The Peace of Jerusalem

            The History Channel has been offering a program called The Bible which began with Eden and has taken us through the story of the Hebrew people into the story of Jesus and his life, death and resurrection.  It is in many ways a chilling story.  There is a terrible emphasis on violence, with not only the Egyptians persecuting the Hebrews and chasing them when they fled Egypt, but the drowning of the Egyptian soldiers in the reconstituting Red Sea, and the terrible violence that the Hebrews themselves perpetrated on the residents that they found in Canaan, which was to them the promised land.  There is one horrible unsettling scene where the prophet Samuel demands that King Saul kill every living thing that is a part of the Philistines.  Saul fails in this and is denounced by Samuel.  

            Throughout the centuries and millennia that have followed, peace has been an elusive word not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world.  Crusaders fought with Muslims and kings in Europe fought with dissenters of one sort or another.  Joan of Arc died at the hands of the church because she was seen to be a witch.  There is a long legacy of martyrs to religion that is abominable when looked at as a whole. 

            Where is God in all of this?  I love the passage from Isaiah that speaks about the creation of a new world; the creation of a New Jerusalem where there will be no tears and that long life will be seen as the norm.  Praying for the peace of Jerusalem has been a staple of religious life, but when has there ever been peace in Jerusalem?

            This is Easter.  It is the day that is the culmination of God’s desire for humanity.  We began with the Nativity and then followed Jesus’ work throughout his life.  He healed, he loved, he brought hope to the poor.   Jesus came to us to show us what it means to be a child of God.  He lived his life in fulfillment of all of the commandments, and he gave us new commandments; to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind and secondly to love our neighbor as God loves us.  That is a beautiful mouthful that we have kept with us for all of the years that we have celebrated the resurrection of our Lord, and the conquest of the one thing that we all dread more than anything else:  Death.  Easter is the day that death is conquered, and we see it in Jesus resurrection.  Because of that, we can all be certain that we will survive death also.  It is also God’s promise to all of humanity that not only the peace of Jerusalem will be attained, but the peace of all of the world.  That is also what we constantly pray for.   So in Jesus’ resurrection, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled.  We will all know the glorious peace of God and the new world will be created.

Being Christian

            When I was a kid and sang in the choir, I used to hate Palm Sunday.  The gospel lesson seemed to me to be just about the entire bible.  We would sit there and listen to the priest read the Gospel until we were ready to fall asleep.  I don’t think that I ever really listened to it, I was so preoccupied with how long it was.

            Thankfully, these days, we do something else with it.  When I was the rector of Christ Church, we used to dress up and dramatize it.  I loved watching Judas come down the center aisle and throw the money at the feet of the Pharisees at the end of the Gospel.  The person who was selected to portray Jesus always managed to make Eli Eli Lema Sabachthani  sound like a cry from the depths.  I, in my vestments always seemed to be chosen to depict Pilate.  I loved it.

            It is easy to miss the point of Palm Sunday and the story that it tells.  Here is Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey and feted by the crowd, hailed as the Messiah with palms laid at his feet.  How quickly it all turned.  At the end of the day, Jesus is arrested and delivered to Pilate to be crucified.  I used to teach the congregation how to take those large palm fronds and make crosses out of them to take home with them as a reminder of how quickly our cheers can be turned to taunts. 

            Maybe the Gospel is a bit long, but it needs to be to tell the story that we need to hear.  We certainly, like the people in Jerusalem, want a messiah.  But we want one who will do things the way that we want them done. 

            The Roman Catholic church has just elected a new pope.  Francis, named for the great Saint Francis of Assisi, has a mandate to clean up a battered church with scandal after scandal having wracked it.  The Romans are no different from the rest of us.  All of the churches, all of us, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant are hungry for Christian leadership that will reflect the power of the Gospel of Christ.  In his first days, Francis has mingled with crowds in the Vatican and has seemed to be the humble servant that we are all called to be when we assume the title Christian.  My prayers are that Francis will be the leader that we all need to show us a new way.

           But we are all in this together.  The wonderful assortment of people who attended to the election and the installation of the Pope testify to how wide the Christian message has been spread and how integrated all of us are in making sure that Christian values permeate this turbulent world.  How can each of us be a part of showing the world that the message of Christ is peace and unity?  That is what I want to pray and think about on this Palm Sunday.

Love and Resurrection

            About three years ago, I was one of the clergy who presided at the wedding of my nephew who married his partner of a number of years in Washington, DC because it was legally possible to do that.  I was honored to be a part of that wonderful ceremony that brought these two people into a long term relationship that they both wanted very much. 

            This coming April, I will preside at the wedding of his brother, my other nephew in New Bern, NC to his dear betrothed love.  Again, I am honored to be a part of this joining together of two people who want to be in a life-long loving relationship with each other.

            Relationships are essential to our lives.  This was made apparent to us by Jesus who made it a point to touch as many lives as possible during his time with us.  I am particularly taken by the story of his friend Lazarus, who was the brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany.  When Jesus found out that Lazarus was sick, he waited a few days and then went to Bethany to do what he could for his friend.  Lazarus had died and he asked where they had buried him.  Jesus went to the tomb, stood there and wept.  He honored his friend with his tears, and then he did something that amazed everyone around.  He brought Lazarus out of the tomb and restored him to his sisters.  We only have the word of the Gospel of John for this, but Jesus emphasized this wonderful miracle by dining with Lazarus later on.  This was when Mary anointed Jesus feet with costly perfume in thanksgiving for what he had done for them, and as a prefiguring of Jesus own death that was surely coming at the hands of a hostile church.  That Judas reproved Mary for this is seen by the author of the Gospel as additional proof of his malicious mindset that resulted in the betrayal of Jesus to those who wanted to kill him.

            I love this story because it tells us something about the length of our relationships with each other.  They last not only during this life, but we can expect them to continue in eternity.  That, I think, is what Jesus is trying to demonstrate by his continued relationship with Lazarus after his raising from the dead.  So, like Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb, we need to weep when we encounter death, certainly we have all done that; but we also need to remember that these relationships are not over at that moment, but that we will certainly see each other again when we come to our eternal life. 

                Sometimes, death comes as a relief from the problems that we create for one another, but remember that our sins are forgiven and our souls purified by our God when we come into His presence, and it is this purified soul that we will meet when we all come together before God’s throne.  That is why I know that God wants only goodness and peace for us all, even if we won’t necessarily see it in this life.  May we all honor each other in this life with the love that lies deeply in our hearts, so that when we meet later, that love will continue to grow and become a firm part of our being.  That is certainly what I want for my nephews in their marriages, and for all of us in this life.

Redeeming the Prodigal Son

           When I first went to college back in the early fifties, I was certainly not mature enough to understand what I or it was all about.  I easily got caught up in the fraternity party ethos on the campus with their weekend beer parties, and hardly paid any attention at all to the courses that I was supposed to be taking. 

            The college put up with that for a while, but eventually one of the advisors called me in and suggested to me that because of my terrible grades, college was obviously not for me and wondered if I shouldn’t consider a “trade school” or something.  In other words, the college wasn’t interested in me anymore since I obviously wasn’t interested in learning any of the things that they were offering.

            I remember my father coming to the campus to try to reason with the people in charge, but in the end, what they wanted prevailed and I was sent home.  I lazed around for a while, unsure of what to do next.  I had no schedule, no job, nothing to occupy my time.

            There was a profound moment that I’ll never forget.  My father was cooking breakfast one Saturday morning and he called me into the kitchen.  “Well, what are you going to do?” he asked.  I said that I would try to find a job and see what happened.  “Good, good,” he said.  “But where are you going to live?”  The bottom fell out of my world with those words.  All of a sudden I understood that I was going to have to take care of myself.  In my immaturity, this was a new thought for me.  What was I going to do, indeed!

             My dad arranged for me to take a course in radio broadcasting that had been started by an old friend of his.  I took the course, and found a job working in a men’s shop part time while I was learning about broadcasting.  I enjoyed the course, did well in it and eventually I found a job at a radio station in Indiana, PA.  This began a career in broadcasting for me which lasted about twenty years.  But that defining moment with my father never left me.  It was the moment that I grew up. 

            When I read the story of the prodigal son, I always think of myself and that Saturday moment with my father.  He really knew what I needed, even if I didn’t.  I have thanked God for that defining time over and over again.  It was really a gift that I needed more than anything else. 

            My dad never lived to see what happened to me; how well I did in my radio and television career and then was led to go back to college and then to seminary and into the priesthood.  I can’t imagine a better life than the one that I have had, but it certainly began on that Saturday morning when I came to understand my responsibility for my own life.  My father gave me that wonderful gift, just as the father of the prodigal son gave him back the life that he had squandered