Sermon Blog
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Sermon Blog
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Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022
Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” The women did not believe what they had seen. The men blew them off completely, thinking it was some sort of wishful thinking. Not sure how that went for them. Nobody used the word resurrection because it had not been invented yet…. Because such things don’t happen. Dead people stay dead. The whole tale is a little nuts. Ridiculous! These people lived in a world without AEDs, EKGs, and maps of the human genome. But they knew what dead was. They knew it happened when a person’s blood poured out of them. They knew the pallid look of modeled flesh. They knew how death smelled. And Jesus was dead. He had been cleaned, anointed with sweet smelling balm, wrapped in white, and placed in a stone sealed tomb. We will hear the rest of the story in time. Jesus shows up to a couple of sad sacks on the road to Emmaus. Jesus shows up in a locked and guarded room, in the flesh, for Doubting Thomas and many others to see. Jesus shows up and makes a fish breakfast for the disciples turned back to fishermen on the lake. There are even more tales, but the central plot but they all share one central detail: Jesus shows up, and they do not recognize him at first. In more time, the cockamamie story spreads, crazy talk many still think. With none of the modern inconveniences the story continues to by word of mouth. There are no printing presses, nothing beyond hand written scrolls and letters, and, of course, there is a 98% illiteracy rate with the two percent literates being folks who would like this story to go away. Transportation happened on foot, by donkey, or in slow and frighteningly tiny ships of trade. Most never traveled more than a fifty of sixty miles from where they were born. There is no Twitter or Instagram. How would Jesus tweet others? @Sonof God or @theRealJesus or, simply, @Savoir? It took years for the story to get to Greece and Rome, told at great peril to the tellers, as sole allegiance to emperor types was mandated. The fact that Jesus’ story survives is a miracle in and of itself. The story’s wildly illogical plotline runs counter to reason, basic biology, and the survival of anyone telling it. Over time, groups gather, feast, and celebrate Jesus showing up. Others are moved to tell the story and live in particular ways in its light. Christ followers gather to take council, establish a consistent written record, develop calendars and rites, and ritual. Still later, people build soaring Cathedrals and tiny village churches. Of course, the groups, being full of humans, bend and twist and coopt the message, missing the mark, and fitting their own needs for power and control. When people get involved, faith, empire, and material stuff can get all twisted together in ways that do not resemble the basic and humble person and work of Jesus. And still, in every generation from then to now, people have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. And here we are. We may be here by obligation, arm twisting, sentimental attachment, curiosity, habit, and the promise of a great brunch, an world class egg hunt, and a larger than normal spread at coffee hour. We may be here for reasons historic, affiliative, associative, or thoroughgoing, daily, big deal faith. Nevertheless, we are here. No scoffing is allowed because for this story to be told, divergent perspectives are necessary. In the family of God, there are no guests, there are no right answers, no easy explanations. We deal more in question marks than periods. But why? Through all of the illogical, biological, epistemological, legendary, and apparent impossibility, we are here because the story gets us. Perhaps, it is because we would love for Jesus to show up, maybe as a blinding light, a voice from heaven, or mystic sign like the face of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the stump of the Emmanuel Oak would be nice. What we seek tells us more about us than it does about Jesus. But allow me to step out on a limb of the deep-rooted tree of life, in the faith I have deep in my bones. Jesus is always showing up, as he says he will. Here. Now, in the intergenerational love we attempt to practice at Emmanuel (God with us). In the bread we break and the cup we offer, not just at Eucharist, but at coffee, picnics, dinner parties, Bread Fund, and Disciple’s Kitchen. Jesus shows up as we go, in the many hands that make things work here from ushers to Altar Guild, flower people, setter uppers and taker downers. Jesus may be easier for me to name as showing up here, but this is just practice to see Jesus showing up out there, at the gas station, the grocery store, in the carpool and in the peace and quiet of the dawn. From before our momentary birth and after our inevitable last breath, Jesus shows up. Whether we see this as Jesus, God, Spirit, Higher Power, or Love, the showing up shows us clearly and simply that we belong in this world, and that we are being held by some Larger Force. In that, life feels okay and even good and right and purposeful. This is what it feels like to be “saved.” (paraphrased from Richard Rohr on salvation in Breathing Underwater). Jesus’ Resurrection is an old story, told from many different perspectives even in our own sacred texts. We cannot prove that and more than we can prove a parent’s love for our children, which is very real. But something happened. That something that has captured hearts, minds, imaginations, art, music, creativity, across all generations. Somehow, we remain joyful, though we have considered all the facts. We remain hopeful, though we have been disappointed often. We love, and give, and love some more, because we find that in the end, love is the only permanence ever meet. We are not here because the Resurrection happened. We are here because Resurrection happens. Look out! The world will Easter up on us when we look for it. Jesus shows up. Amen. Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Palm Sunday, Year C April 10, 2022 When you go to a big city, it is easy to spot the tourists. They are the ones looking up. They are the ones who are amazed at the size, the grandeur, and the energy that is so unlike things back home. Jesus gathered all kinds of people and met them where they were, which was, mostly, a long way from the big city. The excitement is palpable. Even from a distance, they see the walls, the guarded gates, and inside, the majestic temple, built on the highest point. The largest stones at the base weigh in at more than 500 tons. The smallest stones, near the top, weigh 2 tons. In their time, Jerusalem is a remarkable human achievement of engineering, constructed over centuries at incalculable expense. How could they not be excited as their man, Jesus, enters this citadel: the intersection of religion and empire. This is the big time. This is where big things happen. If you make it here, you have made it. And now, Jesus arrives. It is hard to tell what Jesus and Jesus’ people expect. They have seen him work miracles and gather all kinds of people to join the procession. Jesus tells them he is there to set things right and show the power of God. God can make the stone shout. Whatever is going to happen, it will be big. Between the triumphal procession and the eventual retreat back to Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, Luke tells story after story of Jesus leaving no stone unturned. He wrecks the temple market as an offense and a farce before God. He denounces religious leaders as greedy and self-serving profiteers, he denounces the Romans as just the latest of a long string of strongmen there to extract wealth, and demand worship and honor for their leader. He tells a biting parable about wicked tenants, implying that the powers that have taken hold are not rightful heirs of God. We are about to tell the story of what happens when human power is threatened and challenged. We are about to hear how God’s power does not come through might and wealth making right, through some twist of redemptive violence wherein regimes are toppled and their adherents get what is coming to them. What we will see is the fully human God stand up and take the absolute worst that humanity can dish out. God does not pull back, regroup, and attack. God stays there, as tragedy unfolds, and power does what threatened powers do. But God is not finished. God is about the long game. Immense stones are impressive, but they area not eternal. With water and pressure and time, stones become sand, and wash into the sea. Nothing we build will outlast, overpower, or divert the oceanic love of God. On the walk of Holy Week, we will look up to see the massive monoliths of human power appear fixed and immovable. We will look up, see love on the cross, and see what is big beyond time. We will see what is all powerful. We will see the Way of Eternity. Love is God. Everything else is just so much sand. Amen. Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Lent V, Year C April 3, 2022 “You always have the poor with you.” I really wish Jesus had not said that. It is so radically off message. After all, 11 of his 39 parables are about the folly of hoarding money. One of Jesus’ most central messages is that we are to care for everyone, especially and particularly the poor. If we pull back and read the Bible Jesus had, even before the Gospels and the Epistles and Revelation, there are more than 2000 references to the poor as emblematic for our call to love all people, not with our emotions but with our actions. “You always have the poor with you.” That is such an oft lifted line and hopeless view of poverty, usually giving the speaker an out, a justification for cynicism or fatalism about poor people, or at least, a way to end a conversation and move onto a more comfortable subject matter. “You always have the poor with you.” The Muslim faith has a saying they repeat regularly roughly translated “It must be the will of God.” It is said often as a way of living with what cannot be explained, or that which is uncomfortable and frustrating. Further, my friend, Ed, reminded me that there are no weather reports in Saudi Arabia. The reason for this is that it would be presumptuous and arrogant to predict the will of Allah. It could also be that there are only two kinds of weather there: hot, and really hot. “It must be the will of God” is onthe one hand, a faithful way to accept reality. On the other, it is a safe out like “You always have the poor with you,” rendering us free of moral agency, innocent of what we allow or enable, as if we are just just flapping in the wind of God’s capricious activities. The pervasiveness of evil, the random chance and cruelty of bad things happening to good people is a question for the ages with no satisfactory answers this side of eternity, does not mean we are created with no free will of our own. “Things happen for a reason” is what some folks tend to say because there is nothing else to say, and tends to do more harm than good. Rotten things can and do happen. The world can be terrible, tragic, and awful. The world can be beautiful, amazing, and wonderful too. Even in the face of unspeakable tragedy, we can show up with casserole, cookies, and the willingness to just be there, not trying to do anything to make us feel better. We may not know the will of God, but that does not mean that we are helpless to be God’s hands, feet, agents, actors, givers, and advocates in this world. “You always have the poor with you.” This is the closer of this short vignette about Jesus’ stopover in Bethany, a bedroom community outside of Jerusalem. Unfortunately, it steals the thunder of the message, and provides the convenient line to put to rest our unease about the scandal of poverty. As with most things biblical, it is better expressed in context. The backstory is this. Lazarus has been raised from the dead. Jesus is having a big celebration dinner with Lazarus. His sisters Mary and Martha are there serving up the feast. In the middle of all that, Mary cracks open the nard. Nard is an exceptionally expensive and fragrant oil used to anoint the dead, covering the stench of rotting flesh in an era without embalming and refrigeration. There are lesser quality oils, but the Lazarus family must have some resources. This pound of nard Mary slathers on Jesus tired and dirty feet is a left over from that which still gives Lazarus a sweet-smelling cologne. Of course, John the gospeler is all about symbol and metaphor too. Mary is foreshadowing Jesus’ death, and highlighting the sacrifice that is to be made. Meanwhile, Judas is grumbling at his end of the table. A pound of nard is worth about an average year’s wages. Surely, it could have been sold and the money used to help the poor. Of course, John throws some shade on Judas, saying he was skimming of the communal bank account, so his sentiment is tainted at best. “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Still, we have to wonder. Even if he is a scoundrel, does Judas have a point? “You always have the poor with you.” Jesus knows that even 300 denarii is not enough to fix the problem, but the statement is not what it appears if we take it by itself, apart from all of his teaching about money and, people with money. Over and over, Jesus speaks of abundance in God’s kingdom. When people get money, people tend to see it as a limited resource. While it may be so for them and us, and the irony is that the more folks have, the more conscious folks are about protecting what we have. Clearly, a billion is not enough, if you are a striving and scrapping billionaire. In God’s economy there is plenty. It is not that there is not enough food, it is just that food is unevenly distributed. There are not too few resources for God, there is a lack of imagination, faith, and generosity on the side of humanity. Our nation spends more than half of all we have, collectively, on what we call defense. Defending what we have. And it is naive and idealistic to say that this is not needed, but it is no less shocking or scandalous that humanity is so short of our potential to wage peace. “You always have the poor with you.” Maybe Jesus says this because poverty is a sign of opportunity for God’s people to participate in God’s abundance. Maybe Jesus says this because poverty is not just about money. As fallible humans, we experience a poverty of hope, imagination, generosity, peace, patience, kindness. This is not the will of God. This is the absolute, utter, and stark statement of our need for God to rearrange our wills, imaginations, and priorities. True, we may not give it all away and go all ascetic on the world. True, we cannot blow up the world’s economic systems, rearrange the distribution of wealth, or enforce an ethic of enoughness for the 1 percent. The world may be as it is because humans are inherently sinful and selfish, BUT, that does not have to be because of us. Just because something is does not mean God wills it that way. We have agency. We have ability. We have influence. “You always have the poor with you.” We always have the poor with us because we are broken and in need. I take it back. I am glad Jesus said it, because it is the Truth. Amen. |
AuthorThe Rev. John Thomas is Rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood Archives
October 2024
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