Need I tell you, “Today is Mother’s Day”? A day fraught with complexity. For some this is a difficult day—one that reminds them of what they did not have or of what they have lost. For others this is a Holy Day of Obligation—the flowers, the cards, the Sunday brunch. Some preachers wrap the day in cliché. Others avoid it all together. After all, it’s a Hallmark holiday, not a Holy Day in the church calendar.

And yet this is a day that offers us an opportunity to reflect on love—the kind of love that brings us to life, the kind of love we know in Christ, a mothering kind of love.

Jesus says to his disciples, Jesus says to you and me, “Love one another as I have loved you.” “Love”—it’s a word that appears again and again in the Gospel of John and in the letters of John as well. In the Gospel of John, the word “love” appears twenty times and in the First Letter of John which we hear today it appears thirty-three times.

When I was in seminary, I took Greek. We all did. It was a requirement. The text we read was the First Letter of John. Midway through the course, after maybe the sixteenth sighting of the word “love”, I raised my hand. I wanted to know just what John meant by that word. A three-sentence explanation would have sufficed. The professor dodged my question. “Hmm, aah,” he replied and then went on with the lesson.

He never did answer my question. Today, I’m beginning to think that it was a question best left unanswered, a question I needed to answer for myself.

“Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus says to his disciples. What does that mean? What kind of love is that? What does love like that look like? What does love like that feel like?

Answers to questions like that don’t come from books or scholars or even poets. Answers to questions like that come from life, from experience, from being on the receiving end of love.

There’s a picture I keep on my bookshelf. I look at it every morning as I’m praying. I keep it on my laptop too. It’s a picture of my mom looking at me. She’s looking at me with love and delight. I’m always brought up short by that picture because the looks I often got from my mom were looks of frustration, confusion or exasperation. And yet, when I look up, I see mom looking back at me with love. It’s not that she has forgotten the time I mixed cookies on the kitchen floor or the time I spilled her best perfume on her dresser or the nights I came in rather late. She remembers those but in the love that picture captures, those trifles do not matter. The psalmist says of God, “She rescued me because she delighted in me.”

Perhaps you noticed. I’ve changed the pronouns. That’s because the love I know, the love of God and Christ, I knew first through my mom.

“Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus says to his disciples. He’s not talking about a feeling. He’s not talking about a kind of extended liking. He’s talking about a way of living that involves coming back again and again to those one loves. A way of forgiving time and again. A love that welcomes people as they are. A love that delights in people. A love that says in ways big and small, “You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased.” A nurturing kind of love. A life-giving love. The kind of love we all long for.

Today is Mother’s Day—a day fraught with complexities. For some this is a day that reminds them of the nurturing love they longed for but never received. Others find in this day a painful reminder of losses—mothers gone, children never born, children dead before their time. I like to think of this day as a day that invites us to remember the nurturing, loving mothering that runs through every life. Mothering we receive sometimes from our mothers, sometimes from our fathers, sometimes from our friends, sometimes from teachers or bosses or neighbors, and sometimes from total strangers. Mothering that is not gendered. Mothering that is simply an expression of deep, life-giving love. Mothering love—the love of Christ and the love Christ calls us to.

Sermon: Sixth Sunday of Easter
John 15:9-17
St. Michael and All Angels
May 13, 2012

“The gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles…”
“Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”
“The love of God is this, that we obey [the] commandments…”
“Abide in my love…”
“Love one another as I have loved you…”
“You are my friends…”
“I chose you…”
“Bear fruit that will last…”

The word love dominates the gospel and I John today. Love is not so simple. The words that accompany love in these texts are: obey, commandment, abide, and lay down one’s life. Love is a verb. The scriptures aren’t telling us what to feel, but how to act.

Peter speaks to the astounded believers proclaiming that God’s love was given to the Gentiles in the form of the Spirit. Who are they to withhold baptism? The call here is to act in line with God, rather than their own limited understanding of who is in and who is out.

I’m guessing very few of you followed the United Methodist General Conference that finished in Tampa last week. Every four years, the United Methodists come together as a whole and make decisions that affect the larger body of the church. One of their big decisions was not to change the language that says, “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” The suggested change would have simply stated that United Methodists disagree on that issue. Most people will likely shake their heads and go on, but I find it very disheartening. The gift of the Holy Spirit has been poured out even on the lesbian gay bisexual transgendered community. The United Methodist stance is that LGBT persons can worship in most churches, but not have their love blessed and certainly not have their call affirmed and be ordained.

The United Methodist Church is talking about me. My parents met in a United Methodist Sunday school class. Instead of a three-legged stool that the Episcopal Church uses to discern God’s will, I was born into this church that talks about a quadrilateral…scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. I was baptized and confirmed in this church. I experienced a powerful call to ministry on a youth retreat with my United Methodist Church. I was educated at a United Methodist college and seminary and it was there that I met amazingly gifted gay and lesbian people who had been called to ministry just like me. Back then I thought I was straight, and it never occurred to me that I was “one of them.” I simply couldn’t understand that the church would deny ordination to people who were so gifted, just because of their sexual orientation. At that time, I decided that I would stand in solidarity with the folks who were denied ordination by the United Methodist Church and not seek ordination myself. This didn’t work so well. The call was strong and eventually I realized that if I wanted the United Methodist Church to become more inclusive, I would have to work from the inside. I moved to Oregon and was ordained. The congregation I served was a Reconciling Church – a safe place for LGBT folks - and it was clear that God was moving among us in powerful ways.

Life became more complicated when I moved to New Mexico and fell in love with a woman. This was news to me! I really had no idea that my passion around the issue of an inclusive church had anything to do with me. It also left me with some hard choices. I could not be open about my life with Anne Marie, Max and Maya as a minister in the United Methodist Church. Coming out at age 40 really changed the direction of my life. I felt a deep resonance with the Episcopal Church and struggled with a call to be ordained here, but the time wasn’t right in this Diocese. I became UCC and was welcomed without condition.

I am only one person. There are thousands like me. Years ago, I had the poignant experience of witnessing the Shower of Stoles project. This project is a collection of stoles from over one thousand LGBT clergy and leaders from thirty-two denominations. The stoles represent the gifts of so many that have been excluded from leadership because of their sexual orientation. It is powerful to stand before each stole and the person it represents.

It may seem too personal to describe my own experience this morning, but I cannot read these texts about pouring out the Holy Spirit, being chosen, bearing fruit, obedience to the commandment to love one another and forget where I came from. And the news this week reminds us that this is not just my story. It is the story of LGBT folks in North Carolina and throughout the country. The texts are about love in action: Don’t just treat love as a feeling and love when we feel like it; don’t think of love as an intellectual exercise and love those we deem worthy. It is a call for us to understand that love is a verb… it is what we DO as God’s people in the world. We simply love and continue to extend welcome to all… even the Gentiles, even the LGBT community, even those who stand at stoplights asking for money, even the ones who vote differently than we do, even the ones who live with disabilities, even the people we despise, even us.

The Episcopal Church has struggled with this issue as well. I don’t know where all of it will come out, but I know there is a great desire to share Christ’s love with all of God’s people. As we broaden our questions about who is our neighbor at St. Michael’s, I wonder where we need to extend our love. We are listening to those around us and seeking God’s call to love our neighbor in new ways. God’s Spirit has been poured out on people beyond our peripheral vision. Who are we to deny them love? Instead, we are called to look beyond our comfort zone and extend love into the farthest corners.

Passages about love often call forth a sweet, almost nostalgic response from us. But love isn’t always sweet and it certainly isn’t always easy. There is this word obedience that shows up today. Can’t we just talk about love and leave it at that? We all know we are supposed to love. Isn’t that enough? We aren’t slaves. Can’t we just be reminded that love is what we are about? Obedience is not something we care to add to the mix. Our culture doesn’t place a high value on obedience. But there is an invitation in these passages to see ourselves in relationship and the truth is obedience is part of being in relationship to one another. We are subject to one another.

“Perhaps love without obedience is not really love. Perhaps this is what Jesus is confronting us with in his own life—that love is never love on its own terms. Love is always tied to obedience because obedience is tied to hearing, recognizing and bending ourselves into the will and desires of the one who’s before us.” Brian Bantum, Christian Century May 2, 2012)

The phrase “bending ourselves into the will of the one who’s before us” isn’t telling us to be dominated by another. It calls us to really be in relationship with one another. Jesus’ image of friendship is comfortable for some and a bit too intimate for others. Maybe that is because we remember that a friendship is not one-sided. We have been chosen for a friendship with Jesus. A loving friendship bears fruit. That will require obedience to the one who has chosen us. In some strange way, that obedience sets us free. I have asked myself many times who I am obedient to… is it the United Methodist Church? Is it the Episcopal Church as I seek ordination in this denomination? Is it to the One whose call has sustained me for thirty years? I found a way to bend my will to the United Methodist until it required me losing my soul. My call is alive and it seeks a home to love and bear fruit.

The call to love and bear fruit is for all of us. The fruits of love and compassion naturally grow out of a life grounded in God. I believe that they are contagious and not limited to the giver or the receiver. Somehow they make their way into the very culture we inhabit. I pray that it is so. As we move further into this election year names are called, fingers are pointed, and lines are drawn in the sand. Jim Wallis says that the 2012 election will be the ugliest one in many years. It is sad that the political process often involves trashing other candidates more than looking around at the needs in our world and asking how we can be part of the solution.

Who is speaking about abiding in love? What fruit is born of this form of politics? We are asked to see one another through the eyes of love. We cannot do that when we are too busy showing that we are right, we are entitled, and it is others who should bend to our will.

This text calls us to abide in a love more generous than we can imagine. Abiding in this love bears tremendous fruit. If we are abiding in God’s love, we don’t catch ourselves counting the cost of giving. We open our hands freely and find that there is more than we dreamed. For John there is only one measure of our place in the community of faith – to love as Jesus loved. When we do that, a whole new world opens up to us and we begin to glimpse the world as God sees it. As we see the world through God’s eyes, we treat the world as God treats it, and we bear fruit that lasts.

And Both Were Changed:
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch

Two lives converged that day on the road to Gaza—two men encountered one another in the wilderness and the noon-day sun. One, a foreign dignitary, a court official, draped with the trappings of wealth and power, riding in a chariot down a wilderness road, the other, propelled by the Holy Spirit, running to catch up with the man in the chariot. The former we know only as the Ethiopian eunuch; the latter we know by his name--Philip. Two men separated by a wide gulf of class and race and sexual identity. Two men drawn to one another by the Spirit and the word of God. Two men meeting at the margins of their lives. Two men changed by an encounter on a road through the wilderness.

As he approaches the chariot, Philip hears its occupant, the Ethiopian eunuch, read from Isaiah, “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth” That Ethiopian eunuch turns to Philip and asks, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”

I wonder what was behind that question. Do you think that that Ethiopian eunuch was remembering the treatment he received at the temple? Was he recalling the words from Deuteronomy that were hurled at him on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem? The words that banned people like him from the assembly of the Lord. Was he remembering the temple gates slammed shut when he approached. Was he recalling the humiliation he felt?

I can imagine Philip telling that court official about Jesus and his promise to let the oppressed go free. I can hear Philip recalling the people Jesus healed and the people Jesus welcomed in his midst—prostitutes, tax collectors, the blind, the lame, even a bleeding woman. And I can imagine the Ethiopian eunuch wondering to himself, “Does that include me? Does Jesus welcome me into his midst?”

Maybe he then points to another passage in Isaiah—the passage where the prophet says, "and do not let the eunuch say, 'I am just a dry tree.' For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off."

Do you wonder if maybe, just maybe, Philip found himself wondering just how broad God’s love really is. Do you think Philip was going back and forth is his mind about baptizing that Ethiopian eunuch? Maybe that’s why that Ethiopian eunuch points to the water and says, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” “What is to prevent me from being part of God’s family?” “What is to prevent me from sharing in God’s love?”

It’s the Ethiopian eunuch who spots the water. It’s the Ethiopian eunuch who stops the chariot. I like to think that it’s the Ethiopian eunuch who leads Philip to the water. Both go down to the water—the baptizer and the baptized. Both come up out of the water. And both are changed by the encounter—the baptizer and the one baptized.

It’s that way sometimes with encounters at the margins. You meet the other, the outsider, and things change. Not always, but sometimes. You get a different perspective. You see a different side of things. Maybe even of yourself. New possibilities open up. I think that’s what’s happening in our church right now at this moment in our history as a denomination. For over thirty-five years our lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered brothers and sisters have challenged the church to open the doors to all the sacraments. “What is to prevent us from receiving communion or having our children baptized or being ordained a deacon, a priest, a bishop? What is to prevent us from being married to the one we love, to the one who shares our life?” “What is to prevent us from being a full member of the Body of Christ?” our LGBT brothers and sisters ask the church.

Come down to the water they say to the church. Step in. When we come out of those waters, we will all be changed. And that is what is happening to our denomination, to our worshipping community and I hope to you and me as well. As we see the witness of loving commitment manifest in the lives of those whose relationships shower blessings on all whom they encounter, we ask ourselves, “What is to prevent this relationship from being blessed?” As we step into the waters of same-gender blessings, as we look at the words of commitment and the theology that undergirds those words, as we witness God’s love made manifest in the couples in our midst—be they same gender or different gender, maybe we will all be changed, maybe we will all draw a little bit closer to that ideal of loving, life-giving and reconciling covenantal relationships that Christ calls us to and that our liturgies proclaim.

Step into the waters of love. They come from God.

In order to more deeply realize the presence of God, the Psalmist tells us “to be still and know that I am God.” God is always in our midst, so let’s be still for a moment.

I have a question for you. Do you still carry a special remembrance in your heart and mind? Perhaps a time with a friend, at a play, a concert, something read in a book, a sunset, a sunrise, some meaningful, unforgettable experience? Our lives are shaped by such moments. I want to share such an experience with you now.

When I was in seminary many years ago, I went with several fellow seminarians to a play. The play was “A Sleep of Prisoners” by Christopher Fry. I was so moved by a piece of poetry in the play that I wrote it down, and have kept it in my remembrance all these years. Listen to the poetry:

Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to meet us everywhere,
Never to leave us ‘till we take
The longest stride of soul man ever took.
Affairs are soul-size.
The enterprise
Is exploration into God.

These profound and powerful words still speak prophetically to me, and I believe they speak to our country, to the nations, the peoples and the religions of the world. I believe they still challenge and speak to our very souls, yours and mine, right here, right now. Certain words are particularly haunting – “Till we take the longest stride of soul man ever took,” “affairs are soul-size,” and, “exploration into God.” We hear this word “soul” tossed about in sermons, songs, scriptural studies and discussions, sometimes in common talk. But what is this mysterious soul that resides within each of us?

Recall the biblical book, Genesis. Our journey begins here. “When there was nothing but God, God began to create the heavens and the earth, and God’s Spirit, Like wind, like breath, unleashed his creative power, shrouded in mystery and wonder. In the midst of this life-giving power, his Spirit created human beings, persons, and all created life began to evolve. And it was good.” This is where you and I literally begin!

Each one of us is born a living soul, a spirit-filled creation with self-consciousness, making us aware that we are able to have a living relationship with God our creator. We are, then, “children of God” and we will have the ability to remember that relationship, and who we really are as our lives unfold. Each one of us here today is a unique “Child of God.” This is our real “I.D.,” the only one that really counts in the long run! No one can ever take that away from you! To “know God,” as the Psalmist wrote is to remember who you really are, and that relationship will define your life and your life’s journey forever, even longer. Remember who you are!

But as our Genesis story unfolds, human kind chose not to remember its heritage – “Children of God.” Instead the choice was “to go it alone” to be as gods, “full of ourselves.” We ill take charge of our own life-journey and deal with those good and evil issues along the way. So “God, don’t call us, we will call you.” (I think that is what many people now call prayer!) But, even as in the beginning God’s love was boundless; it’s still the same, always within us, but not forcing the relationship.

But in the midst of a beautiful world God called “good,” what have been the consequences of “going it alone, full of ourselves,” taking charge? Let me tell you a story: One morning in the year 500BC, Buddha addressed his community of monks. “Monks,” he said: “All the world is burning. Burning with what? It is burning with the fire of greed, burning with the fire of hatred, burning with the fire of delusion.” How could Buddha say the whole world is burning? Because it is inhabited by human beings, “full of ourselves,” which is why we all have some experience with greed, hatred and delusion. But here is my quick snapshot of each:

Greed: At a press interview with a very wealthy New York financier, a young reporter asked him a question: “Sir, how much money does a man need to be comfortable?” He replied: “Young man, just a little more, just a little more.”

Hatred: Jonathan Swift, Anglican priest, Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, 1713, “author of Gulliver’s Travels said “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to love one another.”

Delusion: Have we the habit of inverting the divine equation to mean that God exists to do our bidding?

From the beginning of human history, greed, hatred, delusion, have all been, and are, the source of all human misery. What in the world shall we do? “Affairs are soul-size. Our enterprise is exploration into God.” If each of us wants to find out, we have to journey deeper into the presence of God who already resides within our souls as well as beyond our souls. Let’s now imagine we are standing together with Jesus’ first disciples and some other folks gathered around:

“Then to all Jesus said: If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, will find it. What gain is it for a man to have won the whole world, and to have lost or ruined his very self? (Lk. 9:23)

But what kind of talk is this, and what does it mean? It means Jesus is offering a new and unexpected way to continue your life’s journey. Now imagine yourself standing around with Jesus and other folk:

“He was setting out on a journey, when a man came running up, knelt before him and put this question to him, ‘Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You must not kill, you must not commit adultery, you must not steal, you must not defraud, you must honor your father and mother.’ And he said to him, ‘Master, I have kept all these from my earliest days.’ Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him, and he said, ‘There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.” (Mark 10:17)

The young man in our story really wanted and expected Jesus, the wisdom teacher, to give him an additional “religious study program” which would at last qualify him for eternal life. He would gain the knowledge he desired without leaving the community, perhaps going to Jerusalem from time to time. His present lifestyle would not change, there would be nothing to give up, but he would still gain the assurance of eternal life. Instead Jesus cut to the core of his life. He was discovered by Jesus love, and the young man sadly walked away.

The apostle Paul, a law-abiding Pharisee, was cut to the core by Jesus on the Damascus road. But he chose the disciple’s road, following Jesus. He left his religious tribalism behind, shouldered his invisible cross, and began his new life, his journey of transformation. In his life of personal struggle, as well as shepherding new communities of Christians, he came to know what “full of yourself” self-love really was as well as what self-giving love really is. Listen to a portion of his letter to the new church in Corinth. It is a letter addressed to all of us.

“If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.” (1 Cor. 13:1)

And Paul can tell us something about self-giving love as well:

“Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love never ends.” (1 Cor. 13:4)

We are nearing the end of our journey. But, as has been said by others, “in our end is our beginning….” Our souls forever echo the unending love-call – “you are a child of God.” God brings us that love-call in Jesus, that human face of God’s love, as well as the road we are called to travel with our invisible self-giving cross in companionship with him, on the road he has already traveled. In our life’s journey, Jesus reminds us that because he is The Light of the world, each of us is called to be a light in the world. Our light is to shine in the darkness of life, the darkness of greed, of hatred, of delusion, that destroy and deface the world that God created good. But our lives, like our invisible cross of self-giving, must be like candles. For a candle to be a shining light, the wax must empty itself for the light to shine. Our souls were created by God for self-singing love through our lives – your life, my life – for the sake of all life. “It is the longest stride of soul one can ever take!” So –

Remember who you are! “Affairs are soul-size!” “The enterprise is exploration into God” Get on with your life’s journey and “Shine!”

Happy Easter

Today is often called Good Shepherd Sunday. It is obvious why. Reverend Susan opened up the Mass with the appointed collect of the day...O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people...

The Psalm continues, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want

Finally, in the Gospel we hear Jesus say, I am the good shepherd. One of the many famous “I Am” statements found in John’s gospel.

A Shepherd. A reference that we see used through many books of the bible. One of the oldest occupations and one that the people could relate. A shepherd would spend so much time with their flock, that they could often tell one from another. Unusual markings, the way they walked, their voice, and many other characteristics. Like wise, the flock would know their shepherd. His or her voice or call was distinct enough that the sheep would know with whom to go. In fact, sheep would often recognize the face of their shepherd. The shepherd was charged with protecting the flock from predators and leading them to food, water, safety, and bringing the lost back into the fold.

Jesus speaks about the hired hand who is not the shepherd, the hired hand that does not care for the sheep, who sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away. When we walk into church, we bring everything in our lives through those doors. Things in our lives that are not easy to share or those parts of ourselves that we hide. We bring our faults, struggles, failures, worries and hurts of the world. The wolves in our lives. As we feel defenseless and unsure, these wolves snatch our peace and scatter our lives. We feel lost. We seek out understanding and answers. Searching for ways to fix those hurts that we have and those pains that we see in the world. We easily hear and may even say ourselves, where is God? Where is God to protect? Where is my shepherd? Perhaps it is in that question. Where is God? Where is the good shepherd? As if we are suppose to be looking around for Him, searching for Him. We often forget - we do not find God, God finds us. It is not the sheep that searches for their shepherd. Jesus as the good shepherd seeks us out to find us when we are lost.

God knows each one of us. He knows our laughter, the way we talk, the things about ourselves that no one knows. When we are lost, He knows. He knows because the flock, the community, is just not the same. Something is missing. How do we know he is searching for us? It is because we hear his call, his distinct voice. Just as sheep recognizes the voice of their shepherd, we recognize Jesus’ call to us. That call sometimes comes quietly in our hearts, so quiet that we just have to stop what we are doing and listen. Other times the call comes loudly and literally smacks us on the head. A call that confronts us head-on. Sometimes we are too busy that call comes and goes unnoticed.

We are all children of God and that Jesus lives in each one of us. Since Jesus lives in each one of us, who do we shepherd? Our children, family, friends, those who seek public office, others that lead us? What about the stranger, the homeless, the sick, and those that are outcast or need help? Does the shepherd in us stir? Do we hear the cry of others being lost? Doesn’t that voice with in us call out to them? Do we let our distinct voice out so that they may hear it? That they may be found? What about those that have the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help. Do we call to them? Do we shepherd them as well?

We are called to be like Christ. We all serve as shepherds in the world and community around us. We heard in John’s first letter, “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” Not just talk about it, but to do something. To advocate, to protect, to revive, to lead, to share. To be living examples of Christ in our world. Powerful actions are not always large, sweeping, and news worthy. Sometimes the most powerful actions are small and unnoticed. The simple act of opening a door for someone. Saying thank you. Sharing the gifts we have with others. Gifts of love, time, companionship, a meal, a shoulder, our experience, a conversation, a smile, compassion, patience, and countless other gifts. When we share our gifts, we see God. We see God when those gifts are used for one another. Gifts that when shared are multiplied many times over and returned to us.

Yes, there is a great deal of struggle and pain in this world, but I do not think God asks any one of us to fix it all alone. God asks that we just help. To shepherd in the ways in which we are able

We see the wolves in the world. Do we run?

The Good Shepherd is risen indeed. The Good Shepherd is alive in each one of us.

Close your eyes. He calls to us. Do you hear it? How do we respond?

SERMON on April 29th, 2012

As we said the 23rd Psalm this morning, I wonder how many of us could have said it for memory. As I child committing it to memory, I discovered that saying it once or twice as I fell asleep was a much better method than counting sheep and left me knowing how much the Good Shepherd cared for me. Many of us will remember the Mother Goose rhyme about how “Little Bo Peep lost her sheep and didn’t know where to find them. Leave them alone and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them.” I’m not sure what the theological implications of those sheep were, but, according to our gospel – sheep definitely need leadership.

It’s fairly common to hear comments about the stupidity of sheep. However, the facts are that sheep are more aware than we thought. Studies have shown that sheep are smart enough to recognize the faces of more than 70 other sheep in their flock; and that they are able to recognize that some are getting special attention and will demonstrate jealousy toward some of their own flock. Hummmmmm

Reflecting about the Good Shepherd and the sheep recognizing each other, I found myself wondering: “Do we recognize each other as ‘children of God?’ Do we pick and choose to whom we assign the face of Christ? Or like some sheep do we show jealousy because others get special or more attention?”

Karl Barth reminds us that there is no such thing as an individual Christian. In the same vein, there is no “separate singular form of the word sheep,” (in other words, there is 1 sheep, or fifty sheep). As children of God, we are not separate from one another. Brian reminded us of this last week! And yet, I suspect that all of us at times find it awkward or even feel uneasy if we have to make room for “those others”, especially those who are marginalized from our clan.

What if the words we heard this morning were Jesus claiming to be the “the good migrant worker”! Would we see those folks as the image of Jesus? Like Jesus, we are to provide a space where all are welcome. The flock is open-ended, never closed.

In Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, An Altar to the World: she reflects on “encountering others” as a spiritual practice and she expands our understanding of hospitality as the biblical “love of stranger.”

Taylor does a remarkable job at describing our tendency to be at the center of our own awareness and forgetting that other people are at the center of their own awareness; not on the fringes of ours. We need to be challenged as to whom ”the others” are in our lives, in our churches, our communities, and in the world: These “others” are on the margins of our horizons, -- horizons which are established through circumstance, habit, and some of the unfairness and unjust practices present in our society.

Let me tell you about something that happened to me some years ago in Cambridge. I was spending six weeks at Harvard as a part of an NEH grant. I had started running very early along the Charles River each morning before we all gathered for breakfast. The campus streets weren’t crowded yet and the people out and about were mostly runners or walkers.

One morning coming back from my run, there was a woman of a different ethnicity who started following me, shouting all manner of obscenities at me, very loudly. She was obviously wounded and full of hatred; for whatever her reason, I was the scapegoat for her that day. At first it was embarrassing, awkward to say the least, because everyone in the Cambridge Square was staring at the two of us. Block after block she followed me, relentless in her determination to let me know how much she hated everything and everyone I represented.

I tried to ignore her at first, then I tried to pray for her under my breath, and then finally after several humiliating blocks, I decided to stop and face her, which I did. “I’m truly sorry, I really am, for whatever it is that I represent to you. I can tell that you are deeply hurt, and I’m sorry.”

Her response I can still hear: With venom, she responded: “that just doesn’t cut it, BITCH.”
You, know, she was right; my telling her that I was sorry from her perspective was pretty meaningless to her in that moment.

Our reading from I John this morning puts it like this: …we should…love one another, not in speech but in action, knowing that Christ abides in our brothers and sisters because of the Spirit that God has given us.

There’s a story told about Robert Coles going to interview Dorothy Day in 1952. Upon entering her “house of hospitality” he found her talking with a woman who was obviously very drunk. Eventually Dorothy got up and came over to Coles. With a voice that could be heard by the woman, she said:

“Are you waiting to speak to one of us?”ONE OF US? The troubled, intoxicated woman was not “the other” “the outsider”, or “one of them”; she was definitely not AN OBJECT of Dorothy Day’s charity. Rather, Day was ONE with this woman -- in the love of Christ.

What an example for all of us. Taking down the boundaries that we all have a tendency to put around our circle of those we accept! Was there a way that I could have better responded to the woman that followed me that day?
And with others like her, how are the traumas of our falls and fears to be healed and what is our place in helping to set one another free? Free to experience God’s healing love! My avoidance at looking at this hurting woman for several blocks, ignoring her because of my own discomfort still haunts me.

What about my own commitment to grow with God’s help in being responsible in ways that might help prevent some of my own blindness and ignorance?

Jesus lived a counter- cultural lifestyle which took him away from security, daring to express by words and actions the grace of God for all peoples in ways that scandalized so many of the respectable. Rather than exalting princes or religious leaders, he was quite often to be found with the most rank of outsiders, telling them that they had a stake in the Kingdom of God. And through it all, he was attracting the enmity of the predators of his day, predators who would eventually get their way in his being hounded to a brutal public execution.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, not only revealed God in his teaching, but how important to recognize that he revealed God in his WAY of BEING! As the image of God, we know what God is like – a compassionate Jesus who was moved to touch lepers, to heal on the Sabbath, to see in the ostracized members of the human community –“children of God”; and then to risk his life for the sake of saving his people from a future which he could see and they could not.

Compassion is both a feeling and a way of being!! We feel compassion and then we are to be compassionate.
There is a social dimension as well as an individual dimension to the compassion of God as we see it in the image of the Good Shepherd”. For him, as for the prophets before him, the divine compassion included grief and anger about the blindness, the injustice, and the idolatry that CAUSED human suffering. Persistent blindness and heedlessness do have their consequences!

But Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, discloses that at the very center of everything – is a Reality, a God, that is in love with us and wills our well-being, both as individuals and as individuals within society. When you and I are filled with the Spirit of God, the Compassionate One, then compassion is given us as a grace ---not an achievement. Our level of compassion is dependent upon our relationship to the Spirit.

And so if we know Jesus as the Good Shepherd, then growth in the Christian life is essentially a growth in compassion! Do we recognize the presence of Christ in one another, here in our own church, or in those ostracized members of the human community? Will we seek and serve Christ in ALL persons?

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed……”

Let me close by sharing from Thomas Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander: (listen with your hearts open to the wisdom that Merton speaks)

“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness, which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point of spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal…. which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind, or the brutalities of our own will.

This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us…….It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven.

IT IS IN EVERYBODY, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely…”
Merton goes on to say: “I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.”
AMEN

What was your first church like? How did it feel to you to be there? Did you feel welcomed? Loved? Accepted for who you were? Did you have a niche to fit in? Space to grow in? Did people know your name and the names of those you loved? I can imagine that there are as many different first experiences of church as there are people in this room. Churches take so many different shapes and forms.

Maybe yours was one of those churches where you knew you were loved right down to the tips of your toes. Maybe you could count on someone smiling warmly when you caught their eye—even if you were in the midst of making mischief. When you shrieked—as most kids do—did folks turn to you and smile or did they turn and scowl or did they not respond at all just pretending that that noisy you wasn’t there?

One of my good friends often talks about the church she was raised in. My friend was never an easy person to pigeonhole or to control. She pushed every boundary she could find. But that church of her childhood not only accepted her, they reveled in her. My friend knew she was loved no matter who she was or wasn’t—no matter what she did or didn’t do. That’s how my friend came to know she was beloved of God. That’s how my friend grew to love God. She was loved and that was all she needed.

My friend was lucky enough to be born and baptized into a community that knew how to love the children in their midst. They weren’t perfect, but they knew how to love their kids. I suppose you could say that that was one of their special gifts, one of their charisms, one of the marks on their part of the body of Christ. What a gift that community gave their children! What a gift that community gave the future!

The community to which John wrote or maybe preached was also a community with charism—a special gift. The gift of that community was the gift of an active love for one another. It wasn’t something that came easy to them—time and again in the three short letters of John—we hear about the challenges they faced as they worked to live out their life in Christ as a life grounded in love for one another. But work at it they did.

I wonder how they did it—I wonder how they kept coming back to that practice of love. How they returned to love when they felt cranky, hurt, ignored, misunderstood. How they returned to love when the love they gave was not met with love. I wonder how they learned to live that active kind of love—that love of neighbor that loves no matter what is given back. It couldn’t have been easy. If it were easy, we’d have no letters from John. He wouldn’t need to write. But write he does.

Could it be that that little community was one grounded in connection—connection with one another and with God? How does John put it---“we are God’s children” and “we will be like him”. They weren’t strangers tossed together, they weren’t people gathered together because they shared a common interest or a common end. They weren’t an interest group or a business or even a club. They were brothers and sisters—all children of God, all beloved of God. Children of God joining together to help one another live in love. How they lived with one another, how they treated one another, what they said about each other, what they held dear mattered. Such things matter for us as well.

Today we are baptizing Silas Jude Ruiz. We are welcoming him into the Body of Christ. This is not something I do or his parents do or his sponsor does. This is something we all do together. We receive him into the Body of Christ and commit to helping him live his life in Christ.

We welcome Silas into a community where all are welcome. We welcome Silas into a community where all can safely live. We welcome you, Silas, into a community where you can grow into the person God created you to be. Challenge us. Inspire us. Help us to grow in our life in Christ. Shake the walls. Rattle the foundations. Keep us ever mindful of the One in whose name we gather. Like you, Silas, we are marked as Christ’s own forever. Thanks be to God.

April 22, 2012
The Third Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

In the 1977 film Jesus of Nazareth by Franco Zeffirelli, there is a non-biblical character named Zerah. He is a Sadducee, a temple official who is most anxious to get rid of the troublesome leader from Galilee. After all, Jesus’ followers blasphemously claimed that he was the Messiah. And so Zerah pushes for Jesus’ condemnation and crucifixion.

Zerah has also heard the boasts that Jesus would rise from the dead. He knows that the disciples might even go so far as to stage the resurrection by stealing the body, and then create God knows what kind of public ruckus after that. So Zerah sees to it that the tomb is sealed with a boulder and guarded by Roman soldiers.

But on the third day Zerah hears troubling news. There are reports that Jesus has risen from the dead. Zerah rushes to the tomb, and gazes despairingly into the empty space. He laments: “Now it begins. It all begins.”

Zerah was right. Everything changed with the resurrection. Before, the disciples had been a timid, confused, and unreliable bunch. But then the resurrection happened. In the gospel today, we heard about their first encounter. At first, naturally, they couldn’t believe it. Who would? But with a bite of fish and a few words, the impossibly risen Christ opened their minds to the impossible.

The disciples woke up to a new reality, and the past three years flashed before them in a completely different light. Jesus was the Messiah; his miracles were real; the scriptures had been fulfilled. Knowing this, they would never be the same. They would now live with a new boldness - to love as Jesus loved, to trust God as he trusted, to be as generous and free as he was. They would even lose their fear of death.

Now it would begin. It would all begin. And so Jesus told them to go out and “proclaim repentance,” which means simply to turn direction. So he wanted his friends to create situations where others would experience what they had - to see everything in a new light, turn to God, and change their lives.

Which is exactly what Peter and John did in our first lesson. They healed a paralyzed man at the temple gate in Jerusalem. The people gaped in astonishment as the man stood up and walked. And Peter said “Well, what did you expect, after Jesus’ resurrection? Everything is different now. Anything is possible. Repent therefore, turn to God; change your life.”

So this is the pattern: an encounter with God has the effect of waking one up to a new and deeper understanding of reality. Things are seen in a completely different light. There is nothing to do but turn, change, and start a different kind of life.

I wonder if you have had such an encounter. Some of you might have woken from a kind of sleep because of a vivid awareness of your mortality. You had a close brush with death, or the life of someone you love became fragile and uncertain. Knowing this, really knowing it, things begin to look different. With this knowledge, what shall you now do? How shall you live?

Others of you might have come at one point to a hard realization, long ignored, of some central fact. You fell in love with someone of your own gender, and guess what? You’re gay! Or you’re an alcoholic. Or you’re unhappy in your marriage, in the work you do. You have been living a lie, and now you have come to the truth. Knowing this, really knowing it, nothing will ever be the same. What then shall you do?

This can also happen as life unfolds naturally over time. At some point a father wakes up and realizes he is a father. He sees himself, his relationships, his responsibilities, his whole lifestyle in a new light. How shall he now live?

In each of these situations it is a new understanding of ourselves that changes everything. We see things differently, and we can’t help but be different.

We frequently think of those moments that motivate us to repent, to turn, as requiring a decision and will power. We finally get to the point where we say “Enough! I’m going to make myself the kind of person I know I should be!” But this approach is never very effective. Anyone who has tried to diet knows this. Anyone who tries to make themselves holy knows this.

Neither is fear a good motivator. We may say to ourselves “Oh no! I’m in deep trouble! I’d better get it together, quick!” But when the fear subsides, we wipe our brow and thank God we’ve dodged that bullet, and go on with life as usual.

What truly heads us in a new direction is an experience that gives us a clear understanding of the way things are. For instance, if we really get it, in the depths of our heart, that we are going to die, we will be affected. We may then make different choices about how we spend our time, what is worth worrying about, and how we love. If we hit bottom and face the inescapable knowledge that we are not what we have pretended to be, then we have begun a new journey.

And if, as people of faith, we have discovered that that God is real, that the Spirit dwells within us, we see ourselves in a new light. Then we naturally live as one who is beloved, at peace, empowered by a wisdom beyond our own knowing. We are naturally more able to trust, to listen, and to be guided.

What is true for us individually is also true for society. I don’t see us becoming motivated to turn from the path of global warming because we have become frightened by the disastrous scenarios that every reputable scientist is telling us. I don’t see us turning from war as a means of resolving our conflicts because we have finally decided it is the right thing to do. As a people, we will only repent from environmental destruction, violence, and indifference to the underprivileged because we come to truly understand ourselves differently - namely, that we are all one.

We are one with the whole planet, the whole universe. Nothing is separate; everything affects everything else. Our actions harm or benefit plants, oceans, and the atmosphere, and they benefit us. We are one with every other person, no matter what race or nation or creed. How the goods I consume are produced, how I vote, whether I care that people are homeless or without adequate education or medical care, even how I think and feel about people that are different from me - all this affects people who are my sisters and brothers in God. We are one.

If, and only if, we as a society can evolve to the point where we let ourselves experience this, and by that experience gain an understanding of the way things really are - and I have my doubts that we will, at least anytime soon - we will repent. We will change naturally, not because we fear, and not because we think we should, but because we see things differently, and we cannot help but live differently.

You and I cannot steer the massive ship of society towards a more evolved understanding. But we can wake up within our own lives, and help others to wake up, as well. And because we are all one, we affect the world around us.

We can take seriously that shock of our mortality, that awareness of God’s presence, those times of complete honesty or of hitting bottom, or those moments when we know that all of life is one sacred organism. We can receive the gift of seeing things as they are, and let this knowledge change us.

We do not know where this understanding will take us. A journey into new life begins without being able to see the destination, or even the twists and turns of the road ahead. All we know is what we know here and now, and that we shall now turn, trust, and walk. As John put it in the second reading today “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”

In our moments of realization, we are the same as the disciples after Easter. They saw the resurrected Christ, and nothing was ever the same. At times we are given clarity and deep understanding. If we take the time, if we take the risk to allow this new vision to affect us, we are changed. We repent, we turn down a new road, and now it begins. It all begins.

Happy Easter!
Our bulletins this morning say “2nd Sunday of Easter,”
and our Easter season will last seven weeks and end with Pentecost.
But does it really feel like Easter any more?
The eggs have been colored, found, and made into egg salad.
The chocolate bunnies have been eaten and Easter baskets put away.
For most people, Easter is over.

Which is a shame.
Because we live in world that needs Easter.
Not just one day, but every day.

As my husband, Lee, recently said to me,
if you feel your spirits getting too high,
just spend a few hours reading or listening to the news.
News reports are full of violence, around the world and here at home;
insensitive comments and inappropriate conduct by politicians;
and constant fear for the future of our economy.

It is in this context that we come to church this Easter season,
to hear again the stories of the Risen Christ and his followers.

The stories began with an empty tomb.
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb of Jesus that early Sunday morning,
to pay her respects to her dead friend and lord.

It was already the third day – the third day in a world Mary Magdalene could not imagine
– a world without Jesus.
So she came, weeping, to his tomb.
She expected to find it sealed.
Instead, she found that the tomb was open, and empty.
She heard her name spoken, and everything changed again.
Her grief was replaced by wonder and joy.
Mary was no longer lost, but given a new purpose –
to share the good news about the risen Christ.

That same evening, the disciples were gathered in a locked room.
They did not believe the crazy story Mary came running to tell them that morning.
They did believe their lives might be in danger,
from the same men who had arrested and killed their teacher.
They did believe that everything they had longed for was gone –
The one they thought was God’s promised Messiah was dead,
and with him, all their hope.

Then Jesus came to them.
Just like that, Jesus appeared, and everything changed again.
“Peace be with you.” Jesus said.
“As the Father has sent me, I have sent you.”
Then he breathed on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Once before, Jesus had called these men and women to leave the lives they knew
to follow him.
Now he gives them a new promise.
He offers them a peace that the world can not give –
the peace of knowing and being known by Jesus,
who has conquered sin and death.
Now he gives them a new purpose –
sending them out, filled with the Holy Spirit,
to witness to what they have seen and heard.
He sends them to bear witness to what God has done
in the life, death, and resurrection of their Lord, Jesus Christ.

After his resurrection, Jesus appears three times in the Gospel of John.
He visits twice in a room where the disciples are meeting, fearful and doubting;
and he appears to his friends as they fished,
and eating with them on the beach.
Every time he comes to them, they become stronger, wiser, kinder, more daring.
Every time he comes to them, they become more like him.

Jesus is making them Easter people –
his followers,
filled with the news of the resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit.

A while ago I read an interesting quotation from a book called The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective, written by the Jewish NT scholar Pinchas Lapide.
For him, the proof of the resurrection lies in the changed lives of the disciples; he writes:

“When this scared, frightened band of the apostles, which was just about to throw away everything in order to flee in despair to Galilee; when these peasants, shepherds, and fishermen, who betrayed and denied their master and then failed him miserably, suddenly could be changed overnight into a confident mission society, convinced of salvation and able to work with much more success after Easter than before Easter, then no vision or hallucination is sufficient to explain such a revolutionary transformation.”

When they met the risen Christ, the disciples were transformed,
from a frightened band of misfits
to God’s powerful witnesses in the world.

We, too, have met the risen Christ.
We, too, have been filled with the Holy Spirit,
and sent to bear witness to our Lord.
And so we go –
hoping that we, too, will become stronger, wiser, kinder, and more daring;
praying that we, too, will become more like him.
God changes hearts and transforms lives to create God’s Easter people.
This is how God continues God’s work of resurrection in a world in need of healing –
by sending God’s Easter people to bear witness to the truth.

Easter people know that our sins are forgiven,
so that we might forgive others.
Easter people know that Jesus loves us unconditionally,
and sends us to love as he has loved.
Easter people know that whatever we face, whatever we fear,
it cannot be more powerful than the God who broke the power of death itself.

Our world desperately needs Easter people.
People who bring comfort and peace where there is grief and despair,
bring reconciliation where there has been hatred and fear,
bring new beginnings where there has been death and chaos.

Jesus lives!
– not only 2000 years ago, leaving behind an empty tomb,
but now, here, among us.
We have heard him call our names –
in the water of baptism, in the bread and wine,
in the many and varied ways Jesus encounters each one of us in daily life.
And so we are his Easter people.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
(Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!)

Spreading Shalom:
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch

“Dance, dance, wherever you may be.
“I am the Lord of the Dance” says he
“And I’ll lead you on wherever you may be,
“And I’ll lead you on in the dance,” says he.

After the betrayal, the cooked-up charges, the Cross, the nails, the empty tomb, the Lord of the Dance comes to his disciples hiding behind locked doors and says, “Peace. Peace be with you.” Often we hear that word peace in the context of our lives—thinking when we hear it absence of conflict or inner calm. But Jesus was saying not peace but “Shalom.” “Shalom”—it means so much more than just absence of conflict or inner calm or even peace of mind though surely they are a part of it. Prosperity, health, peace, wellness, completeness, safety, harmony, fulfillment, unity, restoration are all a part of God’s Shalom.1 That’s what the Lord of the Dance offers his disciples. That’s what Jesus was bestowing on those huddled behind locked doors. Shalom.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. The Lord of the dance breaks through doors closed by fear and guilt and more than a measure of confusion, breathes his spirit on his disciples and invites them into the dance saying, “I send you to do as I have done.” He’s sending them out to love and serve their neighbors; he’s sending them out to spread shalom.

It takes a while for the disciples to get it, for them to step into the dance. Remember, they huddle in that room for quite some time. Finally Peter has enough. He stands up and says, “I’m going fishing.” That’s when Jesus comes back to them again, meets them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, hails them by the shore, cooks a breakfast, shows them how to love their neighbor and sends them out to feed his lambs and tend his sheep.

When next we meet those followers of Jesus, they are being blown or shaken out of their locked-in places—whisked out into the world of deep need. The author of the Acts of the Apostles tells us first that “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need”(Acts 2: 44-45). As the community grew, they continued to share what they had. Indeed, we hear today, “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4: 34-35)

You and I and this part of the Body of Christ we call St. Michael’s are part of a long chain of Christian communities called to love and serve their neighbor as themselves thus spreading Shalom to the world in which we live. Spreading shalom—it’s so clearly part of our DNA as Christians though a part that often gets overlooked. Our early Christian forbearers had quite a reputation for meeting deep human need:
*Tertullian, an early Christian writer and theologian observed, “Our care for the derelict and our active love have become our distinctive sign before the enemy... ‘See,’ they say ‘how they love one another and how ready they are to die for each other.’”2
As Tertullian implies, it wasn’t only Christians that noticed what was going on. The Emperor Julian the Apostate in the 4th century commented caustically, “The godless Christians feed not only their poor but ours also.”3

You and I and this part of the Body of Christ we call St. Michael’s come from a long line of individuals and communities turned outward toward the needs of the world. I think of Clare and Francis and St. Martin of Tour’s all who focused on serving the least of God’s children. I’m reminded of communities like the Beguines in the Middle Ages and Catholic Worker communities of today—communities that devote their common life to serving the neediest, communities that practice a radical kind of love of neighbor. All part of that great Apostolic train of communities and individuals intent on being the Body of Christ spreading God’s Shalom to the world of great human need.

Just this last week I saw a group of people right here in Albuquerque, including people from St. Michael’s, dancing the dance of Shalom, practicing deep love of neighbor. In the community room of St. Martin’s coffee shop, a group of people gathered to work out how they would support a person making that difficult transition from living on the streets to living in an apartment. They talked about who they were and why they were there, what they thought the person moving off the streets might need, what they each brought to the project. And then one person asked, “What if all of us—all of St. Michael’s—were a part of this home team each contributing their skills, their knowledge, their unique gifts to people in Albuquerque heading home?” What a question!

What if we all got together, this whole community--St. Michael’s—all of us, and worked together to address a deep need in our community? What if the marks on our part of the Body of Christ were mission, service and a radical love of neighbor? What if the marks of our discipleship were the spreading of Shalom among the homeless, the hungry, the poor right here in Northwest Albuquerque, right here in our neck of the bosque? Think of it—St. Michael’s as part of that great Apostolic train of compassion serving as Christ’s Body in the world.

Soon you will read Brian’s column in the Angelus. in which he suggests we, “imagine, a few years from now, a group of parishioners sitting in a room, responding to the question “What do you value about St. Michael’s?” Imagine them naming not only spirituality, inclusivity, and community, but also saying that we are characterized by “An obvious passion and commitment to effectively serve the most vulnerable in our surrounding community.” What would it take for us to get to this point?”

Brian then answers his own question, “I believe it would take the next step in our faith development. It is natural that in the life of faith, one begins with personal spirituality, then moves to one’s immediate community. But if we are to continue to mature, the next step in faithfulness is to expand further, beyond the self and the parish, to the world around us.”

Could it be that the Lord of the Dance is coming through the doors of this community and inviting us, like our brothers and sisters who have gone before us, into the world of deep need just beyond those doors, inviting us to join in the spreading of shalom, inviting us into the dance of true communion with our neighbors, with one another and with Christ?

“Dance, dance, wherever you may be.
“I am the Lord of the Dance” says he
“And I’ll lead you on wherever you may be,
“And I’ll lead you on in the dance,” says he.

_____________________________

1Mary Donovan Turner, Old Testament Words, 2003, 110.
2Dan Clendenin, “Communities of Compassion, Then and Now”
http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20120409JJ.shtml
3Dan Clendenin, “They Enjoyed the Favor of All People” http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20090413JJ.shtml.

“Enough,” he says, “I’ve waited long enough. I’m heading home.”

Rising, he turns to his companion. “Are you coming with me?” he asks.

She shrugs her shoulders and gets up. What else is there to do? They’ve waited long enough. Three days, an empty tomb, rumors of angels claiming that the one they love lives, but still no sight of him. The tomb is empty. He should be here by now. And yet He’s not. They’ve waited long enough. It’s time to go.

And so they leave that locked-up, stuffy upper room and head down the road to Emmaus—two despairing hearts welled up with grief and fear and pent up pain.

They had hoped—oh how they had hoped—that He would be the one, the one to change the lop-sided world in which they lived; that He would be the one to throw off all those chains that bound them to a life of burdens they often couldn’t bear.

But now—but now He’s gone. Leaving them with only their hopes, a promise and an empty tomb—hardly enough to penetrate their gloom, hardly enough to keep them waiting in that upper room.

So down the road they walk. As they walk they remember what He said, what He did, what He promised, and maybe most of all how He treated them with dignity and with love. They remember how he lived that Reign of God he talked about so much. Sometimes it almost felt as if they were living it too.

Lost in their memories and in their conversation, they don’t see the stranger coming their way. They don’t see Him until he’s right there in their midst. And even then they don’t really see him at all. Their eyes are blinded by their dashed hopes and unfulfilled expectations. So focused on what they expect, they miss the risen Christ in front of their eyes.

I think Cleopas and his companion are not alone in that. Expectations too clearly drawn and too tightly held can keep you and me from seeing the risen Christ standing right before us. But the risen Christ isn’t that easy too shake. Like the stranger on that road to Emmaus, the risen Christ comes to us in different ways, in different shapes, at different times in our lives. Sometimes as a neighbor, sometimes as a friend, sometimes as a stranger, and sometimes a pesky co-worker or an annoying cousin.

Sometimes we meet him in a story told—a story that shifts our understanding of our world and our place in it; a story that helps us see our way out of a dilemma we thought we were stuck in; or maybe one that expands our horizons just a little.

Sometimes we meet him in a question asked. “Are you sure? Are you sure that’s how you want to play it?” someone says to us in one of those moments when we’re about to cut a cord of connectedness. In the question we meet the risen Christ Eastering us into a different way of living, into a different way of being in the moment.

Sometimes we meet him in an invitation offered. “Won’t you join me?” or “You’d be great at...” or “I hear they need some help...” Invitations to join the risen Christ in the work of Eastering the world in which we live.

Cleopas and his companion meet the risen Christ in their despondency and despair. Walking with them, He begins to Easter them into new life.

Eastering. As Cleopas and his companion can attest, it’s not a one-shot-only kind of thing. Eastering. For some of us it happens slowly over time. A brush with newness here. A glimpse of hope there. First stirrings of new life.

We get a whiff of Him and a sense of something changing in our lives.

And then the wine is poured, the bread is broken, a glass is raised, a loaf is shared. Gathered around the table we meet Him in the breaking of the bread.

In our best moments we, like Cleopas and his companion, rush off—off to join the Resurrection. Off to be the Resurrection bringing light and life and word of the living Christ to the dark corners of our world. Off to do the work of Eastering.

Eastering. It’s not something to put off until the just the right moment appears. Eastering. It’s not something we wait for. Eastering. It happens when we work for justice. It happens when we live with love. It happens when the passion for God’s reign burns white-hot in our hearts. Shall we be off to our work of Eastering?

Easter Sunday
April 8, 2012
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

What a mysterious, richly textured story: Three women in a cemetery at dawn, the smell of burial spices in the air, a calm young stranger in a white robe, and the inexplicably empty tomb. The women were struck with amazement, terror, and silence.

The Easter mystery continues. Jesus appeared in a locked room, seemingly having passed through the wall. He ate fish by the lakeside. He walked along a road, talking to friends who didn’t recognize him until he broke bread with them, and then suddenly disappeared.

The stories are nuanced with symbolism and suggestion. As was the custom in religious storytelling back then, details and even events were added to bring depth and urgency to the meaning they were trying to convey. This was before the time when fact and fiction were neatly separated.

As a seminary professor said to our startled class in the first week of our first year, “All we really know is that Jesus attracted a following during his lifetime; was executed as a criminal by the Romans in the usual manner; and that something happened after his death that transformed his followers from a small, confused, fearful band into an electric and unstoppable movement. All the rest - well, there is just no way of knowing for sure.”

I have never doubted that supernatural things do happen in this world. And so I have no problem with believing that that “something” that happened after Jesus’ death could have been very much like what is described in the gospels. But my seminary professor’s point was that the specifics of that “something” are less important than its effect. What matters is that Jesus’ followers experienced him as still alive, within and among them, even more powerfully than during his physical life. And this presence transformed them.

After Easter, there was a supernatural, divine force at work that was beyond the human capacity of the disciples. In the same way, Jesus did not raise himself from the dead inside the tomb. He was raised up by God. The disciples were raised up spiritually as well, by a force both within and beyond them. They didn’t self-actualize. They God-actualized. We call this “grace.”

God’s grace is a force that flows throughout everything, all the time, birthing, dying, renewing, guiding everything towards new forms, new possibilities. This is why there is such a strong link between Easter and springtime, when the earth bursts out of its winter hibernation into color and bugs and green succulence. God’s amazing grace, or the life-force of nature, if you prefer, is a force working invisibly within the dirt and the dry twigs, bubbling up into fresh and tender life.

The whole earth, the whole cosmos pulses with this divine energy of resurrection, and we are an integral part of it. And so we join the whole creation in singing God’s praises, standing in worship before the Source of all. As it says in the great Song of Creation in our Prayer Book,
Glorify the Lord, every shower of rain and fall of dew, all winds and fire and heat.
Winter and summer, give to God your thanks and praise!
O nights and days, O shining light and enfolding dark,
O springs of water, seas, and streams,
O whales and all that move in the waters,
All birds of the air and beasts of the wild,
O women and men everywhere, glorify the Lord!

Jesus’ resurrection is but one occurrence of what is taking place everywhere, all the time. As the entire creation births and dies and renews and evolves, it is a living song of praise to our Creator. And we humans, gifted with self-awareness, are privileged to see this, to know it, and to marvel in this energy of life, this grace, that infuses and directs the whole show.

But don’t stop here. There is more to resurrection than worship and praise. It becomes personal, if we let it, if we seek it out. For this same force of life, this transforming grace, is available to us. When we are at our lowest - when we can do no more, like Jesus lying in the tomb, unable to resurrect himself - when we surrender and open our hearts to some other possibility within and beyond us, it creeps in. When we’re not looking, we find ourselves affected.

In the midst of a serious illness, a spaciousness and trust can appear, and we know that no matter what happens, we shall be well. An empty, blank time of gestation gives birth to new interest and vigor. After the disappointment of a closed door, we turn and see another one open to a vista we had never considered before. A failed marriage can make one like the winter earth - cold, hard, and lifeless; but then spring comes, making life fruitful again. Parts of oneself sprout up that were long-forgotten, or never even known before.

The point of a life of prayer, the point of faith, is to face intentionally into this renewing grace in trust and hope, waiting like a cat in front of a mouse-hole. God will appear, and we will be ready. Without specific expectations, we are nevertheless expectant. When grace stirs within our tomb, we do what we can to cooperate with it, and in its power, we rise and become new people.

But don’t stop here, either. There is yet even more to resurrection than personal transformation. We are empowered by this same life-force of grace to be resurrectors with God. We are invited into God’s glorious work of raising up the world around us. We are co-creators of the kingdom of God on earth.

It’s tempting to think of the world as going to hell in a hand-basket. In a world of nearly 7 billion souls, we hear the endlessly repeated story of one murderous soldier, one paranoid vigilante, and we shake our heads saying “What is this world coming to?” The most pressing problems seem unsolvable - global warming, population growth, healthcare, economic crises, deadlock between political parties. And we despair, becoming cynical.

And yet, here’s an interesting thing that doesn’t sell air time on the nightly news. Compared to 50 years ago, far more countries are democracies, now free from oppressive dictatorships. In the same period of time, the rate of poverty has dramatically lowered around the globe, with a huge rise in the middle class. The number of women who are now educated is much higher than any time in history. And the number of deaths from the violence of war is far lower than generations before.

How did all this happen? And how have we moved beyond slavery, segregation, and inevitably, homophobia? It has happened because people like you and me have participated with God in the resurrection of the world. We can’t help it. We are made in the image of our Creator, stamped with God’s own character. And so we, too, are resurrectors, never ceasing to breathe life into those places where there seems to be only death.

You give to a charity and people are fed and vaccines distributed. You work in a profession that searches out effective ways of improving the lives of the most vulnerable among us. You vote, and occasionally help people get elected who inch this resistant state and country forward into new life. You may be creative, bringing beauty and truth that enlivens those who see or hear what you do.

All of us are made in the image of God. We are filled with the same life-force that fills the universe, the same grace that enters your own dark places. And it is our responsibility to use this power. We are gifted with this precious life in order to give life to others. We are born to resurrect the world where it lies dormant, broken, or lifeless.

We are vehicles of God’s grace - of that power that is within and beyond us, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, the same power that transforms our personal lives, the power of springtime. When we open our hearts to the needs of the world around us, when we call upon this grace, and when we join together and act, this grace multiplies exponentially. And the world is made new.

Today is a special feast day, obviously. But it is like any other day. Every day is filled with grace and glory. So take Easter forth from this place. Allow yourself to be made new, and help God to resurrect the world.

Some of you may remember the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire with host Regis Philbin. Contestants are asked multiple-choice questions that go from easy to very difficult. They are allowed lifelines to help when things get difficult. They can ask the audience, phone a friend for help, or get half of the four answers removed so they are choosing between two and not four answers. Regis would ask the question, contestants would talk it through out loud and then answer. Regis would always follow with “Is that your final answer?” That isn’t so bad when the question was worth $100, but when it reached the $500,000 mark and the person risked losing everything if they were wrong, it was stressful for those of us watching at home. “Is that your final answer?” I feel the stress even now.

I have always found Mark’s telling of the resurrection compelling. He ends in the middle of a sentence. A literal translation of the Greek would read, “To no one anything they said; afraid they were for…” It feels as if Mark got distracted and just never got around to finishing his sentence. The resurrection is so difficult to understand that I appreciate Mark not making it neat and tidy for us. We are left with more questions than answers. If you are the type that prefers closure to this kind of open-ended account, you may want to try another gospel. Mark ends with frightened women fleeing the tomb in silence and preacher Tom Long complains, “That’s no way to run a resurrection.” (Christian Century, 2006)

I disagree. The resurrection is a miracle that doesn’t fit into a paragraph, a box, or apparently, into a tomb. Let’s be with it as complicated as it is rather than seeking an easy answer to this miracle that defies human understanding. Astonishment, trembling, fear and silence aren’t inappropriate for Easter. As one commentator said, “Easter is no time to be glib and chatty about the empty tomb and risen Lord.” (Preaching Through the Christian Year, p. 225)

We are left with awe at what God has done. Sometimes there are no words. This isn’t a story about us. It is about God who is not willing to be contained in human definitions and understandings. It calls us to shift our attention from our human centric world to God’s amazing power to bring life where there is no life. Only God can breathe life into dry bones and make them live. Only God can call Jesus forth from the tomb to walk among us and set us free. Only God can bring hope to the places where humans have given up. It invites us to place our hope in a God that calls forth a staggering belief in what can’t be done nor even conceived by us.

I try to imagine the women making their way to the tomb and I wonder what they were feeling. We talk about their incredible grief. But do you think that perhaps they came with some relief? This One whom they loved and followed got into the most difficult situations and created tension and stress wherever he went. It wasn’t all sweetness and light. Following him was often terrifying and very risky. Perhaps they came to the tomb thinking all that was behind them only to discover that he had risen. Oh no, here we go again!

It is easy to look at the women and say that they blew it! They really should have told people. They had this amazing message and they were too scared to share it. But what if they did exactly what they needed to do because there is another ending that waits to be lived out in us?

Today, we gather to wait for the sunrise and hear the words, “He has been raised; he is not here.” We come bringing all the times we have denied, betrayed or failed Christ and one another. We come confused about our past, bewildered by our present, and scared about our future. Christ walks among us and offers us a new beginning. We are human. Our fears and our failures do not define us. They are redeemed when the risen one reminds us that they are NOT our final answer.

In the summer of 1961, a shopping center came to Thornton, Louisiana. Sidda had just finished second grade. To celebrate this grand opening, Lawanda the Magnificent, a huge elephant came to offer free rides to any kid in the area. The whole community came for this occasion and everyone took turns riding the elephant. Sidda knew this was coming. She had dreamed of this day for weeks. When the day finally came, she was beside herself. Lawanda was the most amazing animal Sidda had ever seen. When it was her turn, she climbed up onto the platform and she froze in fear. The adults tried to coax her onto the elephant, but she couldn’t do it. She climbed down in humiliation.

On the way home, she realized that she had made the gravest mistake of her seven-year-old life. She burst into tears and claimed she didn’t feel good. She cried all the way home and finally confessed to her mother, “I will die if I don’t get to ride Lawanda.” Her mother’s response was, “Okay, time to implement plan 27-B.” When they got back to the parking lot everyone was gone and they were feeding and hosing Lawanda down. Her mother asked sweetly if they would possibly consider one more ride for her daughter, but the man refused. At that point, she went through a herculean effort to get some cash so Sidda could ride Lawanda. She would not be deterred…after all; this was a matter of life or death. She made a deal with Lawanda’s owner and they climbed on together. Her mother helped her imagine that they were in the jungle and the jungle came alive around them. Reflecting on the ride years later, Sidda said, “All we had done was circle that puny shopping-center parking lot, but when that ride was over I was a different little girl.” Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells (Chapter 29)

God can take the worst the world has to offer and turn it into wonder and beauty. Death can’t dim God’s glory. The last word belongs to God. No matter how we have hidden in fear, stopped short of our own goodness, or failed to see Christ in one another, God goes ahead of us to give us a new beginning.

Mark wrote this gospel to stir people to action. He believed that there was no time to wallow in our failures and disappointments. It was his hope that people would carry the message of hope and resurrection to a world that desperately needed it…and still does. The resurrection becomes real to people as they see the risen Christ in us.

Clarence Jordan was a farmer and New Testament scholar who lived in Georgia and founded Koinonia Farms. Clarence was instrumental in the creation of Habitat for Humanity. He took Jesus words seriously and often found himself in trouble for that, but he was clear about what it meant to follow Jesus. He said, “The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.”

Mark ends the story of the resurrection with silence. We look at ourselves and ask when have we been silent? Now we face the million-dollar question. Christ is risen…what will we do with this message?

Is that your final answer???

Sermon for Maundy Thursday ----April 5th, 2012

Imagine with me, if you will, what it must have been like to be with Jesus and the disciples on this night over 2000 years ago.

With less than 24 hours left on this earth for him, Jesus gathers his disciples together away from the crowds in an upper room. As the fanfare and busyness of the last few days fade away, the noise of the busy streets below is muted. There is something different about this room they are gathered in. Though they are gathered together for a meal, there seem to be no servants scurrying around making preparations, no one waiting to wash the disciple’s dusty feet before they recline together for the meal. This ritual of gathering for a meal is so familiar to them, yet this time is somehow different. There’s a feeling of uneasiness in the air, and it increases to discomfort as Jesus rises from his place, takes off his robe, and proceeds to tie a towel around his waist. Can’t you see the disciples now, turning and asking one another in hushed whispers “WHAT IS HE DOING?”

Once a year, our worship service takes us to a meal in an upper room where a friend turns traitor, to a garden of hard-fought prayer and then arrest, to a kangaroo court, and to an execution. Once a year, we peer into the abyss and we remember those whose suffering was mirrored on the cross: the oppressed, the dying, the unjustly accused, the deserted, and those who feel hopeless. Once a year, we leave this place of worship in dark, ponderous silence.

The term Maundy comes from the Latin “mandatum, meaning “command.” In today’s scripture, Jesus speaks of a commandment. Having startled his disciples by washing their feet, he says to them, “You call me Teacher and Lord and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

We should be on our knees washing each other’s feet because that is precisely what Jesus did at the first Eucharist, demonstrating that the Eucharist is not a private act of devotion, but a call to-- and a grace for-- SERVICE. Both are meant to send us out into the world ready to give expression to Christ’s love, Christ’shospitality, and of course Christ’s humility!

The Gospels report numerous healings in which the sick found wholeness through physical contact with Jesus. Tonight we are representatives of the servanthood of Jesus. We are able through the healing touch of our hands to convey that loving contact with the divine.

As I reflected on this command this last week, I was reminded of the very first time I ever experienced a foot washing service – it was here at St Michael’s in the old sanctuary. Just as this part of the service was about to begin, Brian leaned over and asked me if I would wash his feet. I didn’t have a clue – how one did this - or - why me! I guess someone had to start the process and I was the closest one to ask.

I remember well, the feelings of awkwardness, and uncertainty; but as I begin to participate in the process, a sense of being engaged in a most profound and meaningful act took hold of me. My tears began at that moment and I wept through most of the service. I was experiencing what it must have been like for the disciples on that night. The humility, the love, and the sense of service was transforming!

What Jesus is saying to us is that there is no task too menial, no service so difficult, no need so off-putting that we shoule not do for each other – and also for those whom Jesus elsewhere referred to as “the least of these.” Jesus turned his world upside down when he took on the role of a servant and washed the disciples’ feet. I found myself thinking about how it would be to have a service on the street tonight, and to offer to wash the feet of the street people.

Last year in Miami, a church held a service on the street and washed the feet of 300 street people, gave them each a pair of tennis shoes and even had a podiatrist present to look at their feet and provide some advice.

In the 3rd century CE, the Roman emperor Valerian regularly persecuted the church. One day he summoned a deacon of the church named Lawrence and demanded to see “the treasures of the church.” The emperor intended Lawrence to bring the golden and jeweled vessels used for liturgical purposes. Lawrence returned instead with a gathering of the poor, the lame, and those without a home. Angered, the emperor demanded to know where the treasures of the church were to be found. Pointing to these people gathered around him, Lawrence said, “these are the treasures of the church.”

Hold that image in your mind this night “of the poor, the infirmed, those without a place to call home, as the treasures of the church”.

What is so unexpected, and so radically loving, about this foot washing is not just that it is the teacher and master doing a servants work. What sticks out in my mind is that Jesus held their dirty feet (which undoubtedly they were dirty indeed)…and in that moment of intimacy-- held so much more. Jesus held their untrusting hearts, their weak spirits, their calloused egos, their unwillingness to be so vulnerable!

Jesus is quite clear that this particular act of foot-washing is not about cleanliness but about relationship. IT IS INDEED ABOUT INTIMACY. It is the liturgical foundation of the new commandment which he then gives them: “love one another AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.”

So just how far does this kind of loving and making ourselves vulnerable stretch us? Well, Jesus’ teaching on the subject makes it pretty clear that the kind of love for which he is speaking ignores all the boundaries we human beings so imaginatively create. Political, ethnic, gender, economic, educational, age – all those lines are erased by this particular kind of divine love.

Serve one another this night, knowing that as we participate in this sacred act, we are experiencing God’s love for us through another. In this moment as we become truly present to one another, Christ becomes present with us as surely as He is in the breaking of the bread -- Washing away the pain and the wounds from each of us, tenderly touching us! Let us be Christ to one another!

Let us open our hearts to receive God’s love and to give Christ’s love as we participate in the rest of the service.

Sermon Mark 11:1-11
Palm Sunday
St. Michael and All Angels
April 1, 2012

One of my favorite moments in the church year is the Palm Sunday processional. We begin outside and everyone gathers in close waiting for the signal to begin. There is confusion, chaos, crowding, and anticipation. Something wonderful is about to happen. We look around at the people gathered tentatively holding palm branches and wonder what is the purpose of this parade anyway?

I wonder if this is what the parade was like when Jesus rode a colt through Jerusalem. Were people crowded, confused, and lost in the chaos? Was there a sense of anticipation? Did they have any idea what that parade was about?

Palm Sunday is an odd day. We began this season with ashes to remind us of our mortality. We’ve prayed, reflected, taken on practices to help us walk more closely with Christ and now we stand in this threshold preparing for the culmination. We know that the days ahead bring death and darkness. But what do we do with today?

Many churches have given up Palm Sunday. Oh, they take a moment to read about the Palms and then they move straight into the Passion. Their rationale is that too many people won’t come to church during Holy Week and they don’t want them to miss Jesus’ death and go straight to the resurrection. I wonder if that’s the reason or if they are really not sure what to do with Palm Sunday so they just nod in that direction and head to the more familiar territory of the Passion. Thresholds can be awkward. We aren’t exactly in Lent, but we haven’t entered Holy week either. Is it a day when we look backward and forward at the same time? Or do we simply pause where we are and allow this moment to sink in with all its fullness?

The scripture is odd with few cues about what is really happening. Most of the verses we heard this morning describe Jesus’ preparation. Why did he spend so much energy getting ready for this parade? Only a few verses recount his entry into Jerusalem. It is a strange parade…honoring one who has healed, taught strange things about a God whose love is more important than the law, and continually challenged the established way of doing things. This Jesus who frees people is riding through town on a colt. There is nothing triumphal about this ride. People are shouting Hosanna, which means “save us”. They may not understand who he is, but somehow they know that he has the power to bring life and they throw their coats and branches on the road as if they are casting their lot with this strange Son of God.

I have wondered how we respond as we stand on the threshold this morning. We came singing into church. Some of us enthusiastically waved palm branches and some of us were embarrassed hoping this would be over quickly, but none of us were shouting save us. We really don’t know what to do with this parade so we slide into our pew and tuck our palm branch away until next year. Should we feel hope, despair, fear, certainty, or something else?

Perhaps this day is the day of both/and. It is the day of life and death. It is the day of hope and despair. It is the day of holding on and letting go. It invites us to embrace the tensions that make up our lives and remember that we are neither living nor dying; we are both.

You have heard many references this season to the book we are reading as a congregation Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life by Philip Simmons. Philip powerfully embraces the tension of being fully human…of living and dying…as he comes to grips with Lou Gehrig’s disease and watches his body deteriorate. Somehow as he accepts that he is dying, he comes alive in powerful new ways. He says,

“We also touch the Divine through our experience of nature, and in spring we
celebrate the divine power of rebirth and renewal. Already the phoebes, after
a journey unimaginable to me, have returned to their nest under the eaves out-
side my bedroom window. Their presence renews my faith in the world’s extra-
ordinary competence, its talent for winning against long odds. I breathe in the
odor of wet earth and pines as though my sense of smell were being restored to
me. All about us roots grip down and awaken. Sprouts nudge toward light and
air. Everywhere the earth staggers to life.

And yet the example of Jesus, and the experience of mud season, also remind
me of a harsher truth: to be reborn, we first must die. The way to Jerusalem
lies through mud. Dying, like mud, can take many forms, but every death, in
the sense I mean, is a letting go. We let go of ambition, of pride, of ego. We
let go of relationships, of perfect health, of loved ones who go before us to
their own deaths. We let go of insisting that the world be a certain way.
Letting go of any of these things can seem the failure of every design, the loss
of every cherished hope. But in letting them go, we may also let go fear, let go
our white-knuckled grip on a life that never seems to meet our expectations,
let go our anguished hold on smaller selves our spirits have outgrown. We may
feel at times that we have let go of life itself, only to find ourselves in a new
one, freer, roomier, more joyful than we could have imagined. We need not
believe that Jesus rose bodily from the dead to grasp the spiritual significance
of such a resurrection.” (pp. 86-87)

Perhaps that is what we are doing here today…taking stock of the new life bursting around us in the most beautiful spring trees and flowers while preparing to let go of our grip on life so that we can walk with Jesus through these terrifying, devastating days. Isn’t that what we do each day? We breathe in a bit of beauty while hoping to release some of what stands in our way of being fully alive. It just happens that today the stakes are higher. Today it is the ultimate LIFE and DEATH not the little life and deaths that happen daily.

How do we navigate through this liminal time? We stand at the edge watching Jesus ride by as the crowd shouts “save us”. We shift our gaze to the one riding the colt. He has prepared for this moment and he knows the direction he is heading. Our eyes follow him as he slowly, humbly rides through this crowd and we listen for his voice. He is silent. Instead of looking around at the crowd, we take our cues from Jesus. Perhaps his silence is an invitation to stop, take stock, and listen more deeply. The movement toward the cross beckons us into quiet corners to prepare for death. We began this day waving palm branches and singing Hosanna. Now we fall in step beside the one silently riding by and we walk toward the cross.

This isn’t easy to do when we know how the story comes out. It is tempting to just take a breath and wait for it to all be over so we can sing Christ is Risen. But that doesn’t seem very faithful. Rather than holding out for the good news, we are living our full yes to Jesus by walking with him all the way to the cross.

The coming days will confront us with humanity at its worst and somehow in the midst of that, we will glimpse goodness when we wash one another’s feet on Thursday and stand with others at the cross on Friday. Together we watch and pray. We keep our eyes on Jesus and discover what to do next as we step into these holy days.