Sacramental Hospitality

Now on that same day, two of Jesus' disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.  Luke 24:13-15

 

           "Emmaus"  Sr. Mary Stephens

We’ve read the “Footprints in the Sand” story and we’ve sung along to the song  "In the Garden” and we know “He walks with me and He talks with me,” but C’mon.          

There is a mysteriousness, an ephemeral impermanence to these encounters that can leave us feeling shaky – not quite sure of ourselves. And so we fall asleep with that nagging question, “Was that real, or did I just imagine it?”   

The disciples, still sad, glumly walking to Emmaus, were face to face with the Risen One, and didn’t recognize him.  And Jesus, it seems, was content to move on without ever revealing himself to them, until, the text tells us, “they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is nearly now over.’”

It was their hospitality, their urging, that drew the Risen One back into their midst and gave him opportunity to reveal himself. The question we must ask ourselves is whether there is enough room for him in our lives. Are we offering the Lord enough place in our hearts and lives that he will accept our invitation to come in? 

Faith and Doubt

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.  John 20: 30-31

         "On Faint and Doubt"              Nick Piiero

“So that you may come to believe…..” is one of the most hope-filled lines in all of scripture.

Most of us have questioned the reality of God, or whether the Resurrection really happened, or if being  part of a faith community is worth our time and energy. No doubt, some of us have tried to discover God while sitting on a mountaintop, or by walking a beach, or by sipping coffee on a Sunday morning while reading the New York Times.  Faith is a process, after all.

But grounded, mature faith takes community and relationships with others who are on the same well-worn path. Faith takes tending and digging and retelling the stories of Jesus’ life in order to make them our own.  Thomas would not have believed if his friends had not told him that Jesus was alive; nor will ours.

Who are we telling about Jesus? How are we supporting each other in community so that those who struggle may come to believe?

For that is Christ’s call to us.  

My God, my God....Why?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
and are so far from my cry
and from the words of my distress?   Psalm 22:1

This intricately woven cross of palm fronds was created by a Coptic Christian for their Palm Sunday celebration. It was an act of devotion and a statement of hope. Little did he or she know how it would all end; that blood would stain the cross, that 44 would be dead, that hundreds more would be injured.  I wonder if the creator of this palm cross knew that a homicide bomber could be filled with such hate. 

As Christians, we acknowledge that evil exists and so we cling to our Lord’s promise: that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. God was there in those two churches on Palm Sunday, blessing and comforting and God will continue to be there, even when only blood stains remain. The Easter message proclaims that God will always triumph over death and destruction.  Always.

Let us wrap ourselves in the love God as we seek to make sense of it all.

The Power of Denial

Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”  Matthew 26:34

                    "The Denial of Peter"     James Tissot

This is one of the most haunting lines in Scripture. Peter, desperate to prove his allegiance to Jesus, promises never to disavow his Lord, and yet Jesus speaks truth.  “Truly I tell you….”   Sadly, Peter believes to his very core that he would never deny Jesus, and yet, we know that on that very night, Peter does exactly that – three times. Our Lord always speaks truth.  

What of us? When and how have we denied Jesus? Is it when we turn a blind eye to injustices observed? Or when we “refuse to get involved” because something doesn’t directly affect us?  Or is it simply when we mask our allegiance to Christ in order to get that promotion or to be better liked?  Peter did it, and so have we all.  

This approaching Holy Week is a time to bring our hearts closer to God, a time to confess the times we have denied Jesus by our thoughts, words and deeds. Join me as we do the important work of transforming our hearts and minds before the cross.

The Lord has need of us.  

Dry Bones

                      "Valley of the Dry Bones" c.1935          Ben-Zion Weinman  (1897-1987)

When we hear the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel, it isn’t long before we are trying to remember the words to the Sunday School song: “The hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone….”  And, “ZAP!” any interest in deciphering the meaning of the passage goes out the window. Yet the message is an important one.


So, set aside neck bones and shoulder bones for a moment (you’re humming it, aren’t you?)  and listen to the conversation God has with the prophet, Ezekiel.

“Tell these bones that I, the Lord, will put sinews on them and breathe life into them, so that they will come back to life and know that I am the Lord.”

And so, Ezekiel does and the bones come back to life. Wow!  We’ve all seen bones, bleached by the sun: fragile, dried out, inert. God is speaking, in metaphor, to those whose faith has dried up.  

How dried out is your faith? Your love of God? Your participation in the community of faith? Lent is the time when we consider the quality of our spiritual health and God's answer is always the same: “Return to me. Enter my fold. Hear my words and I will give you life and vitality – live so rich that you cannot imagine it.”  Such is God’s call to us. Return. Repent. Re-engage. God wants to put sinews on our bones, and life into our hearts.

Such is the Love of God in Christ Jesus.

Tend My Sheep

March 22, 2017

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Rev. Liz

The LORD is my shepherd; *

     I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures *

     and leads me beside still waters.

He revives my soul *

     and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.                                                                         Psalm 23: 1-3

                                             "Life Out West"                D. Whitehead

At our Vestry meeting the other night during our Bible Study, we were talking about sheep and lambs, and Jesus’ mandate to “feed my sheep,” and to “take care of my lambs.”  One Vestry member commented that we are drawn to lambs because they are cute and cuddly – but then they grow up into sheep, which are harder to love because they can become obstinate, dirty, and stupid. Her point was that Jesus asked us, mandated us, to take care of them all – not just the cute, fuzzy ones.  

This Sunday, we will read together the most famous psalm of them all, the 23rd Psalm. In it, we realize it the writer believes that the Lord is his shepherd.  As Christians, we believe this too.  The good news is that our Lord loves us and accepts us as his own whether we are cute and fuzzy little lambs or tired, old, obstinate sheep. Thank goodness for that! The Lord provides for our needs, brings us to green pastures, and revives our souls.

In turn, our Lord asks us to do the same with those around us. “Feed my sheep; take care of my lambs,” he said.  Tend to those who are cute and fuzzy, but also to those who are restless, irritable, and discontent. That is our call.

Sustenance

 “Rabbi, eat something.” But Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.”   John 4: 31-34

The last thing this volunteer is thinking about is where his next meal is coming from or why he isn’t home watching the latest episode of Dancing with the Stars. His food, his sustenance, is the pure contentment we find when we follow the way of Jesus: helping others, doing unto others what we would have them do unto us.

We all know the feeling: the satisfaction, the warm in your belly contentment that comes from doing the right thing. Whether it is teaching English as a second language or picking up litter, we know the feeling that comes from altruism. Whether it is serving hot lunches at Trinity Soup Kitchen or reaching out to a lonely senior, the Kingdom of God is found in those exchanges.  

When we murmur and moan (as the Israelites did while wandering in the desert), it is a sign to us that we need a fresh infusion of the Kingdom of God. We find it not in complaining, but when we get out of ourselves and connect with others.  Our sustenance comes from service; joy and happiness come from jumping into the Kingdom of God wherever we encounter it.

Seek ye first the Kingdom – and JUMP!   

Born Again

Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’  John 3:5-7

The Providence Journal  1903

In this complicated conversation between Jesus and the Pharisee, we come face to face with the phrase “Born again.”  This phrase has become a sort of fundamentalist litmus test – where people ask each other “have you been born again” in order to assess another’s faith.  It is time re-claim this phrase and understand it as the scripture intended it.

So what is “to be born again?”  As Jesus explains it, we must be born twice. The first time, through water, speaks to human birth – that moment when a baby emerges from the womb and draws one’s first breath. Being born again, being born in the Spirit, is another thing all together.  Some say it is a decision we make as adults, independent of others, to decide to follow Jesus – but many others believe that it is that moment in Holy Baptism when the Spirit binds us to a community of faith entrusted to teach us in the ways of following Jesus.    

What do you think?  Is it one or the other? Or is it both? To argue these divergent viewpoints is to risk missing the Truth that God is bound to us inextricably; that there is nothing we can do to separate ourselves from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.  And when we recognize that, then life becomes anything but rigid and stiff; life becomes flexible and increasingly comfortable with living in the paradox that is life. 

Return. Rend. Re-Orient.

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.    Joel 2: 12 

Yad Hasmona Biblical Garden    Israel

"Rend your heart and not your clothing"  seems to get at the very heart of what in means to keep a "Holy Lent."  Lent should never devolve into just "giving something up."  For what is the good of that? Losing a few pounds? Feeling triumphant that you can temporarily overcome some addiction?  Pleasing a spouse or a parent?

Neither is Lent about focusing on our fallen nature, as many of us have heard it preached before. Lent is about returning to the Lord.  It needn't be a public show apologizing for our misbehavior; God already knows all that.

Lent is about our hearts.  It is about returning to God and remembering whose we are. When we return our focus to God, there may well be some repentance and fasting, but not always. Sometimes, just the returning is enough.  In simply returning, in rending our hearts, we may just find ourselves deeply thankful for God's forgiveness and grace and mercy. And isn't that the point?

Return. Rend your hearts, Re-orient.

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