Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter Day: Waiting and Searching for Resurrection


Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26 

John 20:1-18 


I first visited Jerusalem in 2007 with  a group of other British clergy who’d been invited to a nine day seminar at Yad Yashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial.  For many of us it was our first time in Israel, but we were extremely fortunate to have among us wonderful leader and veteran traveler to the Holy Land, Jane Clements.  We arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in the middle of an early April morning before dawn, and were driven through dark Israeli roads and higheways to a hotel in West Jerusalem.  Few of us could sleep, and for many all we could think about was, of course, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre containing within its ancient walls both the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and the tomb hewn out of rock in which his body had been laid.  On our second day, some of us arranged to get up very early in the morning, before the scheduled activities began, and go into Jerusalem to visit the Sepulchre.  We arose before dawn and took cabs to the Jaffa Gate.  On arriving we entered on foot into the old city itself and Jane, the only one of us who’d been there before, led us down the darkened, ancient streets towards the holy site.  The narrow, sometimes covered streets of old Jerusalem are hardly a fine example of city planning,  and in only the dawn light even someone like Jane, a seasoned visitor to those streets, can get turned around as they make their way through them.  For myself, I was surpisied: surely, the Church of the Holy Sepuchre must be one of the most important buildings within the old city’s walls.  I expected that even above the crowded rooftops we should see its tower; that even in the early morning we should hear its bells.  Still, we took several wrong turns, and passed parts of the city we never intended to see that morning, but finally walking down a very narrow street – almost an alleyway – I heard Jane’s voice ahead saying, “I found it.  We’re here.”  As I walked past the alley’s end I found myself surprisingly in an open courtyard, the “plaza” – for lack of a better word – in front of the church’s main doors.  It was a thrilling experience, and one of my fellow travelers reflecting afterwards said how it brought to mind for him the first Easter morning with a woman in the semi-light discovering and leading the way to the surprising reality which had unfolded in the night.  “We’re here.  Alleluia, the Lord is risen”.

As many of you know, I am not wont to tell stories in my sermons, much less personal ones.  I leave that to people who’ve had more lively and interesting lives than myself.  But this Easter this one came to mind; perhaps on account the feast’s early date this year, and hence the mornings being not fully bright, or perhaps because recently in going through some papers I came across a card Jane gave me when I left England.  I am not completely sure.  But, nevertheless I am struck by the story’s themes of light and darkness, of searchng and finding, of being surprised by where we have traveled, even when the way is one already familiar from previous walking.  I am struck by the ways in which these themes play out also in the resurrection narratives, and how they manifest themselves as we try to live out the resurrection life. 

For many in our world, Easter is full of color – decorated eggs, pastel-hued dresses, brightly be-ribboned baskets.  But those who make even a cursory reading of the resurrection narratives in the Gospel, discover how different is the setting of that first Easter, and that it cannot be separated or understood apart from the events leading up to it, the events we commemorated throughout Holy Week – Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, his betrayal, his crucifixion and death.  Moreover, that coming into a resurrection faith was not instant for any of Jesus’ followers.  They all seemed to grope in the semi-darkness of their minds and experiences in order to be able to appropriate this radically fresh understanding of God and of salvation.  And while the revelation of the resurrection life offered in Jesus is all grace, all free from a gracious God, we may sometimes have to search for it, even hunt for it.  It is not obvious, because it often flies in the face of our conditioning and expectations.  When such an event, is so far removed from our received paradigms, it is sometimes easier to believe that it has not happened at all simply because it has not happened as we expcted, than actually transform our hearts and minds to see the really new thing God is doing.

Of the gospel narratives it the Gospel of John – the one proclaimed this morning – with which people are most familiar.  In it we see so clearly the themes played out of conditioned expectations, of things seen only in the dim light of morning, of searching and of a willingness to search.  Peter Simon and another of the disciples are summoned by Mary Magdalen to the tomb after she discovered it empty, but they context blinds them.  The see their hope for a victorious king who would deliver his people as dying with Jesus on the cross.  Undoubtedly, what they saw and witnessed that morning certainly had an effect on them.  Still, while the gospel writers records that one of them went into the tomb “and he saw and believed” (John 20:9), the exact nature of this belief is ambiguous, because, as the writer of John continues, “they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (John  20:10); and then the disciples returned to their homes.  Still, in the dark, physically and spiritually.  Only Mary stays, and she stays weeping.  Only Mary is willing to wait and see this through.  Her difficult life may have taught her that people do not return from the dead, that while she loved Jesus and followed him, love is not necessarily stronger than death.  All she knows about the world tells her to move on.  Jesus’ enemies have won.  They have not only betrayed, humiliated and killed him, but they have now even desecrated his burial place and his body.  And when she meets him she remains faithful, albeit blind.  She persists in looking for him, looking for him as she expected: a cold dead, body.  Still she is willing to serve and minster to a dead Jesus and says to the supposed gardener: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” (John 20:15)  And then it happens, Jesus’ voice, Jesus’ words fall on her ears, and somehow she believes.  Believes in way entirely different than did the other disciple, because she calls Jesus by his familiar title among his followers, Rabounni, Teacher, and she carries joyfully the news to her fellows, announcing to them, “I have seen the Lord”, and telling them all that Jesus had said to her. (cf. John 20:18)  Mary not only believed, but unlike the other disciple she also incroporated the resurrection reality into her being, and because she did this she was able to not just return home, but return home with a message, with the Good News of what God was doing among his people.

What Mary discovers is that resurrection is not a magic trick, it is not something which hits us across the face, but rather seems to be something which happens in the dim and the dark, which we sometimes have to wait for and sometimes have to search out for.  It is something which usually surprises us and plays tricks on our expectations.  At the same time, it is more glorious than we could have expected, because there is no fantasy about it, there is only the stark reality of being; and in our world we are so very rarely privileged a glimpse into the really real.  The resurrection is the invitation to live in the real and to affirm life wherever we find it, no matter how much we may have to search for it, or wait for it.  It is the invitation to be surprised beyond our expectations.  We know this because in the resurrection of Jesus God shows us how he brings life out of the darkest of events and conditions, out of the most unexpected of places and reveals it to the most unexpected of people.  Christian belief is not simply belief in the resurrection of Jesus, but in Resurrection; that resurrection – new life – is the pattern of creation, the narrative of God’s world.  Christian belief in resurrection, in new life, compels us to constantly seek for and celebrate new life wherever we find it.  This belief manifests itself in the willingness to sit in and with the darkness, because we know the truth about new life and God’s victory over all opposed to life in all its rich diversity.  A ressurrection faith resolves itself in the willingness to share the truth of that new life not by proslytezing, but by living it.

I began this morning speaking of a trip to the Church of the Holy Sepuchre, and a search in the early morning through the dimly lit streets of old Jerusalem.  It was Jane’s insistence that the sepulchere was really “just around the corner” which at every turn kept us moving forward and which brought us eventually to the reality of the magnificently holy and strange place.  It was not at all what I had expected.  It was smaller, dirtier, more rundown than my imagination had conceived.  But slowly my presuppositions were converted and transformed by the reality of the place.  Crouching into the chapel of the tomb as have done millions of pilgrims through the ages, I became acutely aware of the God who brings life in the smallest, darkest and most cramped of  places and of the many millions who have colloborated with him to discover and reveal it in the small, dark, cramped places of their world.

The great question of Easter, is not so much “Do you believe in the resurrection?” but “What are you doing to reveal the reality of the resurrection already present?”  After all even the un-named disciple believed, but he just went back home; to business as usual, we can only assume.  It was Mary who would not let go; who wept in the darkness by the tomb and who searched out where Jesus might be even when it meant questioning a stranger.  And it was Mary who in the end led the other disciples to the reality which none had really thought possible, the reality which overthrew so many of their ideas and conventional expectations.  It was she who led them into a place of naked being – that overcame all forms of non-being.

May we be worthy ourselves not only to believe the resurrection, but to live resurrection; to search out for and reveal life in the dark and most unexpected of places and, as one of the Easter Vigil collect says to “let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made.”

Maundy Thursday: Hospitality, Service and Love


Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Hospitality is perhaps what we might call a “forgotten” spiritual discipline.  Yet, it seems to pervade much of the Bible.  In the Hebrew Scriptures it is woven into the Mosaic law, most likely due in part to its central role in the nomadic culture out of which Judaism arose and was formed; after all, when you are wandering you hope others will offer you shelter from the harsher elements, as we all as food and water, and so modelling that practice is a fairly good idea.  In the New Testament also hospitality features largely.  So many of Jesus’ parables are centred around a banquet to which all are invited, signalling God as host welcoming everyone.  Jesus’ vision  of the kingdom, is one marked most significantly by God’s hospitality.  His entire ministry is one of bodily hospitality, welcoming disciples, friends, the distressed and desperate, the oppressed and neglected.  It’s hardly surprising that one of the most consistent criticisms levelled at Jesus by his detractors in the Gospels is that he offers hospitality to those beyond the social pale, and he in turn accepts their hospitality and breaks the strict social convention governing table fellowship.  The Gospel of Luke details how “all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And [that] the Pharisees and the scribes [grumbled and said].  This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1-2) Indeed, we can understand Jesus’ very presence among us and his entering into  human history as intimately linked to hospitality.  In a talk, the notes of which are posted online, Richard Horner notes the connection between incarnation and hospitality, sayng that while “incarnation is the crossing over into other people’s worlds so genuinely that they see Christ in you…, hospitality is the welcoming of others into your world so openly that they see Christ in you.”

Christian hospitality is a lot more than simply a social code among people of polite manners and within polite society.  It is much more radical than that, breaking down divisions and crossing categories, including that of divine and human.  And what we discover as we live with the Scriptures and the Tradition, is that hospitality is not an added extra, an optional feature, but a commandment, and central to the way we are to live our lives as Christians – “whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28) – and it is one of the chief criterion by which we will be judged – “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;…[for] I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:34-35)  But tonight, just in case we haven’t quite got it, Jesus makes this truth clear with the immediacy of flesh touching flesh, by kneeling before his disciples and washing their feet, performing the customary act of a host in the ancient near east; and then he says to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am.  So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one anothers feet.  For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.  Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.  If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” (John 13:12b-17)  And in case, we still do not get it, the Church calls for us to re-member Jesus actions, making those past events, a palpable, present reality.  

What Jesus reveals to his disciples then and to his disciples now is that at the heart of Christian hospitality is humility, the willingness to see the other as not so unlike us, and in need our ministry, our ministrations and welcome.  Christian hospitality so often and usually resolves itself in service, most especially as we recognize that we are all of us in same boat.  When sensitively considered, we recognize that Christian hospitality doesn’t actually cross social boundaries and categories, but lives the reality of God’s perspective that these do not in fact exist, that in Christ they have been permanently and for ever brought down.  This realization, enables us to come into the reality of our inherent same-ness, as it were; that we are all in this together.  We are all of us equally as high, equally as low; and all of this touches on the idea of humility as it affirms we are all made from humus, the Latin word for earth or ground  This is well expressed in little-known hymn from the Sacred Harp tradition, Cross of Christ.  Contemplating Christ’s command of tonight, it asks the powerful question: “Shall I a worm, refuse to stoop, by fellow worm disdain?  I give my vain distinctions up, since Christ did wait on men.”

We have gone from hospitality to service to humility.  But is there here a spiritual discipline?  I would suggest most emphatically, yes.  Not least, because the purpose of any spiritual discipline is to help us grow into better “disciples” of Christ, better equipped to witness in the world to his transforming love; and certainly hospitality and its attendants make that love palpable.  All the spiritual disciplines we have looked at throughout Lent help us  to be the kind of people who make Christ’s love known in the world.  Hospitality, service, is the one discipline which shows it forth very directly, very immediately.  While the others foster in the us the ability to love; the practice of hospitality makes love manifest.  And again, just in case this isnt’t crystal clear tonight’s Gospel highlights it– “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” (John 13:34-35); and the name by which we know today, Maundy Thursday brings home the fact, that ultimately this evening is about that mandatum, that commandment to love.

Hospitality is the spiritual discipline which calls us out of ourselves most emphatically, bringing us into the awareness of the fundamental connectedness we have with one another.  It directs us to service, and shows forth love.  It is telling that the night before he is put to death, it is this which Jesus makes most manifest.  Whether it is in washing his disciples feet as John records, or in breaking bread with them as the other Gospels depict, the night before his death Jesus performs acts of  hospitality, service, humility and love, modelling for his disciples a path which must inform our spirituality if we are to be called by his name:  “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35)  May our lives and actions make us ever worthy to be counted among one of his own.

Wednesday of Holy Week: A Rule of Life is Regular and Intentional


Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 70
Hebrews 12:1-3
John 13:21-32

The Community of Reconciliation at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. describes itself as a “monastery beyond walls” which “engages the ancient-yet-evergreen wisdom and practice of Benedictine spiritual life.”  Like all monastic communities the lives of its members are grounded in a Rule, and the last two evenings here we have been discussing the idea of a Rule of Life.  Last night, most specifically, we spoke in terms of the Bendictine principle of balance; balancing prayer, study, recreation, work and hospitality, elements of crucial importance to every human being.  In one of the community’s publications, Creating a Rule of Life, they write: “Consider your Rule of Life as a trellis upon which you plant, water, and cultivate your relationship with God, with your deepest self and with one another.  Remember your Rule of Life is for your support and growth.”  As we continue to think about our own Rule of Life, this is a not a bad image to contemplate – the Rule as the framework for our growth and development.  And so the question of what is life-giving to one becomes a central question in crafting a Rule of Life.

The past two nighta we have examined issues around self-assesment, self examination, as well as issues surrounding the need for balance.  The first demands that we take honest stock of ourselves, the second that we discern the imbalances of our lives, so as to apply corrective techniques and bring into healthy balance those aspects of our lives gone askew.  Both are foundational to creating a rule of life.  Once we have done this, it is always a good principle to begin where one is.  One can only ever begin a new journy, a new project, start off in a new direction from exactly where one is.  So to begin from where we are is a good idea.  A good exercise is to create five columns; title each for one of the five aspect of a rule of life – prayer, work, study recreation, hospitality.  Under each place the different part of your life, the various activities in which you enage.  What does this tell?  Are there aspects of my life I had not seen as prayer, but indeed have brought me into a deeper relationship with God?  Are there aspects which I experience as hospitality, but is really about social climbing.  Have I mistaken sloth for recreation?  Yes, this is still a bit of self-assesment as well as discerning balance.  But now we are dealing with also the issue of intentionality, because a Rule of Life is not just about balance, but about intentionality and regularity.  For example, while certainly there are times in our lives when we may be overwhelmed by the need to pray, that is not the norm of an intentional prayer life.  Equally, while we may on the spur of the moment offer a “hand-out” to someone who asks on the street, this is not a disciplined approach to hospitality. 

So intentionality is important; if not, then – at best – our spiritual disciplines can become as-and-when activities, at worst, activities in which we engage simply to make ourselves feel good; and our modern drive toward feeling good or happy, notwithstanding, the aim of a genuine Rule of Life is neither.  Rather, it is growth.  Speaking biologically, we do not grow or develop by eating as and when and only those things which make us “feel” good.  We grow and develop physically best by eating regularly, by intentionally taking in a balanced meal three times a day.  This is as true for spiritual growth as for physical.  How intentional is our prayer life?  Or is it merely, a series of occassional bursts in times of distress or need, or simply series of Sunday installments?  How planned is our giving and volunteering?  How willing are we to see our work as an intentional part of our spiritual life, rather than simply the means to make money in order so that we can get on with our life?

Developing a rule a life means taking the parts of our lives and seeing them in the eyes of God, and arranging them in such a way that they faciliatate growth.  Perhaps, this none of this helpful, because it is not specific enough; but that is the problem in speaking about this in generalities.  Each Rule of Life is tailored to an individual and so we can offer only the most general of outlines and and recommendations.  If you are serious about developing a Rule of Life, the best is to speak with – as I have suggested before – a friend who knows you well, with a soul-friend or a spiritual director.  But always keep in mind balance, intentionality and regularity as the hallmarks of any Rule of Life as you seek to lean into the growth to which God ever calls.
            

Tuesday of Holy Week: A Rule of Life is About Balance and Wholeness


Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 36:5-11
Hebrews 9:11-15

John 12:1-11

We have been spending Lent considering various Christian spiritual disciplines – fasting, fixed-hour prayer, pilgrimage, almsgiving, examination of confession.  Yet, how do we work these various disciplines, and others, into a cohesive, balanced life practice?  Not practiced consistently, intentionally and regularly, these disciplines can very easily become mere experiences we dip into, but which have little wider meaning – simply isolated actvities, hardly part of a wider context of discipline and transformtion.  For centuries, Christians have developed a Rule of Life in order engage with prayer and other spiritual disciplines in ways which are thought-out, intentional and, above all, regular.  Indeed the Latin word for “rule” is regula, and it is in this way we should understand how it is used in “Rule of Life” – a Rule of Life is regular.  A Rule of Life then is an intentional, regular pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for spiritual growth, a structure in which spiritual formation – and transformation – is facilitated.  Tonight and the next two evenings, we will be examining what this could mean for us, and perhaps move some way in developing or recognizing our own Rule of Life.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God spoke to the people of Israel saying “I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” (Isaiah 42:6-7)  God calls us to all sorts of things, most especially to be signs of the Kingdom, of the new creation springing forth.  But half-hearted willy-nilly responses serve no one well, and so we all need a rule, a system, by which we can be formed more closely into who God is calling us to be, in order that we can do what God is calling us to do.  As mentioned, this system must be regular, but it must also be balanced and realistically appropriate to our circumstances.  For example, making a weekly quiet day part of one’s Rule of Life is simply not feasible if one is the primary care-giver to children or someone bed-ridden.  And so, developing a Rule of Life is an exercise in discovering a balance in the various aspects of our lives: prayer, study, recreation, work, hospitality.  How do each of these fit into each other and the greater whole?  Is there a balance?  How do – and which of – the traditional spiritual practices we have been examining during Lent enable and inform the various parts of our lives, encouraging balance and growth.

In beginning to consider a Rule of Life various things should come into play.  Certainly, our cirumstances, but also our temperament, and natural inclinations.  Morever, it is crucial to bear in mind that “in order to be life-giving, a Rule must be realistic.  It is not an ideal toward which you are striving to soar.”  One writer described it in this way, “Your initial Rule should be a minimum standard for your life that you do not drop below.  It’s a realistic level of engaging in the spiritual disciplines for which you can honestly and truly be held accountable.”  We can see the wisdom in this.  We have all begun grandiose – and impossible projects – with the best of intentons, only to find ourselves all too quickly overwhelmed by them and just as quickly abandoning them.  A Rule should be something which while stretching us, is acheivable, and which enhances the quality of our lives.  For all these reasons, many suggest that in developing a Rule of Life, it is best to begin by an honest self-assessment, examining one’s self – temperament, gifts, temptations, as well as one’s life situation – family responsibilities, work schedule and other life situation.  Such an assesment acomplishes  a number of things:  it can help us see more clearly the reality of our ciscumstances; often reveal the imbalances in our  lives, pointing to adjustments most needed; and highlight the disciplines which might be more helpful.  In discerning these, conversation with a close friend, a soul-friend or spiritual director is of great benefit.

As we walk the way of the cross this week, it would be a good time to walk also in the challenging path of self-assesment, self-examination, that through it we may discover how to walk also “in the way of life and peace”.  Tonight is a beginning.  May it bear fruit.