Third Sunday of Easter

Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
Luke 24:13-35

Grace and peace to you.

Sometime ago I discovered a podcast published by Our State magazine called “Away Message.” A Greensboro reporter travels all over the state sharing the stories of places that are off the beaten path. In the finale from the first season, recorded three years ago he walks from his house in Guildford County to his office in downtown Greensboro and as he walks he records the people he sees and the conversations he has, and how different his 14 mile commute sounds and looks on foot compared to the short drive he usually takes to get to his office.

As I was imagining the two disciples walking to Emmaus, some seven miles from Jerusalem, I remembered that reporter and his story, and also saw that his story and that of the disciples and ours today are all one story.

The Ingles in Kings Mountain, Cline’s Nursery up Fallston Road and Crest High School all are a little less than seven miles from the sanctuary. It isn’t like walking this discipleship journey is taking us to far away places or beginning a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We are in familiar territory.

And yet, we are on the road, on the Way, with Jesus.

And especially right now, our lives look, feel and sound differently than they have in the past.

It’s easy to recognize the holy when we are on mountaintops and in sacred spaces like our sanctuary or celebrating the Passion of Christ during Holy Week, but as the disciples in Luke’s gospel discover, when we are in familiar or unremarkable surroundings, we can have more difficulty.

Jesus invites the travelers into conversation. His question to them is literally, “What words are you tossing back and forth?” Isn’t that so much of what our conversation feels like right now? Words tossed back and forth, from the news to us and from us to a friend, and then back to the news. The disciples are trying to get at the heart of the matter, to make sense of the cross, and sadly are unable to sort it out.

I confess that I don’t like the next bit of our gospel story. It sounds to me like Jesus is scolding the disciples and then lecturing them , showing them where they had missed the signs in Scripture that point to him being the Messiah and how they had forgotten his own words foretelling his death and resurrection. I’ll be honest - I like the Jesus who eats with his friends and heals the sick more than this One. But then I remember John’s Gospel where the gospel writer tells us

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. …grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

“Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Jesus tells the truth; in Luther’s words, he calls a thing what it is. And when my eyes are clouded and I cannot see the Way, I am grateful Jesus is there to set me straight.

And the disciples don’t seem bothered by this talking-to; in fact, when it looks like Jesus is going to leave them and continue on, they urge him to stay with them. Last summer I discovered an icon, a religious image, of Mary that called her the “un-tier of knots” and I wonder if that isn’t how the disciples felt listening to Jesus. Instead of feeling scolded or lectured, perhaps listening to him helped unknot or untie what the psalmist calls the cords of death and the anguish of the grave.

And then when Jesus was at the table with them, and took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, their eyes were opened and they remembered how their hearts had burned within them as he had spoken about all these things. With perfect hindsight, they recognized they had been in the presence of the holy.

We are not participating in the sacrament of Holy Communion, or the Table, while we are apart, but later in worship I will invite you into spiritual communion, a practice of prayer shared by our full-communion partners in The Episcopal Church. In the absence of the physical wine and bread, broken, blessed and given, where else may our eyes be opened to see the holy in our midst?

Certainly with the psalmist we can begin with words of thanksgiving and praise. We first call on the name of the Lord because we know God’s promises to us, and then we call on the name of the Lord again as we experience the freedom of being rescued from sin and death and loved by God - the freedom to have our eyes opened to all that is holy.

Where else may we not merely glimpse Jesus but listen to God’s Word and pay attention to where God is being revealed?

Perhaps it’s in a conversation with a neighbor that would have been missed if you both got into your cars and left the house each day.

Or it’s in slowing down to look around you and notice when your heart is burning – where have you experienced joy this week?

The questions I leave for you on this third Sunday of Easter are:

When have you experienced the peace of knowing God is present with you?

What is a gift that you have received during this time of worshiping from home?

Let us pray…
Redeeming God,
We give thanks for your only Son made known to us in the breaking of the bread.
Close to Your heart, He brings grace and truth to us all.
Open our eyes and hearts to Your love and forgiveness and make us aware of your Holy presence with us.
May your grace sustain us as we follow Jesus.
We pray in your Holy name.
Amen.

Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

Grace and peace to you.

For the next few weeks at least, I will be preaching from an ‘exile lectionary.’ While the Revised Common Lectionary includes additional readings from First Peter and the Acts of the Apostles, our worship during these weeks will focus on the psalms and gospels. The gospels continue to give us stories from Jesus’ life and ministry and the psalms invite us to bare our emotions before God, both expressing thanksgiving and trust and crying out in lament or sorrow, acknowledging both the grief we are experiencing and our confidence in God’s presence with us.

One of the griefs I have right now is that, during this period of staying at home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, home is no longer a place where we rest from busy-ness or we gather with family and friends for celebrations. Instead for parents and school-age children, home is now also a classroom. For many workers, it has become an office. For many people who have higher risk for the virus, it has become a place of isolation and quarantine. And for others still it has become a place where they are now at an even higher risk for domestic violence or abuse. So “home” may no longer be a place that brings comfort or the place where our hearts rest well. In our psalm this morning the psalmist reminds us all that when we are homeless, when our security and safety feel jeopardized, when we cannot find comfort in the familiar, God is our refuge and stronghold and our habitation.

That’s something that the disciples appear to have forgotten. They heard Mary’s proclamation when she found the tomb empty and met Jesus nearby, but they didn’t go to Galilee as they’d been told. Instead, hours later on Easter evening, they are locked behind closed doors, full of fear. The Good News Mary brought could inspire hope but it could not eliminate their fear.[i]

Thankfully, God's love for us is not dependent on our emotions or our actions.

So Jesus shows up for the disciples. He enters through locked doors and says, “Peace to you.”

This is his first appearance to the ones who deserted him at his crucifixion. Peter is there, trying to shrink into the shadows of the room as he sees the resurrected Christ and remembers how he denied him three times. The one who Jesus loves is there but the knowledge of his Lord’s love hadn’t kept him from being overcome by fear with the other disciples.

And even after his first appearance, they stay locked behind closed doors for another week, imprisoned by fear and uncertainty. We don’t know what their experience of that week was like – what questions they asked or how they second-guessed what they had seen and heard. But fear isn't new to us. And acting out of fear, our impulse is to turn inward - it is the definition of sin that Luther gives us. And when we do that we cannot breathe deeply or love abundantly. What the gospel tells us is that it wasn't until Jesus appears a second time that the disciples appear to be able to receive the peace God gives them in the presence of Jesus.

Do you remember when two years ago in Thailand twelve young soccer players and their 25-year-old coach wound up trapped in an underwater cave? For 18 days the world watched as the search and rescue effort unfolded and ultimately succeeded. And while there was death - one of the Navy seals died when his air supply ran out - ultimately, the boys, the coach and the other rescuers were all delivered from fear and danger. Imagine the relief and hopefulness the trapped youth experienced when they realized they were not alone, that salvation was coming. But I expect the time between them first knowing people were working on a solution, and their ultimate safety was filled with questions and doubts.

Anne Lamott wrote once, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.” [ii] Faith isn’t about having head knowledge or more information; it is about being in relationship with the living God.

Reading this gospel two thousand years later we don’t have a face to face encounter with Jesus to sustain our faith; what we have is a relationship with our living God whose love for us is more powerful than any human limits or circumstances.[iii] And, we have the witness of those who went before us and shared from generation to generation. Similar to the disciples that first Easter week, during this period of quarantine and staying at home, the closure of businesses and the suspension of our everyday activities has broken any illusion of control or certainty that we may have had. And yet, while we are scattered across the county in our homes, out of the church building and missing the physical presence of community, we have this witness from Scripture that Jesus shows up, no matter what uncertainty we are facing and what fears we are experiencing.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia. Alleluia.

[i] “Commentary of John 20:19-31.” Joy J Moore. Luther Seminary. WorkingPreacher.org
[ii] Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.
[iii] Francis J. Moloney SDB. John. Sacra Pagina.

Easter Sunday

Matthew 28:1-10

Grace and peace to you.

Have you ever wondered why the two women went to see the tomb early that morning? Maybe, like me, you have harmonized the different gospel stories and recall that Mark and Luke say they took spices in order to anoint Jesus, but neither Matthew nor John say that in their gospels.

So, it’s possible there were other reasons. Maybe they went for the same reasons we visit cemeteries and columbariums where our beloved rest, or that we visit monuments and public memorials as witnesses to those who died.

Perhaps they visited the tomb with eager and confident anticipation, fully expecting to meet the resurrected Christ, or maybe they vacillated between despair at the crucifixion and belief in the foretelling of his death that Jesus had made, and they went, cautiously hopeful, to the tomb.

Devotion, remembrance, witness. Despair, excitement and hope. All of these are part of the Easter story.

This Easter morning throughout the world Christians are celebrating Easter differently than we have in the past.

At Ascension, the flower cross that usually stands outside the church on Easter morning is waiting to make its appearance when we are no longer asked to stay home.

The organ is still, and no one is singing in the sanctuary.

The elements of bread and wine for Holy Communion are reserved for the day when we can gather in person again.

The kitchen is quiet and dark, without any biscuit or gravy, eggs, sausage or even coffee!

Maybe you’re thinking it doesn’t feel or sound or look like Easter.

Nearly eighty years ago when Dietrich Bonhoeffer was imprisoned in Germany, he wrote a letter to his parents, saying,

“I do want you to know that I am having a happy Easter in spite of everything. One of the advantages of Good Friday and Easter Day is that they take us out of ourselves, and make us think of other things, of life and its meaning, and its suffering and events. It gives us such a lot to hope for.”[i]

Especially today when I despair that we are not gathered together in person, I hear the angel tell Mary, “I know you are looking for Jesus… he is not here…he is going ahead of you.” (v. 5-7)

And I can let out the breath I didn’t even realize I have been holding, and be hopeful, because no matter where we are today, this is the day that the Lord has made, and Jesus has gone ahead of us.

While our sanctuary, our worship liturgies and rituals and our fellowship together are places where we find Jesus, especially on Easter morning, the angel’s words remind us there is no place that God’s love and presence does not reach and there is no death that Jesus does not conquer.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia. Alleluia.

[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Letters and Papers from Prison, April 25, 1943.

Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17, 31b-35 

Grace and peace to you.

Maundy Thursday is traditionally when we would hear the story of Jesus eating with his disciples before his arrest, and we would come to the table to receive the wine and the bread for the sacrament of Holy Communion. But because of the coronavirus, tonight is different, and thankfully, John’s gospel helps us imagine a different way of Jesus being with his disciples. In this account, we hear the story of Jesus washing their feet.

While we may know the story of Holy Week well enough to anticipate the denials and betrayals that are coming, at this point in the story, Peter has not yet denied Jesus and even Judas is still with him when he gets up from the table, pours water into a basin, and washes the disciples’ feet clean and then dries them.

The act of foot washing itself was ordinary. Even mundane. It was necessary. Sandaled feet walking on dusty roads get dirty. But it was usually the kind of work that was assigned to a slave or servant. Here, Jesus, welcomed days earlier into Jerusalem with shouts of Hosanna and proclaimed King of the Jews, humbled himself to serve the people around him.

Foot washing isn’t like splashing in a swimming pool or even a bathtub; it requires gentleness and compassion. Baring our feet, we expose our hardened callouses, painful corns, cracked or broken skin, and arthritic toes bent by age.

It requires vulnerability and humility, and we are not comfortable being vulnerable.

Many of us shun the idea of participating in a public footwashing; it asks too much of us. We worry what others will think or say. Every one of us carries shame from experiences somewhere in our lives, and we are afraid that vulnerability leaves us exposed. It risks too much.

After he washed the feet of his disciples, Jesus asked them “Do you know what I have done to you?”

Suddenly it’s clear that there’s more happening here than we can see. Led by Jesus, the ordinary has become sacred.

Humbling himself and washing their feet, Jesus has invited the disciples to be vulnerable, to surrender their fears and receive the very love of God, who already knows every inch of our bodies and our being and from whom no secrets are hid.

With never-ending love, God washes away our fears and doubts, the sweat and tears we shed from doing hard things, and the messiness of our lives.

Washed clean by the love of God, we are given a new command, to love others just as we have been loved.

We know how to do that! In this time of quarantine and staying at home, we love others by calling to check how they are; mailing cards to those who live alone; putting an extra can of soup into the collection bin at the grocery store; and staying home from unnecessary travel. Being vulnerable means showing up in the lives of people who are hurting. That doesn’t sound so frightening or impossible, or like it asks too much of us.

Maybe one of the gifts of this Maundy Thursday is that even as we are gathered together online and on the phone, we are just far enough apart to dispel some of those fears that we live with and risk being vulnerable, to each other and to God.

So tonight, after our hymn, I invite you to wash the hands of another person, or if, like me, you are alone, to wash your own hands, remembering that, especially now, the act of handwashing is an act of service to our neighbor.

Jesus reminds us that loving others doesn’t require the impossible, but that our most ordinary actions become sacred and extraordinary because they are grounded in God’s love for us.

Thanks be to God.

Palm Sunday

Matthew 21:1-11

Grace and peace to you.

Throughout Lent we have been in the wilderness, exploring what it means that we worship a God of new beginnings, a God who asks for our obedience and commitment, a God who invites us into life together with our neighbors, and a God whose Word speaks against the death that we experience in our brokenness. And we have looked for the places where God shows up in the wilderness.

One of the places I see God is when the lectionary texts connect to our current events. The texts for today were chosen nearly forty years ago, long before anyone could have foreseen Holy Week happening in the midst of a global pandemic. And yet, listening to Mathew’s account of Jesus entering Jerusalem, we hear, “The whole city was in turmoil.” If we were hearing from Mark, Luke or John today, we wouldn’t hear those words.

There may be a lot about the first century life in Israel that we don’t know or can’t understand, but Matthew’s words connect immediately to our current experience, and we can say, “oh, yeah, okay, I know something about turmoil these days.”

God speaks to us where we are. And that is Good News in turbulent times.

I was caught by this particular word we hear in Matthew’s gospel; the word translated as “turmoil” comes from a Greek word that means “to shake, agitate or cause to quake.” It can be a physical shaking, but it can also be mental or spiritual agitation.

Matthew’s Gospel begins with one of the infancy narratives that tell us how Jesus was born into the world. And how the birth of the One who was called the Messiah frightened King Herod and when the wise men tricked him, he was angered and infuriated. The king and his understanding of both kingship and kingdom were shaken by the birth of Jesus, the incarnation of God’s own Son. The assumptions he had made and what he thought he knew were changed.

According to Matthew, more than thirty years later, the world was still in turmoil, shaken and out of sorts. This year, for us, I think it matters less why that was the case. It is simply reassuring that God’s people have lived in turmoil throughout the ages, and we have witnesses throughout the centuries that God’s people, and God’s church, have survived.

Later this week, on the afternoon of our Lord’s crucifixion, we’ll hear that the world was shaken again. Matthew tells us that after Jesus breathed his last, the curtain of the temple that separated the holy of holies from the nave or sanctuary is torn in two, the earth shook and the rocks were split. And yet, we know that isn’t the end of the story.

For today in the midst of a world in turmoil and shaken by uncertainty and having to let go of expectations, may we remember that Jesus still leads on.

Jesus, the Son of God who came and lived among us because God so loves us, leads the crowds into Jerusalem on this Palm Sunday, triumphant not because he has fought wars and won,  but because he has announced a new kingdom and new life for all who follow him.

He is, as our next hymn says, the one who guides us by our hands into the promised land. He is our comforter and consoler, leading us home.

Thanks be to God.