Christ is Risen

Sermon Luke 24:1-12 March 27, 2016 EasterC

Christ is Risen

The women did on the third day as they had done for so many other relatives.

They knew the routine. They had done it just a few weeks earlier for Lazarus.

They gathered up the spices and placed them in the baskets as they prepared to go to the tomb to care for the body of Jesus.

They had held vigil for him at the foot of the cross.

They had seen him buried in the tomb.

He had been buried just as other loved ones had been.

Except this time, there was a guard and a large stone. And they wondered a little bit about how to handle the stone.

Women do as women have done

from the beginning of time

and continue into this time.

Somehow in the midst of grief and in the pain of loss, they get up, and they put one foot in front of the other.

They know that work still has to be done.

Dishes need doing, hungry mouths need to be fed, kids need to be heard, spouses need to know they matter, and companies still rely on them to show up for work.

We can learn a lot from the women who have gone before us.

Our mothers, or aunts or grandmothers have given us examples of how to keep going when it seems like we can’t.

They have given us some amazing ways of how to cope when we think we can’t.

They can tell some stories of how they made it through tough times.

It might be a good time to have a cup of tea with those women and listen to their stories again of days gone by.

I guarantee you, you will find your own strength to go forth as you listen to their strength.

It is only natural then, one might say, that it was the women first who saw the empty tomb.

They encountered the risen Lord before the rest.

They discover the unexpected, the unbelievable, the perplexing absence of the body of Jesus.

But, before they could even begin to speculate as to what had happened the dazzling men appear.

And here is where all the Good News appears-not the dazzling men-well maybe-ok, back on track here.

The women are in awe of God as they realize the messengers of God have appeared before them. They bow down in full reverence with their faces to the ground and their hearts pounding over the presence before them.

And this is the beginning of the good surprises.

I am reminded by the words of one wise person, saying, “In this day and time there are so few good surprises left. We are able to know so much, so when we have a choice of a good surprise let’s allow it to come to pass.”  

In our day when good surprises are rare, can we still be surprised by the joy these women encounter when they are told that Jesus has risen?

It is this good news that causes musicians to write music that takes our breath away when we hear the sounds of the Alleluia chorus.

It is the joy of this surprise that fills churches with fanfare and celebration and banners, colorful flowers and people raising the roof in song.

The greatest blessing on Easter (as well as Christmas) is to have a sanctuary filled with people visiting from all over.

How joyful it is for a congregation to witness the visits of others who have come on a special day to join in with song.

What a wonderful gift it is that so many choose to share in the good surprise of the Resurrection!

The Resurrection of Jesus-or as my children lovingly would say, “when Jesus came alive again”-is the greatest surprise of our faith.

His presence with us and within us now and forever more has completed full circle all the promises of Scripture from beginning to end. Part of the Easter vigil that is held on Saturday is the reading of all of those familiar promises God offers for God’s people. God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting.

How can we continue to live out the good news of the surprise of Easter morning?

One way we do is by making sure our kids have egg hunts and other happy occasions of surprise. We offer joy to others by dropping off some flowers or an unexpected gift. Throw a surprise party for a friend. Or perhaps an even greater surprise of joy to come by and visit.

The women as they ran from the tomb to tell the others broke the silences around them. They heard the words of these men of God, they were surrounded by these words of fulfillment, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead, he is risen.” They could not contain their joy and amazement. Without a thought they went running and shouting the Good News, the great surprise in the streets and to the others-even though the disciples thought the words were idle talk. Peter at least went and realized the same joy as the women.

Yes, and we too can carry on the great surprise of the Good News of Christ is Alive by breaking the silences around us and go running down to the others we know and shout out that he is no longer bound by death, but is victorious in life.

We could choose to believe this Jesus is the Christ and discover the surprise of his truth within us to change and transform and fill us with the joy of hope and wonder.

We can carry on the Resurrection,

the Easter surprise story

by living in the invitation of Jesus

to live as he lived, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another.”

Amen.

Festival of Palms

Sermon Luke 19:28-40 March 20, 2016 Palm SundayC

Festival of Palms

Look who’s coming! Come quickly, look who’s coming!

There is someone coming and people are opening their windows and running out their front doors.

People are shouting and calling out, they are all crowding together to get a better look. Some have taken off their coats and lined the streets.

They created a carpet, a royal road. And then they see!

They see him, they see him on a donkey, a colt.

They see him coming.

And they shout again.

Jesus the teacher is here.

Jesus the healer has come.

Jesus the Savior is here!

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

Jesus the Christ is here.

For the church tradition, today is a festival.

It is not only the Festival of Palms, the day we celebrate the hailing of Jesus by the crowds as king and Savior, but it marks the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem.

It marks the beginning of what we call Holy Week, which culminates next Sunday as Easter Sunday.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the week of Passover.

He comes to celebrate a festival of freedom.

He comes to celebrate the victory of God’s people from oppression.

He comes bringing peace.

Festivals have purpose.

Some festivals are for the purpose of bringing awareness to an issue or a cause or calling for support. We can name a few-Cancer, Autism, Alzheimer’s, and others. They celebrate and they serve a community purpose of uniting people; and some are perhaps even just for the sheer pleasure of a good time-such as the Christmas parade or the St Patrick’s Day parade in Onancock.

The festival of palms pulls us back into the story of Jesus’ final days. It draws us back into the frenzy of his followers and the fickle nature of cheering crowds. With the adjectives and verbs and present tense it draws us in as if we are right there in the moment. It draws us together and unites us in the history of our faith.

And then it challenges us.

The story puts us in the center of the crowd, or with the disciples running up to untie a colt, or with the ones who call for the shouts to stop. It makes us wonder who we are in the story?

Is this festival scene too much for us? Can we handle all the things happening here?

Do we get annoyed by people carrying on in public shouting out words of peace? Do we get frustrated with people trying to quash the crowds from having their day of freedom of expression?

When we think about this Jesus parade do we wonder if the religious leaders were correct in thinking that Jesus was a threat to national security?

Is acting on behalf of peace a dangerous endeavor?

Can we bear to follow someone that puts us at risk?

It is clear from Luke that Jesus does things so deliberate that put him in the eye of those who oppose him. These three things put him at center of controversy:

1.       Jesus descends from the Mount of Olives-the place recognized by the people as the place where the Messiah will enter the world.

2.      He gets on a colt-or a donkey depending on which gospel account we read, in order to fulfill an old prophecy from Zechariah announcing the entrance of a king.

3.      The shouts of the crowd, “Glory in the highest”, echo the song of the angels from Jesus’ birth.

All these actions are the ones that put Jesus at risk for what would happen in the week to come.

The actions of Jesus until this day of his entrance into Jerusalem have been actions of teaching and healing, and as it turned out those things stirred up trouble.

He got involved with people different from himself.

He touched people he shouldn’t have.

He invited people to dinner from the wrong neighborhood.

He ruined people’s businesses by turning over tables and casting out demons.

He broke laws to show love and compassion.

He twisted well known words of Scripture to save a person from certain death.

And he had the audacity to tell people how to pray and how to have a relationship with God.

The actions of Jesus were actions of bringing peace to a world in need.

And to the nay sayers he let them know even if they silence everyone, the very stones will cry out.

All creation will shout out God’s redemptive work.

It cannot be stopped.

And today we celebrate that joy of his actions.

Today we sing and shout Peace in heaven, hosanna in the highest.

You don’t have to be the one in the crowd that believes in Jesus as Savior.

You don’t have to be the one in the crowd that shouts for the noise to stop.

You don’t have to be the disciple that goes running to get what Jesus wants.

You can be the one that witnesses the actions of Jesus and chooses to do likewise.

The redemptive work God set out to do cannot be stopped.

The stones themselves will sing.

No amount of nay sayers will prevent God’s peace and God’s love from continuing.

Today is the festival of Palms for the church. It is a day of celebration. It is a day to sing loud and with good cheer. It is a day to hear God’s Word for us. It is a day to put on the peace of heaven and go forth on behalf of freedom.

Look who’s coming!

Jesus the Christ is here. He comes bringing peace.

Hosanna in the Highest. Amen.

[Children’s Sermon-Holy Week book taken from Carolyn Brown’s book ‘Teaching Children about Easter’ and I tell the children ‘the week to come is a week filled with happy, sad, angry, all the emotions we have as humans.’ I ask them to fill it out during the week and bring it to me on Easter. I tell them the short story version-That ‘during the week Jesus was put on the cross by angry people and he died and was put in a tomb. And next Sunday when you come to church it will be a happy day again like today because Jesus who died will be alive again.’ I invite the congregation at that point to walk Holy Week with me and together arrive at Easter.]

Resources: Karolyn Lewis Working Preacher; NIB Luke. 

Poured Out Love

Sermon John 12:1-8 March 13, 2016 Lent 5C

Poured Out Love

When the word generosity enters my thoughts I’m humbled and even silenced. When I reflect on the many ways generosity has been poured upon and about me I find myself unable to grasp the fullness of it all.

Generosity is powerful.

Generosity breeds generosity.

And kindness breeds kindness.

And love breeds love.

Mary’s love poured out on Jesus’ feet is an act of worship.

Her act was a gesture of love.

It was one small thing she could do to offer all she had to the one she loved.  

Love poured out can only be from the heart.

Imagine giving someone you love every ounce of what you have in life to offer?

What would it look like?

Mary’s ability to act in love for her Lord in the midst of a feast with many gathered around demonstrates the power that love gives to discipleship. Pure love and tenderness wrapped in the package of pure audacity and boldness.

Gail O’Day comments that the anointing shows what it means to be one of Jesus’ own. Mary gives boldly of herself in love to Jesus at his hour just as Jesus will give boldly of himself in love at his hour.

The fullness of love is hard to pin down to one word or phrase.

Is it the sloppy kiss or the diamond ring?

Is it the sunset shared with a friend or the fancy new clothes?

It is the thousand simple actions that open our eyes and our hearts to the goodness and truth of love that surrounds us. We’ve seen this gift in some marriages and desire that love in our own lives. We’ve seen in parent to child. In brothers and sisters, and even neighbor to neighbor.

In his book ‘The Four Loves’ C.S. Lewis states, affection is humbled love. He doubts we ever catch love at the beginning of it. To become aware of it, he says, is to become aware that it has already been going on for some time.’ Affection opens our eyes to goodness we could not have seen.

Mother Teresa shared that not all of us can do great things.

But we can do small things with great love.

Part of our ability to begin to offer gestures of love is also to know how to receive them.

We have difficulty receiving small gestures of love and as CS Lewis said we might miss the beginning of it and not even be aware that it is happening to us.

How many of us brush off a compliment?

When someone offers us a kind word can we hear it?

If someone tells you how much they appreciate you can you accept their words or do you deny them the gift of sharing them with you?

When someone tells you they like your dress or your tie or your hair or your speech or your presentation or your tidy office do you say thank you?

 Or like so many of us do you say, “Oh this dress or tie is so old, my speech and presentation were just ok and pulled together from old stuff, my desk is just like this today, you should have seen it yesterday.”

This way of receiving a simple outreach of affection, of a compliment, of a blessing denies the giver of being a blessing to you.

Our acceptance of generosity blesses the giver and together we are able to pass on the blessing to others.

Jesus offers us in this moment with Mary a window into the world of poured out love.

We know from the story of the raising of Lazarus that Mary loves and believes in Jesus. We know she was there and witnessed his return to life. We know that she was beyond grateful for this miracle of love and reuniting of her family. Her act of pouring out a pound of perfume on Jesus’ feet and them wiping them with her hair was not just a, ‘Gee, thanks Jesus, your such swell guy’, kind of act.

The act of Mary in this scene was intentional.

It was planned.

It was anticipatory.

This act anticipated future events.

Mary anoints Jesus’ feet before Jesus is buried in the tomb. Mary wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair before Jesus washes and wipes the disciples’ feet, telling them to go and do likewise.

She is the bold prophet.

She fulfills the love commandment (as Gail O’Day states) before it is taught.

Mary gives boldly of herself in love to Jesus at his hour

just as Jesus will give boldly of himself in love at his hour.

~~

And then,

Judas tries to derail everything she has just done.

He throws suspicion and doubt at Mary.

He disrupts the holy moment

to speak of morality and justice.

Only a Judas would question the gift.

Only a Judas would place suspicion on the reasons for offering all of oneself to another.
Only a Judas would steal the love behind the gift by comparing it to what others need or the concerns of the world, or the church budget, or the strings attached or …

Judas is the thief that wants to steal the power of the gift

and he wants to control the very gift.

We too can get caught up in controlling gifts we give or receive.

We put strings to them.

We’ve seen it in church and college and hospital budgets

where the power of the gift of a love gesture

is snuffed away as suspicion surrounds even the giver about motives.

Judas is the hypocrite that criticizes the gift of Mary and the power of love in its offering by telling Jesus it should have been given to the poor.

And that’s where we find ourselves so often stuck without a response or an answer to gestures of generosity.

We could feed the world with all the food and the funds we have on earth now.

And we should.

And we should find ways to do that.

We should already be doing that.

We should be offering our gifts towards issues of justice and mercy all the time.

It’s something we are supposed to do.

Judas makes the action of Mary an either/or rather than a both/and.

We should be going out and doing what we have been called to do in the world.

Because if we are not already doing these things then perhaps what we are doing is hoarding the gifts that are meant to be shared (Feasting on the Word).

Jesus rebukes the attempt of subversion by a self-centered Judas.

Jesus refuses to allow Judas to disrupt or destroy the community of faith.

Jesus’ words about the poor were not words to dismiss the Biblical responsibility that the community of faith has to care for them and to always lift them up,

but it was an anger that Judas would compare an act of worship

to a responsibility of living out true love.

Jesus will not allow the truth to be twisted by greed or subversion or any other act that is contrary to his love for God’s children!!

There are a lot of people today who are skilled at taking our attention away from the things that matter most.

There are a lot of people who are skilled at twisting words

and turning our heads to see things that appear to be about justice and mercy

and yet are really inciting hate and anger and violence.

Be careful of the Judases that still surround us!

And especially the Judases that live within our own hearts!

This story today is about Mary and just like the world lives,

the story seems to draw back to Judas

and he gets all the attention.

Our faith is stronger than that!!

Mary’s gift is where Jesus wants us.

Whether the gift of poured out love is oil from an alabaster jar or

an anthem sung by the choir or a

Sunday school lesson or an

arrangement of flowers or a

home baked pie or a

bar of chocolate,

these open our eyes

and our hearts

to the goodness and truth of love that surrounds us and make a lasting lifetime impact.

When the word generosity enters my thoughts I’m humbled and even silenced.

I find myself unable to grasp the fullness of it all.

Generosity is powerful.

Generosity breeds generosity.

And kindness breeds kindness.

And love breeds love.

Let the love of Christ be poured out upon you. Amen.

~~~~

After a challenging moment after Sunday's sermon-I added this addendum:

Perhaps I was wrong in my sermon yesterday.

Perhaps there are times
when no amount of generosity, kindness, or love
will breed generosity, kindness, and love.

And it is in those times we remain vigilant in the faith that sustains us.
In those times we hold on to the promise that in the end God wins.
God always wins.
And that is when God's love prevails.
Isn't that what the cross and Easter are all about anyway? 

Resources: Gayle O’Day notes from Gospel of John workshop; C.S. Lewis Four Loves; Feasting on the Word Lent 5C.

Arms Wide Open

Sermon-Study Luke 15:1-3,11-32 March 6, 2016 Lent 4C FMPC

Arms Wide Open Discussion study in Café Church

How do we feel about the younger son’s repentance? How do we feel about forgiveness?

How was it possible for the father to be the first one to meet the son on his return home?

How would it have been if it were the elder son who saw him first? How do we feel about

parties? The party of the son returning home was it his party or his father’s? How much

room is there in the Kingdom of Heaven?

These are the questions before us as we begin our study of the Scripture known as the prodigal son.

This parable of Jesus has been called the greatest of all parables. It is so well known that it has been the subject of literature, art, music and philosophers throughout the centuries. Rembrandt’s painting depicts the eldest son lurking in the shadows, while the younger son is being celebrated.

Luke is the only Gospel to present this parable and it is presented in a series of three lost things.

First the lost sheep, then the lost coin and last the lost son.

In each of these parables the focus appears to be on that which was lost, yet the central figure is really the one who seeks.

Which of you would risk everything to go out and find something that wasn’t worth much, which of you would go and dismantle your house just to recover a lost penny?

It all starts with the group of self- proclaimed ‘righteous people’ challenging Jesus about why he hangs out with tax collectors, low lifes, sinners and all the ‘wrong’ people.

But, these very people are the ones who hold nothing back. They are able to admit the things they’ve done wrong, they are able to state where they’re lost and they are willing to have the God of love come and redeem them.

The righteous though believe they have God in their pocket and no longer need to be sought by God. They hold on to the fact that they have been redeemed once and therefore do not need transformation or growth in faith.

This story is about those who yearn for God and also struggle in life. It is about so many of us in so many walks and ways we find ourselves.

We live in a world that is not fair. Good people lose everything and bad things happen to them and yet the evil guy gets away with tax evasion and lives in mansions and earns his millions through illegal means. The world is not fair.

And so we, the religious, expect our God to be fair, to help us make sense of things that don’t make sense.

We expect our God to love us and give us what we deserve.

As Christians do we sometimes feel like we are the eldest son?

Why is it that the worst criminals who find Jesus get all the attention?

What about us and all the hours we spend helping the poor and the needy and nobody gives us a party?

This parable would make sense to us if it ended at the point of which the father greets his repentant son and welcomes him home.

But it becomes reckless and foolish and spendthrift when the father throws his robe and his ring on the boy and then roasts the fatted calf and has a feast with music and dancing.

And he invites the entire community to join in the celebration!

It is this scene that ruins everyone’s understanding of what is fair.

It is the father who acts foolishly!

The father is characterized by profuse wasteful expenditure.

It is the father who is yielding abundantly!

In all three stories of the lost being found the result is immeasurable joy.

God’s love and mercy call for celebration.

And it is this reckless behavior of the father that makes his love unfair.

This parable is really a sad tale of humanity’s rejection of God.

The son, at the point of starvation finally “comes to his senses” and addresses his sin.

·         The actions of the father demonstrate the fullness of reconciliation and redemption.

The eldest son however is still holding on to the grudge against his brother for running off and leaving him with less inheritance to run the family business.

He is angry because the younger brother has now returned and will be living off his portion of the money that was left.

He is angry because he has done everything right and yet the father has never shown this kind of reaction to all he has done.

The joy of the father is not fair.

The elder son’s response is similar to the workers in Matthew 20:11 “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”

The father has not displaced the elder son.

His place is still a place of honor.

The father points out to the elder son that reconciliation is with the whole family. Reconciliation occurs: father to son and brother to brother.

Jesus tells this parable leaving us all wondering if the younger son was really honest in his repentance and if the older son got over his anger and joined in.

*Maybe, just maybe this is where we are invited into the story.

Perhaps this is the place we can examine the invitation to the feast.

What risks does it take to be part of the celebration?*

God’s mercy for us is beyond measure.

Henri Nouwen says, “Joy does not simply happen to us. We choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

God’s banquet Table is for all of us every day and is spread fresh and new, filled with nourishing and delicious food.

Let us make this story our story and discover how important joy is in the life of our faith.