In the good ol’ bad ol’ days before I discovered the Episcopal Church I was staying at an old Convent in Keene, NH where there were many statues of Jesus with the sacred heart.  Raised as I had been in a liberal Protestant Church, this was totally new imagery to me.  I was strangely affected by these statues—profoundly drawn to them and yet repelled at the same time.  They offended my Protestant sensibilities, and yet I suspected they knew something I didn’t, and I wanted to know it.  It was something about an Incarnate God so vulnerable that God’s very heart could be wounded.  I did not like the statues—blonde, blue eyed Jesus with the tears running down his face, the sappy sentimental expression and the blood running down the open hole in his chest—ickypoo—and yet—and yet there was an invitation there which lay beneath the realm of description.  It had to do with intimacy, with joy, with a profound connection which I knew I desperately wanted.  It was my deepest yearning, my heart’s desire.  I just couldn’t get past the form of the statue to its deeper invitation.

One night I had a dream that an old woman came to me holding a great treasure wrapped in fine cloth.  She offered it to me.  I felt afraid, knowing that receiving this gift would change me.  Without words she unwrapped the offering.  As the cloth fell away I saw she was holding the sacred heart of Jesus, without sentimentality, without gilding, without sap.  It was raw, wounded, vulnerable.  She offered to put it into my chest.  I knew that if I accepted the invitation, I would be  profoundly changed; I would have to give up my life as I ran it with my own agendas, my favorite rationalizations and excuses and open myself to the certain wounding of love.  I understood the promise and also the cost.  With great shame, I took a step backward—and woke up.

“I do not understand my own actions,” writes Paul, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”  Who here can’t relate to that?  Ever since that dream I have wrestled with these words, remembering the dream where I spurned the gift of God which was also my heart’s desire.   I find it is more that I don’t do what I yearn to do rather than do what I despise.  I want to be a person of prayer—but—at the moment it feels more urgent to slide into another game of Spider Solitaire.

I find the words to be true of communities also.  We hear the words of the Gospel, we respond “Thanks be to God,” we nod assent to even the hardest sayings of Jesus, we watch the bread broken open at the altar and suspect we are offering our own lives to that brokenness—and then we get stuck in the stupid stuff; the imagined slights we received in community, the wrong assumptions made on our behalf, the myriad ways we get our feelings hurt.  Things don’t go the way we want them to.  We sulk.  We offer something we believe is valuable.  It is received shabbily.  We become anxious.  When we get anxious we try to control more.  How easily we forget who we are actually following.

We are all driven by things we do not understand.  For some that compulsion is born out of experiences which mark us forever.  For some—most, I’d say, it is fear.  Fear of not being loved or appreciated, or understood, fear of abandonment, or of being without, fear of pain, fear of death, fear of loneliness.  You can fill in your own “fear du jour.”  Becoming conscious of what drives us is a major part of the spiritual journey; becoming conscious and allowing God to heal that fear.  It is not easy, and none of us can do it alone.  We need each other, we need the sacraments, we need prayer and most of all, and we need God’s grace to keep working on us, calling us to be broken open to healing love.

Today’s Gospel follows a silent story not told anywhere, of Jesus’ mission to Galilee which had apparently been a total failure.  We glean that he had been received with a giant yawn from the intelligent, self-sufficient people of the area who felt they had no need of either John the Baptist’s call to repentance nor Jesus’ invitation to the wedding feast.  Theirs was the sin of indifference.  In our omitted verses today Jesus reproaches the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida for  of their apathy.  The Greek word we translate “Woe” is not an angry, vengeful word threatening fire and brimstone.  The word is “ouai” which is more about sorrowful pity. Jesus is responding not with the outrage of a humiliated ego but with a broken heart.  It is the sadness of anyone who offers a treasured gift which is treated shabbily.  It was the look in the eyes of the old woman in my dream when I stepped back from the proffered sacred heart of Jesus. 

And then we get some lines which sound more like they come from John’s Gospel than Matthew’s about how if you want to know God you need only look at the Son.  Only through Christ can we see God.  Again the Greek invites us into a deeper understanding.  The word “know” here is not an intellectual grasping, but a word which also includes choice and intimacy.  In the Hebrew Bible the word is synonymous with sexual intimacy.  To know God through Christ is to enter the realm of lovers.

And then Jesus drives his point home.  "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  We have heard these words over and over for so long, they have lost their punch.  By the time Matthew’s Gospel was written, Judaism had disintegrated into a network of harsh laws and regulations regulating normal life making it almost impossible for the poor to survive under the strict code of sacrifice.  The big question was “what are the requirements of faith for a Jew?”  The answer was more rules.  

We don’t groan under those burdens, but we have plenty of our own.   The greatest burden of all is that of perfectionism.  I speak as a “one” on the Enneagram.  No matter what I do, how well it comes off, there is that inner voice which picks it apart.  “Well,” begins the litany of critique.  “You forgot to do this, and you missed that part, and you could have been more articulate there, and what were you thinking when you made that stupid joke….” and on it goes.  My idolatry is that of perfectionism which I neatly disguise as my self-sacrificing service to God.  Only—it is an entirely self-imposed burden which has nothing to do with God.  It has everything to do with my own pride.  It is what made me step back from receiving God’s heart in my dream.  Perfectionism in individuals and in communities is the anti-Gospel.  It is the devil itself disguised as Goodness and Light.  God does not require perfection.  God requires humility and vulnerability.  It is why Jesus keeps using the image of children and here infants as the paradigm of approach to God.  Children are open to learning.  Children are hungry for connection, the willingness to be taught (until they get to be about six, of course.  Our daughter’s favorite line was “I do it self!”)  But perfectionists like me want to “do it self “ all the time.  So we heap more and more burdens on ourselves and become exhausted.  The poet David Whyte quotes David Stendahl Rast as saying that “The antidote to exhaustion is not rest; it is singleness of heart.”  [repeat quote]

That is why the yoke is easy and the burden light.  A yoke is a wooden frame fitted to a beast of burden to pull the work.  Yokes in ancient Palestine were made by carpenters, so it was likely that Jesus himself had made them.  The oxen were measured carefully, and each yoke was made to fit perfectly so the oxen were not chafed or bruised by the yoke.  In fact, the Greek word translated “easy” here also means “well-fitting.” A custom-built yoke!  In other words, the work God has for us will be suited to our needs and our abilities.  God does not ask us to do what is impossible for us.  True “call” is tailored to who we are so when we engage the work we can do so with joy.  Joy is never burdensome!  When the work is given and received with love, it is life-giving, not draining.  In the immortal words of the Hollies, “He ain’t heavy—he’s my brother.” 

Where I grew up in Indonesia our village was surrounded by rice paddies,  I spent long hours watching the water buffalo pull the plows.  Those yokes were double yokes—fitting two buffalo at once so they could share the strain, and take turns resting a bit.  They pulled together to ease the work.  What a wonderful image for the body of Christ!  I think it is a double image.  We are yoked together, to be sure.  But we are also yoked with God who pulls with us.  After the Examination in the Diaconal ordination liturgy, the Bishop says these wonderful words: “May the Lord by his grace uphold you in the service he lays upon you.”  God partners with us.  The stole I wear is a symbolic yoke, a reminder that I am yoked to you and we are all yoked to Christ.  I like Eugene Peterson’s transliteration of this passage:  

 “Are you tired?  Worn out?  Burned out on religion?  Come to me.  Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take real rest.  Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.  Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

We will not do it perfectly.  We need to forgive each other and ourselves over and over again, as God forgives each of us.  And—surprise! It is exactly our failures which become occasions of grace.  Leonard Cohen writes, “Everything is cracked.  That’s how the light gets in.”  Christ’s yoke is not one of “anything goes,” not one of permissiveness.  It is very hard to be a Christian, but not because God makes it hard.  We make it hard ourselves.  The good we want to do we don’t.  The bad that we don’t want to do we do.  We are caught in our various compulsions and fear and addictions and often don’t quite believe any of this.  Who will rescue us?   Paul in his despair about his long string of failures throws off the despair and casts himself into the ocean of God’s mercy.  Thanks be to God who gives us victory through Christ Jesus! 

Leonard Cohen (my fifth evangelist) wrote a song years ago which cries that praise rising out of the  fiasco of human failure:

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Amen.

Epiphany 7 A
St. Michael and All Angels, Albuquerque
The Rev. Carolyn W. Metzler
Lev. 9:1-2, 9-18; Ps. 119:33-40; 1 Cor. 3:10-11, 16-23; Matt. 5:38-48

A wee story: “I sat there in awe as the old monk answered our questions. Though I'm usually shy, I felt so comfortable in his presence that I found myself raising my hand. “Father, could you tell us something about yourself?” He leaned back. “Myself?” he mused. There was a long pause. “My name...used to be....Me. But now.....it's You.” Remember that. It's where this is going.

For three weeks we've been sitting on the Galilean plain listening to Jesus deliver his Sermon on the Mount. In Biblese, the mountain is always the place of revelation; of divine speech, of transfiguration. The desert is always the place of suffering, temptation, of exile and formation. Sacred landscape is never extraneous to the story. In this sermon as brought to us by Matthew, Jesus is delivering his agenda for the Kingdom. He is at the beginning of his ministry. Curious crowds have followed him here. His disciples have been chosen. Present also are those he has healed and forgiven. This is his opening speech; his sneak preview for what they can expect henceforth. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he begins, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world. I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. You have heard it said you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not swear falsely, but I say to you what happens to you on the inside is as real as what happens on the outside. If you are leaving your gift at the altar and remember someone has something against you, leave your gift, go and be reconciled, and then come offer your gift. You have heard it said 'an eye for an eye.' But I say to you, turn the other cheek. Go the second mile. You have heard it said 'Love your neighbors.' But I say 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.' Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” You can imagine the people at the bottom of the hill shaking their heads in amazement. “We have never heard anything like this before!” And neither have we. This is certainly not the world WE live in. In our merit-based, litigious, tit-for-tat world where blockbuster movies are about retaliation and the news is full of revenge stories, we have to wonder: are Jesus' words here fanciful idealism, or could they have a real place in human society?

Jesus' world wasn't much different from our own, also ruled by “I'm gonna getcha back, don't you worry!” In fact, the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” imperative was a law limiting retaliation. It wasn't saying “you must extract an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It was saying “You can ONLY extract one eye for one eye, one tooth for one tooth.” You cannot be harmed a little bit and respond with the nuclear option.

We are called neither to be punching bags nor to become that which we despise. That is the stupidity of the Death Penalty. “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” When I walked with Andy Smith to his execution in 1998, he stood proud and free, even bound in irons and chains. He spoke forgiveness to his executioners. They—the ones with the keys and the needles were only ones who could not join him singing “Amazing Grace.” They were the ones demeaned by this hideous process some call “justice.” When we retaliate; when we hold resentments and righteous indignation; when we exult at the downfall of another we become the same as what we despise. No, says Jesus. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Come higher.

In preparing this sermon I became uncomfortably aware how easily I might preach on these words as a person of privilege and means in the United States. I cannot think of a single person who might be labeled my “enemy,” poised to bring me down in any way. I do not have anyone pointing missiles at my home, or gassing my children, or poisoning my well. I have not had scores of my family wiped out by the opposition. How differently might these words be heard today in Syria, or in South Sudan? When people's lives are torn apart by capricious violence—the stray bullet, the willful bomb, how do we understand Jesus' words? The history of non-violent resistance always struggles with this. When the heart is broken wide open by suffering and sorrow, how do we do love our enemy?

In my work against the Death Penalty I came to know a woman who has stood in that fire. Her son was brutally murdered. The killer was caught and brought to trial. Julia did not seek the death penalty, and the system punished her for it, making everything as difficult for her as possible, not showing her the courtesy they showed to others demanding the death penalty. She suffered terribly with her rage and incomprehension at the loss of her only son and with the brutality of the system. A few years later she felt compelled to meet his killer. The prison would not let her in. She tried everything to get in and the entry remained shut to her. In exasperation, she threatened to call the news networks if they didn't let her in. When the ABC and CBS helicopters landed on her front lawn, the phone rang. It was the Warden. She could come in. She met with her son's killer, told him about her boy, and how devastating his death was to her. The remorseful man wept with her. She started to visit more regularly. Over the years, they became close. When he was executed she wanted to be with him. Again the prison barred her way. They finally said she could come in if she submitted to a complete body orifice check. She submitted and pushed the demoralizing behavior onto the guards, as such actions actually debased them, not her. When the man was executed, she stood by prayerfully not as a vengeful witness but as his mother and friend. She said to me later “He took my son from me, so he became my son.” When she said that, I swear I saw Christ standing beside her. This was Living Gospel.

Love, as demonstrated in Julia and Jesus is not sentimental and sappy, worthy of Hallmark cards. This love is gutsy, truly vulnerable, creative, humble and the most powerful force in all Creation. It is not for the faint of heart. It demands real engagement, deep humility, outrageous courage, and profound prayer. This is the only kind of love which will save and transform the world. To abandon that love as idealistic is to allow ourselves to be distorted by bitterness, twisted by enmity. Hatred deforms the soul. This planet cannot withstand either people or nations so poisoned. If we don't learn the way of love we will most certainly destroy ourselves.

The whole Sermon on the Mount is our instruction manual for the last line from today's Gospel: “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Immediately all of us Ones on the Enneagram who are so taken with perfection go “See? See? I'm right! Jesus said so!” Except--perfection is NOT what Jesus is talking about. To be perfect in the way Jesus means, is to empty ourselves of our self-righteousness and release our controlling agendas which bend others to our will. We cannot love anyone, especially not those who persecute us if we are in love with our own power. Jesus' words are an invitation to the kind of holiness which is characteristic of people whose lives belong to God, not to their own importance. I don't mean “holier than thou,” or people who can do no wrong. That's perfectionism. Jesus invites us to the kind of holiness where, as we read last week, we “have the mind of Christ.” This is what God is like! Going back to Leviticus, God says to care for the poor, provide for the hungry, and punctuates this over and over with “I am the Lord!” God's very identity is compassion. The Lord is the One who so loves us that God wants to pass on to us who God is. Love your neighbor as yourself! All your neighbors! ALL of them. Be holy in mercy, as I am Holy! And if you want to know what love looks like in real life, just watch Jesus!

This is a good reminder for us to also consider who is NOT our enemy. Leviticus is clear. The poor are not the enemy, though when we cut billions of dollars in food stamps we treat them as such. The hungry are not the enemy. The immigrant is not the enemy. The homeless are not the enemy. The disabled are not the enemy. People who look differently, act differently, love differently, have different politics, are not the enemy.

All right then! Who IS the enemy? I wish the architects of our Lectionary had chosen a different Psalm for today, like 38: “Those who seek after my life lay snares for me; those who strive to hurt me speak of my ruin and plot treachery all the day long!” Or 55: “I am shaken by the noise of the enemy and by the pressure of the wicked; they have cast an evil spell upon me and are set against me in fury.” Or 79: “O God, the heathen have given the bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the air, and the flesh of your faithful ones to the beasts of the field. They have shed blood like water on every side of Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them.” There are so many like this. I call them “the persecution psalms.” But there are people who do have people plotting against them. Recent news images from the Ukraine, from Syria, from Sudan and such places are clear: there are people in constant mortal danger and face real evil daily. I can pray these psalms in intercession for them.

But if I don't have enemies behind every bush, I know I do have those enemies within myself that would keep me from deep prayer and the invitation to holiness which is always before me. My anger, resentment, jealousies, my complacency with evil, my selfishness—all these are enemies who would do me as much harm as a terrorist with a car bomb. Sometimes the enemies are outside us. And sometimes they are within. In the immortal words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Then there are those who really do get under our skin—the fellow vestry-person who always disagrees with everything we say; the in-law who puts us down every chance that comes along; the boss who can only criticize; the doctor who will not listen to us; the colleague who steals our ideas for her own glory; the neighbor who does everything possible to irritate us. That's as close as most of us get to real external enemies in this culture of privilege. How are we to love these people? The Dalai Lama calls these people “our teachers in love.” They invite us to dig deeply to find the commonality between us, to find the good in the other; to find and name where we ourselves are part of the problem. Be clear: We are not to be impassive doormats. We need to learn to stand in our identities in God, to speak our truth in love and refrain from hurling back an insult, or being smug over their failure.  That is not the way of love. These are our opportunities to contextualize Jesus' command to love our enemy and pray for those who persecute us. This is how we practice love. And as we do so, we may just find that not only are we ourselves transformed by this holiness of God, but that the person with whom we struggle is also transformed. Not always, but often enough to make you stand slack-jawed in awe.

Many years ago there was a person that I couldn't bear to be in my life. It is arguable that I hated this person. Why doesn't matter. I was AWFUL and knew it. I was ashamed but couldn't fix it. Something had to change. I spoke it in Confession. I took last week's Gospel seriously and forbad myself from receiving communion. I wrote her and asked her forgiveness. And I began to pray for her. You know, you really can't hate a person and pray for them at the same time. I began to change. I worked at developing a relationship, as did she. Today she is my most cherished and beloved step-mother, a title I revere and cherish. Only love and grace can transform us.

When we love those who antagonize us we begin to build a holy connection. Love is the bridge with those who have power over us. Love begins with the acknowledgment that we are all of the Image of God, even those who Mother Teresa called “Christ in a disturbing guise.” When we love those who we deem unloveable we break open our own hearts as Christ did on the cross, still loving those who tortured and executed him. It is worth mentioning that the next story in the Gospel is Jesus teaching the disciples to pray. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” They are always connected We all stand before the throne of mercy and grace every day of our lives. It is there that we learn the humility which allows us to reach out to those we would despise and extend God's blessing. It occurs to me that in loving our enemies we actually expand our community—enlarge our world, push out the boundaries of our circles. This is what God does with us. This is what it means to be perfect: to live in the mind of Christ, in the very heart of God. When we see the bonds of love which connects every human being, we know that the distance between us breaks down. What is suffered by one is suffered by the whole. What is imprisoning to one is binding to all. To practice—even imperfectly—this profound connectedness is what it means to live in Christian community. And so we have come full circle.

I sat there in awe as the old monk answered our questions. Though I'm usually shy, I felt so comfortable in his presence that I found myself raising my hand. “Father, could you tell us something about yourself?”

He leaned back. “Myself?” he mused. There was a long pause. “My name...used to be....Me. But now.....it's You.”

Amen.

Story from Tales of a Magic Monastery by Theophane the Monk. p. 18

St. Michael and All Angels Church, Albuquerque
The Rev. Carolyn W. Metzler+
Amos 8:4-7; Luke 16:1-13

You have heard the Gospel appointed for today, and now you know why all the clergy except Judith chose this Sunday to leave town! This is a story which has flummoxed readers and preachers for centuries. It flies in the face of everything we hear Jesus saying about how to be a Christian. Or—does it?

It helps to remember what a parable is. It is a piece of mischievous story-telling. It's like a zen koan. It takes what we think we know and turns it upside down. It confuses us before it enlightens us. Here Jesus is messing with our heads again. Remember also that parables as told by Jesus are always about the Kingdom of God. This is not a story about how not to do business, not about morality. It's about what the community of God looks like. Also, parables are stories where we can usually recognize ourselves, usually in every character at different times. The parables in Luke's gospel present multi-dimensional, complex people. We are them. They are us.

So—having been discovered in his shady business practices, this manager, or steward, is about to be sacked. A steward is someone who is employed to look after another's property, or assets. This man had not done well by his employer and he gets the dreaded pink slip. His security and livelihood is about to vanish. Notice what he does not do. He does not defend himself, argue that the rich man was being unfair, beg for another chance. He accepts the new economic reality and pulls an idea rabbit out of his hat.

Calling in his master's debtors, he takes the original debt—I looked it up and did the math—580 gallons of oil and 1400 bushels of wheat—and reduces them by 50% and 20%. The size of the debts is a clue to me that Jesus is telling this story with a twinkle in his eye. Really? 580 gallons of oil? How on earth did anybody get to owe that much? Jesus—if you haven't noticed—is a very funny guy. I can see the disciples rolling their eyes at each other as they realize the outrageousness of the story.

What happens as a result? The debtors are grateful to the master for his generosity, and certainly turn themselves inside out to be nice to him in the future. And, as a vehicle of the master's generosity, they are also grateful to the shrewd manager, and will—as he anticipates—do what they can to stay on his good side. Everybody's happy! The Master bellows with laughter when he realizes what this slick manager has done, and slaps him on the back. Like most parables, we don't know how this one ends either. Is he rehired? We are the ones left scratching our heads, wondering what just happened.

So let's scratch a little more deeply. If this parable is actually about the Kingdom, what is Jesus saying through it?

First, let's remember that there is dishonesty and maybe more than some shady things going on in the acquisition of this wealth. Isn't there always? Is there any money out there not tainted? In George Bernard Shaw's play “Major Barbara,” Major Barbara Undershaft becomes angry and disillusioned when her beloved church, The Salvation Army, accepts money that comes from armaments and whiskey dealing. She rages that the receiving of such dirty money is utter hypocrisy. How could they even consider doing so? By the end of the play she accepts that more to the point is what happens with the money from here on, not where it came from. Shaw places these words in the mouth of an officer: “They would take money from the devil himself and be only too glad to get it out of his hands and into God's." Our world has become so globally interconnected, that there is no such thing as untainted money anymore. Maybe there never was.

Whatever we purchase is somehow tied up with things which as Christians we abhor: slave labor, human trafficking, prostitution, big business, products and practices which are raping our planet. All wealth is ill-gotten at some level, even that which is earned by hard, honest work. There is no escaping it, and it's so hard to know the real picture which is surely bigger than we have any idea. When I make my confession I always include what I call those “sins of default:” participation in those global enterprises which “corrupt and destroy the creatures of God” (from our baptismal vows). I can do little about it, but I do believe it has to be named before the Throne of Mercy. The prophet Amos rips into these injustices with outraged eloquence: “Hear this you who trample on the needy and bring to ruin the poor of the land...buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat [how's that for describing third world labor practices?] Surely I will not forget any of their deeds!” Let Wal*Mart beware.

The Gospel is very clear about the real problem with money. It divides people into creditors and debtors, haves and have-nots, owners and owned. Success is measured by how much of it you have. So the story begins with people in these polarized places: the rich man, the steward who manages the rich man's assets, the debtors who owe the shirts off their backs.

But look what happens when the shrewd manager starts playing with the figures: first, he ceases to be the debt-collector with the power of the thumb-screws. He realizes he might need the hospitality or those same debtors one day, and soon! So he comes down from his lofty position and meets them halfway. And they, who aren't in such back hock anymore, are raised up. Sound familiar? “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away.” The shrewd manager is humbled. We might even call this story “The Taming of the Shrewd.” (Not an original joke! I found it at desparatepreacher.com) There is always a switch in status whenever God shows up! To be part of the Kingdom agenda requires real change, a letting go of personal power, a humbling, a meeting of hearts as equals before the Holy One.

What a remarkable paradigm for leadership! We in the church still don't get it. When we seek ordained leaders we generally ask about their gifts and want stories of their successes. Why don't we ask about how God has used them in failure, a character flaw? Why don't we ask about how their weakness has been transformative in ministry? How they have been emptied of egotism so they could be filled with mercy and love? Why don't we ask about the things we say we most value?

Maybe this parable is really about forgiveness and how it builds community. Jesus told this parable not to hoards of people on a mountainside, but to his clueless little band of disciples.

“Pay attention!” he says. “This is how we walk together even when we screw up. We forgive. We use our resources carefully, not for exploitation but for the common good. You are not a franchise! You are a body. You are not a business! You are a family. You won't ever get it all right. But it's OK. Forgive each other. In doing so, you build relationships which will carry the Kingdom forward into a broken and hurting world.”

This is one in a series of stories Jesus tells to show us how to use wealth and resources. Jesus talks a lot about money, and hardly at all about sex. The church talks ad infinitum about sex and very little about money. We are to be stewards of money, and also of our lives. We are accountable for how we use what has been given to us to better the community of the world. I read last night that Congress has just cut $4B in food stamps to the neediest among us. What do you think Amos would say about that? What will you say about that to your congressperson? How does decision that affect the community of the world?

I would end with the Collect for today. This prayer was composed during one of the Barbarian invasions of Europe, when the whole world seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket. It is an invitation to a kind of grounded peace in the midst of all the upheavals of our world. It is not passivistic. It does not tell us not to do anything. It reminds us not to be anxious, to discern what is true and lasting.

Please read it with me. “Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

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I am indebted to the following authors:

The Rev. G. David Deppen, “Accounting for Life”
The Rev. Tom Brackett, “Jesus the Rogue Rabbi”
Greg Carey, “Commentary on Luke 16:1-13”
Lois Malcolm, “Commentary on Luke 16:1-13”

30 June, 2013 / Proper 8C
St. Michael and All Angels, Albuquerque
The Rev. Carolyn w. Metzler+

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

Of all the lessons I have preached on that make me squirm—and there are lots of them—today’s make me the squirmiest. The distance between what I will say to you today, and the security of my own life—is downright embarrassing. My journey of authenticity is about closing the gap.

Let me tell you about the day I was seized by this journey. I was 16. Having been bored out of my mind by the church we had attended, I had been flirting with the Baha’i faith. They did community REAL GOOD and if the theology was a little sketchy—hey, at least they had enthusiastic prayer. After announcing to my parents that I had wanted to convert, they—almost speechless with sorrow, asked me to wait a season. I agreed. My family was on vacation in North Truro, Massachusetts at Lloyd’s Cabins, a series of rustic, somewhat dilapidated cabins high on a sand dune overlooking Cape Cod Bay. Earlier in the evening that summer day we had gone to see a play about Jesus’ second coming and his outrage at our treatment of the earth. Christ reached through the play, pierced my heart and laid claim to my life. Numb with shock, I spent all night sitting on the creaky wooden steps which led down to the ocean, its rhythm of waves crashing under infinite stars. Overhead the Milky Way whirled mirroring the giant turning of my soul back to Christianity and, as Eliot would say, “Knowing it for the first time.”

The thing was it was the physical Jesus I wanted to follow. I wanted to be one of the twelve. I wanted to walk those dusty roads, stand within sound of his voice, smirk at his banter with Pharisees, be handed a piece of dried bread from his beloved hand. I did not know how to do that from my 16 year old life in northern New Jersey. More than anything I wanted to BE there. I can tell you that longing has never left me. It is why I am Anglican. Our incarnational theology defines my yearning to this day. Everything I have done and chosen since then has been in the hope that I am following Jesus in the flesh, him perhaps just around the next corner.

So today’s lessons live in my gut. I am so there it hurts. Elisha, a man of some means, had not been in the synagogue reading Jewish mystical writings when the revered and hated (depending on where you stood in the political spectrum) prophet Elijah showed up. He was in the fields, working the earth with 12 yoke of oxen. He was dirty, smelled bad, and the sweat ran down into his eyes. Suddenly a shadow crossed his path and there stood the man of God with eyes like flame. Elisha—with some effort—pulled the oxen to a stop and wiped his brow. The prophet did not speak. They locked eyes. Elijah slowly removed his mantle, a cloak made of animal hair and held it before him. Elisha hardly breathed as he slowly began to understand. With one quick move the mantle had filled with air and settled on his own broad shoulders. In that moment Elisha understood nothing would ever be the same. Elijah spun on his heel and started to walk away quickly. Recovering his power of speech, Elisha ran after him. He said Yes. And had to bring his old life to a close. Elijah’s response in essence says “Think hard about this. It is God who is calling you, not me. Do not respond lightly. Consider the cost.” But the decision has been made and Elisha quickly did what he needed to make a complete break from his old life. The oxen were sacrificed and burned with the yoke, his family and neighbors fed, his bridges burned with the wooden yokes. He had chosen freely and was now a disciple and servant of the Man of God.

The call of Elisha is unique in all the calls of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is the only one which is passed down from the older generation, the only one to use the mantle, that ancient symbol of authority. All the other prophets are called directly by God. Elisha is mentored into his full authority. He shares the hardships of the prophet, the dangers, deprivations, the confrontation with the powers and principalities of his age. He doesn’t get it all at once. It is a journey.

Our Gospel today begins what’s known as Jesus’ traveling stories. For Luke, discipleship is always a journey and discipleship is usually linked with hardship and rejection. Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem, the place where he will be abandoned, suffer, and die. Jesus is on the move. All we will hear from now on will be in the context of this journey to Jerusalem. Jesus becomes increasingly impatient with the quibbles and power mongering of those around him. His time is getting short. They don’t GET IT yet, and if they don’t GET IT by the time he reaches Jerusalem, it may all be for naught.

So Jesus sends messengers ahead to those heretical, hated Samaritans. The promise of rejection is immediately lived out. The Samaritans will have nothing to do with him—and that curious line—“because his face was set toward Jerusalem.” It is a strange connection, to reject someone now because of where he is headed. Perhaps they understood that this is a hopeless Messiah, a failed mission which cannot possibly end well and we want nothing to do with it. Those poor slobs who associate with Jesus will probably regret it. Losers. And they closed and barred their doors.

So this ragged little band continue on their way. Jesus never imposes himself where he is not wanted. As they walk, three people run up to him. The first, not called or invited, offers to come. Jesus’ response tells it like it is. “Honey, you have NO idea what you are asking. You cannot possibly understand that following me means you belong nowhere, that you own nothing, that you have no security except in God. No one can volunteer for that life without being called.”

But then Jesus turns to the second person and calls him. “Well, OK, but first I have to bury my father.” Of course that is the legal obligation of the son. We are not totally sure if the father has actually died yet! Jesus shakes his head and turns away. There is no room in discipleship for people who are consumed with the obligations of the law. We are not saved by the law. We are saved by grace. The call of Jesus takes precedence over everything else. Nothing is more sacred than our full-hearted acceptance of this call. But-but-but--Elisha said the same thing and Elijah allowed it! Yes. But the mission of Jesus is even more urgent. Nothing can come between us and that.

A third would-be disciple steps in Jesus’ path and offers to come but only after first finishing his own agenda. Jesus steps around him and goes on. Discipleship is not a career choice, not a job, not a possibility only after his own terms have been met. The man probably expected a clap on the back and a welcome to the little band of disciples, maybe even a membership card. But instead he threw up a barrier between himself and Jesus, a barrier which disqualified him from full participation in the Kingdom. Now some might see Jesus’ response to these would-be followers to be harsh and uncompromising, and they would be right. Discipleship costs us everything. Christianity is not for wimps.

Shortly before his martyrdom at the hands of the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the difference between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” I quote him:

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline ...absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field...the pearl of great price... Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man may knock.... It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life... Costly grace is the Incarnation of God... Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus; it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Luke never identifies the three people who would meet Jesus on his way to Jerusalem and so there is a universality to these people. I am quite sure one of them is named Carolyn. Perhaps one of them carries your name also. In belonging nowhere, Christ belongs everywhere. In belonging to no one, Christ belongs to all people, and all who respond to his call belong to him. We are sealed with the cross of oil at our baptism, marked as Christ’s own forever.

I think it is both easier and harder for us 2000 years later to follow the call of our Lord. It’s easier because most of us here, anyway, have a comfy bed, a sufficiency of food, a relatively safe place to close our eyes. But the rest of it is harder to nail down. I remember that night on Cape Cod Bay when my soul exploded with yearning to trudge along behind Jesus no matter where he went. Have I in fact done that? Do I put this first in the midst of all the other things I do, ostensibly for God? Or have I made it into a career, a set of expectations and obligations I must follow? Do I slip into cheap grace? Do I sneak into that Samaritan village on occasion and put the “Gone fishin’” sign on the door and hide in the broom closet while Jesus passes by? I must admit, it is never totally clear to me when I am following Jesus and when I am following my own holy agenda.

And you? What have you paid to be on this journey? Do you feel it to be a great sacrifice, or do you count it nothing for the joy of belonging to Christ? We have the freedom to choose, but the irony is that in being set free of our own petty little legalistic lives, we are freed to a life of service to Christ through each other. What do you need to be freed from? What do you need to be freed for? Our lessons invite us to wrestle with both those questions. So the next time you are plowing the fields and a man with fire in his eyes stands before you and says “Follow me,” what will you say?

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Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship, pp. 64-66

Over the years I have developed required reading for myself every season—a sort of personal lectionary.  In Advent I turn to the poetry of Tagore, Pentecost it’s Annie Dillard’s “Polar Expedition.”  Now half way through Epiphany I reread WH Auden’s Christmas Oratorio which speaks to this exact time: the season between happy Christmas and the coming solemnity of Lent.  Listen:

In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God’s Will will be done[i]
            
Our lessons today are lessons “for the time being.”  Two weeks ago we heard the story of the call of Peter, Andrew, James and John to discipleship.  Last week we heard the words of the Beatitudes, our marching orders for the Body of Christ.  Today we receive further insight into what it is to live God-ward in the mean time between Christmas and Easter.  
            Salt and light, says Jesus.  That’s what we ARE.   Salt was precious, especially in the ancient world when it was so hard to come by.  That’s easy to forget in this day when salt is usually the cheapest thing in the grocery store.  Only the wealthiest people had access to salt in the ancient world.  It was not pure, and could go stale, especially if it was polluted with impurities, but it would still interact with whatever it encountered as salt.    Maybe what Jesus meant was that salt losing its flavor is so absurd it would be like us losing who we are.  Can we be that lost?  It’s possible, but we are never lost to God.!   And clearly Jesus had no clue that in a North American winter, salt underfoot on an icy sidewalk is wonderful!
            Continuing his sermon begun last week Jesus addresses the people: “You are the salt of the earth!”  That “you” is plural.  It is not private, individual seasoning—you are salt, I am cumin and he is oregano; it is addressed to the whole community:  salt as flavoring for our common life, salt as preservative of cherished traditions, salt as precious and not to be taken for granted.  But I’m struggling with the “earth” part.  I remember our son’s 8th grade science project when he put salt water on beans planted in the earth—and everything died.  Salt on the earth poisons everything.    When the ancients vanquished their enemies, they sometimes sowed salt into the fields of the people they had just conquered, rendering them useless.   If one thinks of the ways we are destroying our planet, it is arguable we really have been like “salt to the earth.”  Now rolling back environmental protections only adds to our—well, “saltiness,” at least as far as the earth is concerned.  I wish Jesus had said “You are the compost of the earth,” or “You are the salt of the world.” We must not be as salt to the earth.  But salt in our communities, preserving what needs preserving and spicy with vibrancy, creativity, birthers of God’s Kingdom in our midst —ah, there’s our life for the meantime!
            “You are the light of the world.”  This is also Jesus’ description of himself.  “I am the light of the world,” he says in John’s Gospel. “Whoever believes in me will never walk in darkness.”  Mary Oliver has a poem called “The Buddha’s Last Instruction” which begins
“Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died....
An old man, he lay down between two sala trees, and he might have said anything,
Knowing it was his final hour....
No doubt he thought of everything that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills,
Like a million flowers on fire—clearly I’m not needed,
Yet I feel myself turning into something of inexplicable value.”[ii]
             Like salt?  Light, that mysterious substance which is both particle and wave gives light to our earth and joy to our souls.  Those of you who have lived in sunless places during dark months know how vital it is for our life.  We use light and darkness in our language to describe the inner state of our being, whether we have joy or despair.  In the early nineties I endured three and a half years of terrifying inner darkness, a severe depression which I did not think I would survive.   Jesus’ words here seemed a terrible mockery.  There was no light in me.  And I was light to no one.  Some of you know what that is.  Some of you may be there now.  I say to you, hang on.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.  I swear it.
            Years later, I began to hear stories back from people about how I had helped them through Hospice, or how I had said something that had carried them through a darkness of their own while I was in that terrible place of inner darkness myself.  I marveled at such stories.  The Buddha is wrong.  We cannot make of ourselves a light.  We can only reflect the light of the One who is the light of the world, even when we ourselves cannot see it.  It is an extraordinary miracle of God’s economy; that in Christ, we can give others a hope, a value, a preciousness which we may not feel ourselves to possess.      
            In those days I drew a mandala.  It was a simple, woven pattern of threads crossing and intersecting threads, warp and weft.  Only in the drawing, I drew some of the warp threads as broken.  If you’ve ever woven, you know this is a bad thing.  You cannot weave if the warp is broken.  Some of the weft threads were broken also.  And I meant it to be a bad thing—until I started to color it in and I realized—the broken places were where the light could shine through.  The whole meaning of the mandala turned in that moment and I began to understand that it is exactly in our brokenness that the light of Christ gleams and throbs.  We may be lights of the world, as Jesus describes us, but it will be in our brokenness that we are most transparent to the light of Christ shining within us.  Make of yourself then a lamp, to hold the light of Christ.
            The most important gesture done by the priest at the altar is at the fraction—the breaking of the bread, because that is the motion in which we are made whole.  Who can understand it?  Yet I stand before you and swear with everything that I am that it is true.  The bread baked, offered, and blessed, is ripped apart to feed the Body of Christ, which then goes and becomes that reconciling love in the world.  Salt to salt, light to light.  That is the meaning of this part of the dance we do together at this Eucharist.  When we do it today, I will ask you to join me in that motion.  As you do, think of what is most broken in your life, and invite the Light of Christ be manifest in those broken places.  Wherever you are, let your brokenness be your offering.
            One more thing about light:  In these early Sundays after Epiphany, the season of light, we read about calls—Jesus’ calling of various people to be his disciples.  For the last several years as I went through my own vocational coming apart, I become very suspicious of the word “call.”  We use it so fliply.  We say “God called me to do this.”  And it sounds very grandiose and who is going to argue with us?  I have wondered if our understanding of “call” is sometimes a projection of our own intention anyway.  It was a blood-red amaryllis that gave me a new understanding of call, and I invite you to use it in your own discernment about ministry in your life, whatever form that might take.  The image of call I offer you is “heliotropism;” the instinct of many living things, especially plants, to lean into the course of the sun across their paths.  If you’ve ever cared for a bulb like an amaryllis or a lily, you know how you have to keep turning the pot because it will reach so far toward the sun it may well fall over if not turned to reset itself.  Friends, maybe that’s what call is.  Each of us is created with the deep instinct to reach for those things which will give meaning and purpose and joy in our lives.  “Call” may be those deep yearnings which keep us awake at night, which fill us with longing until we can act on our instinct and reach for it.  Those instincts were placed in our hearts by the Creator before we were born, before we were named, before we knew ourselves, and “call” is God’s inviting us to make them manifest in the world.  I love that image.  It takes the urgency out of “getting it right.”  There isn’t one call which is a deep dark secret and we have to figure out the puzzle!  When people in spiritual direction ask me “How do I know God’s will for me?” my pat response is “What gives you joy?”  So as we hear Gospel stories of calls in future weeks, I invite you to reflect on your own.  Where are you called to reach for the light which is already within you, and reflect it to the world around you?  
            Because that is ministry in the meantime.  Some of you are in transition, already left, not quite arrived; some of you are home again but in a new way, some of you struggle with illness, with uncertainty about work or relationships or belonging.  Some of you are stuck, needing to be pried out of comfort and safety and flung headfirst into a little wilderness.  We all need that from time to time.  These are the rhythms of the meantime, “the time being to redeem from insignificance.”  This is precisely the time to be salt and light and to follow a Lord who trusts us—TRUSTS us with Creation itself.  It is one of the mind-blowing truths of the Bible; that God offers us the world and each other and says “Be salt.  Be light—illumine and enliven the world with my joy and love.  Practice the spiritual disciplines of justice, acts of mercy, and joy.”  No 16 point plan, no instructions in 5 languages in tiny print, just “salt, light.  Be who you are with your deep yearnings.”  I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to trust anyone else even to carry a pot of my chili stew from the stove to the table—they might drop it!  But God trusts us bumbling kids with the whole creation.  [Make the gesture for breaking bread.]  Alleluia!


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[i] Auden, WH.  “A Christmas Oratorio” from  For the Time Being.
[ii] Oliver, Mary.  “Last Instruction of the Buddha.”  New and Selected Poems.  Boston: Beacon Press. 1992. Pp. 68-69.
Thanks also to John McNeil, Howard Vandine, and  Wendy and Gary Aichelle for illuminating and arguing with me!

Good Friday  Year C
St. Michael and All Angels, Albuquerque, NM
The Rev. Carolyn W. Metzler+
John 18:1-17

             At the risk of sounding irreverent, the first part of today’s Gospel reads like a very bad play that can’t quite get off the ground.  After all the build-up, the Last Supper, the foot washing, the new commandment, Jesus’ high priestly prayer, we arrive in the Garden where the greatest betrayal in history is about to take place, but they just can’t quite get it together.  It is a familiar place, where Jesus and his disciples had gathered before at happier times.  It was a place of intimacy, where friendship had been celebrated.  They’d certainly picnicked here, enjoyed conversation, maybe napped under the trees on when the air was still on hot afternoons.   It was a reasonable place to go now.  And everybody shows up.  Judas, with his battalion of soldiers, the temple police, the Pharisees—all who had been plotting and scheming for this moment for a long time.  They couldn’t WAIT to get their hands on him.  Jesus had the opening line.  “For whom are you looking?”  They all answered in rehearsed union: “Jesus of Nazareth.”  Jesus replied, “I am he.”  Literally, his words are “I, I AM,” the name of God.  That’s when it all went wrong—perhaps some realized they were in the wrong play, or playing the wrong part.  They fell back, some to the ground.  Hey wait a minute—we’re supposed to be the good guys!   The director yelled “CUT!” and they started again.  “For whom are you looking?”  “Jesus of Nazareth.”  “I told you, I am he.  I, I AM. You’ve got me.  Let’s these men go.”  And then Simon, always the one to act before thinking, grabbed his sword and sliced off the ear of Malchus.  I tried to imagine this when Judith read it last night.  Do you realize how hard it is to cut off an ear with a sword?  That wasn’t in the script, either.  It was one bungled beginning.

            There is only one person in this whole fiasco of an arrest who is calm, and in control, and that is Jesus.  His own time of temptation had passed, his time of doubt, his terrible dread.  He had come through it.  He was clear, focused, and not about to abandon course at this point.  If love was the goal, love was also the way there, and that way led to the cross.  Once Jesus was taken into custody, his had no more control over events.  Control, the ability to affect the outcome of things, had been surrendered by him.  He was without control.  But he was not without power.

            A little over twelve years ago, I attended an execution in South Carolina.   I was the companioning chaplain for Andy Smith, a man I had befriended 16 years earlier, a man I had come to love and respect.  We had talked about this event, and how he could approach a death over which he had no control.  Every moment of that night of horror, Andy maintained unwavering grace, dignity, and presence.  The guards, with whom he had developed a friendship, clearly did not want to do what they had to do.  They apologized as they prepared him for death.  I’ll spare you the details.  Executions are horrifying, especially when they are supposedly humane.  But strapped to the gurney, Andy forgave them.  The scene was not too dissimilar from our first Gospel.  I watched them lash him down and was overwhelmed with rage.  I hold the rank of brown belt in karate and had a momentary impulse to take down about three of the guards, stomp on the needles, and halt the appalling chain of events which were coursing down the single trajectory of death.  That action would have succeeded in getting me thrown out in disgrace and never permitted to set foot in a prison again; it would have delayed his execution by about five minutes and he would have died without the presence of a single person who loved him.  I had no control over these events.  But I was not without power.  I could pray, and I prayed mightily.  I could sing, and I sang the Trisagion loudly enough that it was picked up by the Associated Press reporters in the witness booth.  I could love, and love him I did.  In that place of incarnate evil, I could bring love and song and prayer, even if I couldn’t stop the execution.  Those three actions were far more subversive than impulsive violence.

            Throughout the crucifixion narrative, Jesus is a man of power.   I came to understand Good Friday quite differently this year while I was preparing a sermon on the Transfiguration.  There Jesus was on the holy mount, speaking with Moses and Elijah, and he was “talking with them about his departure which he would accomplish in Jerusalem.”  I thought “departure” was an odd word to use for “death,” or “crucifixion.”  It sounds like he’s headed for the airport, not for Golgotha.   So I looked up the original word which we translate “departure,” and what do you know—it’s “exodus.”  Like early sun breaking over a canyon wall flooding the valley with dazzling light, Good Friday was transformed for me.  Jesus is not a victim, powerless and helpless against his tormenters.  With that one little word, Jesus is the new Moses, leading all God’s people out of slavery to death and the endless cycles of revenge and retribution.   This “exodus” is something which he was to accomplish.   It was an achievement reached because no torturer, no execution team, no temple police, no religious authorities could take away who he was and what he was about.  Shortly before he died, Andy had told me of all the humiliations he had suffered in a cruel attempt to dehumanize him.  I asked him how he could remain so cheerful in the face of it all.  He gave me this great smile, spread his big hands across the glass separating us and said, “They can’t take nothin’ from me that I don’t choose to give ‘em.”  Andy also knew the difference between having no control, and having no power.

            The Mystery of it all for me is that this power that Jesus maintained throughout his torturous death came precisely because he “emptied himself,” in the words of Paul in Philippians.   “Though he was in the form of God, he did not equate equality with God as something to be grasped, but he emptied himself; he poured himself out and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross.”  We read it last Sunday.   Godly power is not something to be grasped, earned, manipulated, or honed through workshops and seminars.  Jesus had power simply because he let everything go except love.  What he was called, what he wore, what he was thought of by others simply didn’t matter.  All the things that make for false ego, Jesus could let go like so much chaff in the wind.  What gave him power to lead us Like Moses through the wilderness that day was not what he had, but what he released.  Only love remained, for his executioners, for his absent disciples, for the terrified Peter, for the slave of the high priest with the bleeding ear.  It was love that gave him the power to accomplish what no amount of control could ever fulfill.  

            When we are invited to “take up our cross and follow him,” the centrality of love is at the heart of that also.  Taking up our cross is not about petty Lenten disciplines, certainly not about giving up chocolate (sorry!), not how noble we are because we put up with someone obnoxious.  Taking up our cross is not even about coping with cancer or a difficult parent.  Taking up our cross is not some unexpected hardship that comes our way.  Taking up our cross is about knowing where the real source of our power is—and is not.  It is not in our competence, or our wealth, or our education.  Real power is not even in how holy we are.  It rests only and completely in our openness to the self-emptying God who goes all the way to the cross—and beyond it—to demonstrate God’s limitless love.  Real power has nothing to do with how much we control events or other people.  It has everything to do with our on-going, evolving surrender to the God who emptied Godself completely to become us; to be born with our birth, live our life, and die our death.  Real power is about knowing that we live God’s life, and opening ourselves as fully as we can to that grace.  God lived our life, so we can live God’s life.

            What began as a bumbled scene in a Garden became a passionate drama where all the forces of life, death, authority, fear, forgiveness and love are played out to their fullest.   In life, Jesus’ arms opened wide to embrace all who would follow him.  In death, Jesus’ arms opened even wider, embracing those who knew not what they did, embracing those disciples who abandoned him.  Beyond the cross his arms continually open wider and wider to embrace us with all our failings and all our betrayals, our bad choices, our ego-driven obsessions.  He is the Lover of all he has created, drawing us into that embrace.  It is there, in that embrace from the Cross that we find his love has freed us and made us whole.  And that, brothers and sisters, is why we call this Friday “Good.”    Amen.