Dead but Not Defeated - Good Friday 2020

Good Friday 2020

            There is really not much more to say after this reading we’ve just heard, (the Passion of Christ According to John, chapters 18 & 19), save this:

            Today we are separated, kept apart by a virus pandemic. Many of our life experiences and rituals have been affected, especially those experiences and rituals surrounding death.

            We are no longer able to visit our aged or infirm loved ones as they near death if they are in a hospital or nursing home. Although some arrangements may be made for the next of kin in some of these places, it is only in the very final stages of dying, often too late to communicate our presence and our love with certainty that our loved one is aware that they are not alone in that moment.

            Today we are denied what are normal mourning rituals as well. Funeral are verboten, and even graveside services are limited in size and scope. We are not able to give or receive the comfort and support that is so important at times like these.

            As Jesus hung on the cross, most of his loved ones were hidden away in the upper room, his followers scattered for fear of their lives. Jesus died alone, forsaken on the cross. He shares our experience of isolation in that moment. And yet, he gives us hope.

            That hope first comes in the awareness that we are not alone in our grief or in our dying. As Jesus took on flesh to join us in our humanity, Jesus dies alone and forsaken so that we might know we never will be; we are accompanied through every moment of our lives and our death by a God who loves us so fiercely, that he is there with us, suffering alongside us, comforting us with the promise that this is not all there is.

            While our story today is one of death and sorrow, we cannot forget that the resurrection looms just around the corner. We can’t go there yet, it’s important for us to linger in the shadows of the reality of the cross for a time, but for those living on this side of the cross, Jesus’ own death brings promise.

            Jesus dies on the cross but is not defeated, and neither are we. Jesus will go on to glory showing us the way to everlasting life. Jesus demonstrates that this suffering and loss will not be the end of us, and it will not go on forever, but instead will give way to the new life that is ours through the love and steadfast mercy of a God who will welcome us all home.

            While living through loss without the blessing of final goodbyes and without the essential and comforting rituals we have come to expect, we are reminded that these losses will not have the last word; one day we will come together in our mourning and in our celebrations, in our sorrow and in our joy.

            The good news is that in wherever we are along that journey, we are never alone.

Amen.

Dusty Roads and Foreheads

Ash Wednesday 2017 (March  Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

      

            In a few moments, we will be receiving ashes upon our foreheads. Just before that happens, before we are each marked with the ashen cross, together we’ll confess to God and to one another that indeed, we have sinned and it is nobody’s fault but our own.

            We’re going to confess that to be honest about it, we know that we sin by the things we hold in our hearts – those feelings of jealousy and rage, of revenge and hatred, of thinking too highly of ourselves, and too little of our neighbors and those we encounter and engage in our lives. No doubt about it. Our hearts can and do get us into trouble.

            But then we’ll confess that we also sin by the things we have said – and if we think our hearts can be problematic, just think about our words! The words we’ve used, sharpened through vocabulary and tone, have all too often been intentionally formed and flung at others, to insult, humiliate, or make a person feel less than they deserve, especially when you consider that they, too, are fashioned after and in the image of God. Words are the tools we have often used to deceive others and ourselves, steering neatly away from the truth for our own benefit.

            Then, of course, we’re going to confess that it’s not just our thoughts and words, but also our actions that do us in – both the things done and the things we haven’t done – especially the things God told us to do that we’ve either ignored or failed at – like love one another and treat one another as we ourselves wish to be treated.

            Because, the truth is, all of these ways in which we sin; these thoughts, words and deeds, create a chasm between ourselves and God, and between ourselves and other people. We confess that this is a chasm only God can breach, break down and destroy. Without the forgiveness and grace of God this chasm leads us, ultimately, to death. Sin destroys the peaceful existence of God’s creation; it is antithetical to life, and we cannot, on our own, escape the ramifications of our brokenness and our addiction to sin.

            Finally, we will pray for God’s mercy; we will pray for God’s forgiveness; but today, when we are done, we will not hear the words of forgiveness. Not yet. Those words will come later. While you and I know that through baptism God has granted us the forgiveness of sin and the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, we also need to linger in the knowledge of the depth of our need for God.

            Today we hear the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Through this ritual of faith those same words are spoken to young and old alike; they are spoken as the cross is traced with a sooty fingertip upon the brow of the nursing babe, and on the unsteady-on-his-feet elder. These words have been and will be spoken millions of times throughout the world today. They’ll be spoken to people of every ethnicity, on every continent, in perhaps hundreds of languages; they’ll be spoken in churches and on street corners, in nursing homes and hospitals, in the morning, in the evening and at lunchbreak.

            These words will be repeated over and over again, as they have been for centuries, and they will remind us that we will not be around forever. We will all one day, return to dust. And there will be nothing at all to distinguish your dust from my dust.

            In the beginning God, gathered up the dust of the cosmos and formed the earth and the planets, the stars, and all moons. Then, God gathered the dust of the earth and with it, God formed human beings. There is something both humbling and equalizing in this knowledge. We all get the same cross. We each hear the same words. Every one of us is reminded, as good as God made us, for we are, indeed, marvelously made, we are also each made of the same dust, and we will all reach the same end one day – we will return to dusty dust. As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “don’t get too attached to your incarnation for it is made of perishable stuff.”

            In this season of Lent, we confront our mortality. We confront our sinfulness and our need for repentance and forgiveness. Ash Wednesday invites us to search ourselves and to know our failure to follow Christ’s command to love, to share our compassion and bounty with the poor, to love justice, show mercy, and walk humbly with God.

            The gift of this season of Lent is that it helps us reset our priorities. Lent isn’t about facing our iniquity so that we can feel bad. It isn’t about guilt-tripping. Lent isn’t about the poverty of our flesh and our person so much as it is about the holiness of the ashes which we will each bear when we walk out of this place and into the world and into our everyday routines and lives, with the sure knowledge that while we were formed of dust and shall return to dust, the entire scope and sphere of the cycle of life represented by that image is guided by God.

            Taylor reminds us that in our beginnings it was God who breathed on the ashes with which we are made. It is God who brought these ashes to life.  “We are certainly dust and to dust we shall return, but in the meantime our bodies are sources of deep revelation for us. They are how we come to know both great pain and great pleasure. They help us to recognize ourselves in one another. They are how God gets to us, at the most intimate and universal level of all.” 

            “The ashes we bear today are not curses but blessings, announcing God’s undying love of dust no matter what kind of shape it is in,” Taylor says.

            While we might embrace that notion, and I encourage you to see ashes as both reminder and blessing today, there is this other thing that nags at us. It is the conflict we experience as we read the gospel text. We’ve come here today to be marked with these sooty ashen cross-shaped smudges, marking us as penitential Christians, yet this text seems to discourage any outward signs of piety and devotion. We hear this conflict between the ritual, and text. Ashes are visible – if they should be worn in secret, should we wipe them off before we go out the door, before we are seen in public, before they bear witness to what we have been about in this place today?

            More and more these days, as church affiliation has fallen out of vogue, we Lutherans are feeling increasingly vindicated in keeping our faith a very private thing. Isn’t Jesus just confirming this as the way we should live, when he says to pray, give alms and fast “in secret?”

            Let me put our minds to rest. Jesus does not forbid fasting and piety in public but warns against making theater out of it so that you might be praised for your faithfulness by your friends and neighbors. Insincere repentance does nobody any good. Jesus is concerned about the motivation behind our praying, fasting, and almsgiving, activities that Jesus encourages to build up our spiritual lives so that, coming to fully understand how dependent on God we truly are, we can then to reconciled to him.

            Friends, repentance is not something to be constrained or conformed to, but lives through the joy and freedom of a cross that doesn’t allow death to have the final word. In baptism we have received the assurance that the only death we have ever had to fear is behind us. The baptismal font is the means that conveys this grace: it is as if the ashes of our repentance are washed away by God in the waters of baptism, when we are inextricably joined to God and to others who have received that same washing.

            The reconciliation that takes place through the waters of baptism is a reality for us every day, as we live into the grace that only God can give. As we walk through our Lenten journey this season, we are invited to embrace the font as the symbol of our hope and our life, a reality in which we are made new each day.

Amen.

           

            

Soaked in Water and Wonder

Mark 1:4-11 

        Sam describes a daily ritual in his life. Every night, he and his wife meet in the kitchen to prepare dinner. They each sip from a glass of wine as they talk, and laugh, and sometimes, even dance the stresses of the day away.

        Together they chop and saute and simmer away the day’s problems. Their daughter Lacey comes in after a little while, and sets the table. They light candles, hold hands, pray, and share the dinner meal together. This time is sacred time for the family. In a deep way, it binds them together.

        Julie has a ritual too. Each day she comes home from work, shucks off her “business attire,” pulls on her comfy sweater and lounge pants, and washes her face. This is her way of symbolically shucking off the concerns and demands of her high-pressure job, of washing away the detritus of her long commute, of the worries of the day that still linger, and easing into her evening of activities or relaxation or rest. There is something sacred for Julie, too, in this symbolic transformation she makes, day after day.

        People engage in all kinds of rituals, for all kinds of reasons.

        The most common reason may be the belief (or hope) that the prescribed actions within the rituals will provide some kind of comfort, reassurance, or sometimes perhaps, protection.

        Rituals somehow bring about or mark a change. A change in focus; a change in essence of the person, place, or time; a change in status or condition.

Think about it. What rituals might you engage in, daily or othewise?

        Sometimes, rituals tie us in some way, to others. As vulnerable, finite beings, we often rely on rituals because they reassure us that we are not alone or that we are part of something larger than ourselves, or that we have the ability to tap into powers greater than ourselves, through the actions of our rituals.

        Rituals may, in fact, provide an entry point into membership of a group or community. They may convey a new identity in some way. They provide meaning. They are at the core of the communal activity of most religions.

        At the beginning of our worship service today, we engaged in a ritual when we remembered and gave thanks for Baptism. Perhaps you even got a little bit wet. Again. As you once did, when you were baptized.

        Now, the truth is, that you may or may not, literally remember your own baptism. Perhaps you were old enough that you remember the day—if nothing else, remember getting your head wet, remember the prayers and celebration that may have followed.

        For many of us, any actual memory of our baptism has been provided to us by our parents or other relatives, or by pictures that were taken that day, or other mementos that may have been saved, because we were too young to form those memories for ourselves.

        But we need to remember. Because Baptism means something, and yet, that meaning often gets lost in all the packaging.

        Baptism is seen by many people as a ritual itself—it may be understood as an action that brings comfort, or reassurance, or protection and identity to the person being baptized—which, I suppose you could say is at least partially true. But we miss the real meaning of Baptism if we only see it as a ritual to be performed, a rite to accomplish. The fact of the matter is that it is not our action, it is not what we do, it is not all the movements, words, clothing and celebration that form our rituals around it that make Baptism the holy and sacred gift that it is.

It is what God does in us through this spectacular gift of love and mercy that is at the heart of Baptism. Baptism matters.

        In a world where life itself seems some days to hold less and less worth, where we constantly hear about bombings and shootings, about hit-and-runs and the lives of little children coming to tragic, horrific ends Baptism matters. Indeed, in a world where death constantly beckons, where health fails and cures don’t always exist, Baptism matters. For the forgiveness of sin and the promise of everlasting life, Baptism matters.

        And in our gospel today, we read about Jesus’ own Baptism. And we have to wonder, don’t we?  How is it that the sinless one is first revealed and met through a ritual of repentance?

        Why in the world would Jesus, the Messiah, need to be, choose to be, baptized? Why did this one of whom John the Baptist spoke, this one who, John identifies as, “more powerful than I,” of whom, John said, “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals,” present himself to be baptized in the waters of the Jordan River?

        Perhaps the way in which Mark chooses to begin his gospel provides some insight into these questions. 

        While both Luke and Matthew begin their gospels with the nativity of Jesus, full of images we can visualize and memorize, images like Mary’s and Joseph’s incredible journey to Bethlehem, like angelic visions and angel song, like a brightly shining star and the shepherds who followed it, like a sweet manger scene; and while John begins his gospel with the poetic description of Jesus as God’s eternal Word, and the Word taking on flesh, and God’s glory being revealed in this Word who brings Light and Life, Mark takes us to the river. Mark begins his gospel with this Epiphany, with this revelation of who Jesus Christ truly is. Mark gives us this baptismal scene.

        John, who, we remember, is Jesus’ cousin, the one who leapt in his mother, Elizabeth’s womb at the Virgin Mary’s visit, is in the wilderness, calling people to repentance and inviting them to be baptized, and announcing the one who is coming…..

        Baptism as ritual was nothing new to many of those in ancient Judaism, who viewed it as a religious cleansing, a washing with water, signifying purification or consecration, not only for the purpose of extinguishing the guilt of transgression, but as a ritual of holy living, to prepare for the attainment of a closer communion with God.

        But then, Jesus enters in. Literally. Jesus enters the waters of the Jordan. Perhaps, Jesus entering those waters is meant to help us recall all the water-tales of the Scriptures, beginning with the first reading and the water story of Genesis, where the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters and God created the world. 

        Or the flood story where God uses water to make a new creation, saving Noah and his family. Or the exodus story where God uses water to free the Israelites from slavery as they cross through the sea, with God creating a wall of water for them on their left and on their right so that they can walk on dry land to freedom.

        As they journey through the wilderness God provides water from a rock so they may never thirst. And when they reach the end of their wandering, God brings them into the Promised Land through water, to the land flowing with milk and honey and the fulfillment of God’s promises. That water is the river Jordan. The same water we find Jesus in.

        Pastor Virginia Cover writes that perhaps all this water-talk is meant to remind us that God is faithful throughout the generations. That God shows up in the water, to make good on God’s promises. That God uses water to shape identities and reveal who God is. And so, at the beginning of this gospel, at the beginning of this Epiphany and this story of the revelation of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Jesus enters in.

        Here is where Mark’s story stands in stark contrast to the nativity scenes we have so recently left behind. Here the story of Jesus’ Baptism stands in stark contrast to our own sweet, tender and tame baptismal photographs and remembrances.

As we read this gospel, we come to understand Baptism is not about us and what we do, it is about God and what God has done in Jesus Christ. When it comes right down to it, Jesus’ Baptism bears little resemblance to comforting, familiar ritual we know.

Because at Jesus’ Baptism the heavens are torn apart. Ripped to shreds.

Cover points out that the same Greek verb used here appears later when Jesus breathes his last and the curtain of the temple is torn in two. Ripped to shreds. Literally.

The curtain of the temple: that barrier between God and the people, the symbol of God being separated from us is ripped to shreds. And here in this gospel, at his Baptism we find Jesus, in the waters, ripping stuff to shreds as a preview of more to come because in his death and resurrection he will rip apart anything, and everything that might try to separate us from God.

        He will rip it up and he will soak it with water—with tears as he weeps for the city, for the 12 killed in Paris, for the hundreds lost in an airline, for a bicyclist lost to a senseless accident, for all those lost to violence, or neglect, abuse or addiction; for those immured in illness; for all who grieve and long for a different world, for healing and peace.

        This same Jesus, upon whom the Spirit descends from that torn-apart heaven, will soak us all with water, flowing out from his side—a healing balm for all who hurt or long for forgiveness. This is Mark’s epiphany story. This is who Jesus is—the One who comes to the under-water places, the messed up, torn-apart places in our world and in our lives. The places we think will never be put back again. Jesus, the revelation of the love of God, meets us under the waters and pulls us up to forgiveness and healing; pulls us out to freedom and truth-telling. 

      There is more good news for us in this Word, for this Jesus meets us in the water and changes our baptism from ritual action to life-saving, life-giving transformation. Thus transformed, our Baptism offers us light illuminating, grace-full, mercy-full communion with our Lord and Savior, and it indeed means something. It is a game-changer, as Jesus leaves behind the mark of the cross on us. Jesus washes away the guilt of our sin, Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit, tearing apart our brokenness, ripping to shreds the effects of our pain, and bringing about the healing of the nations.

       By his baptism, Jesus has once again proclaimed his commitment to be alongside us, in repentance and sorrow, in forgiveness and new life. Joyfully, Baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we are washed in water and Word, sealed with the cross of Christ and proclaimed “Child of God.” In mercy and in love, we are united with Jesus in death, in life, and all eternity.

Amen.