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SERMON FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Father Carlton Kelley is the Rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Grayslake, IL.

This sermon is based on the Gospel of St. Luke 24:13-35, which you can read by clicking here.

 

"Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen."

Many of you may recognize this prayer, from Evening Prayer Rite II in the Book of Common Prayer, as inspired by the Gospel passage for today: the story of Jesus' conversation with his friends on the road to Emmaus, a small town not far from Jerusalem.

Jesus "comes near," as any of our friends might do, to join them in conversation. Tellingly, they do not recognize him for who he is, the once Crucified and now Glorified Lord, for Jesus does not seek to be the center of attention.

He often, through our own decisions, must love us from afar. Then, as now, he waits for an invitation to be included in the lives of those he loves. Like any good friend, he lets them tell their story. He does not try to preempt them, put words in their mouths, or assume he knows what they are saying or feeling, though surely, he does know.

After asking about their conversation in an ancient version of "what's up?" he listens as they explain.

They are surprised that he does not seem to know about the momentous events of the past three days that to them were devastating. To the casual observer in Jerusalem, Jesus and those crucified with him were just three more victims of the regular brutality of Roman tyranny, or, as we might say, criminals who got what was coming to them, and then easily forgotten.

But to these disciples, their hope for a better world and a new life had been completely shattered by Jesus' death, for he was the one who they had hoped would fulfil the dreams of Israel for freedom and peace. What used to be hope in abundance was, forever, gone. They were now trying to make some sense of a senseless event in the universal quest for understanding the inexplicable.

When a loved one dies, part of our grief is in dealing with that which we do not understand; the cruel knowledge that love seems to have been taken away. Our loved ones, precisely because they are loved, should live with us physically forever. The ache of our hearts is the wound of love. The wounds of Jesus are his wounds of love for us.

Jesus patiently listens to them telling their story as they explain past events to him. They ask him "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" But, finally, at just the right time, he breaks his silence. Jesus is astonished that they do not understand their own history. "Oh, how foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets declared"— a comment many of us could take to heart.

Jesus then goes on to reveal himself to them through the words of Holy Scripture, the history of the hopes of Israel. And, that is, of course, what Jesus does for us now through the words of Holy Scripture. If we have hearts to understand and faith to comprehend, he is there in those blessed pages as truly as he is in the most holy Sacrament of the Altar.

In our current circumstances when the Sacraments of our redemption, most particularly the Holy Eucharist, are not available to us because our overriding concern is for the good of all, the all who is our neighbor, the Holy Spirit has given us the gift of remembrance of the Holy Scriptures. We are being given the opportunity to rediscover that the Holy Scriptures are "the lively oracles of God." Indeed, they are, for they are full of the presence that is both the love and life that is none other than God.

The presence of Jesus is not confined to the Sacraments, as wonderful and as life giving as they are. Our church and many others were reacquainted with the priceless gift that is Holy Scripture as a result of the Reformation in Western, European Christianity in the 1500s. Other churches in our time are beginning to rediscover them, as well. It is not that they were lost, but they were deemed of secondary importance.

Perhaps because we do take them for granted— deem them of secondary importance— as we tend to do with anything that is familiar, we have neglected them. How many of us have Bibles in our homes that are unopened and unread, silent testimonies to our neglect of our dearest treasures? In the pages of this great "undiscovered country" are found all the joys and heartaches of living. While this quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet refers to death, the pages of the Bible set our feet on a journey of faith, hope, and love that is waiting to astound us with its living richness!

When the early church was trying to understand what this new movement of salvation was all about, springing from the Judaism they knew and loved, enormous amounts of time and energy were spent combing the pages of the Scriptures for the incipient presence of Jesus in what we often call the Old Testament. Our ancient forebears in the faith were feeling called by the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Joseph and his brothers, Moses and Elijah and all the worthies of the past, to break with their friends from the specific faith that had sustained them for centuries, a faith that was— and is— both resilient and loving, challenging and prophetic, salvific and graceful.

They needed to know that the Jesus they loved in this life was the same Jesus that had appeared to them after his Resurrection and was the One expected for the consummation of the hopes and dreams of Israel. This is the Jesus they found in Holy Scriptures. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, those who sought him were able to find him, and we are here as a result. We now have him through what we generally call the New Testament, the mighty record of God's deeds in the early church and our forebears' attempts to understand this new— and old— faith.

Yet even Jesus' lengthy exposition of the Scriptures about himself did not fully open their eyes to his presence. He had laid the groundwork, but it was the supper that was yet to come that would finally reveal him.

This should not surprise us, for haven't we often reveled in new loves, cemented friendships, and solved pressing problems around the table, in the breaking of bread at the comfortable informality of the kitchen table or of new and exciting restaurants? But then we go our separate ways, and those precious moments become memories, treasured to be sure, but memories, nonetheless. The fulness of their loving reality seems lost to us. It has been said that we are quick to give away our joy and slow to discharge our sorrow.

"When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight," as John 13:30 tells us.

For love of them, Jesus gave them his presence— and then vanished! And that, brothers and sisters, should not surprise us— that he should vanish out of our sight, as it were. In this life, most of us, the greatest majority of us, are not able to see and know Jesus always, everywhere, and in everyone, because he has not yet been fully formed in us, and because we have not always and everywhere invited him in to be fully formed in us in love. It is as though we are only able to tolerate fleeting glimpses of him because we cannot tolerate, and we cannot understand, his complete goodness and love. It is too much for us. We do not want Jesus to be the guest that overstays his welcome!

And, of course, the deepest and best spiritual life, the one that is truly able to sustain us, is not built on emotional highs, something the disciples experienced when, at last, they recognized him. These highs, though they are and may be important from time to time, are not as important, not nearly as important, as the slow and steady work of persistent love. This is the work of the daily recognition of the wonder and the love always inherent in the small and seemingly insignificant things that make up our lives. This is as true of our personal relationships as it is of our spiritual lives— because they are one, and each is reflective of the other. This is the work of recognizing the Crucified and Glorified Christ in each and every person we encounter.

We certainly are given to see the wounds and the glory— the crucifixions and the triumphs— of those we know best. But Jesus, through his Resurrection, has given us the ability to see these qualities in all we meet. We are able to see that all our wounds are invitations to glory and that whatever glory we may possess is because of our wounds redeemed, resurrected, and transformed by the Lord.

The inevitable wounds of living in which we all share are, in the light of the resurrection, avenues for an increase of faith, hope, and love— those qualities of the Christian life deemed of most importance by St. Paul, and verified to be so by centuries of faithful Christian living.

If we take this time without Holy Communion seriously as the moment we have— and not impatiently waiting for another— we will be able to return to it with a renewed appreciation of its amazing joy and wonder. I know that this time is an invitation to us all to become reacquainted with the Bible if we have neglected it. Without the truths of Holy Scripture, without the record of the saving deeds of God found in its pages, we would not have the Sacraments at all. The Bible is the irreplaceable foundation upon which the Sacraments of our faith grow and build, emerging for us as new wonders of the love of God.

Remember, as John's Gospel tells us "In the beginning was the Word." He is life. His words are life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caravaggio

 

SERMON FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

 

Father Carlton Kelley is the Rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Grayslake, IL.

This sermon is based on the Gospel of St. John 20:19-31, which you can read by clicking here.

 

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN. THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED. ALLELUIA!

This is the second Sunday of Easter, commonly known as Low Sunday because attendance is inevitably smaller than Easter Sunday.

Of course, this year that doesn't apply as our circumstances are quite different. But we pray that next year we will have returned to a more normal state of affairs and have the luxury of experiencing fewer people in attendance! Everything is relative.

Unfortunately, because attendance is usually so "low," on the Sunday after Easter, many people miss hearing a wonderful Gospel which is always, whether we are in Year A, B, or C of the lectionary cycle, the story of Thomas and his so-called doubt.

While many of us experience doubt in our journey of faith, it is not nearly the onerous thing that many of us may believe it is. But, at the same time, it is not a cardinal value. Before I get into that, we will do well to look at the almost always overlooked beginning of this story.

Thomas, the "doubting" one, is, as the story begins, the "absent" one. We are not told where he is, but we are told something far more sinister— and important. The disciples are gathered behind locked doors "for fear of the Jews." That one seemingly innocuous phrase, "for fear of the Jews," and others like it, particularly in John's Gospel and his Passion story, sets the stage for some utterly and incomprehensibly horrific acts of anti-Judaism or, to use the more well-known word, anti-Semitism, throughout history wherever Christianity is found.

The writer of John's Gospel gave us a gospel of genuine beauty and truth simply judged, if for no other reason, on its literary merits. Who can fail to be moved when reading the great and timeless sweep of the Prologue: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God?" God has revealed the Divine Being as one of beauty and truth, and John captures this wondrous reality in his Gospel.

And yet in all this beauty and truth, John seems to have laid the groundwork, unwittingly, for a hatred of the Jewish people that has led multiple generations of the Jews to fear for their very lives. If tales of medieval pogroms do not inspire us to repent of this violent hate because they are too remote from our existence, the Holocaust or Shoah of World War II should be fresh in our minds. That some people should deny the reality of the holocaust speaks to the depth of human complicity in acts of violence. The sad and undeniable fact is that violence of any kind seldom, if ever, needs an excuse to find active expression.

Those seeking political power, as in the case of World War II Germany, and in our time, are often willing to use the generally unfounded fear of anything unknown that many people are willing to harbor as a constant companion just below their conscious awareness, as an excuse for control and barbarism of any and all kinds.

In Nazi Germany, hate resulting in mass murder in the millions was specifically directed against Jews, Romani, Slavs, the "incurably" ill, and gay men (lesbians were targeted as well to a lesser degree), in Hitler's mad quest for that most properly illusive and always destructive of goals, a pure, master race. Out of the fervid imaginings of one man's twisted mind, untold horror was unleashed on the world. The damning truth is that violence, in the often-seductive service of political goals, is often disguised as a patriotic duty, as a way to do something good for a large number of people.

Those kinds of atrocities have been played out with regularity, particularly in our country's ongoing legacy of slavery, in the genocide of hundreds of thousands of native Americans, and, in our own time, the caging of men, women, and children at our southern border. But even though we must recognize that hate has no boundaries when used as a political tool, we must remember, especially as Christians, that our Jewish brothers and sisters occupy a special place in the constant need we have as Jesus's disciples and friends for repentance and forgiveness for that crime.

This need for constant repentance is clearly illustrated in something that was not so long ago embedded, though is now thankfully gone, in the Liturgy for Good Friday of the Roman Catholic Church. I am not singling that church out for special criticism. Yet their attitude was illustrative and widely reflected in all Christians bodies including our own. In that liturgy, the church was invited to pray for "the perfidious Jews." On the very day commemorating our Jewish Jesus's death for our salvation, the Church sent the clear and unmistakable message that the Jews, as a people, were directly responsible for Jesus's death. In case you have forgotten, perfidious means 'unfaithful, untrustworthy, treacherous, and deceitful."

May God continue to have mercy on us. May our Jewish sisters and brothers forgive us.

It should seem incomprehensible to us that God's chosen ones— those who remain chosen— the people of Israel— out of which our Lord Jesus Christ was born and nurtured, should be the target of such rage. But, sadly, we understand it all too well. As with most prejudice, it lies just underneath the surface, waiting to be exploited when the need arises.

As a personal example, I, as a gay man of a certain age, do not remember ever being told directly and specifically that it was bad and of the very devil to be who I am. But the message came through loudly and clearly and in a thousand different ways. The message of hate often seems hidden and benign except to those to whom it is directed. To those to whom it is directed, it has the power to destroy lives with utter impunity.

We must as Christ's people always be on guard lest hate take control of our lives without our even being aware of it. This is why Jesus commands us to love those we know and those we do not know. He does not merely gently recommend it as a possible course of action. We are commanded to love those we would like to revile, and those we actually do revile, because our lives, all our lives, depend on it. Why? Because we are all, despite our apparent yet truly insignificant differences, children of the same God who is LOVE, and who was and is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, born of Mary, a devout and holy daughter of the Jewish people. May we never forget that we are all children of Abraham and Sarah, the two originally called by God to set into motion God's plan of salvation for the world culminating in Jesus Christ, a child of the Jewish people.

And so to Thomas.

It is not known why Thomas was not with the other disciples when Jesus first visited them after his Resurrection. It is very easy to imagine that he was with his family or other friends trying to recover from the events of Friday that had left all of Jesus's companions more than a little disillusioned, hopeless, and uncertain about their futures, if not completely paralyzed with fear.

But whatever the case, it seems reasonable to believe that Thomas shared some of the fear of that group locked behind closed doors. And, the good Thomas, also seems to have been just a bit arrogant when he said that unless he, he himself, were able to touch Jesus he would not believe. One could easily imagine that when the other disciples told him they had seen and spoken with Jesus, Thomas could have said in wonder and amazement and joy— "What was he like? I am so sorry I missed him. I hope I see him soon, too!"

But no, Thomas refused to accept the testimony of his brothers and sisters. He needed what we now call proof. He wanted proof that Jesus was alive. Thomas doubted— Thomas doubted, and perhaps with good reason. But why?

The Resurrection of Jesus was an earth shattering and completely unpredictable and inexplicable event. The Pharisees, that group of powerful Jewish teachers with whom Jesus often disagreed, believed in the Resurrection as a singular and corporate event at the end of time. They did not believe in an individual's coming back from the dead in the middle of this present time. No one did. It was as improbable then as it is to us now. It doesn't, can't, and won't happen— ever. Thomas had every reason to be more than a bit skeptical. But his doubt was to a good purpose, and ours is able to be as well.

The Church has, sometimes with regularity in our age, portrayed doubt as an essential element of faith, rather than as a sometimes necessary and an altogether strengthening stepping-stone to faith.

We have missed the reality of "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief," spoken by the father of the seriously ill boy in Mark 9:24.

We have forgotten that Thomas' doubt led to his exclamation of the greatest possible faith that we should all hope to share— "My Lord and my God"— when Thomas was confronted with the living reality of Jesus' wounded and mysteriously glorified body.

The Bishop of Fond du Lac, Matthew Gunter, has put it well: "Unless we are willing to doubt our doubts, our doubts become merely the excuses to avoid the complications of believing." And we know that those "complications of believing" can be quite challenging, and, if we let them, debilitating and destructive of faith, of ultimate trust and loyalty in and to Jesus Christ.

Too often the Church has presented the content of faith as unchanging and static, as a great deposit "once delivered to the saints," altered or questioned to the peril of our souls. It is easy and convenient to believe this because it removes us from any responsibility to think and wrestle with, and therefore own, our faith, so that we might hand it on to others as a lively and loving conviction of real and active belief— and not merely as the assumption of the ideas of others.

What the Church knows at her best and most faithful— and what Jesus told us as found in John 14:26— is that the Holy Spirit, our advocate and guide, will lead us into all truth that will gradually be revealed to us as we are able. This is because the Holy Spirit is always about breaking down those artificial barriers that keep each of us from fully and truly being whom God called us to be as created in God's own image: loving, creative, and fully free. That is challenging and difficult and will always be resisted, most especially by the institutional church.

Yet we are a pilgrim people, always journeying, always moving into more love wherever God leads, which is always into a place of safety, because God is always there. We are able with Thomas, the one who doubted and then believed, to say "My Lord and my God," because Jesus is always Lord and God wherever and in whomever we may find him.

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN. THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED. ALLELUIA!

SERMON FOR EASTER

 

Father Carlton Kelley is the Rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Grayslake, IL.

This sermon is based on the Gospel of St. John 20:1-18, which you can read by clicking here.

 

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! THE LORD IS RISEN, INDEED! ALLELUIA!

There are no sadder words in all of Holy Scripture than the ones spoken by Mary

Madelene to Jesus in the garden after his resurrection as recorded in John 20:13.

She spoke these words, surprisingly and perhaps with more than a hint of anxiety, to two angels who were now sitting where Jesus' body would have been, as she gazed into what was Jesus' tomb.

In the fulness of her grief she said, "They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him."

John tells us that Mary Magdalene had made her solitary journey to Jesus' tomb "early on the first day of the week while it was still dark," only to find the stone covering the entrance to the tomb rolled away.

Given the construction of these ancient tombs, this round stone would have weighed at least 1-2 tons and put in place in such a way that it would have been impossible to roll it back easily even with two strong men. They were designed to be secure, as if to reinforce the impenetrable barrier that exists between the living and the dead.

Still in deep grief and shock following the horrific events of Friday, the day of Jesus' brutal death by crucifixion, Mary Magdalene may have gone to the tomb simply to take any comfort she could find in the universal human act of finding solace by being near the body of a now dead loved one.

Many of us have lingered at a place of burial or internment, hoping that some of the love we once so vividly knew from this person might return to us full blown and alive, vibrant and joyful, waiting to embrace us with outstretched arms. Of course, we hope against hope that our loved one will return because the brutal reality is that they cannot. We know in our bones that they cannot. All our knowledge of the world and our experiences of loss tells us they cannot. But we hope because we must. And from that we take what comfort we may find.

When Mary peers into the tomb, she sees two angels who ask her why she is crying. They know, even if Mary and the other disciples do not yet know, that Jesus is alive.

She then turns around and speaks with a stranger she assumes to be the gardener of the place. This stranger repeats the words of the angels: "why are you weeping?" and asks her whom she is seeking.

Mary questions the gardener because, of course, who else would he be other than the gardener? She wants to know where he may have put Jesus' body so she will be able to return him to his family and friends in a final act of loving service.

And, now, just now, joy begins to bubble up from an impenetrable grief. With the simple act of calling her name, "Mary," Jesus reveals to her exactly who he is— her teacher, her master, her lord, her savior, her friend— alive. The truly, utterly and absolutely impossible had happened— Jesus is alive. He is not merely a vivid memory, or a product of wishful thinking, or a manifestation of some sort of plot, but alive, as fully and truly Jesus, just as he is today.

Mary was joyous. John's text doesn't tell us this, but surely, she must have been joyous and also surprised and flabbergasted and incredulous and a whole host of other emotions for which we may not have words. But in all this complex of emotion, joy was there.

Mary was joyous and surprised and at a loss for words because she knew, like we know, that people don't return from the dead. And, the dead who died by the most brutal form of execution, Roman crucifixion, surely didn't return from the dead. People who have had the full weight of empire deployed against them don't return from the dead. People who were taken down from a cross, bloody and wounded and disfigured, don't return from the dead. But there it was— there he os— Jesus. Alive. Breathing. Speaking. Welcoming. Accepting. Loving. Jesus, the bringer of joy.

And, I think, this is a real wonder. All it took for Mary to realize that Jesus was now alive, was for him to speak her name. All it took was a simple "Mary." It was as if all her past with Jesus, her sins forgiven, her life restored, her love renewed, came rushing back to her with that one word. It was for Mary as if the whole world now consisted of only two people, she and Jesus.

And that, of course, is all that it takes for us to believe that he is alive. All he needs to do is to speak our name in those thousands of ways he has of doing so. When he speaks our name in tenderness or challenge or loving correction or uplift or creativity, or in the voice of another human being, we know we are alive because he is alive— and that is all that matters.

Mary held on to Jesus, just as we hold someone, whether in a moment of joy or of sorrow. It's as if Mary wanted to convince herself that, yes, this man who stood before her is Jesus— really, Jesus. She had lost him once— and she didn't want it to happen again. But, then, Jesus said to Mary what may have seemed like words of surprising rejection:

"Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father, to my God and your God.' "

In the middle of a joyful reunion that had just begun, Mary is sent. She is not allowed to linger and savor the moment— she is sent. She is sent by Jesus to proclaim the great good news of his resurrection to her friends and his brothers, the start of the evangelical journey of hope over despair and life over death that would change the world.

Now, neither Mary nor we are allowed to savor too many moments of religious good feeling, because our fundamental job is to be sent, to teach, to proclaim, and to live as those who love Jesus and hope that others will love him too.

I think it is important to take careful note of a particular change in tone, if you will, of Jesus when he spoke with Mary. He sent her to his brothers and, of course, equally by extension, to his sisters.

What this means is that his disciples over which he had been lord and master, were now members of one and the same family of God made possible through his resurrection.

Therefore, and it's a very, very big therefore, in this new world order inaugurated by Jesus, everyone is absolutely equal because everyone is called to be a priest of this new order given in Holy Baptism.

And, of course, baptism is our incorporation into Jesus Christ, into the very life of the Holy Trinity. Just as Jesus died, was buried, and raised to new life, so, too, are we. We are vitally important and irreplaceable parts of the new world order of peace, mercy and justice, of faith, hope and love.

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, says this in his little book "The Sign and the Sacrifice":

"Believing in the resurrection is believing that the new age has been inaugurated, the new world has begun. And that new world is, as we might put it, the final phase of the history of God's relation with his people. So to say 'Jesus is risen' is to say that we have now entered on the last days, on the final, decisive phase of God's interaction with Israel and, through Israel, with the whole world . . . this also means that after the resurrection there's never going to be any new framework, any different way of seeing God in the world. This is it. "

Through us, God's people in the power of the Holy Spirit, the world is slowly, very slowly— but decisively so (!)— being remade into the image and likeness of God.

And even if doesn't seem so just now, if the world seems to be falling apart, rest in faith, hope, and love that we are part of that great movement to reveal that all things have been put right according to God's plan in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our brother.

In this wondrous season of Resurrection, the Church is called to express joy that is, truthfully, inexpressible, because it is so very much other than we know or have known. C.S. Lewis wrote of joy "that it must have the stab, the pain, the inconsolable longing." Our joy is in that which is not yet but that we know, by faith, will be revealed.

Perhaps we know this deep kind of painful joy best in the death of a loved one. We Christians know that we will be reunited with them, but we also know our reunion will not be now and on our own narrow terms. So, we must, if we are to remain faithful, live in hope that is sustained by love. We are always hoping for a better love to be revealed. And, we know, that one day, it will be in its utterly incomprehensible fullness because Jesus has been raised from the dead.

ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN! THE LORD IS RISEN, INDEED! ALLELUIA!

May each and every one of you have a blessed and joyous feast of the Lord's Resurrection.

  Jesus as the Gardener, by Rembrandt

SERMON FOR MAUNDY THURSDAY

Father Carlton Kelley is the Rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Grayslake, IL.

Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of what is called the Triduum—three days— that is at the very heart and soul of our liturgical year. These liturgies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Day of the Resurrection, mark the central and culminating events of our Lord's life, and the manifestation of the events of our salvation.

They are conceived, liturgically, as one day, so no dismissal is given until the Sunday of the Resurrection. It is as though the church is trying to show us, we who are limited by time and space, that these events, though firmly rooted in history, have about them the holiness and the glory of the eternal. The eternal is breaking into time. The veil of the temple has been torn and we are reunited with the Everlasting, with I AM, with the one who is pure Love.

The word "maundy" comes from the Latin mandatum, which means mandate, commandment, or instruction. It refers specifically to our Lord's saying to his disciples, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you," as recorded in John 13:34. The context of these words makes them particularly poignant. Jesus and his disciples have just eaten their last supper together, he has washed their feet in a shocking reversal of the roles of master and disciple, and Judas has left the upper room to put into motion his final act of betrayal.

The Lord by whom all things were made has now, at his own insistence, been made our food. The Lord of glorious majesty has knelt before the feet of those he made. The Lord of love has been betrayed by hate. Into this complex mixture of time and eternity, of giving all yet being betrayed, of sin and death, Jesus speaks of love. No, more than that, Jesus commands love.

It seems strange that Jesus should command love. We know, or should know, from our personal experience that love cannot be commanded, but only freely given and freely received if it is to be love. The giving and receiving of love is the ultimate act of freedom because it is the ultimate offering of our vulnerability, each to the other no matter the cost. It is the supreme act of our humanity. It is the glory of the Cross.

Yet Jesus, like no other before or after him, is aware of the consequences of the deep darkness of human sin. Jesus knows that love must be put into practice, first and foremost, as a series of actions. Just as the love of the Holy Trinity was revealed by the divine outpouring that brought creation into being, our human love is revealed by our re-creation of God's love in our daily lives. That is why Jesus gives us more than a helpful hint. He commands. Yet he knows the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility— for most of us most of the time— of this command. And that is why he has done what he has done.

He has shown what it is to love by feeding, by washing, by teaching— and by dying— to his odd collection of questionably motivated disciples. He has even fed and washed and taught— and will die for— the man who betrays him. He goes to the garden of Gethsemane to pray fervently to his Father that the dark, horrible and impossibly cruel day of Friday will pass. Yet, out of love, and for nothing other than love, he accepts all the hate thrown at him, absorbing it, thereby forever robbing hate and death of its power. Jesus has brought to perfect reality the words of the prophet Micah. "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good . . . Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God." And by doing this to perfection, by making what seemed for so many long years impossible to do, he has reversed the sin of Adam and restored creation to its former glory. Yet it does not seem so, tragically, it does not seem so.

It seems oddly fitting, if I may use that word, that this Passover and Holy Week coincides with a world thrown into darkness by a pandemic of disease and death. It is fitting in that it may be regarded as a parable, though wholly unwelcome, for the human condition. Let me quickly add that, unlike the crudeness of certain televangelists and others who seem to welcome death and destruction, I do not believe for a moment that God has brought this plague to punish us. This pandemic is another manifestation of a world NOT as it should be; a world marred by sin and death, a world caused by you and me.

Though we have hope— though we must have hope— that this death-dealing disease will end with our Spirit-inspired, loving and difficult, cooperative work, just now it may seem to many that there is no real end in sight.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, that wonderful tale of sin and redemption, C.S. Lewis describes Narnia, a land full of peaceful, talking animals and other wondrous things. Narnia has been overrun by Jadis, the White Witch, who has brought the Hundred Years Winter to a once green and joyous land. The condition under which all now live is described as "always winter and never Christmas." This endless winter without the rebirth of joy is finally broken by the arrival of Aslan, the great and good lion who sacrifices himself to save Narnia. At Aslan's resurrection, the snow and ice melt, and life is returned, in due course, after further battles with the forces of darkness, to its normally joyous state. But it is the condition of "always winter and never Christmas" in which many people now find themselves. Or, to put it in a timelier fashion, we seem to be in a state of "always Holy Week and never Easter!"

But there are signs that point the way to a better tomorrow— signs of a promised new creation, as we Christians would and must say. People are recovering, this virus is beginning to be understood, and some communities, though they are very few in number, may have started to make the agonizingly slow return to normalcy.

Yet we know, at least we who are children of Abraham and heirs of Jesus Christ know, that the specter of human darkness will remain when life returns to normal. This disease will be conquered, but another will take its place and the underlying disease of our sin will remain. The brokenness of creation remains. We have not been wholly changed.

And yet. . . though at times like these it seems impossible to believe, the light has dawned because Christ has risen. He is the first fruits of the new creation. He is the one who has revealed to us what living in love looks like— for that is the absolute essence of what it means to live in a new creation. Through his life, death, resurrection and ascension, he has taught us love. He has shown us not just a superbly human love of obedience to a noble cause and purpose, but a divine love that gives before it takes, that dies before it lives, and that does not count the cost of loving to its fullest measure.

Our Holy Week is not as it should be. Or, at least, it is not as we expect it to be. We are not able to gather in our houses of worship to hear the great stories of our communal salvation. We are not able to wash ourselves in beautiful signs and symbols of joy and hope. We are not able to partake of the sacrament of Holy Communion, the Bread of Life and Cup of Salvation, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not able to be refreshed by one another and hear the many stories of shared love and compassion.

Yet, in and through all this, we remain a people in Jesus Christ because the Holy Spirit has been and is, always, with us. The Holy Spirit is with us to show us the path of love that is the path of life, that is the path of Holy Week— and that is precisely the point, whether we have communal liturgies or not. Unless our now absent congregational liturgies, unless this experience of absence, has led us to greater love, to a greater awareness of he who is Love in the person of the other, then this experience of small sacrifice may be in vain.

We need to take comfort in and to take seriously the reality that the sacrifice of our congregational and liturgical life at this time must bind us more closely to the sacrifice of our Lord. We are bound more closely to Love. And every sacrifice of and to love, no matter how small, is honored by God. In this, we are bound more closely to Love because we share, thankfully in a small way for most of us, the sacrifice that others, some perhaps in our own backyards or around the world, must daily make because of widespread poverty and/or war that severely limits the resources of daily living and that causes disease to go unchecked.

In a Zoom call today with the bishops and clergy of the diocese, we learned that 70% of the deaths from COVID-19 are in the African American community. This is the terrible result of the continuing legacy of slavery made possible by unjust laws, regulations, and centuries of discrimination. Simply because of their skin color, some of our brothers and sisters are thought worthy of nothing more than to experience poverty, disease, and death at much higher rate than others. For these children of God, the dream of new life and new hope in a more just society is a very distant dream. They live in a Good Friday without hope and without end.

Yet in all this, in this world that is not as it should be, we are called to remain hopeful because we are full of faith, hope and love. But this faith, this hope, and this love is not of our own doing— and for that we say thanks be to God. No, our faith, hope and love are gifts of the Holy Spirit given to a church that must witness to Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, in all times and all seasons, in times of despair, in time of disease, in times of want, and in times of joy and plenty.

We witness because we have been made the vanguard of a new and different world— a new creation. We have been given to know what the Lord requires, and we know that Love is the only possible answer. In this life, we know that our road of love will lead to Calvary; but, wonder of wonders, beyond to the glories of eternal life.

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.

SERMON FOR PALM SUNDAY

 

Father Carlton Kelley is the Rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Grayslake, IL.

Some have said that Palm Sunday is "bittersweet." And that, I suppose, is as good a way as any of describing it. As it stands in our prayer book, it is a combination of two days with quite different emphases and so feels, at least to me and, I think, to many others, more than slightly off kilter.

What we now observe as Palm Sunday is a combination of Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday, once distinctly different days with very different emphases. So here a bit of church and liturgical history may help us to understand this phenomenon.

You may recall that the then Pope, John XXIII, convened what came to be known as Vatican II, a council which lasted from 1962-1965 (and we complain about the length of diocesan and General conventions!).

This was a gathering of all bishops, and others, in communion with the Church of Rome to discuss sweeping and necessary reforms of the Roman Catholic Church.

Among the significant accomplishments was a complete restructuring of the Lectionary.

As you know, the lectionary is those Scripture readings assigned for every Sunday, feast and fast days and ordinary days of the year.

To simplify what was a long and complicated process, the 3-year cycle of Sunday readings we now enjoy is a result of Vatican II, as the liturgical reforms undertaken there spread to every major church body.

The greatest majority of churches around the world now read, with minor variations, the same readings every Sunday. And that, my friends, is nothing less, and can be none other than, the work of the Holy Spirit.

As a result of all this lectionary revision, the once two different days of Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday were combined.

In the recent past, before our prayer book of 1979, Passion Sunday was the last Sunday of Lent. On that day the Gospel reading was usually the Passion account from Matthew.

The following Sunday, Palm Sunday, then served as the joyful and triumphal introduction to Holy Week leading to the pivotal events— far from joyful and triumphant, yet at the very heart of the matter— of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Good Friday was and is the day on which we hear the Passion account from the Gospel of John.

Now, you may quite correctly ask, why all this liturgical tinkering? Why does it really matter? Why do I need to know this?

It seems obvious to say, yet is often forgotten, that lectionaries have a quite distinct purpose. The high purpose of this carefully crafted series of readings from the Word of God is to form us as God's people, to make us into a finely honed tool to carry on the work of Jesus Christ in the world.

The lectionary is not simply an unrelated string of "holy" readings to make us pious as we hear "holy" words.

No, the lectionary is designed to change us, to mold us, to form us, to shape us, to challenge us, to convict us— to love us and to resurrect us— as we hear of God's dealing with God's people in remote ages past.

And, just now, as we do not have access to our customary means of sacramental nourishment, the Word of God comes to the fore. But let me be quick to say that 'words' are as sacramental as what we normally think of as sacraments. This is because they point to realities beyond and greater than themselves and are sure and certain vehicles for the love and grace of God.

The ages past that are recorded in Holy Scripture are as much our age as they were the times of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Moses and Miriam, Elisha and Elijah, Delilah, Esther, Amos and Isaiah, Mary, Martha and Mary, Peter and Paul, Lydia, Priscilla and Aquila, Joanna and Susanna— and all the rest of the vast multitude that have looked to God in hope and have found that hope made manifest in Jesus Christ our Lord. That hope was and is realized in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is why we have Holy Week, the crucial and utterly essential week of the Christian year.

Holy Week is the culmination of Lent, the 40 days in which we prepare for Jesus' resurrection by re-forming ourselves again, always again, into love as Jesus' disciples.

At its start on Palm Sunday, we begin by proclaiming him, enthusiastically and with full voice as the "One who comes in the name of the Lord— Hosanna in the Highest."

And, then, in a piece of liturgical irony that should not be lost on any of us as Hosanna means "God save us," we, later in the liturgy, shout "Crucify him," to the one we had just asked to save us!

The depth of human sin has no boundary and that reality, which is brought to the fore on this day, is why this liturgy feels so very bittersweet. It is bitter because of our often-incomprehensible sin. It is sweet because Jesus, God's son, saves us, love us, sanctifies and heals us. As he did and does this for our sake, so we, in the power of the Holy Spirit, do for the sake of the world.

This Palm Sunday will be unlike those we have known and loved.

We will have no gathering to both welcome Jesus and to condemn him. Nor will we be able to wave palms, hear the Gospel proclaimed and preached, sing "songs and hymns and spiritual songs," or receive the Holy Communion of our Lord which is so irreplaceably precious to us.

But I believe we may be going much further into the heart of the mystery that is Holy Week because it will be so different, because we have lost our obvious bearings.

We will be without the signs of palms and washed feet, bread and wine and water and light and dark that normally accompany it.

And, most importantly, we will be without one another as a gathered people of God, the very body of the faithful testifying to the mighty works of the Lord, we who are the Body of Christ, we who are the primary sacrament of Jesus Christ!

We will be without ourselves and the objects that reinforce and make real the message of Holy Scripture, a message that is now hidden in our hearts.

So. . . this day that is the result of a combination of days, while bittersweet and off kilter, is doing precisely what it was intended to do. It is forming us more deeply as Jesus' disciples as we come to realize just how often our response to Jesus is both bitter and sweet, and more than a little off kilter from what God would have it to be.

The observance of Palm Sunday points to us, the Body of Christ, and says we are not what we should be. It says to us— do not become numb to the dichotomy of your life. Live in the tension that exists between your love and your fear and know that it is there, in that tension, that your salvation lies. We are, as St. Paul tells us, working out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Joanna Collicutt, writing in the English publication "Church Times," says of our current situation of plague that "Christianity is all about post-traumatic growth: the transformation of the utterly grim and the wreckage of disappointment into something that gives life and hope. Not 'What does not kill me makes me stronger,' but the absurdly subversive notion that 'what kills us makes us stronger.'"

That is, our death to self and self-service— even our death to Holy Week— brings us more fully into the kingdom of heaven, more fully into Christ's Body, the Church.

We are, as St. Paul reminds us, being made weak so that the power of God might be perfected in us.

And that, my brothers and sisters, with or without a full-blown observance Holy Week, is precisely the point of this great time.

Let us rejoice and be glad.

 

In 1963, a racist bomb attack on an Alabama church killed four black girls.

John Petts, in Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, designed this window,

with Jesus' words from Matthew 25:40: "You did it to me."

This window from the people of Wales was installed in 1965.