4-12-2009, Easter Sunday
Salem-Luther Memorial Parish - Parrottsville, Tennessee
Mark 16:1-8
Being a fan of scary movies I often see movie promos employ the words every horror film fan lives to hear: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
Ever since the days of Bella Lagosi and Boris Karlov Hollywood has tried to scare audiences solely for the sake of scaring people who love to be scared and constantly dare the industry to come up with a new plot line or new special effect to really keep them on the edge of their seats. And it has made a lasting impact on our culture. Who could forget Bella Lagosi as Dracula? Even if you see those old thirties movies for the first time today, you encounter a character you’d be hard pressed to forget and would not want to think too much about in the dead of night. “The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield.”
Whenever we think of Frankenstein we will have Boris Karlov to thank for his classic role in the movies. Christopher Lee made a pretty good vampire in those old classic Hammer films. Everyone has their favorite character actors in these films. My favorite character actor, Max Von Sydow once played the part of Satan in “Needful Things,” the movie adaptation of the Stephen King novel. Of course, to balance things out, Max Von Sydow also played the part of Jesus Christ in another movie, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” the one where John Wayne, in a role completely out of character for him, played the role of a centurion at the foot of the cross. “Surely this man was the Son of God.” Who could forget that? Which leads us to our unforgettable Gospel reading today.
I’ve heard too many sermons in years past where the promo for today’s Gospel could echo Hollywood: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Personally, I don’t understand that. What’s there to be afraid of in the message from today’s Gospel? Is it not supposed to be the Good News? And as I read the Greek text for today’s Gospel I do not find a call to be afraid, be very afraid. Rather I find an initial fear, fear as in fright and terror, good old horror movie fear, replaced with something entirely different: amazement; amazement as in an overwhelming awesome respect for something unexpected and surprising and miraculous: the tomb of Jesus is found to be empty. It may be that I have a personal axe to grind here, but as we will see, every sermon based on today’s Gospel that leaves us in the end with nothing but the initial terror of the women and suggests that we, too, should share that terror if we are good Christians contradicts both the man in the tomb and the amazement of the women.
As the Gospel reading opens the crucifixion has already happened. The centurion who stood at the foot of the cross, and no, he probably didn’t look or sound anything like John Wayne, has already given witness, though perhaps unintentionally, perhaps even as a final, cutting, cruel, sarcastic remark that this crucified Jesus truly is the Son of God. Remember that the same centurion also stabbed Jesus in the side with a spear. So much for his reverence.
The Pharisee, Joseph of Arimathea, got permission from Pilate to take the body down from the cross and bury it in his family crypt, a tomb cut into a hillside near Jerusalem. In keeping with common burial practices a round stone was placed in a groove and rolled into place to seal the tomb even as the sun was setting on a Friday that would have rivaled any scary movie out of Hollywood.
And there Jesus was expected stay, “descended to the dead,” as they would have said back then.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 hours after the tomb was sealed the Gospel of Mark portrays three women setting out for the tomb. They are Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome.
Why are they going to the tomb? It’s simple: they have a duty to perform. A responsibility to carry out. And they will faithfully carry out their duty even though Jesus has been laid to rest. How they will do this is a matter of concern for them. The stone that seals the tomb is not in place permanently. It wasn’t meant to be; Joseph of Arimathea intends to bury other members of his family there over time. But it is a heavy stone. Perhaps four feet across, the women are worried that it is too heavy for them to move. Heads down and talking among themselves they wonder who they will get to roll away the stone for them.
It’s at that point that they realize they have arrived at their destination and they look up to see that the stone has already been moved.
But this sight does not inspire hope. To the contrary. When they see the stone has already been moved without their knowledge they become “alarmed,” as the text says. They are afraid, they have fear as in fright, fear as in terror that something very, very wrong is happening here. Their first thought might well have been: The tomb has been desecrated!
Not knowing what to expect they entered the tomb, something that one could not do casually because of the very low entrance; they would have to bend over and creep through it. Now Mark’s Gospel becomes very surrealistic, despite its simplicity. Bible scholars tell us that this is where the Gospel story moves from a basic story telling mode into the mode of spiritual vision where absolute spiritual truth is made known. In the tomb they find a young man, dressed in white as if he were a priest from the Temple, of all places! He appears to be casually sitting there to the right of the entrance in a place of death, a place to be shunned and considered unclean by the Hebrew people, unclean to the point of being absolutely toxic. The women were alarmed. In the words of Hollywood, they were afraid. They were very afraid. Something terrible beyond words must have happened here!
But this young man in the white clothes must have seen their terror. Right away he spoke to them and he used the words that have always announced the Good News, “Do not be afraid.” Hollywood would never hire this guy to write promos for their movies. He would never attract audiences to the latest horror flick. “Do not be afraid.” He calmly stated the obvious: “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.” Why else would you be here? Then he continued with the most unexpected remarks in the most casual fashion: “He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him.” An empty stone shelf hewn out of the side of the crypt greeted their eyes. “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”
Mark keeps the story very simple. Nothing more is said about this odd young man in the tomb, why he is there, where he came from, what his name is, or what his purpose is in the tomb. It’s almost as if he’s a tour guide: “Look, this is where they put him…” So it is unusual, but that’s because of the way Mark portrays the scene.
Despite the casual behavior of the man in the tomb the women didn’t take all this so casually. Even though the man in the tomb told them not to be afraid they found they could not help but be afraid. Mark says they fled the scene, motivated by good old fashioned Hollywood style fear – it seized them! It you want to stay true to the Greek text then you might say it possessed them, or grabbed them like a wild animal and in a panic they ran away! But that uncontrollable terror began to give way to something else:
amazement, an overwhelming awesome respect for something unexpected and surprising and miraculous. And that also seized them. They were amazed at what they had seen and heard: the tomb was empty, Jesus has been raised, he is not there.
No wonder they didn’t say anything to anyone at first. Would you? Caught between terror on the one hand and amazement on the other hand would you tell someone something that they wouldn’t believe, that you had found the tomb empty? That one who had been crucified was not in his tomb but on his way to Galilee? May as well tell people you’ve seen the Loch Ness monster cruising the Dead Sea. The fear that you won’t be believed would be strong.
But in time sheer amazement, wonder, and absolute joy overcame their fear and they could not help but tell the disciples and Peter. Mary Magdalene and the other women became the very first people to openly tell the Good News about Christ Jesus: that the tomb is empty, he has been raised, he is not there.
There is much to be amazed at.
What’s there to be afraid of? Thanks be to God.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Sermon for the Ecumenical Easter Sunrise Service
Easter Sunrise Ecumenical, 4-12-2009
Harned’s Chapel UMC - Parrottsville, Tennessee
John 20:1-18
“Christ is risen, and life reigns!”
First of all I bring you grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ, and greetings from the Lutheran Parish of Parrottsville, and also greetings from Bishop Julian Gordy and more than 54,000 Lutherans in the 170 congregations of the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in which we say we are a resurrection people who pray first, walk together, and change lives. And you never thought you were so important here in little old Parrottsville.
Today we rejoice that congregations in Parrottsville can come together on this Easter morning to proclaim with one voice the one word that ties all Christians together as one body of the Lord around the world and throughout time, and that is the proclamation: “Christ is risen.”
Later this year we will celebrate our oneness in Christ when we finalize an ecumenical agreement with our brothers and sisters in the United Methodist Church. Upon acceptance at our Church-wide Assembly in August the ELCA will enter into a new partnership with the United Methodist Church when our two faith communities enter into full communion. I don’t know about Pr. John Wilson, but I know that I have a Bishop and a Conference Dean and a whole lot of colleagues who would be tickled pink if we could celebrate that here in Parrottsville when the time comes. It will be a living sign of the resurrection in our lives today. It will be a living sign that Christ lives and that he lives in our lives. It will be a living sign that we are, together, a resurrection people who pray first, walk together, and change lives. It will be a living sign of the really terrific and cool changes that can happen when we let Christ be Christ and the Lord of our life, and it is something that could not possibly happen were it not for the death and resurrection of Christ the Lord.
The ELCA pastor Rolf Jacobson is the editor of a really neat book that came out last year called {Crazy Talk}; the subtitle is, “A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms.” My kind of book. In {Crazy Talk} Pr. Jacobson reminds us that resurrection is the “act of God by which new life is given to the dead,” and that:
"…every single day, we are being resurrected. … In a very real way, we die in our sins every single day. Our lives are dead and worthless through our constant sin and rebellion. However, in the act of continual forgiveness granted us through God’s grace, we are reborn new, forgiven, resurrected humans. This is an actual resurrection. Our sins kill us, but God’s forgiveness makes us alive again." (Jacobson, Rolf A., ed. {Crazy Talk}: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms, Augsburg Books, 2008, pp. 143, 147.)
(excerpt from St. John Chrysostom’s Easter Homily.)
Christ is risen, and we are a resurrection people, praying, and walking together and changing lives as we live ever more into the reality of the Kingdom that Christ has prepared for us.
There is the Good News for us today, but there is a catch. It means that lives are changed. Are we not a resurrection people? Do we not pray first, walk together, and change lives?
If we are the people of Christ, if we are a resurrection people, then lives change. When we are truly a living sign that Christ lives and that he lives in our lives then it means our lives change. It means our families change. It means our churches change. And it means our world will change.
If we do not want to believe that, if we do not want that change to happen and fight against it, if we choose to believe that we are too good for it, if we want to turn our backs on the resurrection that is the ultimate change then we are not a resurrection people; we are dead; and we roll the stone back over the entrance to the empty tomb, and we tell Mary Magdalene and Peter and the disciples to go home and hang it up; its all over with, we’re just playing church this morning, we don’t really mean it.
The Good News is that change does not mean death! To the contrary! It is the lack of change that is death because:
Isn’t this what Mary had to say to the disciples in so many words?
And isn’t this not just the Easter proclamation of the Good News, but also the challenge of the Good News that is being presented to our very own parishes even as we speak?
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
To be bluntly honest about this: it means the time for individuals trying to control the destiny of their own lives, their friends, their neighbors, their families, their businesses, their schools, their congregations, and their world has come to an end. As Dr. Kildare used to say, “It’s out of our hands now.” Christ has suddenly and swiftly intervened and taken matters into his hands.
It’s in Christ’s hands now because he is risen.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands bore the nails of the cross for the world.
It’s in Christ’s hands because he alone is Lord of the Church and the Church is his alone, to do with as he will.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands alone direct the destiny of his Church.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands are the ones open and inviting each one of us to be the living Church in this community.
It’s in Christ’s hands because,
Trust Christ. It’s still not too late. There is still time to put agendas, and dreams of money, and desires for control, and fears of loosing control aside and to trust Christ enough that he alone will take center stage in life.
Trust Christ to take our life into his hands. His nail scarred hands remain open to receive one and all.
Trust Christ, who was crucified and rose for us all.
Trust him because he alone is our Lord and we are his Church, to do with as he will.
Trust Christ because he is risen, because he is Lord of your life, because he brings change to your heart, and because in Christ life reigns.
Thanks be to God.
Harned’s Chapel UMC - Parrottsville, Tennessee
John 20:1-18
“Christ is risen, and life reigns!”
First of all I bring you grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ, and greetings from the Lutheran Parish of Parrottsville, and also greetings from Bishop Julian Gordy and more than 54,000 Lutherans in the 170 congregations of the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in which we say we are a resurrection people who pray first, walk together, and change lives. And you never thought you were so important here in little old Parrottsville.
Today we rejoice that congregations in Parrottsville can come together on this Easter morning to proclaim with one voice the one word that ties all Christians together as one body of the Lord around the world and throughout time, and that is the proclamation: “Christ is risen.”
Later this year we will celebrate our oneness in Christ when we finalize an ecumenical agreement with our brothers and sisters in the United Methodist Church. Upon acceptance at our Church-wide Assembly in August the ELCA will enter into a new partnership with the United Methodist Church when our two faith communities enter into full communion. I don’t know about Pr. John Wilson, but I know that I have a Bishop and a Conference Dean and a whole lot of colleagues who would be tickled pink if we could celebrate that here in Parrottsville when the time comes. It will be a living sign of the resurrection in our lives today. It will be a living sign that Christ lives and that he lives in our lives. It will be a living sign that we are, together, a resurrection people who pray first, walk together, and change lives. It will be a living sign of the really terrific and cool changes that can happen when we let Christ be Christ and the Lord of our life, and it is something that could not possibly happen were it not for the death and resurrection of Christ the Lord.
The ELCA pastor Rolf Jacobson is the editor of a really neat book that came out last year called {Crazy Talk}; the subtitle is, “A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms.” My kind of book. In {Crazy Talk} Pr. Jacobson reminds us that resurrection is the “act of God by which new life is given to the dead,” and that:
"…every single day, we are being resurrected. … In a very real way, we die in our sins every single day. Our lives are dead and worthless through our constant sin and rebellion. However, in the act of continual forgiveness granted us through God’s grace, we are reborn new, forgiven, resurrected humans. This is an actual resurrection. Our sins kill us, but God’s forgiveness makes us alive again." (Jacobson, Rolf A., ed. {Crazy Talk}: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms, Augsburg Books, 2008, pp. 143, 147.)
God’s forgiveness is made real for us through the death and resurrection of Christ.
Christ’s death has set us free:
Christ’s death has set us free:
He that was held prisoner by death has annihilated it.
By descending into death, he made death captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of his flesh….
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.
Now, Death, where is your sting? Where is your victory now?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Now, Death, where is your sting? Where is your victory now?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
(excerpt from St. John Chrysostom’s Easter Homily.)
Christ is risen, and we are a resurrection people, praying, and walking together and changing lives as we live ever more into the reality of the Kingdom that Christ has prepared for us.
There is the Good News for us today, but there is a catch. It means that lives are changed. Are we not a resurrection people? Do we not pray first, walk together, and change lives?
If we are the people of Christ, if we are a resurrection people, then lives change. When we are truly a living sign that Christ lives and that he lives in our lives then it means our lives change. It means our families change. It means our churches change. And it means our world will change.
If we do not want to believe that, if we do not want that change to happen and fight against it, if we choose to believe that we are too good for it, if we want to turn our backs on the resurrection that is the ultimate change then we are not a resurrection people; we are dead; and we roll the stone back over the entrance to the empty tomb, and we tell Mary Magdalene and Peter and the disciples to go home and hang it up; its all over with, we’re just playing church this morning, we don’t really mean it.
The Good News is that change does not mean death! To the contrary! It is the lack of change that is death because:
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
And isn’t this not just the Easter proclamation of the Good News, but also the challenge of the Good News that is being presented to our very own parishes even as we speak?
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
To be bluntly honest about this: it means the time for individuals trying to control the destiny of their own lives, their friends, their neighbors, their families, their businesses, their schools, their congregations, and their world has come to an end. As Dr. Kildare used to say, “It’s out of our hands now.” Christ has suddenly and swiftly intervened and taken matters into his hands.
It’s in Christ’s hands now because he is risen.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands bore the nails of the cross for the world.
It’s in Christ’s hands because he alone is Lord of the Church and the Church is his alone, to do with as he will.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands alone direct the destiny of his Church.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands are the ones open and inviting each one of us to be the living Church in this community.
It’s in Christ’s hands because,
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
(excerpt from St. John Chrysostom’s Easter Homily.)
Trust Christ. It’s still not too late. There is still time to put agendas, and dreams of money, and desires for control, and fears of loosing control aside and to trust Christ enough that he alone will take center stage in life.
Trust Christ to take our life into his hands. His nail scarred hands remain open to receive one and all.
Trust Christ, who was crucified and rose for us all.
Trust him because he alone is our Lord and we are his Church, to do with as he will.
Trust Christ because he is risen, because he is Lord of your life, because he brings change to your heart, and because in Christ life reigns.
Thanks be to God.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Sermon for Passion Sunday Year B
Hi all,
This is my sermon for tomorrow.
Pr. J
4-5-2009, Palm/Passion Sunday
Salem - Luther Memorial Parish, Parrottsville, Tennessee
Mark 15:1-47
they said I had to carry this cross…
Once upon a time I had to carry a cross. It was on Good Friday. I was an intern at a big church in Chicago. They took worship and the liturgy very, very seriously in that church. I found out how seriously one day early in my internship when I made the honest simple mistake of walking across the chancel from one side to the other. Immediately the Assistant Pastor pointed out to me that I did a bad thing. I didn’t understand. What’s so bad about it? “You didn’t reverence the altar,” she said. “Was I supposed to?” I asked. “Are you Lutheran, or Baptist?” came the response. If you were ever to go to that church today and see how they do worship, then you might come away thinking, “Boy, those people must be more Catholic than Lutheran.” They, one the other hand, definitely would think that you are more Baptist than Lutheran.
In fact everything they did in that church concerning worship was well within the bounds of the Lutheran worship tradition. You just don’t see that kind of thing all the time in every Lutheran church because our local practices differ so much. Take, for example, Good Friday. The day I had to carry a cross. Holy Week had arrived. I had just finished running what seemed like a marathon Lenten season, with Evening Prayer conducted every week night, mid-week Lenten Compline every week, a few saints’ days celebrated during the week when we had mid-day worship Monday-Friday at noon, not to mention the never ending funerals, and the usual grind of three big services every Sunday morning, one of those in German. Then Holy Week hit. They told me that on Good Friday the intern always has a very important job. During the Good Friday liturgy the intern carries a cross during something called “the veneration of the cross.”
Right away I thought, “Wait a minute! Lutherans don’t venerate the cross! That’s Catholic!”
“But, oh contraire,” they told me. Veneration of the cross has always been a Lutheran practice, since the time of Martin Luther. The Lutheran theology of the cross practically begs for it, and veneration is not the same thing as worship in any case. Lutherans worship God as Father, Son – who died on a cross – and Holy Spirit, but they may venerate the cross, which I came to understand in my own unique way as a sort of show of respect for the cross, the best I could do having been once upon a time what Pr. Stacy McGill calls a “stinky Baptist” myself.
So, ok, … I have to carry a cross. What cross?
“Oh, the Assistant Pastor will show you,” said the senior pastor. And he snapped his fingers and the Assistant Pastor obediently took me back into the maze of passages behind the office to show me the cross I should carry. There it was, propped up in something like a big flower pot with flowers entangled around it. It was perhaps 4 feet tall, and looked heavier than it was.
“That’s the one the intern carried last year,” the Assistant Pastor said. She had me lift it to see if I could carry it. It turned out to be hollow and made of light weight plastic. No problem. I can carry this in one hand. That was Wednesday in Holy Week. Then Friday came.
There was a rehearsal on Friday afternoon. I came into the sanctuary, looked around for the cross I had to carry, and didn’t see it. “Where’s the cross?” I asked. The Assistant Pastor, who always did the senior pastor’s talking for him, said, “He has changed his mind. He wants you to carry that cross over there.”
I looked where she pointed, up over two sets of stone steps, way back in the shadowy recesses of the chancel, and there it was. Propped up against the big stone altar was the mother of all crucifixes: a very big cross with a large figure of Jesus nailed to it. With real nails. And it was as tall as I was. And it didn’t look user friendly. They had me pick it up, just to see if I could. Unlike the other cross, this one was solid wood. Oak. Heavy. I hefted it. I could pick it up. I was holding it where the crossbeam met the stock, about so high. Not good enough, they told me. You have to hold it with one hand underneath, and keep it steady with the other. So I tried that. It was barely manageable. But not high enough to please the senior pastor.
“Higher!” he demanded.
I began to have some really strange thoughts about the suitability of that crucifix as a hammer at that point; I could use it to flatten the senior pastor once and for all; many people would have applauded me if I had, but there would probably be negative consequences for me, so I never acted on that thought. I lifted the crucifix as high as he wanted it and was able to keep it there, barely. But then he wanted more.
“You have to walk down the aisle with it!”
“What?!”
“Walk down the aisle while the choir is singing!”
“You’re kidding!”
“No! You have to walk down the aisle all the way and then bring it back while the choir is singing!
Every intern does this! You have to do it!”
I could tell this was not going to be a Good Friday after all. It was going to be a Very Bad Friday for this intern.
So that night at the appointed time in the liturgy I managed to heave that holy blessed monster crucifix up in the air and began walking down the aisle with it while the choir sang away. And I barely made it. And I am amazed that I didn’t drop it. As it was I couldn’t balance the thing while walking, and it kept swaying from one side to the other because it was so top heavy, and as I went down the aisle people reached out to touch the thing and I gritted my teeth and kept saying to myself, “Don’t push it! Don’t push it! It’ll go over! It’ll flatten the person in the pew across the aisle!”
Somehow I managed to make it all the way down the length of that aisle and back, which I took to be proof that there really is a God, and much to the amazement of the senior pastor. Later I was told the senior pastor didn‘t believe I could do it, and he wanted to set me up for a fall, because that‘s just the way he is. But the joke was on him. Fortunately, I’ll never have to do that kind of thing again, nor would I wish it on anyone. You might say I was walking the “way of the cross,” and that is my story of carrying a cross. What’s your’s?
The Bible gives us Jesus’ story of carrying a cross.
Jesus had to carry a cross of his own when they sent him to Golgotha. What we know of the Roman practice of crucifixion tells us that Jesus would have had to carry just the cross beam, but that was bad enough. Much bigger and heavier than the crucifix I had to carry, they would have laid it across his already battered and bloody shoulders and forced him to carry it. He couldn’t get relief just by dropping it, because they would have tied his arms to it. If it went down he would have gone down with it, and he probably did. In the end they got him a little help, because he just couldn’t do it. Then they crucified him on a hill near the city of Jerusalem.
Remembering this is what Holy Week is about. It is a reminder that after Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph, he walked the way of the cross on the road to Golgotha where he died on the cross for the sins of all people in order to win the victory of God over sin, death, and evil.
The road to Golgotha is lined by human tragedy, and our Passion Sunday service today is a way for us to open ourselves to this story in our lives.
Where is this story in your life? Where have you carried a cross? What do you know of betrayal and fear, of confusion, of your world turned upside down while no one seems to care? How do you think about and pray about the burdens you find yourself carrying?
However you answer the questions, know that Jesus has already been there ahead of you. He has already walked the path that you are walking, he has already carried that cross; know that he did this for you and for all humanity in all times and all places, did this because God is a God of compassion who gave the only Son, that the entire world might have life.
Let us therefore give thanks to God, let us be bold as disciples of Christ, let us take heart and have courage in our lives because of the saving sacrifice of Christ on the cross for us.
Thanks be to God
This is my sermon for tomorrow.
Pr. J
4-5-2009, Palm/Passion Sunday
Salem - Luther Memorial Parish, Parrottsville, Tennessee
Mark 15:1-47
they said I had to carry this cross…
Once upon a time I had to carry a cross. It was on Good Friday. I was an intern at a big church in Chicago. They took worship and the liturgy very, very seriously in that church. I found out how seriously one day early in my internship when I made the honest simple mistake of walking across the chancel from one side to the other. Immediately the Assistant Pastor pointed out to me that I did a bad thing. I didn’t understand. What’s so bad about it? “You didn’t reverence the altar,” she said. “Was I supposed to?” I asked. “Are you Lutheran, or Baptist?” came the response. If you were ever to go to that church today and see how they do worship, then you might come away thinking, “Boy, those people must be more Catholic than Lutheran.” They, one the other hand, definitely would think that you are more Baptist than Lutheran.
In fact everything they did in that church concerning worship was well within the bounds of the Lutheran worship tradition. You just don’t see that kind of thing all the time in every Lutheran church because our local practices differ so much. Take, for example, Good Friday. The day I had to carry a cross. Holy Week had arrived. I had just finished running what seemed like a marathon Lenten season, with Evening Prayer conducted every week night, mid-week Lenten Compline every week, a few saints’ days celebrated during the week when we had mid-day worship Monday-Friday at noon, not to mention the never ending funerals, and the usual grind of three big services every Sunday morning, one of those in German. Then Holy Week hit. They told me that on Good Friday the intern always has a very important job. During the Good Friday liturgy the intern carries a cross during something called “the veneration of the cross.”
Right away I thought, “Wait a minute! Lutherans don’t venerate the cross! That’s Catholic!”
“But, oh contraire,” they told me. Veneration of the cross has always been a Lutheran practice, since the time of Martin Luther. The Lutheran theology of the cross practically begs for it, and veneration is not the same thing as worship in any case. Lutherans worship God as Father, Son – who died on a cross – and Holy Spirit, but they may venerate the cross, which I came to understand in my own unique way as a sort of show of respect for the cross, the best I could do having been once upon a time what Pr. Stacy McGill calls a “stinky Baptist” myself.
So, ok, … I have to carry a cross. What cross?
“Oh, the Assistant Pastor will show you,” said the senior pastor. And he snapped his fingers and the Assistant Pastor obediently took me back into the maze of passages behind the office to show me the cross I should carry. There it was, propped up in something like a big flower pot with flowers entangled around it. It was perhaps 4 feet tall, and looked heavier than it was.
“That’s the one the intern carried last year,” the Assistant Pastor said. She had me lift it to see if I could carry it. It turned out to be hollow and made of light weight plastic. No problem. I can carry this in one hand. That was Wednesday in Holy Week. Then Friday came.
There was a rehearsal on Friday afternoon. I came into the sanctuary, looked around for the cross I had to carry, and didn’t see it. “Where’s the cross?” I asked. The Assistant Pastor, who always did the senior pastor’s talking for him, said, “He has changed his mind. He wants you to carry that cross over there.”
I looked where she pointed, up over two sets of stone steps, way back in the shadowy recesses of the chancel, and there it was. Propped up against the big stone altar was the mother of all crucifixes: a very big cross with a large figure of Jesus nailed to it. With real nails. And it was as tall as I was. And it didn’t look user friendly. They had me pick it up, just to see if I could. Unlike the other cross, this one was solid wood. Oak. Heavy. I hefted it. I could pick it up. I was holding it where the crossbeam met the stock, about so high. Not good enough, they told me. You have to hold it with one hand underneath, and keep it steady with the other. So I tried that. It was barely manageable. But not high enough to please the senior pastor.
“Higher!” he demanded.
I began to have some really strange thoughts about the suitability of that crucifix as a hammer at that point; I could use it to flatten the senior pastor once and for all; many people would have applauded me if I had, but there would probably be negative consequences for me, so I never acted on that thought. I lifted the crucifix as high as he wanted it and was able to keep it there, barely. But then he wanted more.
“You have to walk down the aisle with it!”
“What?!”
“Walk down the aisle while the choir is singing!”
“You’re kidding!”
“No! You have to walk down the aisle all the way and then bring it back while the choir is singing!
Every intern does this! You have to do it!”
I could tell this was not going to be a Good Friday after all. It was going to be a Very Bad Friday for this intern.
So that night at the appointed time in the liturgy I managed to heave that holy blessed monster crucifix up in the air and began walking down the aisle with it while the choir sang away. And I barely made it. And I am amazed that I didn’t drop it. As it was I couldn’t balance the thing while walking, and it kept swaying from one side to the other because it was so top heavy, and as I went down the aisle people reached out to touch the thing and I gritted my teeth and kept saying to myself, “Don’t push it! Don’t push it! It’ll go over! It’ll flatten the person in the pew across the aisle!”
Somehow I managed to make it all the way down the length of that aisle and back, which I took to be proof that there really is a God, and much to the amazement of the senior pastor. Later I was told the senior pastor didn‘t believe I could do it, and he wanted to set me up for a fall, because that‘s just the way he is. But the joke was on him. Fortunately, I’ll never have to do that kind of thing again, nor would I wish it on anyone. You might say I was walking the “way of the cross,” and that is my story of carrying a cross. What’s your’s?
The Bible gives us Jesus’ story of carrying a cross.
Jesus had to carry a cross of his own when they sent him to Golgotha. What we know of the Roman practice of crucifixion tells us that Jesus would have had to carry just the cross beam, but that was bad enough. Much bigger and heavier than the crucifix I had to carry, they would have laid it across his already battered and bloody shoulders and forced him to carry it. He couldn’t get relief just by dropping it, because they would have tied his arms to it. If it went down he would have gone down with it, and he probably did. In the end they got him a little help, because he just couldn’t do it. Then they crucified him on a hill near the city of Jerusalem.
Remembering this is what Holy Week is about. It is a reminder that after Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph, he walked the way of the cross on the road to Golgotha where he died on the cross for the sins of all people in order to win the victory of God over sin, death, and evil.
The road to Golgotha is lined by human tragedy, and our Passion Sunday service today is a way for us to open ourselves to this story in our lives.
Where is this story in your life? Where have you carried a cross? What do you know of betrayal and fear, of confusion, of your world turned upside down while no one seems to care? How do you think about and pray about the burdens you find yourself carrying?
However you answer the questions, know that Jesus has already been there ahead of you. He has already walked the path that you are walking, he has already carried that cross; know that he did this for you and for all humanity in all times and all places, did this because God is a God of compassion who gave the only Son, that the entire world might have life.
Let us therefore give thanks to God, let us be bold as disciples of Christ, let us take heart and have courage in our lives because of the saving sacrifice of Christ on the cross for us.
Thanks be to God
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Mid-week Lenten reflection, 1 April 2009
Hi all,
Here is tonight's mid-week Lenten reflection. Peace to all,
Pr. J
First Reading: Deuteronomy 7:7-8
7Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel: "Be strong and bold, for you are the one who will go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their ancestors to give them; and you will put them in possession of it. 8It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."
Gospel: Luke 19:29-40
29When Jesus had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30saying, "Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.'" 32So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" 34They said, "The Lord needs it." 35Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38saying,
"Blessed is the kingwho comes in the name of the Lord!Peace in heaven,and glory in the highest heaven!"
39Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." 40He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."
(New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)
Lent 5B, SLM – Parrottsville, 4-1-2009
One of the themes of the Lenten season is the theme of the journey, especially the wilderness journey. We see many images of the wilderness journey in the story of the Exodus and the wandering of the Israelites, the life of Moses, God’s promise of deliverance from bandage in Egypt, and God’s promise of deliverance to a “Promised Land.”
Now, as we come near to the end of our season of wilderness journeys, we heard a reading from Deuteronomy in which Moses tells Joshua,
"Be strong and bold, for you are the one who will go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their ancestors to give them; and you will put them in possession of it. 8It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."
We take it for granted that the name Joshua means Joshua. We don’t stop to think that it’s a Hebrew name that means “Deliverance.” We don’t stop to think that the Aramaic form of the name was Yeshua, and that we know someone by that name from the Gospels: Jesus.
Here, where Moses speaks to Joshua, I am reminded of the story of the transfiguration, of how the disciples’ vision portrayed Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus, this new Joshua. That story never tells us what Moses and Elijah had to say to Jesus, but I wonder if perhaps the story was meant to remind us, and the original Gospel readers, of what Moses said in Deuteronomy:
"...you are the one who will go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their ancestors to give them…."
The Exodus story of the Israelites’ wilderness journey really ends with Deuteronomy and Joshua, with the Israelites entering the land of Canaan - Palestine. Our wilderness journey during Lent ends with a reading from the Gospels on this coming Sunday - the Processional Gospel at the very beginning worship, as we recall the story of how Jesus entered Jerusalem with crowds of people cheering him on.
What’s happening in that story?
Jesus has come to the end of his own journey. He has come to Jerusalem for the last time where he will be crucified.
The disciples following him have come to the end of their journey, too, and it will change them They seem to think Jesus is going to be a somewhat different kind of Messiah than the one we know, one who enters the city in triumph to take over and lead the people to a new “promised land,” a new Jerusalem, where the Kingdom of God will be realized by a king on a throne in the Holy City.
But what really happens once Jesus enters Jerusalem?
Think of the events we remember at Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Anything but entering into a “promised land.” After all the building of expectations and all the excitement, after really believing that this Jesus must be the new Joshua, that he will deliver his people from Romans and from corrupt priests and from self-serving Pharisees, Jesus is crucified and dies.
The disciples must have been devastated. And one gets that impression from reading the Gospels, and that was how the disciples saw the end of their wilderness journey.
But was it really the end of the journey?
What happens next in the story? After Maundy Thursday and Good Friday there is Easter. There is the mystery of the empty tomb and there is the proclamation: “He is not here! He is risen!”
And then the disciples, and us, realize that the journey to the “promised land” really has not ended after all. Instead it has really only begun as a new and unexpected journey into the real and eternal kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God!
Here is tonight's mid-week Lenten reflection. Peace to all,
Pr. J
First Reading: Deuteronomy 7:7-8
7Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel: "Be strong and bold, for you are the one who will go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their ancestors to give them; and you will put them in possession of it. 8It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."
Gospel: Luke 19:29-40
29When Jesus had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30saying, "Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.'" 32So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" 34They said, "The Lord needs it." 35Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38saying,
"Blessed is the kingwho comes in the name of the Lord!Peace in heaven,and glory in the highest heaven!"
39Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." 40He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."
(New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)
Lent 5B, SLM – Parrottsville, 4-1-2009
One of the themes of the Lenten season is the theme of the journey, especially the wilderness journey. We see many images of the wilderness journey in the story of the Exodus and the wandering of the Israelites, the life of Moses, God’s promise of deliverance from bandage in Egypt, and God’s promise of deliverance to a “Promised Land.”
Now, as we come near to the end of our season of wilderness journeys, we heard a reading from Deuteronomy in which Moses tells Joshua,
"Be strong and bold, for you are the one who will go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their ancestors to give them; and you will put them in possession of it. 8It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."
We take it for granted that the name Joshua means Joshua. We don’t stop to think that it’s a Hebrew name that means “Deliverance.” We don’t stop to think that the Aramaic form of the name was Yeshua, and that we know someone by that name from the Gospels: Jesus.
Here, where Moses speaks to Joshua, I am reminded of the story of the transfiguration, of how the disciples’ vision portrayed Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus, this new Joshua. That story never tells us what Moses and Elijah had to say to Jesus, but I wonder if perhaps the story was meant to remind us, and the original Gospel readers, of what Moses said in Deuteronomy:
"...you are the one who will go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their ancestors to give them…."
The Exodus story of the Israelites’ wilderness journey really ends with Deuteronomy and Joshua, with the Israelites entering the land of Canaan - Palestine. Our wilderness journey during Lent ends with a reading from the Gospels on this coming Sunday - the Processional Gospel at the very beginning worship, as we recall the story of how Jesus entered Jerusalem with crowds of people cheering him on.
What’s happening in that story?
Jesus has come to the end of his own journey. He has come to Jerusalem for the last time where he will be crucified.
The disciples following him have come to the end of their journey, too, and it will change them They seem to think Jesus is going to be a somewhat different kind of Messiah than the one we know, one who enters the city in triumph to take over and lead the people to a new “promised land,” a new Jerusalem, where the Kingdom of God will be realized by a king on a throne in the Holy City.
But what really happens once Jesus enters Jerusalem?
Think of the events we remember at Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Anything but entering into a “promised land.” After all the building of expectations and all the excitement, after really believing that this Jesus must be the new Joshua, that he will deliver his people from Romans and from corrupt priests and from self-serving Pharisees, Jesus is crucified and dies.
The disciples must have been devastated. And one gets that impression from reading the Gospels, and that was how the disciples saw the end of their wilderness journey.
But was it really the end of the journey?
What happens next in the story? After Maundy Thursday and Good Friday there is Easter. There is the mystery of the empty tomb and there is the proclamation: “He is not here! He is risen!”
And then the disciples, and us, realize that the journey to the “promised land” really has not ended after all. Instead it has really only begun as a new and unexpected journey into the real and eternal kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
