Old Man Yells at Cloud

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

 

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

In the Diocese I have become known as a Curmudgeon.  My Diocesan nickname is…  Grumpelstiltskin.  This is largely because I have an aversion to “going along to get along.”  That’s actually not entirely accurate.  The truth is… I’m physically incapable of going along to get along!  But the thing that has genuinely cemented my reputation as a Curmudgeon is that I am completely incapable of hiding it!  I do NOT have the face of a politician or a poker player.  Whenever I get even the slightest whiff of an individual or systemic demand to “go along to get along” my face shows it!  But it’s even worse than that.  I also can’t help myself but to say it… out loud… to others… “No!  I will NOT just go along to get along!”   

Thomas is also known as a Curmudgeon in the Church.  He too has a nickname… Doubting Thomas.  What did he do to get this nickname?  He also refused to “go along to get along.”  He refused to settle for the shallow, easy, cheap, certainty the other disciples offered him.  Even with ten other disciples staring him down, he refused to budge… for a whole week!  To the world that made him Doubting Thomas.  To me though… that makes him Steadfast Thomas!  Unflinching Thomas.  Resolute Thomas.  True-blue Tried-and-True Thomas! 

You see, he wasn’t stubborn for stubborn’s sake.  He was resolute, because I think to Thomas, his Faith genuinely mattered.  Believing… really, deeply, genuinely mattered.  And when it came to things that mattered that deeply, Thomas was unwilling to take shortcuts.  Faith was serious business… FAR too serious to just copy answers off your friends!  To Thomas, the business of “Believing”… THAT wasn’t the place to fudge it!  Thomas took Believing… he took the Faith… he took Discipleship…  very, VERY seriously.  

At this point we need a quick aside.  Because when you and I think about the word “believing” in our modern/post enlightenment minds, we immediately think about it as an intellectual accent… being convinced of something or wrapping our minds around some thought, idea, or doctrine.

NO ONE in Thomas’ day thought about “believing” that way.  Before 1600, the word “believe” did not mean agreeing that creeds, ideas, teachings, or doctrines were true in our heads.  In Thomas’s day, “Believing” always had a DIRECT OBJECT and that DIRECT OBJECT was ALWAYS personal.  Believing was about WHO you were following… WHO you were committing yourself to… WHO you hooked your wagon to.  When the ten disciples told Thomas “we have seen the Lord” they were offering him a cheap impersonal shortcut… a vision without substance… a disembodied hope.  What Thomas needed, however… what Thomas Curmudgeonly insisted upon, was the PERSON… not a shortcut!  Nothing short of an encounter with the PERSON of Jesus, complete with the wounds from the nails and the spear, would do.  Short of that, Thomas was determined to sit, however uncomfortably, however long, in the uncertainty and unknowing and endure whatever pressure his friends brought his way.  

After a week of waiting in uncertainty, Thomas was given what he needed… an encounter with the Risen Christ… the PERSON… “My Lord and My God!”  That encounter didn’t iron out the doctrinal kinks of Christianity.  It didn’t harmonize the contradictions in Scripture.  It didn’t give even the tiniest sliver of absolute certainty to his Faith.  It actually just called Thomas more deeply into the mystery.  But for Thomas, the ideas, doctrines, and certainty meant NOTHING compared to the transformational encounter with the PERSON.  The PERSON to whom he could hitch his wagon… the PERSON in whose footsteps he could now follow… the PERSON who would be the direct object of his belief and his life… the PERSON he could walk through life with, through times of both clarity and confusion.  

I think that’s what Thomas hopes for us today.  That we not sell ourselves, our belief, or our faith, short.  That we not settle for cheap, easy answers… tidy doctrines of certainty, or claims about the Divine that can be wrapped up neatly and made to do our bidding.  I think that Thomas is hoping that we too embrace our inner Curmudgeon and hold out for more!  Much, much, more.  Not settle for the easy, the plastic, the impersonal, the inauthentic!  But hold out through uncertainty and discomfort for nothing less than a transformational encounter with the Risen Christ, wounds and all.

What will an encounter with the Risen Christ, wounds and all, actually look like for you or me?  How long will we need to wait?  Honestly?  No idea.  But if you, like Thomas, are serious about your Faith… if you, like Thomas, do not take “believing” lightly, then wait for it.  Wait for a transformational encounter with the Risen Christ… no shortcuts… no cheats… no going along to get along.  And when it comes… and I believe it  does come, over and over and over again throughout our lives… don’t worry… you’ll recognize it just like Thomas did, and in that moment you too will exclaim, “My Lord and My God.”  Amen.  

Baked Right In

Matthew 28:1-10

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

For those two Marys it never occurred to them that it WOULD happen.  It never even crossed their minds that it COULD happen.  After everything they saw on Friday… after the horrors, suffering, the death… After the oppressive darkness of Saturday filled with overwhelming grief, there was nothing to indicate that it SHOULD happen.

But the two Marys set out to do the next right thing anyway, which was visit Jesus’ tomb, and in doing the next right thing… it just

happened… 

Easter                                   happened!  

After all they had seen… after days of darkness and anguish… as they walked to the tomb because… well…  that’s just what you do when someone you love is dead and buried…

There… right in front of them… just sitting on the rolled back stone… was an angel who said…     

“Do not be afraid”                                   and… 

Easter happened! 

Easter happens!  Not JUST that first Easter and not just every year on the first Sunday following the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox.  Easter CONTINUALLY happens.  

Kings and despots come and go… 

Easter Happens. 

Countries and empires rise and fall… 

Easter happens.  

Wars are started, rich men plot, markets tumble, regimes march in and get chased out, natural disasters blow and shake and burn all around the world and still… 

Easter happens!  

In the bright light of the most noble of human endeavors…

Easter happens. 

In the deepest darkness of humanity’s evil and horrors…

Easter happens.  

Whether the nations be led by masterminds or morons… the upright or the unethical... the compassionate or the malevolent

Easter happens!

THAT’S the message for today. 

Easter happens.         ALWAYS!       

Easter ALWAYS Happens.  

Whenever we find ourselves in Good Friday times… personally, professionally, nationally, or globally… whenever we are confronted with humanity’s inhumanity… whenever we are plunged into suffering, grief, oppression, injustice and all the rest… up to and including death itself.   

Easter happens!

Whenever life is overwhelmingly, oppressively dark… whenever we find ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually in those horribly unnerving, deeply disorienting times of deep darkness...  The sort of darkness that festers and foments horrible anxiety… panic about tomorrow and worries for the years to come.  Even in those darkest of times…  

Easter happens!

On the upside, the daily horrors we face are usually not literal crucifixion.  On the downside, the darkness we endure seems to go on a lot longer than just three days!  The Herculean efforts we make when the world feels like it is ending for us, to try and do the next right thing... those aren't visiting Jesus’ tomb, BUT into this and EVERY OTHER kind of Good Friday experience… into this and EVERY OTHER seemingly endless length of Holy Saturday darkness that we endure…

EASTER HAPPENS!

Easter happens… because, you see, life, death, and resurrection is the pattern that God has baked into every molecule of creation.  Life, death, and resurrection is the way the world was made to work!  God knew that setting humans loose into this world with Free Will would inevitably end in painful Good Friday moments and dark Holy Saturday times… which is why God also baked into creation one specific, particular ending for… well… everything… 

Easter happens!  

The story that begins in grief, will always end in JOY.  

The story that starts in darkness will always end in LIGHT!  The story that begins in death, will always, somehow, in ways that will be as unexpected as a man being raised from the dead… end in NEW LIFE!  God has made Easter the ending to literally EVERY story… EVER.  

So, if this particular moment in your life is NOT an Easter moment.  If for you, this time in our National life is not an Easter feeling time.  If this period of life feels oppressively dark, horribly inhumane, violent, hopeless, and maddening for any reason or every reason… 

Might I humbly suggest you try what those two Marys tried on that very first Easter Sunday… get a friend... get out of bed... and do the next right thing.  No matter how small and insignificant it might seem... even when it feels like that won't do anything at all.  Then… as you're walking  toward that next right thing... keep your eyes open… Because

Easter Happens.  

Easter ALWAYS happens.  Amen.   

Remember to Practice

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So 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. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

How many times per day, on average, do you wash someone else’s feet?  I do it once per year IF (and ONLY if) I’m NOT in charge of the Maundy Thursday liturgy and the pastor/priest/bishop who IS in charge INSISTS on putting foot washing in the service.  Honestly, it creeps me out!  It's so unusual!  It feels like a boundary violation.  Back in Jesus’ day, that was not the case.  People washed each other’s feet multiple times per day, every single day.  Nobody wiped their feet on a doormat, they all got their feet washed every time they came in the door.  That happened every time, for every person, in every home… as routinely as we stomp off the snow and wipe our feet. 

THAT, I think, is why Jesus chose to pair the mindlessly routine practice of foot washing, with the uncommon Spiritual practice of Loving One Another.  By connecting the two, Jesus was trying to get us to understand that Loving One Another wasn’t meant to be something we only do once a year or only for special people.  Jesus meant for Loving One Another to become for his Disciples as extraordinarily common… as extremely regular… as mindlessly routine... as continuously ongoing as washing someone's feet was for them when someone came through the door!    

By making foot washing into a once-per-year, extraordinarily rare, extremely unusual practice, I think we as the Church have literally undone one of the things Jesus intended to put into place that night!  Jesus intended, I think, to link a physical practice, so common, so easily done by rote, something so almost mindlessly routine… to Loving One Another, SO THAT the disciples would become trained to Love One Another in that same common, rote, automatically routine way.  That way, Loving One Another would become habit and then, EVEN when their entire world came crashing down around them, they would just automatically go on... Loving One Another.  

Jesus made this connection for his disciples so that when the world looked like it had come to a horrible end they wouldn’t lash out in violence or look for revenge.  They wouldn’t look for someone to blame or stay in bed with the covers over their heads.  They would instead, as part of their learned, everyday, habit... just keep on Loving One Another with the same sort of automatic routine as people in those days washed one another's feet.  No higher brain function required… no calculations needing to be made…just automatically… habitually... Love One Another.  

In our world, washing feet is no longer the routine, everyday practice it was for those disciples back then.  Two thousand years of time, paved roads, and dramatic shifts in cultural practice have deconstructed what was supposed to be a Spiritual workout routine, strengthening muscle memory day by day to Love One Another automatically by pairing it with a physical thing everyone also did automatically.  These days foot washing has become the opposite of that.  It is now a once per year, ritualized event that mostly brings to mind Jesus’ humility.  

Jesus was certainly humble, and humility remains a excellent quality to possess and to share in this world overrun with arrogance, pride, and self-importance.  But humility was not the practice Jesus was trying to teach that night.  Humility was at best, an aside.  The main lesson was… and I think remains… that we are being called to train ourselves, so that the life giving practice of Loving One Another becomes second nature to us... automatic... habitual.    

If you and I want to learn what Jesus was really teaching that night, we will need to first find something that we do as easily, routinely, and automatically as they washed people's feet.  Maybe tying our shoes?  Stopping at a red light?  Pushing “GO” on the coffee pot first thing in the morning?  THEN we will need to practice bringing to mind "Loving One Another" every time we do that easy, routine, and automatic thing.  That way... eventually… Loving One Another... will become not something we do with our conscious minds, but will become something we do out of habit.  Loving One Another would simply become HOW WE LIVE automatically, in every moment, day after day.  

If washing feet is not a practice that helps brings to mind for you Jesus’ command to Love One Another multiple times each and every day, then what is?  What is that mindlessly routine thing you do multiple times each day that you can pair with Jesus’ command to Love One Another?  Maybe it is tying your shoes?  Or stopping at every red light?  Maybe it could be opening the refrigerator door?  Because, by pairing something that you actually do multiple times each day with Jesus’ command to Love One Another, you and I can train our Spirits day by day so that eventually, Loving One Another becomes OUR automatic response to whatever this world throws at us next.  Then, even when our world looks like it is crashing to an end, our automatic response will be… just as Jesus hoped it would be... to Love One Another.   Amen.   

When Christ Calls...

John 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him.

A very kindly angel Maître D' showed Lazarus to his table at The Feast That Never Ends.  He slid in his chair and the Maître D' placed his napkin in his lap.  Lazarus looked around at the people seated near him.  He saw one guy just down the table that he knew from the old neighborhood and thought to himself, “Yeah, that makes sense.  He was a decent bloke.”  Then, he saw another guy he knew that made him think, “Wow, God’s Grace really IS Amazing!  Okay.  Alright.”

 

Then Lazarus started to notice the spread.  Rich foods filled with marrow… okay, okay, he thought… being dead is looking up.  Well aged wines, strained clear… nice, nice, good, good.  Then Lazarus went and took a bite and the flavor was… well… so heavenly... that his eyes closed involuntarily.  I mean, you’d expect the food to be that good at The Feast That Never Ends, but to EXPERIENCE it… that was something else entirely.  

As Lazarus opened his eyes, ready for his next bite, there, standing by his chair again was the Angel Maître D'.  “Mr. Lazarus sir, we’ve just received a call from a Mr. Christ… a Mr. Jesus H. Christ… and he would like you to, and I quote, “Come out.”  Lazarus just stared in disbelief at the Maître D'.  He swallowed the last heavenly bite, pushed himself back from the table, set his napkin on the chair, and while the Angel Maître D' folded it into a beautiful swan, Lazarus climbed back down Jacob’s ladder, got back in his body, got himself up from slab, and made his way out of the tomb all wrapped in strips of cloth, where he found friends and family who unbound him and let him go.

That’s how Lazarus did it.  He heard Christ's call, got up, and went.  If it had been me, Jesus would have heard THIS from deep within the tomb:  “NO!    I’m in HEAVEN!     LI-TER-AL HEA-VEN here!  It’s 68 degrees here.  The food is incredible.  Wine… amazing.  Nobody here has dysentery.  The One in charge here isn’t a psychotic narcissist and you want me to go back THERE?  Where it’s 104 in the shade?  Where everyone eats filth and just waits around to get sick and die?  You want me to go back THERE?  The place held hostage by Psycho Caesar?  NO, Jesus!  I'm NOT coming out.  I’m just not.  I don’t care who your dad is!  I’m not coming out.  No.” 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls us, he bids us come and die” and that is exactly what this story is teaching us.  Lazarus is demonstrating for us the Cost of Discipleship.  Answering Jesus’ call to Discipleship cost him EVERYTHING!  Up to and including the rewards of heaven itself!  Rich food filled with marrow, well aged wines strained clear.  It cost him an eternal existence at a comfortable 68 degrees.  It cost him everything.  In this story, Lazarus leaves heaven.  LITERAL HEAVEN, and all heaven has to offer, in order to follow Jesus as a disciple.

 

Lazarus shows us that a call to discipleship is a call to allow yourself to be unbound from EVERYTHING… ego, fear, attachments… to shed whatever wraps us up and keeps us from becoming who God created us to be.  This story ends up being a lived out parable, because we too have been called by Jesus to “Come Out”!  To give up our obsession with the person we see in the mirror… their wants … their desires.  This story is a call to US, to push back OUR chairs from self indulgence... turn around, leave everything behind and walk toward Jesus until we find ourselves in the same position as Lazarus… standing in front of Christ, bathed in the glory of the Presence of the Divine, ready to follow Jesus into an abundant life lived not for the self, but for the other.

In 1209, our final Lenten Saint, Francis of Assisi composed the first, simple rule for his followers, the Regula Primitiva… the Primitive Rule.  The rule was simple.  To “follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps.”  That is precisely what Lazarus did in today’s Gospel.  He followed the teachings of his Lord Jesus Christ, came out of the tomb, and began, once again, to walk in Jesus’ footsteps.  That is the call to Discipleship.  A call no harder than getting up and walking outside.  AND… and… at the same time, a call no easier than leaving heaven behind.  A stunningly simple thing to do on the one hand… and the hardest thing anyone could ever imagine doing on the other!  

May we all be given the vision, faith, understanding, and courage needed each day, to come out from ourselves when Jesus calls.  To allow ourselves to be fully unbound from our certainties, our fears, our ego, and our self indulgence so that we might find ourselves not standing in front of a mirror, but standing the presence of the Divine, fully alive, reflecting God’s infinite love and glory out into the world as we were created to do… and in doing that, become what we are called to be… instruments of God’s peace.  Amen.