The Second Sunday of Easter Year C

Easter 2C April 28, 2019 I had a parishioner at a previous church who told me that she decided to give up fear for Lent. After the 40 days were over, she confessed to me that it had been the hardest thing that she had ever done and that it had made her aware how much fear she felt in her life on a daily basis. Now this parishioner wasn’t an especially anxious or fearful person in my experience, so after she told me that, I started paying attention to all the times in a given day that I felt afraid. It’s not something most of us pay attention to, and I, too, was surprised at how often I feel afraid in any given day. Most of us just ignore it, squash it down or even let the fear drive us in ways that we may not be attentive to. But what happens when we are honest about the fears we experience, when we face them squarely in the face, and then refuse to hold on to them or let them drive us? Our gospel reading for today picks up immediately after last Sunday’s gospel reading leaves off. It is still Easter day. Mary Magdalene has discovered the empty tomb and hurried back to tell the disciples. Peter and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” have raced back to verify that the tomb is, in fact, empty, and Mary Magdalene has an encounter with both angels and the risen Christ who she initially mistakes as the gardener. She recognizes the risen Christ when he calls her by name, and he sends her to be the “apostle to the apostles”—to share the good news of his resurrection with the rest of the disciples. So we assume they all hear the news that Jesus is risen from the dead. Later that same day, John tells us, the disciples are huddled together in a locked house, “for fear of the Jews” when Jesus appears to them. But Thomas misses out because he isn’t there with them at the time. And so when they later tell him they have seen the Lord, Thomas says that he is going to need to see him, too, to believe it. A whole week goes by, and this time, Thomas is with the rest, and Jesus shows up again and gives Thomas what he needs to join the rest in their belief. Here are some things that jumped out at me from this reading this week. First, in John’s gospel, belief is never a noun; it is always a verb, an action. Second, something I’ve never noticed before is that Thomas isn’t there at that first appearance because he isn’t afraid. The others are huddled together behind locked doors out of fear, but Thomas is out and about, doing his own thing. And that’s the thing to remember about Thomas: he has been fearless all along. Earlier in John’s gospel, when the authorities are threatening to kill Jesus, Thomas is the one who says, well, we should go with him, so we can all die together. Thomas isn’t afraid to make his needs known, to ask for what he needs to believe in the resurrection—both from the others and from Jesus himself. And he is unafraid to wait, dwelling in the unknown and the uncertainty, and to show up again, a week later with all of his doubts, to see if Jesus will show up once again. Thomas is not afraid to doubt. Thomas is not afraid. What would it be like to give up fear for Easter? What would it be like to show up, how you really are, doubtful, uncertain, afraid, and to allow all of that to be transformed by encounters with the Risen Christ who is loose and at work in the world? What would it be like for us to give up fear for Easter as individuals? What would it be like for us to give up fear for Easter as a church, the body of the risen Christ in the world? Yesterday, I read a quote from the writer Anne Lamott. She wrote, “They say that courage is fear that has said its prayers.” This week (and if you are bold like Thomas for the 40 days still left in Easter), your invitation is to give up fear; to acknowledge it, when it steals upon you, and to release it, let it be transformed by God through prayer into courage, choosing instead to believe, to act in the power of God’s love made manifest in Jesus’s resurrection.

The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day 2019

The Day of Resurrection—Easter Day April 21, 2019 There are very two different store signs on Montgomery Cross Road that I like to read as I frequently drive past. The first is Jerry’s lounge, which is often clever, sometimes slightly irreverent, and usually involves drinking. (There was one in homage to the newest season of Game of Thrones up there last week: “we drink and we know things.”) The other is the sign at Maycrest Hardware. These postings are always religious themed. And I have to be careful how I say this because if there is one thing that I’ve learned about living in Savannah these last almost two years it is that at least someone in this church is related, somehow, to the person who does that sign at Maycrest Hardware. I like to read the sign at Maycrest Hardware; I don’t always agree with it, and it encourages me to think theologically about my beliefs and why I believe the way I do. This past week, the sign caught my attention. It read: “Redemption is possible. Witness Tiger Woods.” I had read a couple of different blog posts about Tiger’s victory at the Master’s this week, and I had even thought about it in connection to Easter. But that sign on the Maycrest Hardware made me start to wonder, is Tiger’s story truly a story of redemption, in the truest sense of the word? It’s definitely a story of a fall from grace followed by faithfulness, hard work, courage, a willingness to show up, and an amazing comeback. But does redemption imply some sort of moral change? Does anyone but God know they state of Tiger’s heart in all this to say whether or not this is truly redemption? So, I looked up the definition of redemption in the dictionary: redemption is the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil or a thing that saves someone from error or evil. (The second definition is considered archaic. It is the action of buying ones’ freedom. And this is actually how the word redemption is used throughout the Old Testament.) Our collect for the day also speaks of redemption: “O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection…” Still, I continued to ponder, is Tiger Woods victory at the Masters’ a true story of redemption? Over the last four days, as we have been walking beside Jesus and his disciples in Jesus’s last days of his earthly ministry, I’ve been inviting the congregation to think about discipleship and what our sacred stories have to reveal to us about our call to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Discipleship comes from the Latin word that means pupil; there is an aspect of learning involved in discipleship, but it is not just an intellectual learning. Discipleship also involves a learning of our hearts and our souls. On Maundy Thursday, we saw how Jesus modeled vulnerability as a component of discipleship for his followers and for us, and we pondered how we are called to be vulnerable and how we are called to acknowledge and receive the vulnerability of others when they share that gift with us. On Good Friday, we saw Peter deny, three times, his discipleship of Jesus, and we pondered how we, too, deny through both word and action, our own discipleship of Jesus. We laid these failures at the foot of the cross, and we were assured of Jesus’s forgiveness of us and of all who fail him. Today, I am especially struck by the discipleship that is illustrated in our gospel reading for today—and I don’t mean the two men who race competitively to the empty tomb to try to verify Mary Magdalene’s report to them that the tomb is empty. No, I’m talking about the discipleship of Mary Magdalene, herself; Mary Magdalene, who comes to the tomb alone when it is still dark for what purpose? Mary Magdalene who exhibits a faithfulness and courage and a presence at all of the significant moments of Jesus’s death and resurrection that really none of Jesus’s other disciples exhibit. I’m reading a book titled The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity by Episcopal priest Cynthia Bourgeault. And Bourgeault looks at the gospel accounts, the historical research, and the myths that surround Mary Magdalene. She points out that all four of our gospel accounts agree that Mary Magdalene was present as a witness at Jesus’s crucifixion; and all four gospel accounts agree that Mary Magdalene was the first witness (or one of the first witnesses with other women disciples) of Jesus’ resurrection. In fact, in the early days of the Christian Church, Mary Magdalene was known as “the apostle to the apostles” because she was the one to tell the other apostles the good news of Jesus’s resurrection. In this book, Bourgeault writes, “All four gospels witness to Mary Magdalene as the premier witness to the resurrection - alone or in a group, but in all cases named by name. . . All four gospels insist that when the other disciples are fleeing, Mary Magdalene stands firm. She does not run, she does not betray or lie about her commitment, she witnesses. But why, one wonders, do the Holy Week liturgies tell and re-tell Peter's threefold denial of Jesus, while the steady, unwavering witness of Magdalene is not even noticed? How would our understanding of the Paschal Mystery change if [the role of Magdalene was acknowledged?] What if, instead of emphasizing that Jesus died alone and rejected, we reinforced that one stood by him and did not leave? For surely this other story is as deeply and truly there in the scripture as is the first. How would this change the emotional timbre of the day? How would it affect our feelings about ourselves? About the place of women in the church? About the nature of redemptive love?”i And there’s that word again. Redemption. The heart of what we gather here to celebrate today is the power of redemptive love, how it transforms the worst that we have to offer, even death, into redemption and resurrection and new life. Magdalene loved Jesus. She showed up, over and over again, courageously, when it made no sense to do so, because of her love and the way that her relationship with him had redeemed and transformed her life. There is no doubt that Tiger Woods’ love for the game of golf inspired his come-back, his Masters win, even, I daresay, his redemption. (So whoever you are out there, you can tell your cousin at Maycrest Hardware that I agree with the sign.) Each one of us has been redeemed by God’s love, redeemed of all our failures and failings, redeemed from all the times when we did not show up, from all the times when we did not love. And each one of us has also followed the example of Mary Magdalene and showed up courageously because of love despite all reasonableness. On this Easter Day, what might God be calling you to show up for in your life, out of love, despite all reasonableness? For that is our continued call as disciples of the Risen Lord. Let us pray: O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Alleluia. i. Bourgeault, Cynthia. The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity. Shambhala: Boulder, 2010, p 16.

Good Friday 2019

Good Friday 2019 At our Maundy Thursday service last night, I began a conversation that I would like to continue about what does it mean to be a disciple. Now, there’s no right answer to this question, and there are probably as many different interpretations of this as there are people in this room. But as we walk through these holiest days of our church year, I believe our readings give us an opportunity to engage this question for our own lives and to encounter the stories through this lens. What does it mean to be a disciple? The Latin root of the word disciple literally means a pupil. And these holy days show us how Jesus has taught his original disciples and us how to be his followers. Now this isn’t just an intellectual teaching, a teaching for our minds, but it is also teaching for our hearts and our souls. Today, I invite us to focus on Peter and the ways, in John’s passion gospel that Peter fails as Jesus’s disciple. Because they are the ways that we all fail as Jesus’s disciples, too. My friend, the Rev Carol Mead, writes a daily devotion that goes out on email, and she started her devotion from Wednesday of Holy Week in this way. I think it gets to the heart of Peter’s failure as Jesus’s disciple and to the heart of our own failures as well. She writes, “A story on professional wrestling considers why fans like a 'sport' that even its participants admit is faked. The story suggests that many people drawn to it are themselves, ‘heroes of their own imaginations.’" She continues, “In our culture we need to be seen as strong, and sometimes that need can turn into delusion about what we control. But if we could get past that need for the appearance of strength, we could be more authentic to other people and to ourselves.”i Peter was very much a hero in his own imagination. Immediately after Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, Judas leaves to go betray Jesus, and Jesus gives the disciples his new commandment—to love one another as he has loved them. Then Jesus tells them that he will be going away. (This is John 13:36-38.) “Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterwards.’ Peter said to him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.” Peter imagines that he will act heroically when the time of trial comes, but Jesus predicts that he will, in fact, deny him three times. And this is indeed what happens. And what is interesting about this is that Peter doesn’t deny the person of Jesus three times when the rubber meets the road. As we heard today, Jesus is arrested, and Peter and the other disciple follow to where they take Jesus. And two out of three people question Peter and they ask him, “Aren’t you one of his disciples?” And two times, Peter says, “I am not.” In his third denial, they ask if he was there with Jesus when he was arrested, and Peter denies that, too. What is striking to me about this is that in the comfort of the gathering with Jesus and his other disciples, Peter imagines that he will follow Jesus to the extent that he would even lay down his life for him. But in times of trial and difficulty, Peter denies that he is a disciple of Jesus. And we get that don’t we? How many times in our lives have we imagined that we are heroes in the ways that we live out our faith? How many different ways do we think that we are faithful disciples and followers of Jesus? But then, when things get difficult or the stakes are high, how many times do we deny, through our words and our actions, that we are disciples of Jesus? It’s probably not as dramatic as Peter’s denial, but our denial is there in how we treat people, in the words we say to them or about them, in the devices and desires of our own hearts, in the way that we put ourselves above others, in the ways that we act like we are in control when we are most definitely not. I invite you today to recognize and admit those failures, those times that you have denied, through word or action, being a disciple of Jesus, and to bring them to the foot of the cross. I invite you to offer them to Jesus, and to hear him offer you his forgiveness, this day and always. i. Carol Mead “Heroes” April 17, 2019

Maundy Thursday 2019

Maundy Thursday 2019 What do you think it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? I asked our Wednesday congregation this question this week, and I’ll tell you as I told them, there’s no right answer. What do you think it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? They spoke about how for them being a disciple can be lived out in doing the work of the church, how it means following Jesus. One person even said it made her think of little ducklings in a row following behind the mamma duck. Another shared that discipleship for her is a posture—a way of being in the world, a way of being open to encountering and seeing people. Another shared that it makes her think of those old bracelets—WWJD-what would Jesus do, and using that as a filter for how we make decisions. I remembered some of my old college Latin, from which the word disciple comes. It is from discupuli which means literally pupil. So there is an aspect of learning about discipleship for me, but it’s not just about learning with our minds. It’s also, I think, about learning for our hearts and our souls. Over the next few days, I’ll be inviting us to encounter these sacred stories of our faith through the lens of what they have to teach our hearts and our minds and our souls about discipleship. Tonight, we see Jesus washing the feet of his disciples as he gives them a new commandment to love one another as he loves them. We also have that coupled with the institution of the Last Supper. These are two of the three times in scripture when Jesus tells his disciples and us “do this;” in the Eucharist, in the foot washing, and in the third, which is baptism. In both of these images on this holy night, we can see Jesus teaching us about hospitality and also about vulnerability. And those are very easy to talk about in terms of discipleship, but we all know that they are not as easy to practice, to live into as postures of being in the church and in the world. I’ve been walking through these scriptures as a priest for the last 14 years (and even more years than I can count before that), and do you know that this is the first year that I realized that portions of John’s gospel have been cut out of our reading for today? And, an even greater bombshell for me was to realize that the portion that is cut out is when Judas leaves to go betray Jesus. Which means that Judas is there for the foot washing! Jesus washes everyone’s feet, even Judas’. Then Jesus acknowledges to Judas that he knows that he is going to betray him, and Judas leaves to go do that. And then our reading picks back up with Jesus teaching his disciples: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." So we see Jesus modeling vulnerability, both in the foot washing and in the way that he continues to love his disciples, even Judas. We see the disciples, and especially Peter, struggling with Jesus’s vulnerability and also struggling with their own vulnerability of having their Lord and Master washing their feet and acting as a servant to each of them. I read a blog post today that referenced the definition of vulnerable from Webster’s dictionary as being: “easily hurt or offers an alternative definition: “In her book Daring Greatly, author Brené Brown is more nuanced, defining vulnerability as ‘uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.’ I think that more aptly defines the posture that Jesus takes when he washes the feet of the disciples.” The writer continues: “Brené Brown goes on to apply her definition of vulnerability to love, ‘Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability. Love is uncertain. It’s incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed.’ The blog writer continues, “Jesus teaches us to love one another after Judas departs. He teaches us to love not only the people we depend upon and the people who depend upon us, but even more so, those whom we might prefer to forget. God commands us to wrap a towel around our waist, get on our knees, and reach into the waters of vulnerability. This sort of tenderness and intimacy through vulnerability allows us to come alive, to be fully human. It allows us to see the full image of God in our neighbor, and it allows us to fully live into that image of God as well. The truth is that we admire vulnerability in other people, but we are hesitant with vulnerability for ourselves (Most people are, after all, pretty anxious about having their feet washed!). We are afraid to allow others to see our own vulnerability, to see who we are at our core.”i Tonight, you are invited to grow more fully into your discipleship of Jesus by dwelling in the uncomfortable space of being vulnerable to one another as we wash each other’s feet. Even if you don’t want to do it; especially if you don’t want to do it, you should “do this,” practice being vulnerable in this safe space. As you return to your seat and walk with the story of Jesus over the coming days, I invite you to remember how it felt to be vulnerable. Remember how it feels to see others when they are vulnerable. And to be mindful of times when the Spirit is inviting you to grow more fully in your discipleship of Jesus by being real, being vulnerable in your life and in the world. i. http://www.growchristians.org/2019/04/18/maundy-thursday-vulnerability/

The 5th Sunday in Lent Year C

5th Sunday in Lent Year C April 7, 2019 We’ve had some big developments in the Lemburg house these last couple of weeks. We’ve decided to buy a house. It’s here in Isle of Hope (110 Dove Lane), and things seem to be moving quickly forward toward a closing in early May. But what’s crazy about all of this is that we weren’t ready to buy a house. In fact, we didn’t even know if we would ever buy a house again after all the trouble we had selling our last house. But we ran across this house, and I started praying about it. I asked God to give us wisdom and discernment and to be in the process with us, and things have progressed pretty smoothly with the help of a lot of people. So the first thing in the gospel reading that resonates with me this week is the unpredictability of God. Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead (just one chapter before this), and because of this, word about Jesus is flying around the countryside; the Pharisees are concerned the Romans are going to crack down on all of them, so they are plotting to kill both Jesus and Lazarus for good measure. Jesus is gathered with Lazarus and his sisters and his closest friends in Bethany, which is near the Mount of Olives just right outside Jerusalem, and they are gathered to have a party. Soon Jesus will enter Jerusalem triumphantly (which we will mark with Palm Sunday next week) and set in motion the events that lead to his death and resurrection. The scene shifts quickly from party to acknowledgement of the dark path Jesus is to follow when, unpredictably, Mary anoints Jesus for burial. This is unusual because all throughout scripture it is men who anoint other men. So this scene is highly improper, and Judas takes issue with this. Which is not surprising because Judas has struggled all along with Jesus’ unpredictability. Judas was actually Jesus’s most zealous disciple, who longed and worked above and beyond all of the disciples for the promised Messiah. He follows Jesus because he believes Jesus to be this Messiah, but Jesus does not act the way Judas expects the Messiah to act. God’s unpredictability through Jesus and his ministry are Judas’s undoing and the source of his betrayal. Which leads us to the second way this gospel resonates with me this week. And that is the invitation to pay attention to my own complaints and the complaints of others as they reveal what is going on deeper in our souls. I’m re-reading a book I read in the first 5-7 years of my ordained ministry, and I’m finding it rich in helping me reflect on the true calling of the priest engaged in parish ministry. The book is called The Pastor as Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life, and it is written by Presbyterian minister and seminar professor M. Craig Barnes. This week, I was especially struck by a passage from the book where Barnes is talking about what he thinks is really going on when church members come to their pastor with a complaint. He writes, “Complaining is usually a veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul. Since people are unaccustomed to exploring the mystery of their own souls, they will often work out their spiritual anxieties by attempting to rearrange something external…But it doesn’t matter how many changes they make to the environment around them. They will never succeed in finding peace for the angst of the soul until they attend directly to it.”i We can see this at work in this gospel story because we know the struggles that Judas dealt with leading up to his betrayal of Jesus. While on the surface, his complaint is about the extravagant expense of the perfume Mary uses and the ways the money could have been used to help the poor, underneath is Judas’ dissatisfaction with Jesus and the ways his Messiahship has unfolded. But for the rest of us, the motives or the deeper layers behind our complaints are not always so evident. So your invitation this week is two-part. First, pay attention to the ways that God shows up unpredictably in your life and in the world. If you cannot think of ways God has been unpredictable, then pray for eyes to behold and a heart to receive. And remember that not only is God often unpredictable, often times God calls us as individuals into unpredictable situations and as a church into unpredictable ministries. Second, pay attention to your complaints and the complaints of others. Ask yourself what might be going on deeper under the surface of the complaint and offer that to God for yourself and for other people you come into contact with. “Thus says the Lord… Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” i. Barnes. M. Craig. The Pastor as Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life. Kindle location 188.