, the one who has other sheep who do not belong to this fold, who seeks out and searches for those other sheep in order to bring them into the fold.

We know who the good shepherd is.  Who are the other sheep?  The ones who in Luke’s gospel are called the lost sheep, who in the gospel we just heard are referred to as the ones who don’t belong?

To figure that out, we need to go to the back story.  You see the reason that Jesus is talking to his disciples about the shepherd and sheep is that he is providing them with an interpretation of what just happened.  That’s the way it works in John’s gospel.  Sign and then interpretation.  Something happens, Jesus does something, and then he tells us what it means.  So what just happened?

What happened is that in the previous chapter, chapter nine, Jesus sees a man who is blind from birth.  And the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind from birth.”  You see, that was their assumption – this must be somebody’s fault.  This man had been born blind either because he himself was to blame or he’d come from a bad family.  We do that don’t we?  We insulate ourselves from tragedy by blaming the victim.  By shaming.  By marginalizing.  And when we do that, we compound the tragedy, because not only does this poor man have to struggle with blindness, he also becomes an outcast, one who does not belong.

But Jesus will have none of that.  “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.”  Jesus doesn’t play the blame game.  Instead he seeks out the man born blind and restores his sight.  And that’s when the stuff hits the fan.  Because even though this should be an occasion for celebration, it turns out that the authorities are angry.  Their nice categories of who’s in and who’s out, who’s respectable and who’s not, who’s righteous and who’s a sinner have been challenged.  They are upset that Sabbath laws have been broken.  They’re upset because Jesus has undermined their authority to decide who’s a sinner and who’s not.  And they take it out on the man who has just regained his sight, telling him that he was born entirely in sins, and driving him out of the synagogue and the community.

And when Jesus hears that they had driven him out, he goes after him, and finds him, and comforts him and cares for him, just as a good shepherd would do for a sheep who is lost.

That’s what happened.  And it’s immediately after this that Jesus takes his disciples aside to teach them and says “I am the Good Shepherd,” the one who will not leave the sheep, the one who seeks after and brings in the other sheep who do not belong.

Who are the other sheep?  They are the ones who do not belong, the ones who have been blamed, shamed and marginalized.  In Jesus’ day, that meant people like this  man who had been born blind, who was labelled a sinner and cast out of the community.

Who are the ones that Jesus calls the “other sheep” today?  Who are the ones who don’t belong, the ones who have been blamed, shamed, marginalized and cast out of community?

This week St. Albans was privileged to be able to serve as the volunteer headquarters for the Ottawa 20,000 Homes campaign organized by the Alliance to End Homelessness.  20,000 Homes is a national campaign with the goal of providing 20,000 people who are currently homeless in Canada with homes by 2018.  The first step in Ottawa’s campaign was the survey that was conducted this past week.  Over 100 volunteers fanned out across the downtown in the cold and the rain to meet people who are homeless, to get to know them, to hear their stories and to have them answer survey questions with the goal of assessing their needs so that the right housing interventions can be made.

A total of 461 people were surveyed.  To put that in context, it is estimated that approximately 6500 people used emergency shelters in Ottawa in 2014, and on any given night, about 1300 people spend the night in shelter beds in this city. 

Here are some of the results of the survey that stood out:

Of the 461 people surveyed, 75% had been homeless for longer than 6 months, and the average amount of time they had spent in emergency shelters or on the street was 3.7 years.

Of those surveyed only 2% were over the age of 65.  Though perhaps shocking, this shouldn’t be surprising since the average life expectancy of those who experience homelessness is much less than 65 years.

Of the 461 people surveyed, 88% reported that they were living with a mental health condition.

Now, these are just some of the aggregate statistics that can be reported publically.  But behind these statistics lie 461 names, faces and stories, 461 of God’s children who had the courage to share their stories with our volunteers.

In our time and place, these are the ones Jesus calls “the other sheep”.  Just as the man born blind in Jesus’ day was blamed, shamed and told that he didn’t belong, many of those who experience homelessness in our neighbourhood have suffered the same.   Blamed, shamed and told they didn’t belong.  Because of a mental illness.  Because of a lost job.  Because of a broken family.  Because we needed someone to blame.

Clearly there is a physical and mental toll to marginalization.  But there is also a spiritual cost.  For the man born blind in Jesus’ time, for those who are on the margins in our own day, it can be really hard to believe that you’re a child of God, loved by God, deserving of love, just as you are.

Which is why Jesus makes a point of telling others that the blind man is not to blame.  Which is why he reaches out to him and restores his sight.  Which is why when the man has been driven out of the community Jesus finds him and makes sure he knows that he belongs and that he too is one of God’s children.

Which is why Jesus says “I am the Good Shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.  And I lay down my life for the sheep.  I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also.”

Which is why Jesus has commissioned us to carry on his work of seeking out the other sheep and restoring them to community and enabling them to know that they too are God’s beloved children, fully deserving of love, respect and dignity.

Let me finish with words from our second reading, from the first letter of John, which can serve as our call to action this morning:

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech but in truth and action.”

Amen.

Why Does Easter Matter? (Easter 3, April 19 2015)

Yr B Easter 3.  April 19 2015.  St. Albans Church

Readings:  Acts 3.12-19; Ps 4; 1 Jn 3.1-7; Luke 24.36b-48

Why does Easter matter?

You might recall that last week our gospel was about Thomas and his doubts about the resurrection of Jesus, and that my question to you was “what do you need to know that Easter is real?”

This week I have another question for you:  “Why does it matter?”

Why does Easter matter?  What is the significance of the resurrection?”

This isn’t a new question.  In fact, once Jesus’ disciples managed to wrap their heads around the reality of the resurrection, this was the next question that they wrestled with and tried to answer.  Why does Easter matter?  It’s a pretty good question for us too.  After all, as a matter of historical fact, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Easter, if those first followers hadn’t witnessed to the amazing fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.  So it must matter.  Why?

I want to start by turning to our readings this morning because embedded in them are some of the reasons why the early church thought Easter mattered, and then once we’ve had a look at these, we may want to think about our own reasons.

So here we go, seven reasons why Easter matters, why the resurrection of Jesus is so significant, as drawn from today’s readings:

Let’s start with our reading from Acts, a speech that Peter gives in Jerusalem, soon after Pentecost, perhaps a couple of months after Easter.

First reason why Easter matters, from Acts 3.12:  The resurrection is significant because in and through it God has glorified his servant Jesus.  Peter proclaims this in his speech.  Easter is a vindication of the way of Jesus.  Jesus was not just another failed would-be Messiah, whose counter-cultural ways of compassion, love and forgiveness were crushed by the might of the Roman Empire.  No, God has vindicated and glorified Jesus by raising him from the dead.  Jesus’ ways are actually God’s ways, and so Jesus’ work and mission continues in his followers, and will prevail, and you should get on-side.

Second reason why Easter matters:  It matters, continues Peter in his speech in Acts, because by raising Jesus from the dead, God has fulfilled what he foretold in the prophets.  You see, there is a trajectory here.  When the prophets were talking about justice, about caring for the weak, the orphans and widows, when they were talking about God’s grace and mercy being for all people, when they condemned greed and oppression, even though they were usually ignored, they weren’t just whistling in the dark.  They were part of a trajectory, God’s trajectory, fulfilled and vindicated in the resurrection, a trajectory and a way of living that we are called to be a part of, repenting and turning to God.  Because if we don’t, then the words of the psalmist in today’s psalm apply just as much to us as to the people of ancient Israel:

“You humans, how long will you dishonor my glory, how long will you worship dumb idols and run after false gods?”  The false gods of the 21^st century are not the statues and dumb idols of the ancient world.  They are more likely to be things like the desire for wealth, fame, and power, the seeking after security, stimulation, and consumption.  Do we run after those false gods, because if we do, we’ve missed the boat, because Easter tells us that what God wants for our lives, the things foretold by the prophets and confirmed in the resurrection, is very different.

So different in fact, that a new status or identity has been given to us through the resurrection.  “See what love the Father has given us,” writes John in the letter we read this morning, “that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.”  Third reason why Easter matters:  in Jesus’ resurrection we are made to be children of God, in fact God himself declares us to be his children.  That is a remarkable thing.  I can’t explain to you exactly how it happens.  But in the wake of Easter the followers of Jesus somehow realized, somehow experienced, that through the power of the resurrection they had been brought into a new relationship with God, best expressed as the relationship between a parent and his offspring.  “See what love the Father has given us.”  On the one hand, the image of the child of God conveys to us the amazing love that God has for us.  But we have to be careful not to limit this image to that of a young child.  We are adults, most of us, and the Greek word here can also be translated as the offspring of God, the descendants of God or the posterity of God.  We are the ones who are the inheritors of God’s ways, the ones who are to bring honour to the household of God, the ones who are the image of God in the world.  As children of God we are loved and we take on the responsibility of bringing honour to the Father and bearing God’s image in the world.

John’s letter also gives us our fourth reason as to why Easter matters:  through the resurrection the Son of God was revealed in order to destroy the works of the devil.  By works of the devil, we can reasonably assume that John means things like evil, oppression, violence, hatred, sin, and perhaps even disease and death itself.  That opens up lots of questions which we won’t get into this morning.  But the early church was convinced that Easter matters because through Easter God has destroyed the power of evil.  Even though we may still struggle with many things, ultimate victory is assured.

Let me turn now to our gospel reading from Luke.  We are now back on the evening of Easter Sunday, in fact it is probably the middle of the night.  The disciples are up, they’re talking, trying to figure out what to make of the first reports of Jesus’ appearances.  And suddenly Jesus is in their midst, and his first words to them are “Peace be with you”.

Easter matters because it brings peace.  Not just peace in the sense of the absence of conflict, but peace in the full sense of shalom:  healing, well-being, comfort, completeness and harmony.  The disciples were at that very moment something of an emotional trainwreck:  startled, terrified, disbelieving, wondering and joyful all at the same time.  In the midst of those conflicted emotions, the risen Jesus brings peace.  The disciples were full of doubt: in the midst of doubt, the risen Jesus brings peace.  Easter matters because it brings peace.

The sixth reason, according to Luke, that Easter matters is because, verse 45, it opens our minds.  Sometimes, we can be a bit close-minded.  We have our own way of seeing things, our habitual ways of understanding, our standard views of the world.  Easter opens all that up.  Easter is mind-blowing.  It gives us a new way of seeing; that leads to repentance, to new perspectives, a change of mind.  It gives us new insights into scriptures, into our story, into the story of our universe and of our lives.  The resurrection is significant because it opens our minds.  There is more to our lives and our world than we could have ever imagined.

And the seventh and last reason that I’ll draw from our readings today on why Easter matters is this:  Easter matters because it makes us witnesses of all these things.  The resurrection gives us a job to do.  It’s not just a matter of intellectual curiousity, it is a powerful reality that will change our lives.  “You are witnesses of these things,” writes Luke, and you are to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to the ends of the earth.”  That’s a big job.

Why does Easter matter?  What is the significance of the resurrection?”

The writings of the early church, and in particular our readings today give us seven reasons.  Easter matters because:

1.   God has glorified and vindicated Jesus.  His way is God’s way.

2.   God has fulfilled what he foretold in the prophets, putting us on that same trajectory.

3.   God has declared us to be and made us children of God.

4.   Evil has been destroyed.

5.   Easter brings us peace.

6.   The resurrection opens our minds.

7.   And Easter gives us a job to do.  We are to be witnesses of all these things.

Do you remember, four years ago, when Jack Layton died, he wrote a letter which he ended with the following words?

“My friends, love is better than anger.  Hope is better than fear.  Optimism is better than despair.  So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.  And we’ll change the world.”

Those words had a lot of resonance with Canadians.  We desperately want them to be true.  But are they true, or are they just whistling in the dark, wishful thinking that just doesn’t line up with the ways of this world?

I believe they are true.  I believe that love is stronger than hate, that life is stronger than death, that our lives have purpose and meaning, that evil will be defeated and  that this universe and human history have a trajectory which is God’s trajectory.  And the reason I believe things is because of Easter.

We are an Easter people.

Amen.

Change Lives? Easter Can Do That (Easter 2, April 12 2015)

Homily:  Yr B Easter 2, April 15 2012, St. Albans

Readings:  Acts 4:32-35; Ps 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31

Last week, on Easter Sunday, our reading from the Gospel of Mark ended at the empty tomb in terror and silence.  The women at the tomb were terrified and they fled and said nothing to anyone.  And yet we know that that wasn’t the end of the story.  It couldn’t be.  Somebody must have said something to someone!   And in fact the other three gospels, Matthew, Luke and John all attest to the fact that somehow these women, Mary Magdalene and the others, somehow they overcame their initial fear, and went and announced to the other disciples what they had seen.  John’s gospel tells us that as Mary Magdalene was turning away from the tomb, she heard Jesus call her name. Something happened.  She had what we might call an Easter experience, and that changes everything.  

Today in our gospel reading, we get a glimpse of the Easter experience of the disciples on the evening of that first Easter Sunday.  When we first see them they are huddled behind locked doors, fearful.  Moments later, they rejoice when they see the Lord, and we know that they then go on to turn the world upside down.  Then, a week later on the second Sunday, it’s Thomas’s turn to experience Easter.  You just heard his story.

The common theme running through all these stories is that some sort of transformation occurs.  Lives are changed as a result of Easter.

Our scripture and traditions are full of images of that transformation.  With our children we’ve used the image of the caterpillar that becomes a butterfly.  In our gospel John gives us another image, the image of Jesus breathing into his disciples.  Now that might seem a bit odd at first, but John is making deliberate reference all the way back to the creation story of Genesis, evoking the image of God forming humans from the dust of the earth and breathing life into them.   He’s also reminding us of Ezekiel’s great vision of dry bones in the desert, bones as dry as dust, but when the breath of God comes into them, they are ignited and brought back to life.  Both of these are powerful images of transformation.  And of course the most powerful image of them all is the resurrection of Jesus, the passage from death to new life.

But in today’s gospel, Thomas is having a bit of trouble with the resurrection.  Having missed Jesus appearance on the first Easter evening, Thomas flatly states that “unless I put my finger in the mark of the nails, I will not believe.”  Now traditionally, Thomas has gotten a bit of a bad rap for this.  Often he’s called ‘Doubting Thomas’.   But to me, Thomas is a realist.  It’s hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.  In fact I would be willing to bet that each one of us here either has doubts about the resurrection, or has had doubts in the past, or will have doubts at some point in the future.

And we’re not alone in that.  Did you notice that every single person in the gospel stories also has doubts?  Not one person says to the risen Christ when he appears, “welcome back, we were expecting you, what took so long?”  No, they all have doubts.  They were all taken by surprise.  Doubt is in fact, an essential part of faith.

Maybe the important question for us about the resurrection of Jesus is not whether we’ve ever had any doubts, but rather, what do we need to experience to know that it’s real?

Mary Magdalene needed to hear Jesus call her name.

Thomas needed to put his hand in Jesus wound.

Our dilemma is that those options aren’t open to those of us who live 2000 years later.

Jesus seems to recognize our dilemma.  Turning his attention from Thomas to those of us who come later, he does a surprising thing.  He blesses us.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

John the gospel writer, he too seems to have us in mind.  “All these things are written,” he says, “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

There’s that “life” thing again.  There’s that claim that Easter has the power to give life, to renew lives, to change lives. 

Mary is transformed from a sorrowful, fearful woman trying to cling to a dead body to a joyful, purposeful apostle of the Lord.

Thomas is transformed from a disappointed doubter to one who travels far and wide to proclaim what he has seen and heard.

The disciples are transformed from a fearful group destined to be scattered to the loving community described in Acts, a community that pools its resources together, distributes them to those in need, and eventually turns the world upside down.

What do we need to experience to know that Easter is real?  What do I need to experience?  I need to experience the power of Easter to change lives.

Let me tell you a story.

It’s the story of Dan, a true story that was told to us by Tom Long at a clergy conference.  It took place in the southern United States, I believe in the state of Georgia.  Dan was pretty messed up.  He was alone, he was living on the street, he’d been in and out of jails, he had problems with substance abuse.  One day, on a Wednesday, for whatever reason, he walked into the local church.  That church, St. Matthew’s it was called, had a drop-in centre on Wednesdays, and there were volunteers there who served coffee and were available to talk with anyone who came in.  When Dan dropped in, he was in pretty rough shape.  One of the St. Matthew’s men engaged him in conversation and listened to his story.  He asked Dan if he’d like to get help, to get some counseling or treatment.  Dan said that we would, and so the volunteer went to call the counseling centre.  When he came back, he told Dan that he couldn’t get him a session with the counselor before next week, but that if he was willing he would meet him here at the church every morning between now and then and pray with him.  And that’s what happened.  The two men met each morning in the church and prayed.  And the next week, Dan started his counseling program, and eventually received treatment for his addictions.  His life started to turn around.  And he started going to St. Matthew’s on Sunday mornings.

That was when my friend Tom first noticed Dan, sitting near the back of the church.  But he really only got to know Dan a few weeks later, when the minister held his annual dinner for newcomers to the church.

Now Tom and his wife were new to the parish, having recently moved to town so that Tom could start a new job.  So he and his wife were at that dinner, along with several other couples, a few younger individuals, one older woman, and Dan. 

The dinner was mostly a social affair, but near the end, as they were still seated around the table having coffee, the minister spoke a few words thanking them for coming to the dinner, welcoming them to the parish and telling them how much he appreciated their having joined the congregation.  And then he asked them a question.  “Tell me,” he said, “Why is it that you’ve decided to worship here at St. Matthew’s?”

The newcomers to the church took turns answering. Tom and his wife told the minister that they had just moved to town, and that they had been looking for a church that was involved in social justice, and so that’s why they had joined.  Another man said, “Well we just dropped in one Sunday, and we loved the music and the choir, and so we kept coming.”  The older women, who used a walker, said that she’d needed a church where she didn’t have to be going up and down stairs all the time.  Another man mentioned that at the church he used to go to there was no parking, and he got tired of always having to look for parking on the street.  “This church has a big parking lot,” he told them, sounding quite pleased.

And so it went, until everyone around the table had volunteered some reason or other why they had joined St. Matthew’s church.  Everyone, that is, except for Dan.  And so the minister looked over at him.  “Dan,” he said, “we haven’t heard from you yet.  Why do you come to this church?”  And Dan straightened himself up in his chair, and a smile lit up his face, and he looked around the table at everyone and said, “Reverend, the reason I come to this church is because this is where God saved my life.”

Now as you might imagine, a bit of a hush fell over that table after Dan had spoken.  As my colleague Tom told me, “Most of us around the table felt a bit sheepish at that moment.  Here we were, all of us having just told the minister that we liked the music, or the parking, or the fact that we could walk to church, and then Dan goes and says something that reminded us of what church is really supposed to be about.” 

But the story doesn’t end with that dinner.  A few weeks later, Tom noticed that Dan wasn’t there on Sunday morning.  And he wasn’t at St. Matthew’s the next week either, or the week that followed.  And so, Tom figured that he ought to find out if everything was alright.  So he got Dan’s address from the parish list, and he went there.  It wasn’t the best neighbourhood.  When he arrived the landlord of the rooming house told him that the police had come and taken Dan away.  Tom went to the police and found out that Dan was in jail.  Now Tom almost stopped at that point, but then he decided, no, he really ought to visit him.  So he went down to the local county jail.  The guards brought Tom to a wall which had a window in it, with a speaker and a mike on the counter below, and they sat him down.  In a few minutes he saw Dan through the glass, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit.  Dan sat down on the other side.

“Tom, it’s good to see you, thanks for coming”

“Dan, what happened, what are you doing here?”

“Well, you see, after I’d been coming to church for a few weeks, I realized that I needed to come clean on some stuff I’d done a few years back.  So I called up the police and turned myself in, and now I’m doing a few months time.”

“Are you okay?  Is everything alright in there?  Are they treating you ok?”

And at that point the same smile that Tom had seen at the welcome dinner broke over Dan’s face again.

“Yeah Tom, everything is great.  I’m leading a Bible study for a group of the inmates here, and every Sunday morning I help the chaplain with the worship service, and I’m seeing God change lives, just like he changed mine at St. Matthew’s.  Yeah Tom, everything is ok.  This is where God wants me to be right now.”

Now, these events didn’t happen on Easter day.  I’m not sure whether they even happened in the spring.  But this too is an Easter story.  It is a story of hope, a story of changed lives.

Easter can do that.  It’s real.

Amen.

With thanks to Dr. Thomas G. Long, who told this story at the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa Clergy Conference in 2009.

The Story Isn't Over Yet (Easter April 5th 2015)

Homily.  Easter Sunday Apr 5 2015. St. Albans Church

Readings:  Acts 10.34-43; Ps 118.1-2,14-24; 1 Cor 15.1-11; Mark 16.1-8

“Michael, are you sure you finished that reading?” 

Because if you did, that last sentence isn’t what I was expecting:  “So the women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Really?  That’s it? Is that the way the story ends?  Because if that’s the way the Easter story ends, what are we doing here this morning?

I guess we’re lucky we have more than just Mark’s gospel.  We have Peter’s speech to Cornelius which talks about Jesus appearing to witnesses who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  We have Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  The Corinthians had doubts about the resurrection, and so Paul points them towards the more than five hundred people, most of whom were still alive, who saw the risen Christ.  Maybe Mark didn’t get the memo, because his Easter story finishes in terror and silence.

It’s a strange, if not shocking, ending.  Usually when we read a book, or when we watch a movie, we want some sort of closure at the end.  A conclusion that answers the unanswered questions, that resolves whatever conflict had been driving the plot forward, that ties together the loose ends.

And isn’t that what Easter is supposed to do for us?  Answer the unanswered questions, resolve the conflict and tie together the loose ends?  We’ve heard the story of Jesus ministry, of his teaching and healing, of the misunderstandings with his disciples and the conflict with the authorities which climaxes on that dark day that we now call Good Friday.  We want Easter to provide us with some closure, to tell us that even though things looked bad, it turned out alright after all and everyone lived happily ever after.  Butterflies and flowers and all that.

Instead Mark finishes with this:  “So the women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Why do you think that Mark finishes his gospel this way?

I think that the reason Mark finishes his gospel like that, is because he’s trying to tell us that story isn’t over yet!  In fact, maybe it’s just getting started.

Sometimes we want it to be over, we’d just love to say all’s well that ends well, shout some alleluias, sing some hymns and then return to our normal lives, feeling just a little bit pumped up, with a ticket to heaven in our backpockets.

The three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Salome, they just wanted it to be over too.  It had been a rough ride, and they were looking for a little closure.  They got up early in the morning to go and visit the tomb of their friend who had just died.  Why did they go?  The same reasons that we go to visit the graves of our loved ones.  Out of a sense of duty, which in their world meant that they needed to anoint the body and give it a proper burial.  To pay their respects.  To shed some tears. To get some closure, to bring an end to this turbulent, traumatic chapter of their lives so that they could just get back to normal.

So the women got up early in the morning to go to the tomb.  They thought the big question they would face when they got there was what to do with the stone that covered the entrance.  But they were wrong.  It turned out that the big question they faced at the tomb was not what to do with the stone, but what to do with their lives.

Because when they arrived at the tomb, the stone had already been rolled away.  And when they entered the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe sitting on the right side.  They are terrified.  This wasn’t what they were expecting.  There is no closure here.  There’s certainly no normal.  The young man tells them that Jesus is not there.  He has been raised, he has gone ahead of you to Galilee, and he wants you to follow him.

And if those words have a familiar ring, maybe that’s because way back in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel, back in Galilee, the first words that Jesus said to his disciples were these:  “Follow me.”

“Follow me.”  The two most disruptive words those women had ever heard.  The two words that started all this craziness.  Jesus isn’t lying in the tomb.  He has been raised.  But he isn’t just hanging around the tomb waiting for someone to show up.  He’s on the move, and he’s asking us to follow.  And if you do that, there’s no going back to normal.  The craziness starts all over again.  The women are given no plan, there are no details about what’s in store, just a next step.  This is your mission if you choose to accept it:  meet me in Galilee.

And so by the end of Mark’s gospel, the story isn’t over yet, not by a long shot.  But who’s left?  The male disciples, we were told that they took off when Jesus was arrested.  Jesus has gone on ahead.  And in that final sentence that Mark gives us, even the women flee from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they say nothing to anyone.  Who’s left?

The only one left at the end of Mark’s gospel is the reader, that is you, and me, oh, and the young man with the message from God.  The message is this:  that Jesus is going on ahead and he wants you to follow him.

The story isn’t over yet.  It’s Easter, the tomb is empty and you are being called to follow Jesus.  What happens next?

Today, four members of our community are taking up the invitation to follow Jesus by renewing their baptismal vows.  I would encourage you to seek out Meibh, Leah, Billie and Alan today or sometime soon, and ask them why they are doing this, why have they decided to follow Jesus and make that public declaration today.  Because their stories too, are very much part of the Easter story that we are celebrating this morning.

The reason that Mark never finishes his gospel story is so that we can be part of the story.  And how’s that going to play out?  How do you respond? 

There’s no closure.  There’s no going back to normal.  This is just the beginning.  The story is still unfolding because you’re part of it.  It’s Easter, the tomb is empty and you are being called to follow Jesus.  What happens next?

Amen.

Atonement. (Good Friday, April 3, 2015)

Homily – Good Friday, April 3 2015, St. Albans

Readings:  Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Ps 22; Heb 10:16-25; Jn 18:1-19:42

I don’t know about you, but I struggle to make sense of the gospel that we just heard.  On one level it is a tragic episode in human history, one of many tragic episodes in human history.  As a human drama, it’s the story of a good person who is betrayed, condemned unjustly, abandoned and made to suffer and die in the most excruciating way possible.  It’s the story of one whose message of forgiveness, of truth, and of love challenged those who heard it and posed a threat to the power of the ruling authorities, in this case, the religious authorities and their military masters.  At this human level, sadly enough, the story is easy to understand.  And the next stage in the story should have been easy enough to predict.  Those who followed Jesus, disciples like Peter, would deny or keep their mouths shut, slip out of Jerusalem unnoticed in the dark of night, and we would never have heard from them again.

But that’s not what happened.  We know that on the third day, totally unexpected, Easter happened.  And in the light of Easter, by looking through the lens of the Resurrection, the followers of Jesus gradually realized that the story of the cross was not just a human story.  The cross is also God’s story.  The cross is the place where human history and God’s reality touch and become one in the person of Jesus, the one crucified and nailed to the cross.  The followers of Jesus came to recognize the cross as part of God’s story, as the key moment in the relationship between God and humanity. 

And as they tried to make sense of the cross, they recalled Jesus’ words.  Jesus had spoken about his own death as a service for others, and as a gift for others.  At the last supper, Jesus had said, in words that we repeat each Sunday, “this is my body which is given for you.”  The earliest statements of belief, the kerygma of the early church, proclaimed that Jesus died for our sins.  The letter to the Hebrews tells us that in his death Jesus became the source of eternal salvation for all who follow him.  Paul, trying to explain the cross to the Galatians, asserts that Jesus loved us and gave himself for us.

But what is this “for us”?  What does this “for us” mean?  What can it possibly mean to say that Jesus’ death is for us, for this community gathered here in this place; for me, two thousand years after the crucifixion.  Each year as we remember, as we meditate on the cross, we stand in front of a mystery.  How is this a gift for us?  What does it mean for me? 

We’re not the first to ask these questions.  The early followers of Jesus asked these same questions, and they searched their own traditions and scriptures for guidance.  And in these they found the remarkable picture of the suffering servant in the writings of the prophet Isaiah which we heard in our first reading.  Isaiah writes of God’s suffering servant, a man of suffering who was despised and rejected by others, one who has borne our infirmities and carried our disease, one who was wounded for our transgressions, by whose bruises we are healed.

What’s remarkable about Isaiah’s text is not that the servant’s suffering and the violence inflicted on him were caused by others.  Sadly that is all too common in our world.  What is remarkable is the affirmation that by his bruises, we are healed.  Somehow the suffering of the servant serves to right that which is wrong, put together what has been torn apart, and restore relationships which have been broken.  To use a more traditional language, the suffering servant makes atonement for the sins of others.

The Jewish people understood the need for atonement.  The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is the holiest day of the Jewish year.  As humans we fall short of who we were created and called to be.  Intentionally and unintentionally, as individuals and as communities we choose wrongly and we cause harm to ourselves and to others, and in so doing we create vicious circles and structures of suffering and injustice and oppression.  This pain and suffering results in alienation, in brokenness and in separation, in our relationships with each other and in our relationship with God.  There is suffering which cries out for healing.  There are wrongs which cry out to be made right.  There are relationships that cry out for restoration.  There is a need for atonement.

There is a novel called Atonement, written by Ian McEwan, which was released as a movie a number years ago.  Perhaps some of you have seen it.  It’s the story of a young girl, Briona, who falsely accuses her older sister’s lover, Robbie, of a crime.  Robbie is taken off to prison, and the two lovers are cheated of the life they could have had together.  By the time the enormity of what she has done hits Briona, her older sister has already left home, estranged from her family, and Robbie is in France, released from prison to fight in the horrific conditions of the Second World War, with a shrapnel wound in his chest.  Suddenly aware of her transgression and its impact, Briona does everything she can to atone for what she has done.  She writes to her sister, and receives no reply.  She gives up her comfortable situation to live a sacrificial life as a young war-time nurse.  She punishes herself, living without love and without friends, working among the wounded by day and typing out the truth of what she did on her typewriter at night in the hope that somehow that will make a difference. In one particularly poignant scene we see Briona scrubbing and scrubbing her hands with a wire brush trying to get the blood of the dying off her hands.  But despite her best efforts and intentions, despite her pleading and regret and apologies and self-inflicted punishment, Briona cannot atone for what she did.  She can’t make right the wrongs she has caused, and she can’t dismantle the barrier in her failed relationship with her sister.  In the novel called Atonement, there is no atonement.

In our relationship with God we don’t have the ability to put right the things that go wrong or to restore the relationship that so often we turn our backs on.  If atonement depends on me, then there doesn’t seem to be much hope of atonement.  And even Isaiah’s suggestion that a third party, the suffering servant, can somehow bear the sins of others and make atonement is hard for me to understand . . . unless . . . unless . . .

Unless the suffering servant is not a third party  . . .

What if the suffering servant is God himself?  God incarnate, God in human form, God who was fully present in Jesus.

What if it was God who suffered on the cross?  Who experienced the pain of rejection and abandonment?

The message of the gospel of John is that the one who died on the cross is none other than the Word who was God who became flesh and dwelt among us.  Jesus is the one who bears the name “I AM”, the divine name that caused a complete detachment of soldiers and police to fall to the ground in the garden.

We all know, each in our imperfect way, what it means to love.  And that means we all know or can imagine, at least in some measure, how painful it is to be rejected by the ones we love, and how much we suffer when we see the suffering of those that we love.  We can’t love without being hurt, without being open to pain and sorrow.

How much more then must God, who is love, and created us out of love, suffer and endure pain as a result of the sin and oppression of our world.  In the course of human history, with its war and violence and genocides, in the course of our own personal histories, imagine how much pain and suffering a God who loves has had to endure.

On the cross, the reality of God and human history touch each other.  God’s story and our story become one story in Jesus.  Jesus is the one who reveals God to us, and the cross is the place where that revelation is made in its fullness.  On the cross we see a God who is vulnerable, who is powerless, who suffers.  On the cross, the God who loves experiences the pain of being rejected by those he loves and the sorrow of seeing the suffering of God’s beloved children.  The response of God the Son is to stretch out his arms on the cross and absorb and endure that pain and sorrow.

At Christmas we sing Immanuel, God with us.  On Good Friday, we learn what it really means for God to be with us.

And as God the Son dies on the cross, bearing the hurt and pain of love rejected, bearing the sin of the world, there is one question which seems to really matter.  Is that it?  Having experienced within Godself the painful reality of what it means to love each one of us, does God go on loving?

The answer is given in the resurrection.  The answer is yes.  And by absorbing that hurt and continuing to love, God overcomes the separation in our relationship.  Does it matter?  Yes, it makes all the difference in the world.  There is atonement.  The sin of humanity has been dealt with, not by the demands of justice but through the gift of love.  Our relationship with God is restored, not by anything we have done, but by God’s gracious initiative.  This is the source of eternal salvation.  Separation has been overcome.  The barrier has been brought down.  Our brokenness has been made whole.  And for us the veil has been withdrawn, ripped from top to bottom, and we get to see what that looks like in the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

The cross is where God is revealed to us.  This is the God in whose image we were created, this is the God we are called to follow.  And this manifestation of who God is and how much God loves us gives us the power to become children of God, and challenges us to be transformed into agents of God’s reconciling love in the world.

As we stand before the cross, let us remember what God has done for us.

Amen.