I have no idea how many times I have stood at a casket in the church, or with a grieving family in their home and wished that I could do a resurrection. The pain of those moments is intense and all consuming. What everyone wants simply can't be done. We want our loved one back with us, healed and without pain. That is clearly impossible, so what are we doing talking about resurrection?
The gospels that are chosen for funerals are all about rising from the dead. Jesus and Lazarus with both Martha and Mary fairly screaming at Jesus that "If you had been here, my brother would not have died," and then the verse about Jesus' tears, "Jesus wept." What are we to do with this scripture in the face of our own crying need for resurrection?
What Easter points to, for me, is the intensity of our hold on life and the relationships that we have formed, and how much we love. I once had a funeral for a man who had terribly abused his family and who finally drank himself to death. The family sat huddled together in pews about halfway back in the church, over by the windows. They just wanted to get through this ceremony and get back to their lives. I struggled with what I could say to them that would help them to see this man in the presence of God, forgiven and redeemed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. What was really necessary here was to begin a conversation that would lead to the family forgiving this terrible man so that they could go on from here with an outlook that pointed to joy rather than hatred. I talked about what a difficult man he had been and how it was nobody's wish that he be back in our midst again. But that there was a place for him in God's Kingdom, and that if eternal life was our destiny, we would see him again, but not as he once was, but as he would become in the light of the Love of God. That is what Jesus brought us in his life, and also what he bequeathed to us with his death and resurrection. That is seldom easy to see. It is easy in the case of beloved people who die in the arms of their family, but not very easy when that family is estranged by abuse and turmoil. I hope that I was able to start a conversation within that family that day. I know that their father and husband was enfolded in God's arms and blessed by God in eternal life. That is the only way that it can happen if we are going to ascribe to God the hope and the joy that we so yearn for in this mortal life.
I think that Easter is the annual promise to all of us that our sins are forgiven and that eternal life is always ours. That is what Jesus promised to us by the living of a life among us, by bringing the Almighty God to earth in flesh to live our life with us. God certainly understands the conflicts of life, the horrible temptations that we all endure because God endured them also in the flesh of Jesus the Christ. I hope that your Easter is blessed, and that you come to understand the redeeming presence of God in the wholeness of your life, and the eternal promise of a risen life in the peace of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
Palm Sunday
There is a new book on the market that effectively argues that God's mercy trumps our incessant need for justice. That in the final analysis, everyone is admitted to the mercy and the glory of God. This book has triggered a lot of criticism from Christians who are dismayed at the dismissal of human justice from the agenda of God. I certainly understand this criticism, although I don't agree with it. I am pleased that someone has again put forth the argument that I think originated with Jesus that God's love extends to everyone that has been created.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey that was obtained by his disciples for him. Before him, as he rode, onlookers scattered palm fronds and garments in his path. This was a sign of their agreement with his preaching and their hope that he would prove to be the Messiah that was longed for by the people who had been for years under Roman rule. They felt and were oppressed by the tyranny of Rome and yearned for leadership that would restore the Jewish state to its glory.
Jesus did not prove to be the kind of messiah that these people were looking for. They wanted one who would provide immediate relief for them. Those palms were symbolic of their hope. Hope that was fairly quickly dashed during the subsequent week. Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, when Jesus slowly falls into the hands of the leaders of the Jewish religion, and finally into the hands of Pilate and his soldiers. The week ends on Good Friday with the horrible crucifixion of Jesus on Calvary.
Holy Saturday is an especially poignant day for me. In my parish, I remember coming into the church and immediately smelling the aroma of the flowers that were being arranged in the church for the celebration of Easter the next day. It always struck me as terribly inappropriate to anticipate Easter in this way. Holy Saturday is the day that God is dead; crucified by all of us on the preceding day. Anticipating Easter is ridiculous in that light. We have no way at all of creating a resurrection. If we could do that, our funerals would disappear and we would all live in our bodies forever. I never said anything to the altar guild about this. I knew that they needed the time of preparation if we were going to have an adequate celebration of Easter the next day. What we were always forgetting in our need to prepare was that it is God who creates Easter, not us. We are the authors of Good Friday. All of us are complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus. We all stand before our God in this terrible sin.
In my parish, I had a short homily that I did after announcements on Palm Sunday. I took a long palm frond and taught the people in the congregation how to fashion it into a cross. This was to drive home the point that the flow of the week to follow began with the hope of the palms laid at the feet of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem and ended with the cross on Calvary. All of us did it. God's judgement is ours for this irredeemable sin. Ah, but you might argue, we weren't there. It was other people who did this. If we would have been there, it would have been much different. Well, let's look at who was there. His disciples deserted him one by one. Peter, his chief, denied him three times, joining Judas in the depths of deceit. The rest of them just wandered away. Only the beloved disciple stayed at the foot of the cross with Jesus mother and watched the whole thing happen. Nobody tried to stop it. The justice of Rome prevailed, and Jesus died on the cross.
We are all guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus. If we had been there, the circumstances would not have changed one bit. Jesus came to us to die for us all. To be God among us who died on the cross. After the crucifixion, God is dead. That is the long and the short of it. We have no claim to empty ourselves of the crucifixion. We did it.
But the wonderful news of Easter is that God rose from the dead. The tomb became empty, not by our doing, but by the grace of God. Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and the disciples after the resurrection, and by that incredible miracle, we are all absolved not only of our complicity in the death of our savior, but of all of our breaches of the laws of God. Jesus came to fulfill the law of God for each of us. The leaders of the Jewish faith thought that they were the perfect exemplars of the law. They marched up and down in their fine robes and were proud of their behavior. Over and over again, Jesus reminded they of their true obligation to provide for the poor and the outcast, not their fussy obsession with keeping their fundamentalist version of the law. Jesus always reminded them of the basic purpose of the law: to bring us together and to make us humble in the presence of God. To deal with all of those around us in the loving spirit that God imparts to each of us.
In the light of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection all that we can do is stand in awe of what God has done to take our foolish acts and make of them wonder. That for me is what Palm Sunday is all about. I love the Grace and Mercy of God that transcends and wipes away our sin. In the light of this, all of us are included. We stand together at the throne of God, all redeemed as our Lord intended. Each of our lives illumined by the risen presence of God. Jesus, our Lord stands with us all before God pleading our cause.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey that was obtained by his disciples for him. Before him, as he rode, onlookers scattered palm fronds and garments in his path. This was a sign of their agreement with his preaching and their hope that he would prove to be the Messiah that was longed for by the people who had been for years under Roman rule. They felt and were oppressed by the tyranny of Rome and yearned for leadership that would restore the Jewish state to its glory.
Jesus did not prove to be the kind of messiah that these people were looking for. They wanted one who would provide immediate relief for them. Those palms were symbolic of their hope. Hope that was fairly quickly dashed during the subsequent week. Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, when Jesus slowly falls into the hands of the leaders of the Jewish religion, and finally into the hands of Pilate and his soldiers. The week ends on Good Friday with the horrible crucifixion of Jesus on Calvary.
Holy Saturday is an especially poignant day for me. In my parish, I remember coming into the church and immediately smelling the aroma of the flowers that were being arranged in the church for the celebration of Easter the next day. It always struck me as terribly inappropriate to anticipate Easter in this way. Holy Saturday is the day that God is dead; crucified by all of us on the preceding day. Anticipating Easter is ridiculous in that light. We have no way at all of creating a resurrection. If we could do that, our funerals would disappear and we would all live in our bodies forever. I never said anything to the altar guild about this. I knew that they needed the time of preparation if we were going to have an adequate celebration of Easter the next day. What we were always forgetting in our need to prepare was that it is God who creates Easter, not us. We are the authors of Good Friday. All of us are complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus. We all stand before our God in this terrible sin.
In my parish, I had a short homily that I did after announcements on Palm Sunday. I took a long palm frond and taught the people in the congregation how to fashion it into a cross. This was to drive home the point that the flow of the week to follow began with the hope of the palms laid at the feet of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem and ended with the cross on Calvary. All of us did it. God's judgement is ours for this irredeemable sin. Ah, but you might argue, we weren't there. It was other people who did this. If we would have been there, it would have been much different. Well, let's look at who was there. His disciples deserted him one by one. Peter, his chief, denied him three times, joining Judas in the depths of deceit. The rest of them just wandered away. Only the beloved disciple stayed at the foot of the cross with Jesus mother and watched the whole thing happen. Nobody tried to stop it. The justice of Rome prevailed, and Jesus died on the cross.
We are all guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus. If we had been there, the circumstances would not have changed one bit. Jesus came to us to die for us all. To be God among us who died on the cross. After the crucifixion, God is dead. That is the long and the short of it. We have no claim to empty ourselves of the crucifixion. We did it.
But the wonderful news of Easter is that God rose from the dead. The tomb became empty, not by our doing, but by the grace of God. Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and the disciples after the resurrection, and by that incredible miracle, we are all absolved not only of our complicity in the death of our savior, but of all of our breaches of the laws of God. Jesus came to fulfill the law of God for each of us. The leaders of the Jewish faith thought that they were the perfect exemplars of the law. They marched up and down in their fine robes and were proud of their behavior. Over and over again, Jesus reminded they of their true obligation to provide for the poor and the outcast, not their fussy obsession with keeping their fundamentalist version of the law. Jesus always reminded them of the basic purpose of the law: to bring us together and to make us humble in the presence of God. To deal with all of those around us in the loving spirit that God imparts to each of us.
In the light of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection all that we can do is stand in awe of what God has done to take our foolish acts and make of them wonder. That for me is what Palm Sunday is all about. I love the Grace and Mercy of God that transcends and wipes away our sin. In the light of this, all of us are included. We stand together at the throne of God, all redeemed as our Lord intended. Each of our lives illumined by the risen presence of God. Jesus, our Lord stands with us all before God pleading our cause.
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