Tag Archives: Jesus

“Why do you stand looking up to heaven?” – A Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension

Posted on May 17, 2012 | 4 Comments

The collect and readings for the Feast of the Ascension may be found here. The following sermon is based on Acts 1:1-11 and Luke 24:44-53.

We live in a world in which up is better than down. Singers want to be at the top of the charts, athletes want to be on top of their game, and students want to be at the top of the class. Everyone would rather have an up day than a down day. When the stock market rises we celebrate but despair when it crashes down. No one wants to be at the bottom of someone’s list. We work to climb, not to descend the career ladder. We hear and read about mountain climbers but not much is said or written about valley descenders. Recently, the three year old class at our parish school has delighted in showing me how high they can jump and, at least for a moment, defy gravity.

The reality is that we want to live ascended lives. We want to break free from the things that hold us down and rise above it all. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is right. Something within us knows that we are more than earthbound creatures. The problem is that we have distorted what ascension and an ascended life mean. We forget, or perhaps deny, that Christ’s ascension seats humanity next to God, and settle for attempted self-ascension.

That distortion has invaded our theology and understanding of God. In this distorted view God, heaven, and holiness are up there somewhere while we are stuck down here. So we spend our time jumping up and down like little children thinking if we jump hard enough, high enough, and fast enough we can touch the moon. This gets lived out in so many ways. It almost always involves comparison, competition, and judgment of some kind. We compare ourselves and our lives with other people and their lives. We compete with each other believing that for us to ascend the other has to descend or at least not jump as high as us. We are forever judging ourselves and one another. We fill our lives with busyness hoping to climb to new heights. A life of self-ascension keeps us always searching for the next high.

Our attempts at self-ascension fragment our world and our lives. They separate the creature from the creator. They destroy relationships and intimacy. Ultimately, they become the gravity that deny us the ascended life we are seeking, a life that, in reality, is already ours.

Jesus’ ascension reshapes our disfigured understanding of an ascended life. His ascension is the corrective and antidote to the fragmentation and separation of self-ascension. His is the only authentic and life-giving ascension. Through him we too can live ascended lives.

Jesus’ ascension is not about his absence but about his presence. It is not about his leaving but about “the fullness of him who fills all in all.” It is not about a location but about a relationship. Presence, fullness, and relationship must surely be what lie behind the question of the men in white, “Why do you stand looking up to heaven?” It is as if they are saying to us, “Don’t misunderstand and disfigure this moment. Don’t deny yourselves the gift that is being given you.”

The ascension of Jesus completes the resurrection. The resurrection is victory over death. The ascension, however, lifts humanity up to heaven. Jesus’ ascension seats human flesh, your flesh and my flesh, at the right hand of God the Father. We now partake of God’s glory and divinity.

The ascension is more about letting go than it is reaching and grasping. The question for us is not, “How do we ascend?” That has already been accomplished. The question is: “What pulls us down?”

What do we need to let go of? Fear, anger, or resentment often weigh us down. The need to be right or be in control is a heavy burden. For some self-righteousness, jealously, or pride is their gravity. Many of us will be caught in the chains of perfectionism and the need to prove we are enough. For others it may be indifference or apathy. Far too many lives are tethered by addiction.  Gravity takes many forms and I wonder, what is the gravity that denies you Jesus’ ascension?

The gravity that keeps us down is not creation or the circumstances of our lives. Gravity is not around us but within us. So as you begin to look at your life and identify the places of gravity, do not despair. The very things that hold us down also point the way to ascension. Our participation in Jesus’ ascension begins not by looking up but by looking within.

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The Fruitfulness of Staying Connected – A Sermon on John 15:1-8, Easter 5B

Posted on May 7, 2012 | 4 Comments

The collect and readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter may be found here. The following sermon is based on John 15:1-8.

Some branches produce fruit and are pruned, cared for and nurtured. Some branches do not produce fruit and are removed, thrown away and burned.

We are a people of productivity. It is, for the most part, the standard by how we live and the measure of our success. It is built into our lives everywhere. Productivity is the basis of our economic system. Those who produce are rewarded and get more. Those who do not produce are thrown out. Within our educational system the students who do well and produce are recognized and supported while those who do not produce get lost in the system. Professors know well the mantra, “Publish or perish.” Careers and promotions are based on productivity. Productivity at some level is at the core of the debates around poverty, welfare, healthcare, and the elderly. “They” do not produce and our care of and for them often reflects what we think of that.

We have been convinced that productivity is the goal and only the fittest survive. I wonder if that isn’t how many of us live our spiritual lives. How many of us have been told, in some form or fashion, or come to believe that pruned branches go to heaven and removed branches go to hell? Pruned branches produced so they are rewarded while non-productive branches are punished.

In that (mis)understanding fruit is God’s demand upon our life and the means by which we appease God. If we are not careful we’ll get stuck categorizing ourselves and one another into fruit bearing or non-fruit bearing branches. There is, however, a deeper issue than the production of fruit. Productivity does not usually create deep abiding and intimate relationships. It creates transactions. Jesus is not talking about or demanding productivity. He wants and offers connectivity, relationship, and intimacy.

Fruit or the lack thereof is a manifestation of our interior life and health. It describes and reveals whether we are living connected or disconnected lives. Fruit production is the natural consequence of staying connected. You can see that in long-term friendships, marriages, community loyalty. We do not choose whether or not we produce fruit. We do, however, choose where we abide and how we stay connected.

You know how that is. Sometimes we lose touch with a particular person. We no longer know where he or she is, what she is doing, or what is happening in her life. One day we run into him or her. It’s a bit awkward. No one is sure what to say. There’s not much to talk about. There was no deep abiding presence, the connection is lost, and it seems as if what was has been thrown away. Other people we run into after five or ten years and the conversation immediately picks up where we left off those many years ago. Even though we were apart we never left each other. There was and remains a connection and mutual abiding that time, distance, and the circumstances of life cannot sever.

“What fruit am I producing?” “How much?” “Is it an acceptable quality?” Those are good questions if we understand and ask them diagnostically, as questions not about the quantity of our lives but the quality of our lives. That’s what Jesus is after. That is the deeper question he is asking. It is the invitation to join the conversation, jump into the game, to participate, and to live fully alive. That only happens when the life, the love, and the goodness and holiness of Christ flow in us. We become an extension of and manifest his life, love, and holiness.

It is a relationship of union even as a branch is united to the vine. We live our lives as one. This is not just about relationship with Jesus; it affects and is the basis for our relationships with one another. Love for Jesus, one another, and ourselves become one love. We soon discover we are living one life and the fruit of that life and love is abundant, overflowing, and Father glorifying.

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Life Unburied – A Sermon for Easter; Mark 16:1-8

Posted on April 8, 2012 | 11 Comments

The collect and readings for Easter may be found here. The following sermon is based on Mark 16:1-8.

Icon of the Myrrh Bearing Women:
"He has been raised. He is not here."

Several years ago a woman told me that her great-grandson asked why she had so many wrinkles on her hands. “I’m old,” she told him. “Do you know what happens when you get old,” he asked. “You die and they bury you in the ground.” Before she could say anything he added, “But that’s ok; God comes and unburies you.”

What more is there to say? He’s just told the Easter story. It’s that simple. We get buried by the circumstances of life and God unburies us. Over and over God comes to the tombs of our lives and unburies us. That’s Easter. That is the power and love of God. It is as true as it is simple.

That truth speaks louder than the reality of our burials. There are so many ways in which our life gets buried: sorrow and grief, death and loss, fear and anxiety, perfectionism, anger, guilt, regret, resentment, self-hatred, the things we have done and the things we have left undone. Those are the stones that block our way. Those stones mark the many in ways in which we have suffered death, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

With each stone we ask, “Who will roll away the stone? Who will do for me what I cannot do for myself?” That’s what the three women are asking as they walk to the tomb. It’s not really a question as much as it is a statement about their life and what they expect. Their life has been buried in loss, pain, and death. And they expect it to stay that way. They expect a stone of death too big, too heavy, too real for them to do anything about.

I wonder how often we live not only expecting to get buried but expecting to stay buried. We too quickly forget that for every burial there is an Easter. That’s what the women discovered as soon as they looked up. The stone of death, the stone that blocked their way, had already been rolled back.

That’s why we show up this day, year after year. We want to know that the stones of our tombs have been rolled back. We want to hear the story again and be reminded that the tomb is open and empty. We want to know ourselves as unburied. We want to hear one more time, “Christ is risen!”

“God unburies you,” he told his great-grandmother. The young man in the tomb told the women, “He has been raised. He is not here.” The Church proclaims, “Christ is risen!” However it is said, it is the good news we want and need to hear. Those are sacred words; words of hope, life, and resurrection. Everything has changed. We are a new people.

Recall the stones that have blocked your way.
Christ is risen and they are removed.

Name your loved ones who have died.
Christ is risen and they are unburied.

Count your sins.
Christ is risen and you are forgiven.

Stand before God.
Christ is risen and you are loved.

Removed, unburied, forgiven, loved. These are God’s Easter words to us, not just today but everyday. God has been enacting words of salvation, hope, and love to God’s people from the very beginning. It happened when we were created in God’s image and likeness. God’s Easter words parted the Red Sea and drew the Israelites into a new land and life. Those same words transplanted in humanity a new heart, a new spirit, and made us God’s people. Ezekiel stood in the Valley of Dry Bones watching God open graves and breathe life into dead skeletons. It never ends.

In just a few moments God will again enact those words of life and love in the baptism of GK. We will witness little GK be buried in the baptismal waters of death, be unburied, and made a new creation in Christ. I want you to look at him and see his life: the innocence, the possibilities, all that might be, the love, the beauty, the goodness. Those are not just about GK. He is a mirror of your unburied life. What are the very best hopes and prayers you have for him? Name them. They are the same hopes and prayers Christ has for you.

Today Christ offers GK, you, and me his unburied life. One day you look up and see that the stone of death has already been rolled away. Christ is risen. The unburied life comes to us in a thousand different ways. You overcome bitterness and anger, reconciling with another person. That is life unburied. You feel the presence of a loved one who has died but you weren’t even thinking about him or her. That is life unburied. You look at the world and weep with compassion for its pain. That is life unburied. You respond to another’s harsh words or actions with forgiveness rather than your own harsh words or actions. That is life unburied. You love without fear, holding nothing in reserve, offering all that you are and all that you have. That is life unburied. You feel a new sense of Jesus’ presence, a reality and connection that move beyond beliefs. That is life unburied.

Life unburied always presents itself as a new creation. So it is that the women in today’s gospel go to the tomb on the first day of the week, the day creation began. Everything is being made new. The sun has risen. It is the dawn of a new day declaring that the Son has risen. If Christ is risen then so are we. This new day is also our day, the day of the holy and unburied people of God.

So I wonder; what will we do with our new and unburied life?

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All Are Washed, All Are Loved – A Sermon for Maundy Thursday; John 13:1-17, 31-35

Posted on April 6, 2012 | 6 Comments

The collect and readings for Maundy Thursday may be found here. The following sermon is based on John 13:1-17, 31-35.

One by one, Jesus kneels on the floor in front of each disciple. One by one, the water of his love washes over the feet of each disciple. No one is left out. Judas. Peter. The ones who say nothing. All are washed. All are loved.

Tonight’s liturgy holds before us a choice like no other liturgy in the church year. That choice is about vulnerability, intimacy, and love. It is, in some ways, more challenging, more real, more bodily, than many of us are comfortable with. Most days it is pretty easy to come to church. We sing, we pray, we receive communion, then we go to lunch with family and friends. We can too easily forget the challenge, the risk, the vulnerability, and the intimacy of eating the body and blood of another person, Jesus Christ.

Tonight is different. There will be body and blood but there will also be feet. Maybe tonight, however, is not as different as we think. The risk, vulnerability, and intimacy of eating his body and blood are the same risk, vulnerability, and intimacy of washing feet: humble, self-giving love.

Tonight Jesus offers his life in bread, wine, and washing. By his example and command we are to remove the shoes and socks of another, receive their feet, their life, into our hands, and wash. We are to remove our shoes and socks, place our feet, our life, into the hands of another, and be washed. This is the way of Christ, the way of love. It is a choice not just for tonight but every day and every night, not just in the liturgy but in the world.

Deep intimate love is, I believe, what attracts and draws some to this liturgy. I wonder, though, if it is also what keeps many others away. It is why some will wash and be washed and many will not. Tonight, however, is not simply a choice of whether to wash feet, but a choice to love or not love.

Jesus chose to love. Not some, but all. That is the choice before us. We cannot choose to love only those whom we like, whom we deem deserving, for whom we have good feelings, those who look, think, or act like us. It is all or nothing. If we do not love all, we love none. Love, for Jesus, is not about feelings and emotions but about a choice. In Jesus’ teaching if you have feet you get washed, regardless of where those feet have been or where they are going. That is the example and commandment he sets before his disciples and us.

The first person the disciples will have to choose to love or not love is Judas, the one who turns away, the one who walks in the night, the one who betrays. That, also, is our first choice. Every one of us has at least one Judas in our life. Every one of us has been Judas to someone else. Sometimes we have been Judas to ourselves.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Who is your Judas? Name him or her and then choose. Choose to wash and love as Jesus has washed and loved you.

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Emptying and Embodying – A Sermon for Palm Sunday; Mark 11:1-11

Posted on April 1, 2012 | 12 Comments

The collect and readings for The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday, Year B, may be found here. The following sermon is based on Mark 11:1-11 and Philippians 2:5-11.

Icon of Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem;
Palm Sunday

Today is a strange mixture of gospel readings, emotions, and contrast. We began with a parade; shouts of “Hosanna,” a declaration of praise and a cry for salvation; and the waving of palms, the ancient symbol of victory and triumph. We end with a death march, a cry of forsakenness, and a last breath.

The liturgy is holding before us the reality of our world and our lives. We know what it’s like to live in the tension of victory and defeat, joy and sorrow, life and death. At the center of this tension lies Jerusalem, Jesus’ destination.

Today marks Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. It is a threshold place and it is the most troubled place in the world; a place of division, struggle, conflict, and confrontation. Jerusalem, however, is not located only in Israel. Within every human heart there is a Jerusalem.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is then, in reality, his entry into the depths of our life and being. This is never more clear or challenging than it is in Holy Week. It is not about choosing between life or death, palms or passion; but about choosing life and death, palms and passion. That’s the tension of this day. The challenge is to remain fully embodied and present to that tension, not as spectators but as participants, not just this week but every week. Jesus was not quick to resolve the tension, nor should we be. It is out of that tension that new life will ultimately be birthed. There is, however, no birth without pain.

To stand in the tension means we must choose to empty ourselves of anything that might keep us from fully embracing the events of this week and the life of God. That’s what Jesus did. He did not use his status as God’s son as an escape or something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself and chose obedience to the point of death. In so doing he fully embodied God’s life and, consequently, human life.

Self-emptying allows full embodiment and presence. That is the triumph and victory of this day. There is, however, more to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem than today’s first gospel reading. Jesus will enter Jerusalem four times this week. With each entry, Jesus empties himself and is more fully present than he was the time before.

In the first entrance, today’s reading, Jesus comes to Jerusalem, goes to the temple, looks around and leaves. The next day, Monday, he returns to Jerusalem, the second entrance, and cleanses the temple, overturning the tables and chairs of the money changers and merchants. Again, he leaves Jerusalem. The following day, Tuesday, Jesus goes to Jerusalem and enters the temple a third time. He teaches and again leaves. Thursday is Jesus’ fourth entry. He comes back to Jerusalem with his disciples to eat the Passover meal.

These four entrances are distinct but not separate. Their unity is found in the self-emptying that allows Jesus to more fully embody and be present to God’s life. If this is Jesus’ entry into Holy Week, then it must also be ours. Each of Jesus’ entrances calls us to enter into the depths of our own heart, for that is where Holy Week happens. Each entry offers us a means by which we might more fully embody and be present to the life of God within us.

Upon his first entrance, Jesus looks around the temple, turns and leaves. There’s nothing there for him. It is bereft of life, like a fig tree that produces no fruit. It offers no meaning. There is nothing worth staying for. You and I know those places too. They are physical places as well spiritual and emotional places. We often stay there longer than is good for us. Sometimes there are simply places from which we must turn and leave. They offer us nothing and only drain us of life. They are not fruitful places for us. Leaving these places is how we turn our life towards God.

Jesus refuses to buy in to the status quo during his second entrance into Jerusalem. This entry asks us to consider what needs to be purified and cleansed in us; thoughts, words, actions. How has our life become a series of transactions rather than relationships of intimacy, vulnerability, and love? In what ways have we become gatekeepers of life and faith, demanding rather than offering obedience?

It is not enough, however, to just clean out and throw away. Jesus’ third entry fills the temple with his own interior wisdom. He challenges us to consider what teaching and wisdom guide and fill our life. Is it only external rules of behavior, or is it also sacred knowledge that transforms and leads to God? Have we let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus?

Jesus enters Jerusalem a fourth time to share the Passover meal with his disciples. It is a night of tension. Jesus not only eats the Passover he will become the Passover. He shares himself to the point of allowing himself to be betrayed. He risks it all. His fourth entry is our call to self-giving, to hold nothing in reserve, to offer all that we are and all that have. What are the parts of ourselves we hold back and hide from God and others? Do we live by fear or by faith?

Each entry asks of us difficult questions, real-life questions. We must engage life with brutal honesty and move past superficial niceties. We must empty and embody. We can do that only because with each entry, Jesus empties himself that he might more fully embody and reveal God’s self. He detaches from the temple structure. He cleanses and purifies the old ways. He interiorizes God’s law and teaching. He becomes holy food for holy people. Each time he is more fully himself than he was the time before. Each entrance is a form of dying. Jesus was killed on the cross but he died in the triumphal entry.

He empties that he might embody. So it is for us too. Emptying and embodying are the way of Jesus and the way of this holy week. Emptying and embodying are Jesus’ entry into humanity’s heart. Emptying and embodying are our way into God’s heart.

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