St. John's Episcopal Church

Sermon for Sunday, April 19, 2009 (Year B, Easter 2)

[Thomas] said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands… I will not believe.” (John 20:25)

Today is the Second Sunday of Easter, for which the traditional reading is this passage from St. John about Thomas.  Poor old Tom.  Generations of Christians have regarded him with benign contempt, if not outright destain, and have given him the nickname “Doubting Thomas,” because of this report in John’s gospel.

Like Mary Magdalene, Thomas is one of those people we know well, yet know little about.  We can’t even be sure what his name was!  I’m told that in Aramaic the word “Thomas” means “twin.”  In John’s gospel — written, of course, in Greek — his name, Thomas, is followed by the Greek word Didymus, or “twin,” which is probably the name by which he was known among Greek-speaking Christians.  Why is he “the Twin?”  Perhaps he had a twin brother who was known to the disciples.  Perhaps he was the twin of one of the other disciples.  Some have even gone so far as to suggest that he was the twin brother of Jesus — although that, in my opinion, creates something of a theological problem, starting with two babies in the manger at Bethlehem!

A few commentators have noted that his name turns up in the middle of the list of disciples in all four gospels, suggesting that Thomas was neither the most important nor the least important of our Lord’s twelve friends.  They may be right, but that argument reminds me of the endless speculation about power relationships within the Soviet Union’s leadership based on who-stood-where on top of Lenin’s Tomb.

In any case, in John’s gospel we get some idea of Thomas’ personality.  For instance, at one point Jesus decides to go into Judea even at the risk of being stoned by his opponents.  When his disciples urge caution, Jesus overrules them.  Thomas then declares, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”  Old Tom, then, has a bit of bravado about him. (John 11:7-16)

Again, at the Last Supper Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to the Father.  In a passage often read at funerals, Jesus says, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places… if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going.”  Thomas quickly admits that he doesn’t know the way.  This sets the stage for one of Jesus’ “I am” sayings: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:1-6)  Alas, this exchange makes Thomas look a little slow on the uptake, although there is nothing to indicate that the other disciples knew the way either.

Finally, we have today’s reading.  Jesus appears to the disciples on the evening of the Day of Resurrection, but Thomas is off running some errand.  When he returns and the others tell him that they have seen the Lord, Thomas declares, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)  A week later — that is, on the evening of the Sunday following Easter, which is today! — Jesus again appears and Thomas is granted his desire to see the wounds with his own eyes.  Convinced that Jesus is truly alive, he says, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus responds by saying, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:28-29)

It’s that comment — our Lord’s comparison of Thomas with those who believed without seeing — that has dogged old Tom down the centuries and made him appear as the one disciple who doubts.  The general consensus is that Thomas is stubbornly loyal to Jesus, but maybe just a bit dull.  However, I think that’s grossly unfair.

First of all, the gospels are awash in people who have difficulty believing in Jesus, both before and after the resurrection.  For example, we have Mary, our Lord’s mother, who at the Annunciation clearly doubts what the archangel Gabriel tells her and, in effect, says, “Me?  Pregnant?  You’ve got to be kidding.” (Luke 1:34)  We have the disciples in the storm, who doubt if Jesus cares whether they live or die. (Matt. 8:25-26)  We have Peter trying to walk on the water, but sinking under the weight of his doubt.  (Matt. 14:31)  We have the rich ruler who, when Jesus asks him to sell all he has, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow him, doubts what Jesus says and goes off sad. (Luke 18:23)  And there’s the scribes who see Jesus heal the paralytic, but doubt his authority. (Luke 9:3)  And there’s all those folks who doubted Jesus’ power when he seemed unable to prevent Lazarus from dying. (John 11:37)  And, of course, there’s all the disciples who wrote off Mary Magdalene’s report of the resurrection as an idle tale. (Luke 24:11)  When it comes to doubt, Thomas has lots of company.

Is Thomas called “Doubting” because he believed on the evidence of his own eyes?  That was exactly the same evidence the other disciples were given, only one week earlier!  

No, I think old Tom has gotten a bum rap.  And all this emphasis on his supposed doubt misses the point John is trying to make.  His point, I think, is simply that believing takes effort, at least for us adults.  Children believe very easily.  They are very alive to the spiritual side of life, as Jesus points out when he says that we must be like children to enter the kingdom. (Matt. 18:3)  But as we grow older, we cover up our natural openness to the reality beyond this world with layer upon layer of sophistication and skepticism and worldly wisdom.  And being so hardened, we can find believing very difficult.

How, then, are we to believe that Jesus rose from the dead?  Perhaps the best analogy is that believing — having faith in God, believing in the resurrection — is something like a trapeze act.  To make the move from one bar (unbelief) to the other bar (faith), it’s necessary to let go of the first and grab hold of the second.  But in between — and here’s the really hard part!… in between there is that brief but rather scary moment when you have hold of neither the former nor the latter, and are quite literally flying!

Now I’ve never been on a trapeze in my life, but I suspect that if a peerson is to master the trapeze, she needs three things in particular: knowledge of her equipment, trust in her coworkers, and courage to use her own abilities.  Let’s consider this just briefly:

First, if faith is like working on a trapeze, then knowledge of our equipment requires having some equipment to work with!  We need to know Holy Scripture, the stories of both the Old Testament and the New, and in particular the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We get that information here at church for the most part — in Sunday School if you are a young person, and in the Liturgy of the Word at the Eucharist if you are older.  Think of both as “age-appropriate Christian education.”  Of course, Bible study groups and other Christian education situations are also helpful.  But the point is that without this exposure to the basic data of Christianity, a person has no equipment to work with.

Second, making that leap of faith — learning to fly! — requires that we trust our coworkers.  In this context, that certainly means those of us who are ordained and preach, although I think our role is overemphasized.  The people who have the greatest ability to help someone believe are, first, the person’s parents (and godparents) through their own life of prayer and witness, and second, those friends who are willing to share their own journeys of spiritual growth and service to God’s people.  In this sense faith is a bit like the common cold: you catch it from other people.

And third, believing requires that we have courage to use our own God-given abilities, most especially our brains.  In this, perhaps I am hopelessly sunk in the Anglican way!  Our branch of Christianity has always asserted that the mysteries of the Divine truth are accessible to, and in accord with, reason.  In other words, we can discern the right path by using our intellectual faculties.  God did not give us brains in order to keep our ears from clanging together!  God gave us intelligence in order that we may apprehend his presence in scripture, in others, in our world, and in our own hearts.  

Now, that does not deny the important role of emotion in faith.  Faith without emotion is a chilly affair at best, and a dangerous one at worst.  But at the same time, faith which is not grounded in reason will, in the end, be a house built on sand, ready to be swept away in the first strong storm.

Jesus himself modeled just such a reasonable faith — a faith with intellectual integrity — when he kept asking both his friends and his opponents whether they had read this or that passage of Holy Scripture.  In Matthew: “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female…?” (Matt. 19:4)  And again: “…as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God…?” (Matt. 22:31)  In Mark: “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry…?”  And again: “Have you not read this scripture: the very stone which the builders rejected…?”  In Luke: “What is written in the law?  How do you read?”

In other words, like Jesus, we must have the courage to use the intellectual gifts that God has given us in order to seek the truth.  If we are willing to approach Holy Scripture with intellectual integrity, and to put our faith to work in a world too often beset by injustice and violence, then we will live in the power of the resurrection.

In a few minutes, Chloe Nicole Hansen will be baptized into the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.  Because she is only a few months old, she cannot today appreciate what this little ritual means, but I truly hope that her parents and godparents will, over the years, help her to understand that on Sunday, April 19, 2009, she was sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.  There will certainly be times when Chloe harbors doubts about her faith.  So do we all.  But I pray that with the good equipment the Church can provide, with trust in those who educate and guide her, and with the courage to use her God-given abilities, Chloe will make that flying leap into the fullness of faith and in time inherit the kingdom prepared for her from the foundation of the world. (Matt. 25:34)  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year B, Easter 2:  Lesson — Acts 4:32-35  |  Gradual — Psalm 133  |  1 John 1:1-2:2  |  Gospel — John 20:19-31

Collect for Easter 2:

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, April 12, 2009 (Year B, Easter Day)

Now there was a garden in the place where [Jesus] was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.  And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.  Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. (John 19:41-20:1). . . [Mary Magdalene] turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?” (John 20:14-15)

It is unavoidable, I suppose, that the story of Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem gets chopped up into bits and pieces.  Last Sunday we called to mind our Lord’s triumphal entry into the Holy City.  On Thursday we commemorated the Last Supper, Jesus’ betrayal and arrest in the garden, the hearing before the chief priests, and his abuse by the temple police.  On Friday we recalled his trial before Pilate, the scourging, the crucifixion, and the burial.  And now, on Easter Day, we celebrate the resurrection and Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Christ.  We have to divide up the story in order to do justice to its various parts, and to make full liturgical observance possible.

But this is clearly one story, not several separate and unrelated tales.  This period we call Holy Week, and in particular the Three Days from Maundy Thursday through Easter, are one organic unit — one narrative, one continuous unfolding drama.  If we look and listen carefully, we will see and hear elements in the narrative which connect together the various parts — for as we noted earlier this week, this is all one fabric woven of the thread of God’s grace, that love which breathes new life into the hearts of God’s friends.

One of these connective elements is Mary Magdalene.  She is one of those characters in scripture that we know so well, yet know so little about.  Luke reports that Mary was one of several women whom Jesus had healed of various infirmities.  In Mary’s case our Lord had driven out “seven demons” — whatever that means.  These women became disciples, traveled around Galilee with Jesus and the twelve, and “provided for them out of their resources.” (Luke 8:2-3)  From early times Mary has been identified with the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet during the dinner at the home of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:37), and with Mary the sister of Martha (John 12:3), but for this there is no scriptural support.  The idea that the Magdalene was a prostitute is generally attributed to Pope Gregory I who suggested as much in a sermon in the year 591.  The Church held to this unsubstantiated view until just a few decades ago.  That should be a reminder to all of us who preach that people actually listen to our sermons and take seriously what we say, even when our opinions are a bit squirrelly.  

In any case, we can be sure that Mary Magdalene traveled to Jerusalem with Jesus.  Although scripture does not mention it, I assume that she was a participant in the Last Supper; it would be unlike Jesus to exclude her and the other women from such an important meal.  Matthew, Mark and John attest that she stood vigil at the cross, (Matt. 27:56, Mark 15:40, John 19:25), and Mark says she watched as Jesus was buried. (Mark 15:47)  It should come as no surprise, then, that Mary goes to the tomb early on Sunday morning, after the end of the Jewish sabbath, to properly anoint our Lord’s body and to mourn her loss.  Whether she goes alone or in the company of other women is not important.  What matters is that she is there and, without question, she is the first witness to the resurrection.

Mary Magdalene’s role cannot be overstated.  She (and perhaps the other women disciples) prove to be the most constant of Jesus’ followers.  While Peter denies Jesus, and while he and the other male disciples abandon their Master at the critical hour, Mary is unflinching.  By her constant witness she links Jesus’ ministry in Galilee with his confrontation with the Jerusalem authorities during his last week, his final hours of freedom, his death, and his resurrection.  It seems only fitting, then, that she should be the first to receive the Good News of the resurrection.

And if at first Mary finds this news confusing, even mistaking Jesus for a gardener, we can understand.  The resurrection is not something that we can easily get our minds around.  It is surprising — indeed, supremely ironic — to learn that God has power to transform the rebellion of human sin into a peaceable kingdom, to change skepticism into faith, and in the midst of death to make new life flourish.  For Mary, grasping this takes a few moments.  For us, it may take a lifetime. 

One other element ties this story together — at least as John tells it — and that is the two gardens.  It’s interesting how you can read the same passage in the Bible year after year, and still find something new.  That happened to me yesterday afternoon when I realized that the final three days of Jesus’ climactic week in Jerusalem are anchored, at one end, by the garden of Gethsemane and, at the other, by the garden of the resurrection.

The scene in the first garden, Gethsemane, is painful beyond measure.  Here “the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.” (Matt. 26:45)  We have to remember that Judas shared our Lord’s ministry in Galilee.  He, along with the other disciples, had preached and healed in Jesus’ name, and were with Jesus on every good and bad day of those three years.  Although there is some evidence that their relationship was contentious, (John 12:4-8) I have always felt that Jesus and Judas were linked with a special bond of affection, a bond so strong that Jesus was moved to wash Judas’ feet at the Last Supper even as he recognized what his friend was about to do.  Thus the betrayal in the garden has an especially bitter edge, for in this God was betrayed by a friend.

I suspect, however, that for John, that’s exactly the point.  The betrayal in the garden of Gethsemane echoes an earlier garden and an earlier betrayal.  Just as evil entered into the hearts of the first woman and man, and led them to betray the God who had made them, so now evil enters into the heart of Judas and leads him to betray his friend and God’s Son.  As that first betrayal brought death into the world, so also does Judas’ betrayal bring death.  

But the story does not end there, for now there is a new garden — a kind of restored Eden, if you will — where a borrowed tomb becomes the place in which sin and death are finally vanquished.  Here, at long last, the ancient venom of betrayal is neutralized by the antivenom of God’s love for his Son and for all God’s people.  Here, in this garden, God’s promise to save his people is finally kept.  And, most fittingly, the first to receive the antidote of God’s saving love is a woman, Mary Magdalene, the constant and faithful disciple who now, by her witness, is given the privilege of passing along that antidote to others.  

That Good News that Mary Magdalene proclaimed is still being passed along, from age to age, and from person to person.  It is a story of new beginnings and new life.  As St. Paul says, because we are in Christ, you and I have been created anew; “the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17)  As Mary Magdalene witnessed to the power of the resurrection in her day, so must we offer that same witness now.

The strife is o’er, the battle done;

The victory of life is won;

The song of triumph has begun.  Alleluia!

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Easter Day:  Lesson — Acts 10:34-43  |  Gradual — Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24  |  Epistle — 1 Corinthians 15:1-11  |  Gospel — John 20:1-18

Collect for Easter Day:

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Sermon for April 10, 2009 (Year B, Good Friday)

And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.  Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”  (Mark 15:38-39)

Mark’s account of the death of Jesus is quite brief, just seven verses — much shorter than St. John’s account.  Jesus is crucified at 9:00 in the morning.  Then, at Noon, Mark reports that darkness covers the land.  At about 3:00 Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  A bystander offers Jesus a sponge soaked in sour wine.  Finally, at 3:00, Jesus gives a loud cry and dies.  Mark then says, “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”  Immediately afterward a Roman centurion declares, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mark 15:33-39)

It all seems very straightforward.  We’ve heard this story so often that we already know what it means.  Jesus died for our sins.

In their book, The Last Week, Jesus scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan note that Christians typically think of the death of Jesus as a substitutionary sacrifice.  This widely-accepted doctrine assumes that God required a sacrifice by which reparation could be made for the sins of humankind — both the particular sins of individuals and the pervasive sinfulness that all human beings share as a result of our original rebellion in the garden.  However, since all human beings were contaminated by sin, there was none who could offer the perfect sacrifice God required.  Therefore, God provided — or substituted — his Son Jesus Christ, who alone was without sin, to be that one perfect sacrifice “for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2)

Borg and Crossan note that this doctrine is so familiar to us that it is hard to read the story of the passion without seeing Jesus’ death as a substitutionary sacrifice.  However, like most Christian doctrines, this one took shape slowly, over a period of centuries, as Christians looked back at the events of Jesus’ life, and most especially his death, through the lens of the resurrection.  The authors’ point is that Mark’s account of the passion, which is the earliest of the four, does not speak of the death of Jesus in specifically substitutionary terms.  The building blocks of that doctrine may be there, but the doctrine itself is not.

This doesn’t mean that the doctrine is wrong.  Far from it.  Major events often force us to reexamine and reinterpret what came before — as, for example, the advent of the Great Depression forced Americans to understand more clearly the economic forces at work after World War I.  That process of reassessing Jesus’ life and death was just getting underway as Mark wrote his gospel a quarter-century or less after the resurrection.

That leads to a reasonable question: What did Mark think the death of Jesus accomplished?  What, for him, were the direct results?

Mark is always a writer of few words.  In his characteristically laconic fashion he describes two outcomes — first, the the tearing in two of the temple curtain, and second, the centurion’s confession.  Both deserve comment and reflection today.

The curtain to which Mark refers is the “veil” which hung over the entrance to the Holy of Holies in the temple.  The Holy of Holies was the temple’s small, cube-shaped, innermost sanctuary and, as Jews believed, the place where God dwelled on earth.  It was here that the ark of the covenant had originally been kept, although by the time of Jesus the ark, and the tablets of the Ten Commandments which the ark housed, had long since vanished.  This room, the Holy of Holies, was considered so sacred that only the High Priest could enter it, and then only on one day of the year, Yom Kippur, when he would make atonement for the sins of the people by offering sacrificial blood and incense before God.

The Holy of Holies expressed the awe which Jews felt before God.  At the same time it made clear that the faithful could approach God only through the mediation of the temple priesthood, which alone was qualified to offer the sacrifices which unburdened people of their sins.  Yet Jesus saw this temple hierarchy as corrupt.  The Jerusalem authorities collaborated with the Romans.  Theirs was a quisling government, whose leaders held their positions at the pleasure of Rome and cooperated with Rome in oppressing and exploiting the people.  In his public ministry Jesus directly opposed the power of the Jerusalem authorities — as his overturning of the money-changer’s tables so vividly illustrates.  The authorities condemned him, because Jesus threatened to disrupt their well-established and lucrative way of doing the business of religion.

Thus when Mark speaks of the curtain of the temple being torn in two, I think he is saying that, in his death and resurrection, Jesus finally broke the power of the priesthood.  For those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, no longer can a corrupt religious hierarchy stand between God and his people.  Thus our Lord’s death was not a failure, but rather the completion of his crucial work.

The second direct and immediate result of the death of Jesus is the centurion’s confession.  Borg and Crossan note that this soldier serves, in effect, as a stand-in for the Roman Empire.  The centurion represents the dominant political power of the age, which exploits Jesus’ people through the quisling government in Jerusalem; and he also represents Rome’s emperor, who claims to be divine, “God’s son,” the world’s savior.  In years to come Christians would be required to show at least tacit acceptance of this religious justification for political oppression by offering a pinch of incense at the altar of Roman state religion.  Those who refused were often martyred.

How interesting, then, that it is a Roman centurion who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God.  Centurions were the cornerstone of the army, the instrument of Rome’s domination.  Centurions commanded the companies of about 80 soldiers which made up Roman fighting formations.  This particular centurion may have been guarding the place of execution.  He may even have commanded the soldiers who crucified Jesus.  In any case, it is this Roman soldier who declares that Jesus — not the Emperor Tiberius — is truly God’s Son.

What Mark is saying here, I think, is that the death of Jesus has political, as well as religious, implications.  When Mark writes his gospel, Rome is still as powerful and as brutal as in the time of Jesus.  But Mark, looking ahead, asserts that in putting Jesus to death on a cross, Rome sealed its own fate.  In time its power would be broken.  In time its emperors’ claims divinity would be revealed as a fraud.  In time Jesus’ just and peaceable kingdom would triumph over all who opposed God and oppressed God’s people.  In time, God’s people would be free.

As Mark tells the story, what Jesus saw all around him was God’s people held hostage by forces beyond their control, and what Jesus sought was freedom for God’s people — freedom from the burden of sin, freedom from injustice, freedom from spiritual and economic servitude, and ultimately, freedom from death itself.  In this regard, several weeks or months before his final week in Jerusalem, when Jesus predicted for a third time that he would die, he said, the “…Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)  You and I know what hostages and ransom are about: precisely that kind of drama is playing out today off the coast of Somalia.  Two thousand years ago Jesus saw his people held hostage by religious and political pirates who had hijacked an entire society and who were looting and abusing the weak, the vulnerable, and the sick.  Our Lord knew that unless he paid the required ransom — which in this case would be his very life — God’s people could not be free.  Therefore Jesus laid down his life for his friends — as “a ransom for many.”  In doing so he gave his disciples, and us, an example of the humble but resolute self-sacrifice by which God’s love and justice is made tangible in this world.  As it was then, so it remains today.

And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.  [And] the centurion… said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”  (Mark 15:38-39)

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Good Friday:  Old Testament — Isaiah 52:13-53:12  |  Gradual — Psalm 22  |  Epistle — Hebrews 10:16-25  |  Gsopel — John 18:1-19:42

Collect for Good Friday:

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for April 9, 2009 (Year B, Maundy Thursday)

After he had washed their feet… [Jesus] said to [his disciples], “Do you know what I have done to you?… if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:12-15)

In many Christian communities Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of the Three Sacred Days which are at the heart of Holy Week.  This period, from the Last Supper through the crucifixion and into Easter Day, is seen as one continuous action — a single fabric woven of the thread of God’s grace.  It is the time when God, in Christ, acts decisively to breathe new life into the hearts of God’s friends. 

Of these three days, Maundy Thursday is the most complicated.  On this night we commemorate the Last Supper our Lord shared with his disciples, which includes the institution of the Eucharist, the foot-washing, and the giving of a new and final commandment.  Then the scene shifts to the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus’ time of anguished prayer, his betrayal and arrest, his hearing before the chief priests, and his abuse at the hands of the temple police.  That’s a lot to deal with in one night, let alone one liturgy.

It’s awkward that the gospel accounts of this night differ in important details.  For example, the three Synoptic (or similar) gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — give an account of the institution of the Eucharist, while John’s gospel does not.  In this regard we have to remember that the four Evangelists were not writing histories.  Their books were faith statements written to instruct new Christians and to remind the faithful, who were then suffering persecution, why their fidelity to the Lord and his work was so important.  We may be forgiven, then, for conflating these accounts in order to smooth out the differences as we celebrate Maundy Thursday in church, for it is the truth of this night, not every little detail, which matters most.

For most of us, tonight’s central element is the institution of the Lord’s Supper.   St. Paul provides the earliest account of the origin of our great communal feast in his First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:23-26).  The accounts in Mark, Matthew and Luke were written a few years later.  We have no doubt that during this meal Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to his disciples, saying, “This is my body.”  After supper he takes the cup of wine, blesses it, and gives it to them, saying, “This is my blood.”  The actions themselves are not unusual.  Among the Jews it was and still is customary at meals to bless and share bread and wine.  What makes this night’s meal unique is Jesus’ identification of the bread with his body and the wine with his blood.

Why does Jesus do this?  It is clear that by this time Jesus knows he will die.  Indeed he has known for some time that his ministry, which so sharply challenges the status quo, will have fatal consequences.  That is why (in St. Luke’s account at least) he bids his disciples eat the bread and drink the cup “in remembrance of me.”  In saying this Jesus does not urge passive remembering of this moment as an event that happened in the past, but rather remembering in the sense of making present.  It is Jesus’ clear intention that, after his death, he can and will be present with his disciples every time they share his body and blood under the forms of bread and wine.

The Church has followed our Lord’s instructions across the centuries.  As we celebrate the Eucharist in Christ’s remembrance, we are confident that Jesus is really present with and for us, in the sacramental action, filling us with his grace, and in St. Paul’s wonderful image, making us quite literally the Body of Christ.  

Yet, as we celebrate the mystery of Holy Communion, we ought to place this meal in context.  This Supper is called Last because it was the last of many meals Jesus shared with his disciples and others.  Jesus’ table fellowship was a central component of his public ministry — so much so that his opponents accused him of being a glutton and drunkard!  Jesus clearly enjoyed breaking bread with his friends.  But for him, meals were also “teachable moments.”  We know that for 1st century Jews, food, and more especially who you shared food with, was critically important.  For example, the Pharisees scrupulously observed all the laws pertaining to the purchase, taxation, preparation, and eating of food.  Moreover, they believed that to share a meal with a person deemed a sinner was to make oneself ritually impure, unfit for the service of God.  In this way the Pharisees underscored their spiritual and temporal superiority to the great mass of Jews.  

Jesus challenged their religious and economic domination by intentionally eating with anyone and everyone they held in contempt.  Tax collectors, prostitutes, the poor, the sick… the whole sorry lot of society’s rejects: these people Jesus happily invited to supper, treated as equals, and taught them and everyone else that these people were especially beloved of God.  It drove his opponents nuts!  But more particularly it was a prophetic action announcing that God had turned his face away from the powerful who used religion to mask their exploitation of the weak and vulnerable.  

A modern parallel may serve to put Jesus’ table fellowship in perspective.  Those of you with roots in Detroit may have heard of Msgr. Clement Kern, known as the “Labor Priest” because of his ministry with blue-collar workers.  Msgr. Kern died in 1983 at the age of 76.  He spent virtually his entire career at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Corktown, just a block or so east of Tiger Stadium.  Corktown was originally settled by Irish immigrants, and then successively by Mexicans, Southern Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Maltese, and others.  Most Holy Trinity welcomed all sorts and conditions of men and women, especially alcoholics.

It was Clem Kern’s longstanding habit at lunchtime to open the front door of the rectory to see who might be sitting on his doorstep.  If a street person was there, that individual would be invited to share the monsignor’s table.  Clem Kern’s guest might have the monsignor all to himself, or his guest might find himself dining with the Cardinal Archbishop of Detroit and other Catholic worthies.  But his guest would always have a good meal, a gracious host, and assurance of God’s abiding love.

Jesus’ meals with sinners, our Lord’s Last Supper with his disciples, Clem Kern’s shared lunches in the shadow of Tiger Stadium, and the Holy Eucharist you and I will celebrate tonight — they are all part of the same thing!  They are all sacramental meals in which Jesus is really present.  In this meal Jesus nourishes us for his work and assures us of eternal life.  At the same time, he pointedly reminds us that everything we have, even the “daily bread” which sustains our lives, is God’s gift.  When we share our “daily bread” with those in need, we directly participate in God’s justice.

As I said, St. John’s gospel does not mention the institution of the Eucharist.  Instead, the centerpiece of John’s account of Maundy Thursday is the foot-washing.  After dinner Jesus takes a towel and basin of water and washes the feet of his disciples.  When Peter objects, Jesus famously tells him, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” (John 13:8)  

In ancient times the washing feet was a common custom in lands where sandals were the accepted footwear.  When a guest arrived at your house, he was typically greeted with a bow, a kiss of welcome, and a basin of water with which the host, or a slave, would wash the dust from the guest’s feet.  This may seem a quaint custom in our day, when hospitality has become an industry.  But in Jesus’ time hospitality was a religious as well as social duty.  To fail to show hospitality to a guest was not just bad manners, but also an act of injustice before God.

Just such a lapse is reported in the 7th chapter of Luke.  A Pharisee named Simon has invited Jesus to share a meal at his home, and while they are eating “a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that [Jesus] was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment.” (Luke 7:37)  Standing behind our Lord as he reclined at the table, she washes his feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints them with the ointment.  

Simon is appalled that one who claims to be a rabbi would allow a sinner to touch him, let alone perform such a personal service.  But Jesus says to the Pharisee, “Do you see this woman?  I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.  You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.” (Luke 7:44-46)  Now, Pharisees prided themselves on rigorous observance of the law, but Simon has failed in his social and religious duty toward Jesus, and toward God.  What he as host ought to have done for a guest, this woman has done instead.  “Therefore,” Jesus says to Simon, “I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.  But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” (Luke 7:47)  

Perhaps Jesus remembers this incident at the home of Simon the Pharisee as he kneels before his disciples and washes their feet.  Perhaps he remembers this woman when he overrides Peter’s objection to being washed.  It’s almost as if Jesus is saying that sin and love cannot occupy the same space.  If we recognize the full extent of our shortcomings and defects of character, and allow God to forgive us, then our capacity to love is greatly enhanced.  If, instead, we let God forgive us only a few, small sins, our capacity to love is diminished.  And if, in our pride, we deny that there is anything at all in us that requires divine forgiveness, then love is crowded out altogether.  Or, more precisely, we become like Simon the Pharisee, inviting God under our roof, but offering no hospitality.

A moment ago I said that St. John does not mention the institution of the Eucharist.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that John assumes that his readers already know and practice the sacrament of bread and wine.  If this is so, then, John uses the foot-washing to break open the sacramental action, showing his readers that Holy Communion is God’s hospitality to us and to all his children.  That divine hospitality is made tangible in the Body and Blood of his Son.  This little ritual of bread and wine, repeated each Sunday and sometimes more often, is like water dripping on rock.  Just as water washes away even solid rock, so too does the Body and Blood of our Lord wear away our sins — washes them away like dust from our feet — and in that measure our capacity to love grows.

How greatly can our capacity for love be increased?  If, as Jesus says, the foot-washing is an example, then it is worth noting that among those whose feet our Lord washed was one Judas Iscariot.  This should be for us a reminder that God does not dole out divine hospitality, forgiveness, love, and justice by the quarter-teaspoon, and only to those who are deserving.  Rather, God lavishes his grace on the utterly undeserving — you and I among them — so that we will know of a certainty that what God does for us, we must do for each other.

This is the good news Jesus taught during the three years of his public ministry.  This is the good news he encapsulated in the Holy Eucharist and demonstrated in the foot-washing.  And it is this good news, with its potential to overturn all the accepted norms of religion, society, and politics, that would lead in short order to Jesus’ arrest at Gethsemane, his condemnation by the chief priests, his abuse at the hands of the temple police, his trial before Pilate, and his execution on Calvary.  

As Stephen Vincent Benet suggests in his 1935 poem, Litany for Dictatorships, power and wisdom are often confused.  Those who conspired to eliminate Jesus and his movement had power, and thought that because they had power, they had wisdom.  But in truth they were foolish, for they failed to understand the working of God’s love — how it triumphs over adversity, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and ultimately brings new life even in the midst to death.

If it is not too much of a leap, perhaps the Chinese word for love illustrates how God’s love works.  In Chinese calligraphy, the word love is composed of three elements.  At the top, there is the character which means “breathing reversed,” or “breathing out.”  In the center is the character for “heart.”  And at the bottom in the traditional, brushstroke form of the word is the character meaning “graceful movement,” and in its modern form, the character for “friend.”  Put all this together and we may see that love is that which gracefully breathes life into the heart of one’s friend.  Just so, it is the graceful movement of divine love, breathing life into the hearts of God’s friends, which makes this night holy, and weaves together these Three Sacred Days.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Maundy Thursday:  Lesson — Exodus 12:1-14  |  Gradual — Psalm 116:1,10-17  |  Epistle — 1 Corinthians 11:23-26  |  Gospel — John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Collect for Maundy Thursday:

Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, April 5, 2009 (Year B, Palm Sunday)

Ride on! ride on in majesty!  

In lowly pomp ride on to die….

In their book, The Last Week, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan — both of whom are leading scholars of the Jesus tradition — suggest that “Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30.” (Borg and Crossan, The Last Week, p. 2)  These two processions frame the central conflict of the days to come.  

The authors note that “It was the beginning of the week of Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish Year.  In the centuries since, Christians have celebrated this day as Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week.  With its climax of Good Friday and Easter, it is the most sacred week of the Christian year.” (Ibid.)  On this day in the year 30 of the Common Era, Jerusalem would have been jammed with pilgrims from near and far, all come to celebrate Passover in the Holy City.  Much as residents of Washington, D.C., did for the recent inaugural, those living in Jerusalem rented out part of their homes, or at least their rooftops, to accommodate the crowds.  Religious passion ran high during the festival.  And because religion and politics were two sides of the same coin in 1st century Judaism, political passion — especially resentment of the Romans who occupied the Holy Land — was always near the surface.

Of these two processions, Borg and Crossan tell us, “One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession.” (Ibid.)  The first came from the east, from Bethany.  Jesus, riding on a borrowed donkey, was accompanied by his disciples, who called out, “Hosanna!” or “God save us.”  As our Lord came down the Mount of Olives and neared the gate of the Holy City, other people joined in, waving palm branches, throwing their cloaks on the ground before him, and shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”

Films about Jesus lead us to imagine that this was a grand procession with hundreds or even thousands of people swarming around Jesus.  However, in all probability it was a smallish affair — just Jesus and a few score disciples and hangers-on, a noisy, ragtag procession at best.

The real action was on the west side of the city.  Here, the authors tell us, “Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial calvary and soldiers….” (Ibid.)  They came from Caesarea Maritima, “Caesarea on the Sea,” the governor’s pleasant oceanside city about sixty miles to the west, and they came in force.

This must have been a striking procession with horses and troops in formation, leather uniforms, weapons, banners, the golden Roman eagles mounted on poles, and drums and feet beating in unison.  Pilate was not paying his respects at the Jews’ annual feast.  Rather, “Pilate’s military procession was a demonstration of both Roman imperial power and Roman imperial theology.” (Ibid.)  The troops were there to prevent rioting, which was common during Passover.  They were also there to remind the Jews that the Roman emperor Tiberius claimed to be divine — the “son of God,” “lord” and “savior,” the one who brings peace to the world.

And so we have these two processions entering Jerusalem from opposite directions, and with very different intentions.  Pilate, on the west, reminded the Jews that they were a subject people, whose leaders held power only so long as they maintained order and offered tribute to Rome.  The people and their religion were of no consequence to him.  Jesus’ little procession, on the east, was certainly arranged in advance, as St. Mark’s account makes clear, and some speculate that it might have been a planned political counter-demonstration. (Ibid., p. 3)  According to Borg and Crossan, “The meaning of this demonstration is clear, for it uses symbolism from the prophet Zechariah in the Jewish Bible.” (Ibid., p. 4)  In an oracle Zechariah proclaims: 

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!  

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!  

Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim 

and the war horse from Jerusalem;

and the battle bow shall be cut off,

and he shall command peace to the nations;

his dominion shall be from sea to sea,

and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Zechariah speaks of a coming kingdom — a peaceable kingdom whose humble sovereign, riding a donkey, will rule the earth.  Jesus’ use of this imagery is certainly not accidental.  Whether this procession was a direct challenge to Rome’s authority is debatable.  What is more certain is that Jerusalem’s political and religious leaders saw Jesus’ procession, small though it may have been, as a threat to their authority, which, as I just said, depended on keeping Pontius Pilate happy by offering tribute to Rome and maintaining order.  In a city filled with pilgrims longing for freedom from Rome and restoration of the old kingdom of David, the authorities evidently saw Jesus as a spark threatening to set off a major conflagration. 

In many ways the religious authorities in Jerusalem are caught in the middle — between the Galilean rabbi and the Roman overlord; between Jesus, who teaches the truth at the heart of Judaism, and Pilate, who is the incarnation of realpolitik, of power politics stripped of any taint of morality, ethics, or idealism.  In this regard, the high priest and his associates deserve no sympathy.  They are in the middle by their own choice, because they sought the power and prestige that came with their position.

As we know, the high priest and his party will resolve their conundrum by deciding that Jesus is disposable.  They will convince themselves that it is better for one man to die than for Jerusalem to be plunged into disorder and violence, which would place their position and power at risk.  A few silver coins passed to a dissatisfied disciple, police tracking down the troublemaker in the middle of the night, a kiss of greeting and betrayal — it’s all so easily and so often done.

That is what strikes me about this part of the Holy Week story: how very common is this pattern of the powerful betraying the weak.  It would be hard to read the Old Testament, especially the prophets, without seeing that this was the form of sin to which God’s people yielded most often.  It is a major theme of Jesus’ teaching in the gospels, and the New Testament writers warn against this spiritual trap.  Yet the betrayal of the weak and vulnerable continues — often through political oppression and economic exploitation, with religion called upon to legitimize this behavior. (Ibid., pp. 7-8)  It happens all around us, sometimes even under our very noses.

We know, of course, that Jesus taught on a wide variety of topics, from prayer to marriage, and from alms-giving to the spirituality of children.  Everything that our Lord said deserves our attention.  But there is a tendency in contemporary Christianity to picture Jesus as a quiet, gentle moral teacher who traveled around Galilee peddling spiritual bromides, whose death was an inexplicable case of justice gone awry, but whose execution brought eternal life… so, really, it all worked out in the end.  

Holy Week teaches us otherwise.  Jesus was not condemned for teaching people to be kind to one another.  He was not crucified by accident.  Jesus offered a vision for the future of Israel — a vision for the future of God’s people — which directly challenged the dominant political arrangements of his place and time.  Those in power did as those in power so often do to people they consider “radical.” 

Did these two processions enter Jerusalem on the same day, as Borg and Crossan speculate?  We will never know.  But this juxtaposition of Jesus and Pilate, and their very different agendas, reminds us that we, too, are caught in the middle, between the claims of this world and the claims of our Lord.  And we must choose whose procession we will join. 

Ride on! ride on in majesty!  

In lowly pomp ride on to die;

bow thy meek head to mortal pain, 

then take, O God, thy power, and reign.

(Words: The Very Rev. Henry Hart Milman, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, 1820)

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year B, Palm Sunday:  Old Testament — Isaiah 50:4-9a  |  Gradual — Psalm 31:9-16  |  Epistle — Philippians 2:5-11  |  Passion Gospel — Mark 14:1-15:47

Collect for Palm Sunday:

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.