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Holy Thursday 2009

Holy Thursday 2009
He knows we will not understand.
The cross, his death on the cross will leave us
shocked, and confused
Despairing and doubting.
Jesus knows we are not going to get it,
Even today the most commonly asked question
this time of year is: Why do you call it Good Friday?
What can possibly be good about
betrayal, torture, conspiracy and death.
Isn’t this just how the world has always worked:
Rich men, powerful men kill anyone
who threatens their power.
They did it to Jesus 2000 years ago
They are still doing it now. What is good about that?
On the night before he died
He knows we are not going to get it,
So Jesus leaves behind
two symbols, two images, two actions
That he hopes will explain to us
what his life and his death really mean.
He washes feet,
and identifies himself with bread and wine.
He washes feet
It is an intimate gesture, a caring gesture:
Sponging away the sweat and dirt,
Massaging the soreness out of tired feet.
It is so intimate a gesture of caring
that it is something we seldom experience
Can you remember
the last time someone washed your feet?
“If I who am Master and Lord
take the time to care for you
Should you not take the time to care for each other?
What I do, so should you do. “
Jesus hopes that when we remember
the washing of the feet
We will understand
that his death on the cross is his service.  
He hopes that we will understand
That his cross is about God taking the time to care for us.
He hopes that we will understand that his cross
It is about God taking the time to wash
our sweaty, dirty, tired souls.
And he hopes that we will learn that it is godly
to care for the weary lives of another.

Because he knows that we will not understand the cross
Jesus identifies with bread and wine at the Passover meal
we call the Last Supper.
To tell you the truth it wasn’t the “last” supper at all.
After his resurrection
Jesus would break bread at Emmaus,
Be offered fish in the upper room,
And cook breakfast for his friends on the Sea of Galilee.
And countless times, when the disciples would gather
As we are gathering tonight,
in his name and in his memory
To break bread and drink wine
He would be present with them, 
Just as tonight he is really present to us.
At this Passover supper
he will be the lamb,
the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs, the cup of wine.
He will be the sacrifice, the prayer
Our offering of thanks to God
for the life we have been given;
Our offering in sorrow for the way we have misused it.
This isn’t our last supper either, and whenever we eat it
As often as we eat it
Jesus hopes
that we will now understand what his cross means,
That it is God’s way of forgiving our sins
God’s way of filling our souls with his love
God’s way of showing us what real worship,
real thanksgiving truly is:
Breaking open our lives in love to nourish others,
Faithful to love whatever its cost.

We call it the sacrifice of the mass
Because in this meal we become one with Christ
We join his sacrifice in offering our lives in love
as our own living sacrifice to God.
That is why, as Paul says,
whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup
We proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
Tonight we wash feet
and break the bread and drink the wine
that becomes his body and blood
So that we understand why we call Good Friday, Good.
Amen.

Palm Sunday 2009

You could say that they did not know what they were doing.
They were just cheering
Caught in the moment
Doing the wave with palms
They were fans
Everyone cheers on opening day,
At the final four,
at the 18th green at Augusta,
at the Catholic Central and West Catholic game,
during the opening ceremony at the Olympics,
at the inauguration…
we all cheer and clap and wave.
You get caught in the moment and everyone chants
U-S-A or,” we are number one.”
You could make a case
that they did not know what they were doing
Back then outside Jerusalem.
But you cannot say that about us.
We know what we are doing today.
We know why we are waving Palms.
We are more than fans
We are disciples.
We do not cheer Jesus on
We join him on his way to the cross.
These palms are not mid-east pom-poms
They are our pledge that we are on Jesus’ side
That we will go where he goes
Love as he loves and so
Suffer as he suffers.
We know what we are doing and why we are doing it.

This is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week
A week we set aside to remember how God has loved us.
On Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week we will stop business as usual
And devote ourselves to our divine Lover
This week as we gather in church to remember his story,
we join ourselves to it;
And claim his story as the central story of our lives.
We wave these palms not to cheer Jesus on,
But to identify ourselves as one of his company.
In the courtyard where Jesus was under arrest
Peter was asked if he was one of his disciples too…
When we are asked if are one of his disciples
If we are willing to share his fate
These palms are our answer
They are how we say: Yes we are,
We are his friends, his followers, his disciples
And yes we are ready to carry his cross in our world.
Amen.

Third Sunday of Lent

March 15, 2009
There are many things we do not know.
Not all the business leaders, economists or heads of state
know how to reassemble a shattered world economy.
Scientists do not know
how to cure cancer or forestall Alzheimer’s.
We do not know
how to run the world without copious amounts of oil.
We do not know how to make lasting peace in the Middle East.
We do not know how to deal with radical Islam.
We do not know how to cure the common cold.
We do not know how to get the Lion’s out of last place.
There are lots of things we do not know.
But one thing we do know,
and have known since the days of Moses
Is how God wants us to live life.

The torah, the law of God, is not a secret.
It was etched in stone thousands of years ago
And given to Moses to give to the people.
The prophets taught that we should write them in our hearts
Jesus taught that we should live them in love.
Rabbis, scholars, theologians, preachers and philosophers
Have interpreted them throughout the centuries.
We cannot say that we do not know how to live with God.
We have known for thousands of years, nevertheless
In the Lenten season we might cross reference
how we are living with how God commands us to live.
In the time we have this morning
we cannot do each commandment justice,
but that should not stop us from thinking about them
Even if just for a minute a piece.

“I am the Lord your God
who brought you out of the Land of Egypt and
you shall have no other gods before me, you shall carve no idols for yourselves  and worship them.”

God the creator of heaven and earth is the lord of human history,
your story and mine. 
We are willed into existence to know God, love God
and serve God.
We are not alone, never have been and never will be.
Only God is worthy of our life, our labor, and our love. 
To those who say that that there is no God,
that awe and beauty are transitory phenomena;
to those who make gods of their own ambitions, needs
and longing for power, importance and pleasure
we say there is no God but God, and God is one,
and to go through life ignoring
the one who created us in love and for love
is tragedy beyond words.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

We swear to God all the time:
to love, honor and cherish our spouse,
forsaking all others for as long as we live.
We swear that we will raise our children to know and love God.
We swear loyalty to our friends.
We swear that we will tell the truth, so help us God.
We swear that we will carry out the duties of our public office
with honor, in truth, and without self interest, so help us God.
We swear that we will do no harm to our patients,
That we will represent our client’s best interest
That we will be honest in business.
Priests swear obedience and respect to our bishop,
We swear we will live what we preach,
We swear that we will be as holy as the actions we perform.
When we make a promise in God’s name
We should keep it.  We should not take it in vain.

We must keep holy the Sabbath.
On the seventh day God rested
So no work may be done by you,
or your son or your daughter
Or anyone who works for you, or your beasts.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:
He wants to enter the holiness of the Sabbath
must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce
of being yoked to toil,
He must go away from the screech of dissonant days,
from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness
and betrayal in embezzling his own life.
He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand
that the world has already been created
without the help of man.
Six days a week we wrestle with the world;
wringing profit from the earth;
on the Sabbath we especially care for the needs of eternity
planted in our souls.
The world has our hands,
but our soul belongs to someone else.”

When the Romans and Greeks encountered the Jewish practice
of setting aside the Sabbath for rest, prayer and pleasure,
they voiced an opinion
that is universal among capitalists of today:
that it is a lazy, outdated, economically unviable practice
to sacrifice 1/7th of all the time and energy we possess. 
We are a nation of Sabbath breakers,
and to us God says that time does not belong to us,
we cannot use it however we wish without great misfortune.
The Sabbath tells us that we do not live to work, we live to love.

In the remaining commandments
God calls our attention to the ways
in which we live with each other,
starting with our family and then moving outwards
into all the concentric circles of relationships.
God cannot be contained anywhere
but must be loved everywhere.

Honor your father and your mother. 

We begin life being honored by them, loved by them,
not for anything that we have done, or will do,
but just because we are. 
This week, President Obama told the story of being woken up by his mother at 4:30 in the morning so that she, a single mother
could read to him before she had to go to work
and he to school.  
When he complained, she replied,
“this is no party for me either.” 
Wisdom happens when we recognize
that our parents are people
who need to be loved too.
They need to be honored, as they have honored us
with their sacrifice.

Thou shall not kill….period.

Catholics shall not kill Protestant in northern Ireland
or Jews in Germany and Poland and Russia;
Sunni shall not kill Shia in the Middle East;
Tutsi shall not kill Ibo in Africa,
thou shall not kill fellow students in Alabama or Germany
or Grand Rapids;
Jews should not kill Palestinians or Palestinians kill Jews;
thou shalt not kill in abortion clinics or on death row or in Guantanamo.
Thou shalt not kill African Americans, or gays,
or immigrants from Mexico. 
Thou shalt kill the environment.
To those who argue that violence is an inevitable form
of political resolution,
we repeat the words of Pope Paul VI:
“War never again, never again war.”

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Relationships are sacred.
Sex is not forbidden but it is sacred.
Because sex is sacred I cannot say with my body
what I do not mean in my own heart,
I do not make a commitment with my body
that I will not keep in my heart.
Human bodies are indeed beautiful
and indeed we long to touch and be touched,
but bodies belong to human beings who are sacred to God.
To those who say that truth is a matter of perception and opportunity, that facts are subject to spin,
and speech is the art of persuasion,
God says: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.” 
St. Paul says it more brutally, “Stop lying to each other.” 
Our words should honestly tell the story of our life.

Do not covet:
 your neighbor’s house, wife, male or female slave,
nor his ox or his ass, or anything that belongs to him.

Life is not about things,
and you are not the measure of what you possess.
Not only should you not measure yourself
by the possessions of others
 you should not compare yourself to others. 
All by yourself, naked as God made you,
you are loved beyond imagination,
valued beyond comprehension.
Greed in all of its forms
is a temptation to exchange being loved for being admired;
a temptation to exchange our self worth for the worth of things;
a temptation to not believe that the love of God is enough.

More could be said of the Ten Commandments;
more has been said, and even more should be said.
We have the rest of Lent to study them,
and perhaps the rest of our lives
to incorporate them into our lives.
But what cannot be said is that we do not know them.
We cannot say we do not know how God wants us to live.
Amen.

First Sunday of Lent

“Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness 40 days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts and angels ministered to him. But after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Good News of God: This is the time of fulfillment; the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Good News!”

That is all? That’s it?
We are supposed to begin Lent with that?
No stories, parables, miracles, sermons,
Nothing to sink our teeth into? Could be a short homily!
As is so often the case in the Gospel of Mark,
A few words contain a depth of meaning
that is not immediately obvious.
Jesus was driven into the wilderness,
the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness
the wilderness is where people live,
it is where we live.
The Garden of Eden, where God meant for us to live,
is a place of ease and beauty
where all lived naked and unashamed
In harmony with God’s own ecology.
There was no economic crisis in the Garden of Eden,
There were no foreclosures in Eden,
There was no employment in Eden,
No Ponzi schemes, no embezzlement
No one worried
about retirement or tuition or health care in Eden.
That place was destroyed by sin,
So long gone that none of us has ever lived there.
We live in the wilderness
where we have to worry about all these things.
We live in a wilderness where we are exposed
To selfishness and greed, to pride and prejudice,
To other people’s gluttony and lust.
In the wilderness we have to carry what we need
On our own backs.
No one gives us anything.
The wild beasts are all around us
Ready to destroy us, use us, gnaw on our bones
And leave us on the side of the road, naked and ashamed.
The Spirit of God drove Jesus into the wilderness
So that where people were, Jesus would be.
Where people struggle
Where people are tired
Where people are worried
Where people are attacked
Where people are betrayed,
There Jesus would be.
There he would be tempted by Satan,
The same Satan that tempts you and me.
Doesn’t matter what kind of person you are,
Doesn’t matter how good you are
No one is holy enough not to be tempted by Satan.
Life in the wilderness is going to test us.
The bible tells us
that Elijah was tested for 40 days in the wilderness,
And Moses was tested for 40 days in the wildness,
And Jesus was tested for 40 days in the wilderness,
The chances are pretty good
That you and I are going to be tested by Satan
As we wander through the wilderness we live in.
The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness
Where people live,
where men and women are surrounded
By wild beats that would feed off their flesh.
The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where life
puts men and women to the test
where Satan tempts us to survive our time in the wilderness
by becoming one of the wild beasts that feeds off others.
In the wilderness there is no Eden,
No place of harmony and rest
No place where you can be yourself without judgment
No place where anyone will take care of you;
In the wilderness, there is no God,
In the life we have to live, there is no God;
that is what Satan says.
That is what Satan says to us, that is what Satan said to Jesus.
Don’t be a fool, take what you want,
you are going to die soon enough
That is how Jesus was tempted.
When John the Baptist was arrested,
John, who never asked anything for himself,
John the original green prophet eating only honey and locusts
Where only cast-off animal skins,
When John who never did anything selfish
John who only asked people to turn to God,
When John was arrested,
When there is no room in the wilderness for someone
As good as John
When John was killed by one of the wild beasts,
Satan whispered into Jesus’ ear:
“See, I told you so; seeing is believing;
That is what happens to good people who live in the wilderness.”
That was the test for Jesus; that is the test for us.
From that point on Jesus went around announcing that
God was in the wilderness
That the Love of God was present in wilderness
Here and now.
When Jesus says the kingdom of God is at hand
He is saying the power of God, the love of God
Is present and active and available
Here and now, in our wilderness, in our world
In the life we have to live.
That is the gospel, the good news,
that God is present, love is present
It is no further away than our hands.
Selfishness does transform Eden into a desert,
Pride, greed, violence are the global warming of our souls,
But God has not abandoned his garden
God has not forgotten his desire that we should live
In harmony with the world, with each other, with God
Naked and unashamed and unafraid.
There is another voice besides Satan’s logical, practical advice
And that voice belongs to Jesus
Announcing that God’s love is powerful
That love is within reach
And that if we place our trust in the love
God gave us in the first place
Then we will love in God’s Eden forever.
Sisters and brothers,
Lent is not a time when we withdraw from the world
so that we might find God in peace and tranquility,
Lent is a time when the Spirit drives us into our lives,
Drives us into the middle of our life in the wilderness
So that we can find God where we live,
Because that is where God is.
God is in the middle of the wild beasts that threaten our lives.
When we are tempted, when we are tested by life
That is where God is, because that is we need God to be.
In Lent we do not retreat from our lives, we pay attention to them.
During Lent, like Jesus, we will be tempted, we will be tested
Satan will be at our door, Lent is also his season
But his is not the only voice we will hear,
If we listen, we will hear the voice of Jesus
Announcing to us that the power of God, the power of love
Is at hand, within our reach, within our grasp.
When the most loving of men are destroyed before our eyes
Jesus will tell us to trust in love, in the love that is God.
Do not become like one of the powerful wild beasts
Who makes their own way in the wilderness,
Trust, trust in love, trust in God.
That is the good news of Lent
The gospel we trust
The good news we live.
It is also the gospel we share with others.
There are lots of people in the wilderness
who hear only the sweet song of Satan.
His logical and persuasive voice is all they hear.
The dog eat dog law of the wilderness is all they know.
Satan has convinced them
that God is not in the world they live in.
In the world in which they live, Satan has told them,
love is only an option, and not the best one.
While Jesus was in the desert, angels ministered to him.
Sisters and brothers you are called to be angels
Angels who care for people who struggle in the wilderness
In the same way you and I struggle.
Angels who point out that love is the only way
To get out of the wilderness alive,
Angels who encourage people to trust in the love of God
Angels who encourage people to trust their lives
To the power of God’s love, love that is at their fingertips.
This lent be an angel who ministers to struggle
An angel who invites people to believe in the Good News.
Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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