Good Friday ---- 30 March 2018

(At St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church)

‘It is finished.

·        So, Jesus, what do you mean by that? “It is finished.”

·        What’s finished? Your life? I can see that. You’re crucified! Such a horrible way to go. I don’t even want to think about the pain you endured. I don’t want to think about the message the Empire was sending to everyone who saw you… and the two bandits crucified on either side of you. The Empire wants us to think about that; that’s why this was done in public… so everyone could see it… and be afraid.

·        Pilate put the placard “The King of the Jews” over your head, the charge to explain why you were crucified. So what’s finished? The dream of an Israel free from domination? A people able to set their own course in the world? That seems done to a turn as well.

·        Is it the hope for the kingdom of God finished? How would we know? We don’t even know what that would look like. We’ve had ideas but you had us look in another direction, to another place.

·        What’s finished? Your life’s work? Your preaching? Your way of showing everyone the mercy of God by accepting the sinner and the person who didn’t or cannot keep the Law? Oh, we had such hope for that; all of us who are called poor or sinners or unrighteous or tax collectors or prostitutes. Was there more you wanted to tell us? Was there more to be explained? More to be revealed? I thought there’d be more to say… but it’s finished now. Even if there were more to say, there’s no way of saying it. Not with nails in your hands and a spear stuck in your chest. Nothing more can be said.

·        So what’s finished? You were the son of a carpenter, a guy who knew edges and joining and building… and finishes for wood. Do you mean that something here is just ended… or is it completed?

·        A workman like your father, Joseph, might take a step back and look at the finished product, check for flaws and rough edges, and maybe take some quiet pride in a job well done. Taking a good look at something he’d be happy to deliver to a customer. Is that what you mean? Is it completed? Was this the last step?

·        Finished? Looks like you hardly started! Maybe something else is going on. Finished… ended… completed… what else could that mean? Completed or… what’s the word? “Accomplished” Well, that’s a word that could mean something. What did you accomplish? Did you do what you set out to do? That’s frightening! I’ll need to sit down and think about that. Maybe I can sit here at the foot of your cross and consider this a while.

·        Well, the soldiers have stuck you with a spear and that Joseph of Arimathea guy is said to be coming to take your body down to bury it. Maybe I can see where they take you. Maybe I’ll make sense of all this someday. Maybe I’ll just remember all this – what you said and what you did. Maybe I’ll visit your tomb after the Sabbath. Maybe I’ll still have hope when that first day of the week arrives.

·        Maybe. Maybe what you promised will be true and things will be different.

·        Who knows? Maybe I’ll even say “We adore you and we bless you, for by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.”

Maundy Thursday ---- 29 March 2018

“Do this in remembrance of me."

§  We hear two different statements this evening – one from Paul and one from John. Paul talks about the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. John talks about the washing of feet.

§  Both are important to our lives as disciples of Christ. They are quite different and they are not at odds. In fact, they approach the same thing from different directions.

§  Paul writes that I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, namely that the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion is something we are commanded to do in remembrance of Jesus. If we “re-member”, we take part in the event again. We use our memory and our faith to bring what happened in the past into the present. In a sense, when we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are there in the Upper Room with the first followers of Jesus.

§  Taking part in what Jesus has given us in this sacrament unites the past, the present, and the future in what might be called “a moment out of time.” Nothing magical, but certainly something grace-filled.

§  In John’s retelling of the Last Supper, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. This is a tremendously humble act and one that shows both humility and love. Jesus tells the people whose feet he has just washed For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

§  Oddly enough, this washing does more for the one washing than for those washed. It is not intended to be a simple cleansing from dirt, but an action of service to the members of the community. It is a symbolic act, but symbols convey the reality, much as our language does.

§  So we have a community meal and an act of service to the members of the community. They are as simple as simple can be: bread, wine, and washing with water. Yet the presence of Jesus is carried into our own day and into our own lives in these simple actions.

§  Luke’s Gospel tells of the two disciples who encountered the unknown Jesus on the road to Emmaus and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.  Jesus also said that By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. It would be the mark of the disciples of Jesus.

§  An early Christian writer, Tertullian of Carthage wrote of how the world saw the Christians of his day: "Look," they say, "how they love one another…"

§  This is how I (for one) would want to see Jesus Christ in my time; to hear his Word, to know him in the breaking of the bread, and to see his love embodied in his friends, following his example.

§  Hear… eat… serve… These might be three words the sum up the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ… because he said “Do this in remembrance of me."

Palm / Passion Sunday --- 25 March 2018

Philippians 2:5-11

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus

·       What is the mind of Christ Jesus?

·       Paul explains this in his letter to the Philippians. It is more than a way of thinking; it is a way of acting by which the disciple can reflect Jesus to the world. It’s easier to say it than to do it.

·       Paul tells the community to whom he’s writing that they are to live out the mind of Christ and reminds them who Jesus is, namely the Son of God who emptied himself to be born as one of us and further humbled himself to die a criminal’s death. In simple terms, God was put to death by God’s creation.

·       The British spiritual writer, C.S. Lewis wrote “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” Jesus thought no less of himself and did not despise himself. What he did do was to think of himself less, to humble himself in obedience to his Father’s will, and to give himself up to a criminal’s death, not for his own glory but for our sake.

·       His disciples may take him has the model for our lives. The mind of Christ then in our model, our goal, and our way of living. The life of the community is formed by the mind of Christ -- by a spirit of humility and loving service to one another rather than competition and grasping for power and control.

·       There has never been a more radical way of living than this. It would change us and it could change the world.

·       The problem could be as simple as this: The Gospel has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried. (from G.K. Chesterton)

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Fifth Sunday of Lent ---- 18 March 2018

John 12:20-33

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. 27 "Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say--"Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him." 30 Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.  They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."

·       This might not seem so strange to us, that is, a request by some people to one of the apostles to see and meet Jesus. What is unusual is the people who asked. They are “Greeks”, which could mean they could be Jewish people who spoke Greek and lived outside of Judea among the other folk. It could mean that they were Greek people who had become Jewish by conversion, which did happen in those days. The fact that they were in the temple for worship means that they were Jewish and not pagans from Greece.

·       They have a request: "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." It makes sense; Jesus is well known and respected by the people. He has recently raised a man – Lazarus – from the dead, a spectacular event. When he entered the city, just a short time prior to this meeting, he was met with crowds waiving palm branches, after which the Pharisees said ‘You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!’

·       However their request to see Jesus has a deeper meaning. Now, in them, the entire world has come to see Jesus. Jesus responds with a prayer and a further declaration that when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. John noted that this is a reference to the death he was to suffer, being lifted up on the Cross. It is in this cross that we come to know Jesus in his most real sense as the saviour of the world.

·       The Greek’s request is the request all of us who have encountered Jesus have in one way or another. The desire to see, to meet Jesus is always with us. If he is the one who loves us and the one who is the pattern for the lives of all believers, the desire to meet him, see him, know him would be great.

·       Although Jesus is called the Word-made-flesh and was like us in all things but sin, we do not see him as he is now. The Gospels tell of his appearances to the disciples and of his ascension to heaven. All of them are quite mysterious and powerful and still leave us wondering. The desire to meet and know Jesus as he is would be great. Barring a special situation, we do not meet Jesus this way… as much as we might want to.

·       Where we do encounter Jesus is in the Word, in the Gospels and in the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures. We encounter him in the letters, written by Paul, John, Peter, or some unnamed disciple, that give us some of the experiences of the early Church. We hear the word of witnesses to the life, preaching, and power of Jesus. To us, as the letter to the Hebrews states the word of God is living and active (Heb. 4:12). As to the Word itself, Jesus says Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (Matt. 24:35) Jesus is called the Word of God and that Word is something we can hear. The Gospel of John tell us that it was written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)

·       We also encounter Jesus in those actions we call “Sacrament.” In Baptism, we receive the grace of new life in Christ as we come to the simple washing with water. Every time we see that simple and yet grace-filled action, we remember our own baptism, even if we were then too young to know what was going on. The Word-filled water is for us as well.

·         In the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Eucharist, we encounter Jesus, for he said Do this in remembrance of me. (1 Cor. 11:24) and he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Lk. 24:35) 

·       Finally, we encounter Jesus present in the community of believers, For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. (Matt. 18:20) How the community of Christians stands in the world can show the face of Jesus not only to the members of the community but to the entire world as well.

·       Isn’t that what our on-going mission to entire world is?

They came to Philip … and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."

The Fourth Sunday in Lent ---- 11 March 2018

Ephesians 2:1-10

 You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ --by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- not the result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

·       What we hear in this passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians might be called “thick-cut theology.” It isn’t spiritual milk for the newest disciples; It is the real meat of the Good News and there’s lots to chew on here. Some might find it hard to swallow.

·       Step by step then; by grace you have been saved… That phrase lays low all attempts to earn God’s favour or heaven or however you want to say it. We don’t like grace at first; we prefer accomplishment with all the accompanying parades, speeches, and theme music… like the parades that follow the winning of the Stanley Cup. We think we like saving ourselves and working our way into heaven, and getting what we deserve.

·       Getting what we deserve, the sort of thing that is called “Karma” in a number of places, carries with it the idea that everybody else should get what THEY deserve, too. This implies that we can (and possibly should) decide what others deserve.

·       Next step: you have been saved through faith. Do our beliefs save us? If they do, what do we need God for? What do we need Jesus for? What is the value of the Cross? Being saved through faith means our faith grasps the presence of grace, especially when our senses and our intellect do not and can not.

·       Next step: this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. Simply put, there is no “do-it-yourself” salvation. There is no buying heaven and there is no storming of heaven and taking it by violence. We are not “self-made” saints, who can be proud of humility and having achieved a seat at the heavenly banquet through hard work, perseverance, and blessed coincidence.

·       Next step: not the result of works... We have to face facts: we like success and successful people and we honour hard workers. And we should. We like league leaders and gold medal winners. There really is no reason not to. The recognition of excellence is not a bad thing. This sometimes leads people to excel at things themselves. These, however, are things within our reach to do. It is the grace of God and the gift of salvation that is the point of our discussion here. We all have our gifts – whatever they might be, and we should take them for what they are – as gifts of God that we are able to cultivate. Our relationship with God is not such a gift, that is, one that depends on our cultivation. What really happens is our recognition of God’s grace as a free, undeserved gift leads us to want know and understand more.

·       The next step: so that no one may boast. Paul takes note of boasting in more than one place in his letters. Jesus mentions it is a sideways manner in telling what the so-called “hypocrites” do; blowing a horn as they give alms, praying on street corners in order to be seen. If salvation is a gift, then no one has any grounds on which to boast. Is one person’s salvation of higher quality than someone else’s? Are you more saved than me? If we have all received the gift, there can be no boasting.

·       We might think about the holy people we’ve met and the saints we’ve read about. They stand as reflections of God’s grace in a very tangible way. There is no boasting here, but there is a recognition of the gifts of God for all to see. Such people would be the first to admit that all they have was owed to God and not to their own work and actions.

·         There is another step not mentioned in the part of the passage I’ve focused on. We can read further: For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. How we act, what we do in our lives as disciples of Christ are not the works that save us, but  such good works show our gratitude to God. How we live, what we do, whatever we may accomplish flow out of God’s saving grace. How we live out our faith is not a way to please God in hope of gaining grace and salvation but an expression of gratitude for what can only be seen as a free gift.

·       Now that’s the way to live… in gratitude through grace.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

The Third Sunday in Lent --- 4 March 2018

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

§  Paul’s message could be seen as rather upsetting. He focuses on the cross of Christ and leaves a lot of other things behind. He tell the Christians in Corinth that he’d rather focus on Christ’s cross than on any other thing.

§  Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom… In Paul and Jesus’ time, the Jewish authorities rejected Jesus because he didn’t fulfill all the points on their “Messianic check-list.” He didn’t do or match up with their required signs. Paul was jailed and beaten and run out of town because he did the same thing in proclaiming a crucified Christ. The so-called Greeks, actually people who accepted the Greek or Hellenistic culture of the Mediterranean world, sought out what they called “wisdom” and a crucified man would not be seen as wise,

§  …we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles Paul says the preaching of “Christ crucified” is unacceptable to either Jews or Greeks. Such a thing was foolish to the Greeks (“Can you imagine a suffering god who gains nothing for himself?”) and a scandal to the Jews. (In Greek, a scandal or skandalon is a stone to stumble over, like the bar of concrete at the end of a parking space.)

§  Since the mercy and grace of God shown in Jesus Christ does not fit into either way of thinking, it is rejected by those who think that way. It becomes clear that both the desire for signs or for wisdom flow from the demand that the self should always be right and be the center of the world. Simply put, like planets orbiting the sun, everything has to revolve around “me.” (or you or him or her.)

§  In our own time and place, this still happens. Some look for power, others for riches, still others for righteousness, for fame, for absolute security, or for so many other things. Worlds are measured according to these rulers. The cross continues to be rejected because it does not appear to lead to fame and fortune, to an easy life, or to a morality that dazzles everyone.

§  The cross of Jesus Christ cuts through all of those measures, all of those supports, and even cuts away the self. As Paul’s preaching of Christ crucified became foolishness to some and a scandal for others, it is the same in our day. It does not show power as humans know power. It does not generate riches; who wants to hear about death and dishonor? It does not bring about security as the world around us knows security, namely the safety for all our belongings, our status, our good name, and even our lives and livelihoods.

§  Some in our day demand proof of what their faith proclaims, showing it to be purer, and ‘right-er.” Others demand facts to show that science and experimentation prove them to be in charge. Both desire to be ‘right’ and show the other to be ‘wrong.’ Both point to “ME.”

§  We also need to ask ourselves if we feel that the Cross allows us special insight or a better vision, unclouded by the messiness of life. These too can be expressions of a desire to be in charge and on top. It’s the same sin we’ve heard of before when …the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ A few years ago, I knew a rabbi who said that the First Commandment ("I am the Lord your God...") was primary and the other nine were commentary, showing how we always try to be God.

§  The Cross of Christ lays bare all of our schemes and plans to be God. The Cross of Christ leaves us powerless before God since it reveals the power of God in a way we’d never expect… or deserve. For those who have come to realize that they cannot save themselves, this is nothing less than the Good News. We might be fools in the eyes of the world around us. If so, let’s all be fools for Christ together.

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.