Jubilate (Midweek Message)

 

  Sr. Simone Campbell

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

April 26, 2017

Jubilate

We open our worship, whether Daily Prayer or Holy Eucharist, usually with some kind of recited Song of Praise.  This time of year (the Great Fifty Days of Easter) we sing the multi-alleluia’d Pascha Nostrum (“Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast”).  In Holy Eucharist, it replaces the usual Gloria “Glory to God in the Highest and Peace to God’s people on earth”.   In Morning Prayer it replaces the Invitatory Psalm.  During most of the year this is either the Venite (“Come let us sing to the Lord, let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation”) or the Jubilate (“Be joyful in the Lord all you lands.  Serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song”).    Note here that a call to joy is present in all these opening rites. 

During penitential seasons like Lent, we open with something more austere, like the Kyrie Pantocrator , whose most moving line is “I have sinned O Lord, I have sinned, and I know my wickedness only too well!”  But even this confessing invitatory begins with a subdued acknowledgment of grounds for joy: “O Ruler of the Universe, Lord God, great deeds are they that you have done, surpassing human understanding.  Your ways are ways of righteousness and truth, O King of all the ages.”

 
Why all the joy?  On bad days when I am getting off to a slow and little depressed start of the day, sometimes I feel like Ren, the ill-used and set-upon cartoon chihuahua, fitted out against his will with an electronic joy-inducing Happy Helmet by his well meaning but ultimately clueless pal, Stimpy the cat.  With the helmet activated, a forced smile is pulled onto his face, he begins robot-like dancing, and begins singing in a forced fashion “Happy, happy, joy, joy!” But the striking thing is this:  singing a joyful invitation to prayer each day does in fact change how I feel, and I regularly find myself recharged and peaceful, if not outright happy, by the end of the prayers. 

As we live as resurrection people, we must live in joy.  And reminding ourselves each day in prayer of the joy that comes from our faith and experience of God is a key practice in maintaining joy as the default position of the Christian heart.

In the diocesan clergy conference in Silverton this week, we heard Sr. Simone Campbell (of “nuns on a bus” fame) tell us ways to cultivate the prophetic imagination in us and our communities and live as burning bushes in the desert of modern life, ever burning and shedding light, but never being consumed.  She said that when in difficulty and challenge, we must focus on mission.  She noted several habits of the heart we need in order to be sustainable and lasting witnesses to the gospel.  Among these were: Practice holy curiosity (ask, and listen, and find out the unknown); Engage in sacred gossip (tell the stories of our faith and of the faith of others); Do your part (and not anyone else's) in addressing the problems.  But first among these was this: Practice joy.  Our witness to the mercy and justice that Jesus calls us to cannot be heard or attract unless it is rooted always in the joy and peace of the Resurrected  Lord.  

That’s why the Jubilate is not some evil Happy Helmet.  It is an affirmation of our most basic state, a reconnection with what feeds us and sustains us and gives us the will and power to do what Jesus wants us to do. 

Joy to you all. 

Fr. Tony+

   

The Heart's Direction (Easter 2A)

“The Heart’s Direction”
Second Sunday of Easter (Year A)
23 April 2017
Homily Delivered Trinity Parish Church, Ashland, Oregon

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

8 a.m. Said Mass and 10 a.m. Sung Children's Mass with Holy Baptism 

and Flowering of the Cross 
Acts 2:14a, 22-32 ; 1 Peter 1:3-9 ; John 20:19-31 ; Psalm 16

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

 take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

I remember an exchange with my son David when he was six or seven.  I had done something that had totally upset him, made him angry and caused him to accuse me of being unfair and trying to control him.  I think I had bodily picked him up and put his diminutive body down in another place, safer and more convenient.  But he would have none of that.  He felt diminished and disrespected.  I apologized even as I explained my reasons.  A day or two later, I found myself having to do the same thing to David, dreading what his reaction would be.  But this time, he was happy and thanked me.  I asked him why the same act on my part was so horrible for him before but made him happy now.  After a puzzled look as he for the first time recognized that these two actions were in fact one and the same, he said cautiously, “The other day you did it to keep me from doing what I wanted; today, to help me do what I wanted.” 

Intention:  what we hope to accomplish when we do something.  It often changes our actions’ meaning and value.  It leaks out whether we intend it to or not.  In caregiving for my beloved Elena, I have learned that putting on shoes gently and with kindness is a totally different act than simply cramming them on.  One helps, the other often hurts.  Lifting and doing transfers can be a gentle act, almost dancing. Or, when merely focused on getting the deed done, it can be what Elena and I call “potato-bagging.”  One helps and is affirming; the other can mildly demean and sometimes outright frighten.

Because intentions are so important in defining an act, we often make the mistake of thinking that intentions can redeem bad behavior.    “I meant well, and that’s what counts.”  Not so.  A proverb my mother used to quote regularly says it clearly: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  I remember hearing one of President George W. Bush’s counselors defend to me going to war in 2003 against Iraq over what later turned out to be false claims about weapons of mass destruction.  “Well, the President tries to be a good Christian and meant well.  So it wasn’t wrong.”   Though I knew the description of the President was true, I thought to myself, “Try telling that to the families of the 1 million or so Iraqis who died because of this war.”

We often misunderstand the story of Thomas and the resurrected Jesus.  We think that Thomas is a man who refuses the faith and demands proof instead. “Doubting Thomas” we call him.   The Eastern Church, I think has a better take on the story when it looks at Thomas’ intentions and his declaration “My Lord and my God!” at the end of the story.  For them, he is the first believer in the Holy Trinity. 

Thomas is somewhat of an outlier.  He is off by himself the first time Jesus appears.  The other apostles seem to be extroverts, energized by being in the group.  Thomas seems to prefer solitude.    He also seems more honest than the rest in confronting his fears and doubts.  “I don’t think I’ll be able to believe what you say here until I see it myself,” he says.  Thomas’ doubt is a tool to help him process the unknown and the wonderful, not a blanket rejection. 

You see, there are two different kinds of doubt, just as there are different kinds of actions, depending on our intentions. 

One kind of doubt is a heuristic tool, an instrument to help us discover truth.  It is open, willing to learn new things.  This is Thomas’ doubt, and it is a good thing.  Yesterday, Earth Day, celebrated the sciences.  Science, when properly pursued, is a consistent and disciplined use of this first kind of doubt.

The other kind of doubt is a willful and stubborn rejection of truth, even as evidence piles up in front of us. 

The one is open and affirming, the other is closed and negative. 

Affirming doubt leads to assurance and faith. Denying doubt leads to exclusive nihilism and cranky partisanship. 

The direction of the heart, our intention, is what makes the difference. 

 In my experience, what matters most is not whether you are a believer or not, but what kind of heart you have.  Is it open or closed?  Does it seek something beyond itself or is it satisfied or stingy with what it has?  

You have some believers who have open hearts and some who have closed hearts.  And you have some unbelievers with open hearts and some with closed hearts.     

Believers with cold, tightly closed hearts give faith and religion a bad name.  They can be something very close to demons:  inquisitors, guardians of morality and correct doctrine, holy warriors, who do horrible things to other people using God as a weapon on others.  In the Gospels, the only people with whom Jesus regularly gets angry are the closed-hearted religious.  To them he says, “Whores and traitors will get into the Kingdom of God before you will, because they at least recognize their need for God.” 

Unbelievers with cold, tightly closed hearts—the militant godless—can be something close to monsters because they can do horrible things to others simply to protect their own position and prestige, or to build the utopia their ideology demands.  

Believers with open hearts remain in awe of what they do not understand about God, what is unclear, and how far removed they are from Deity.  As Paul says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

Unbelievers, even disbelievers, can remain open in their hearts, even if they cannot work a faith up for right now.  An example of this is people in recovery in Twelve-Step programs who cannot profess faith in God, but yet “come to believe” in a power greater than themselves, a Higher Power, any higher power.

We can go from closed-heartness to open-heartness quickly, even with no immediate change in our opinions, and then back again.  Openness is a habit of the heart, an orientation of the personality, not signing on to a particular idea.  

The direction of our heart matters.   We often abuse each other and ourselves by focusing on getting the task done, achieving the results we want, and turning out results.  This is like me potato-bagging Elena before I learned that the task was to affirm her dignity and express love, not simply move her body weight.   In church we often focus on results rather than the people we are working with or serving.  This is a form of closed heartness and it works great mischief in our common life and our own spiritual growth.

Again, it is a habit of the heart we are talking about here.  Here are three little habits of speech and action which I have tried to follow with greater or lesser success.  They have helped me cultivate a more open heart that is less instrumental and more process oriented, less confrontational and more reconciling. 

1) Never approach a person as a problem to be solved, or as a person who merely needs to fix a problem of theirs.  Always try to see problems as things that we hold in common.  It is not me vs. you.  It is not you’ve got to change and fix this.  Rather it is: we share a goal and a vision.  We face a common problem.

2) Do not use the expression “I know that ..., BUT …..”  That little “but” sets up opposition, at least in a person’s heart and mind.  Try instead, “I know that…,  AND…..”  The little word AND joins things, and does not set up opposition and exclusion. 

3) When facing a real point of difference, do not use phrases that characterize the other person, set them up as other.  Never dictate to the other person “You are (fill in adjective).  You should (fill in remedial or penitential action.”  Instead, use I phrases like “When you (VERB), I feel (ADJECTIVE), because …..”  “You are so lazy” is bound to provoke a denial or a justification, or at least some vigorous defense, where the goal is to stay the same.  But saying “When you put off doing your chores until it is too late, I feel neglected and taken advantage of, because I usually end up doing the job myself because I get tired of waiting”  is not really subject to debate: how can the person argue that you don’t really feel that way, or that you don’t often end up doing the task yourself? 

The fact is, we sometimes try to avoid conflict or dealing with difficult matters simply by disengaging with the other person.  This we must not do.  Though it may keep appearances of peace, it deadens our love.  Jesus calls us to engage, never give up, and he calls us to do that in an inclusive, loving way. 

The direction of our hearts is the difference between being open or closed, inclusive or exclusive, helpful or insulting.  It is the difference between life-giving doubt and deadly doubt.  It is the difference between constantly running from one argument, one confrontation, of one sort or with this person, to another one of a different sort and with another person, and walking a gentle, calm, and sometimes winding path where we engage with our fellows and grow in love and the ability to hear each other.  Christian spiritual masters over the centuries have pointed out that this is at the heart of the Gospel.  We turn over the results of our actions to God, and focus on process and not product.  We see the person in front of us and beside us.  We draw ever larger circles of “us” and simply turn our backs on the constant temptation to “other” people we have problems with. 

Thanks be to God. 

Living in the Resurrection (Midweek Message)

Living in the Resurrection

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

April 19, 2017

“Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

One of the striking elements of the stories of Jesus’ bodily reappearance after his death is that the disciples do not trust each other enough to believe what they say they have seen.   “How could the early disciples have been such scrubs?” we ask.  But these stories are about us as much as about the first generation of Jesus’ followers. 

Women disciples in the original, short ending of Mark’s Gospel see an angel at the tomb announcing that Jesus is not there but has risen, and telling them to report this to the others.  The women run away “trembling with astonishment” and tell no one about it “because they were afraid,” presumably of what others will think of them telling such a story (Mark 16:8).  In Luke, as the women come back from the tomb, they remember words that Jesus had said to them while he was alive, and this gives them the confidence to announce what the angel has said.  But the apostles take it as “an idle tale,” and they do not believe the women (Luke 24:10-11).  In the extended ending that was added to Mark by following generations, Mary Magdalene sees Jesus after he is raised from the dead, and she tells the other disciples.  But they refuse to believe her (Mark 16:9-11).  And it does not seem to be just a problem of men not believing women.  In the story from John we will read this Sunday, Thomas doesn‘t believe the witness of the rest of the eleven, until he can see it with his own eyes and touch it with his own hands (John 20:19-29). 

We often reject the witness of others because it goes against our own convictions, against what we have come to believe.  When Jesus appears to the ten in John 20, he breathes on them and says “If you forgive others, they will be truly forgiven.”  Jesus touches us and lets us know we have the power to forgive, the power to accept things that we may not think are quite how we think they should be.   The resurrection of Jesus teaches us to trust God, and each other. “Judge not, lest you be judged” (Matt. 7:1) means that our default should be to give each other the benefit of the doubt, and have hearts open to the experience and witness of others, regardless of our prior convictions. This is at the heart of the newness of life that comes with baptism and the resurrection. 

Here in Ashland, we often hear people taught about “positive” and “negative” energies and “vibes.”  Backbiting, gossiping, and complaining about those who are not present are ways that we express judgment, lack of trust, and closed minds and hearts.  They are ways of driving out the spirit of God, and of creating a negative and toxic environment deadly to healthy community and to the newness of life that Christ calls us to in his resurrection. 

On the other hand, open ended listening, welcoming new people into participation, and keeping our big mouth shut when we do not have something uplifting or affirming to say—these are ways of building healthy community and finding the joy of the spirit in our daily life and relationships. 

Newness of life is about positive and affirming relationships.  It is stronger that death, and more powerful than our old ways of beating up on ourselves and others. 

Grace and Peace.  Fr. Tony+

The Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom (Easter C)

The Easter Homily of

St. John Chrysostom
Homily delivered Easter Sunday (Easter Sunday C RCL)

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
16 April 2017; 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Sung Festival Mass
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)
Readings:  

Jeremiah 31:1-6; Colossians 3:1-4; Matthew 28:1-10; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Lord Jesus, you were raised in light and glory from the dead.  Pour out upon us your light and life, that we may share your love with all.

Amen.

In  preparing this liturgy, I thought I would make use of a time-honored Anglican/Episcopalian tradition  and simply preach a homily by one of my betters.  The first Prayer Book, aware how poor priests’ education was, made provisions for a Book of Homilies.  Eventually there were four prepared, of sermons seen as exemplary.  Using them helped solve the problem of a bunch of presbyters who held a lot of cranky and downright wrong ideas.  The homily I have chosen is known by many as the best Christian sermon ever preached, The Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom.  It was preached in Constantinople around the year A.D. 400.  In case any of you think I tried to escape preparation time here, know that I am using here my own translation from the Greek, made for you for this Easter day. 

If any of you are devout and God-loving, take joy in this kind and bright Feast of all Feasts. 

If any are wise servants, come rejoicing into your Lord’s joy. 

You who are worn out by fasting, receive your wages.

You who have worked from sunrise, come now to the party!

You who came at nine o’clock in the morning, rejoice!

You who waited until the noon, celebrate!

You who came at 3 p.m., do not be sad!

You who arrived barely in time for sunset, don’t worry about how late you are.

No one will be deprived of heavenly joy. Our generous Lord welcomes those who come last in the same way as those who come first. He shows mercy to the first and rejoices in the last. He comforts those who came at sunset just as if they had worked hard from sunrise. He gives to everyone, both those who worked and those who merely wanted to work.  He welcomes with open arms our service and hugs our intentions. He values not just our works, but praises our mere desire to do well also. 

All of you enter into the joy of the Lord: First and last, receive the reward!

Rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy!  

You who are hard on yourselves, and all you slackers, celebrate this day!  

You who have fasted and you who have cheated in the fast, be glad together.

The table is groaning, overloaded with the finest food: eat your fill! Each and every one of you enjoy the rich banquet of faith and God’s loving kindness.  Do not go off still hungry or offended at something or other.  No one should regret their poverty, for God’s Reign is now here—for everyone!

No more weeping over our sins—forgiveness for all has burst with light from the grave.   

No more fear of death, for Jesus’ death has freed us all.

Death grabbed onto him tightly, but He subdued it. 

He descended into hell, but took hell captive.

When Death tasted his flesh, it found him bitter on the tongue. Isaiah foretold it: “Hell was overcome, having met You in the underworld!”

Hell had to mourn, for it was undone!

Hell panicked, for it was condemned!

Hell went hungry, for it was put down!

Hell was destroyed, for it was bound!

It thought it was taking in one more corpse, but touched God instead!

It thought it was seeking earth, but met heaven.

It took what was there for the taking, but found itself falling into unexpected oblivion!

Death! Where is your sting? Hell! Where is your victory?

Christ is risen; you are brought down. Christ is risen; the demons have fallen. Christ is risen; the angels rejoice. Christ is risen; life triumphs. Christ is risen; no dead are left in the grave.

Christ is risen from the dead, the first fruits of those who sleep.  To Him be glory and power now and forever. Amen

It Begins in Darkness (Great Vigil of Easter; Holy Baptism)

“It Begins in Darkness”
The Great Vigil of Easter
15 April 2017 8:00 p.m. Sung Eucharist with Holy Baptism

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation] ; Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 [The Flood] ; Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea] ; Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all] ;
Ezekiel 37:1-14 [The valley of dry bones] ; Romans 6:3-11 ;   Psalm 114 ; Matthew 28:1-10

May the light of Christ, rising in glory,
banish all darkness from our hearts and minds.   Amen.

It begins in darkness.

The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) set the date of Easter as the first Sunday following the full moon that falls on or after the spring equinox.  Jesus rose on a Sunday, just after his death at Passover, a festival set by the full moon after Spring equinox.  In practical counting, the date of the full moon, because it changes from time zone to time zone, is counted as 14 days after no moon at all is visible.  The counting starts in the darkness of the new moon.   

The day itself, as in all ancient calendars, begins at sundown.  As we read in the creation story tonight, the evening was, the morning was, the first day.  Easter Sunday begins in the darkness after the sun is fully set on Saturday.   

It begins in darkness. 

The Great Vigil of Easter, the heart of the Christian year, and mother of all our celebrations, begins in darkness before the New Fire is lit.  The Paschal Candle is blessed and lit, and the darkness begins to yield. 

In Easter, we celebrate the coming of the light in the darkness.  And we learn that what St. John says is true, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it."

The Great Easter Proclamation, the ancient hymn the Exsultet we sang tonight, says it best: 

This is the night, when you brought our parents… out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.  This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life. This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave…  when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord. How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and we are reconciled to God. 

The Paschal Candle, which will light our little Church throughout the Great Fifty Days and then come out for all baptisms and funerals throughout the year, is a symbol of this great light, Christ, a pillar of fire in our desert, light in our darkness.  As the Exsutlet continues,

May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning …

And yet, it all begins in darkness

All spiritual growth and renewal begins, at least in part, in darkness.  Plato said anyone wishing enlightenment must first undergo aporeia—an acknowledgment of ignorance.  There can be no spiritual answers where there is not first a spiritual question, an aporeia.  Death must precede life, you have to lose yourself to find yourself. 

It begins in darkness: Christ betrayed, Christ tortured, Christ killed.  And then light dawns with the unexpected and startlingly unique act of God, God’s ultimate joke on the powers of darkness:  Christ is risen, the Lord is risen indeed.   And the risen Lord is not a ghost or a zombie, alive, but somehow less alive than we are.  The risen Lord is more alive, more vital that he had ever been before, so much so that his disciples on occasion fail to recognize him right off.

In a few minutes, Lissa will be baptized.  We celebrate the sacrament of Holy Baptism on this night, which begins in darkness but ends in light, because its waters symbolize for us a death of sorts:  death to our old ways and new life in the spirit.   The water of baptism is consecrated in part by dipping in it the paschal candle.  But how can baptism make us holy?  What about the fact that we seem afterwards to be very much the same people as before? 

It is this way with all the sacraments: in Eucharist, common bread and wine become the body of Christ, even as they remain to all appearances bread and wine.   In reconciliation, we face our guilt and God drives it away, but we remain inclined to sin afterwards all the same.  In matrimony, God blesses our relationship, but we still have to work on it to keep it alive and growing. 

The sacraments take place in time, but are also eternal.  

In the movie Tender Mercies.  Robert Duvall plays Mac, a down-on-his-luck country singer recovering from alcoholism.  A young widow offers him room and board at her Texas motel in exchange for handyman help.  Hope and grace stir in his life.  Eventually both Mac and the widow’s young boy, Sonny, decide to be baptized. Driving home afterwards, Sonny says: "Well, we done it Mac, we was baptized." He looks into the truck’s rearview mirror and studies himself for a moment. "Everybody said I’d feel like a changed person. Do you feel like a changed person?" "Not yet," replies Mac. "You don’t look any different, Mac." "Do you think I look any different?" "Not yet," answers Mac.  

Like Sonny, we most often can’t see ourselves as changed people.  Baptism or no, we wonder if there is any possibility of change in our lives.  But that is exactly where the great mystery of Easter intersects with our lives.  In the baptismal creed, we say we believe in the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.  In sacraments, we get a glimpse of what’s really going on.  And just as Jesus at his baptism heard the voice of God, so we each hear in our baptism, “You are my child.  I love you.  You make me happy.”

It starts in silence, but it ends in song.  It starts in darkness, but it ends in light. 

Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.

Indivisble Mystery

Indivisible Mystery

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

April 12, 2017

“For I was determined that while I was with you,

I would focus alone on Jesus Christ, yes, even on the cross” (1 Cor 2:2). 

I was raised in a tradition that did not include the use of crosses or crucifixes: crucifixes were seen as idolatrous “graven images” forbidden by the second commandment, and crosses, even empty ones in the Protestant style, were seen as emphasizing the sufferings and death of Jesus rather than his resurrection.  We had Easter Sunday services that focused on the resurrection, but nothing on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, for similar reasons.  It was only when I came to accept the tradition of Christianity handed down to us from the apostles that I came to love and appreciate the importance of the very ancient Christian practice of commemoration and celebration of all three days. 

Marion Hatchett, in his magisterial Commentary on the American Prayer Book, says: “In the first centuries, the Christian Passover was a unitive feast commemorating both the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Even though the Pashcal Vigil was preceded by a fast extending over the Friday and Saturday, there was no sense of separate commemorations of the death and the resurrection.  It was a single observance of Christ’s victory through death and rising to life again and of the Christian’s death and rebirth through baptism” (pp. 231-322). 

The Triduum, or three day liturgy, we are about to celebrate goes from darkness and pain to light and joy.  Without the Cross, there is no Resurrection; without the repentance and guilt of Lent, no joy in baptism; without the vinegar and gall, no sweet wine of celebration; without the pain and devastation of the stripped cross and emptied aumbry, no reassurance in the flowers, heady anthems, and Holy Eucharist on Easter Sunday.  St. Paul knew this when he focused not only on the resurrection of our Lord, but also on him “even on the cross.”  It is a package deal, a single event. 

The indivisible mystery of God made flesh suffering the worst flesh can suffer and then finding new flesh, more alive and vital than ever before, never to end, is what Good Friday and Easter are about.  It’s why we have crosses in our church, some even with carved representations of Christ.   It’s why adore the Holy Cross on Good Friday and sing the praises of the risen Lord throughout the Great Fifty Days of Easter.

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+

Outside the City Wall (Mid-week Message)

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus), 1954, Salvador Dali

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

Outside the City Wall

April 5, 2017

"Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood.  Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured.  For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:12-14)

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both [Jews and Gentiles] into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” (Ephesians 2:13-17) 

As we prepare to go into Holy Week and hear the stories of Christ’s final week, his death, and resurrection, it is important to rid ourselves of preconceptions that limit the way we understand these stories.  Some ways of reading them are patently false:  anti-Semitic readings that accept the blood libel that Jews of every age and time are personally responsible for Jesus’ death, or the notion that Jesus’s sufferings and death were willed by an implacable Deity as a proxy death penalty upon sinners.  It is important to read these stories as they are, and recognize in them the dynamic of unjust horror and suffering. 

Philosopher René Girard defines community as “unanimity minus one,” that is, a group united in accusing and expelling at least one of its own.  Community defines itself in part by pointing to those who are not part of the community.  It regulates itself by identifying and driving out scape-goats, who bear away the wrongs of the community to outside the camp, outside the city (Lev. 16:10).  Community is not just joined hands and linked arms of embrace.  It in its structure is also the pointing finger of accusation, of exclusion.   Anthropologists have noted that most of the world’s primitive cultures have myths that express this dynamic.  Generally a dissident, abnormal, or impure member of the community is singled out, driven out, and often killed in the myth.  Thereby the community is made whole.  Impurity and wrong are thus purged.  

Girard notes that Christians have their own version of this myth, based on the death of our Lord:  the crowd points their fingers at Jesus and calls for his death, he is brutalized, taken outside the city walls, and killed.  

But the difference is this:  in the Christian telling, Jesus is innocent.  It is he who is right, and the community that is wrong.  This story condemns the dark side of community, the accusation, the driving outside the city wall, the scapegoating itself, not the accused deviant put to death outside of the city walls.  Easter morning tells us that everything has been turned on its head here.   

Ephesians says that Christ on the cross preaches peace to those who are far off and those who are near.  The resurrection condemns accusation itself.  The cross, that cruel tool the Roman Empire used to enforce community, that instrument of public terror as an act of policy, is itself undone by the resurrection of our Lord.

And it is not just the accusation of group hatred that is undone by the cross.  Our own accusation of ourself, our own sense of guilt is undone by Jesus’s unjust death at the accusers’ hands and his being raised from it.  As Paul says elsewhere, Jesus “erased the record against us from any legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross”  (Col. 2:24)

Thus Christ, once driven outside the wall, becomes our peace, and breaks down all dividing walls.  He brings those far off, those driven outside the walls themselves, back, and brings them near.   

Hoping to see you in Church during all of Holy Week. 

Fr. Tony+

Life to the Dead (Lent 5A)

The Raising of Lazarus, Vincent Van Gogh 1890

 

Life to the Dead
Homily delivered the Fifth Sunday of Lent (Lent 5A RCL)

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
2 April 2017; 8:00 a.m. Said and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)
Readings:  Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45; Psalm 130

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

The author of the Gospel of John clearly tells us his purpose: "...these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through faith in him you may have life” (John 20:31).

The fourth Gospel reveals Jesus to the reader through a series of startling acts: turning water to wine, healing the paralytic, multiplying the loaves and fishes, walking on the sea, curing the man born blind, raising Lazarus from the dead. John does not call these things miracles. He calls them signs, or pointers to the true meaning of Jesus. The word he uses is semeia—the word where we get the word semantics, or the study of meanings.  These six signs are completed by a seventh, like the days of creation.  It is Jesus being raised in deathless glory from the dead after being lifted high upon the cross for all the world to see him.

John sees these acts of power not as evidence that Jesus is God’s chosen one, God’s Son. Rather, for him they indicate—they point to, they serve as symbols for, and they participate in—the mystery that John sees as the reality of God in Christ.

This is not an effort at biographic history. This is an effort to point the reader to Christ, the risen Lord, the Eternal Word of God come down from heaven and now returned there, as experienced by believers now.

At times in the narrative the signs give Jesus a chance to give a discourse—at other times, a chance to engage in dialogue—on aspects of Jesus as Eternal Word of God and Son of the Father.

The Raising of Lazarus, New Basilica of Sant'Appolinare, Ravenna (6th century)

Today’s Gospel reading, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, is the great final sign before the passion and death of Jesus.  The story is my favorite of all scripture.  Here Jesus is shown to us not only in his divinity but also his humanity.  He shows his love and solidarity with Lazarus and his sisters several times.  He weeps with them.  He gets angry and indignant at how rotten a thing death is.  He takes time to talk with Martha.  He affirms his own faith amid the troubling context of a world of darkness, illness, and death.

In Dostoyevsky’s great novel Crime and Punishment, this story plays a central role.  Young radical Raskolnikov has committed a murder and theft to even, as he thinks, the score of social injustice and prove to himself the sincerity of his revolutionary opinions.  But he suffers from guilt and self-loathing as a result.  He meets a young prostitute, Sonya, who helps him come to grips with his feelings.  Sonya, though reviled and loathed by all around her, has been forced in prostitution in order to feed her younger siblings.  She herself also has suffered from guilt and self-loathing.  At a key turning point in the story, she tells Raskolnikov that she used to read to a beloved common acquaintance.  He insists that she read to him, and read to him what she used to read to their friend. 

She has trouble doing it.  Her voice breaks several times, she pauses and stammers, but she reads the story, this luminous tale from the Gospel of John.  When Jesus says, “And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Sonya continues reading Martha’s reply: “’She said to him,’ (and drawing a painful breath, Sonya read clearly but strongly, as though she herself were confessing he faith for all to hear:) ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world.’”    The story and Sonya’s sharing her faith turns things around for Raskolnikov, though it takes a long and complicated while for him to confess his crime, and suffer the penalty.  In the end, there is redemption and joy, both for him and Sonya, who accompanies him to Siberia to help him through his penal exile. 

The story is a sign-post, an indication, of the true nature of Jesus: our great healer, our pattern, and birth-giver.   Often during our weekday morning prayers, we sing a canticle that expresses the idea and feelings of this story.  It  is by one of the first round losers in this year’s Lent Madness, Anselm of Canterbury. 

One of the reasons this canticle so moves me is its tone 7 setting uses a figure that also appears in the tone 1 setting of Psalm 88:

O Lord, my God, my Savior, *

   by day and night I cry to you…

I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; *

   I have become like one who has no strength;

Lost among the dead, *

   like the slain who lie in the grave…

The figure is for the words “lost among the dead” which appears in Anselm’s canticle as “life to the dead” (chanting):

Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you; *

you are gentle with us as a mother with her children.

Often you weep over our sins and our pride,  *

tenderly you draw us from hatred and judgment.

You comfort us in sorrow and bind up our wounds,  *

in sickness you nurse us and with pure milk you feed us.

Jesus, by your dying, we are born to new life; *

by your anguish and labor we come forth in joy.

Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness; *

through your gentleness, we find comfort in fear.

Your warmth gives life to the dead,  *

your touch makes sinners righteous.

Lord Jesus, in your mercy, heal us; *

in your love and tenderness, remake us.

In your compassion, bring grace and forgiveness,  *

for the beauty of heaven, may your love prepare us.

Note that when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he leaves the deed unfinished.  Lazarus comes forth, but Jesus tells Mary and Martha to untie the funeral cloths, to “unbind him.”    That is how it often is with us:  Jesus may be our bread and give us strength, may be our water and give us relief, may be our warmth and give life to us the dead, but we often are held back by our own fears, foolishness, and false sense of self.  We, though alive back from the dead, remain bound.  And Jesus tells our friends, our family, and our loved ones, “Unbind him.  Complete the miracle or me.” 

St. Teresa of Avila wrote,

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

No matter what good God is up to, here below, we are God’s hands and feet here, God’s eyes, God’s ears, God’s heart.   Just as Christ bid the disciples to unbind Lazarus, so he bids us. 

Sisters and brothers, I am very glad that Deacon Meredith read the Gospel today.  I don’t think I could have, not without choking up and pausing again and again like Sonya.  That’s because I know this story and recognize it.  I have known the healing word and hand of Jesus.  I have seen it give life to the dead.  And with Martha, and with Sonya reading this story, I can say with all my heart, “Yes, Lord Jesus. I trust you.  I believe, I give my heart, that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into this world you have made.” 

Christ weeps with us.  He gives moments of joy and thanks.  He heals.  He gives life to the dead. 

Thanks be to God.