The Words of Mark's Angel

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

In Matthew’s Gospel you get one angel, two Marys, and Jesus.  In John’s Gospel you get one Mary, two disciples, two angels, and Jesus.  In Luke’s Gospel you get two Marys, Joanna, other women, two angels, and Jesus.  But here… HERE in Mark’s Gospel you only get two Marys, one Salome, two angels… and… that’s it.  So how does Mark’s Gospel end? "Seized with terror and amazement they fled the tomb and said nothin’ to nobody!"  Done!  No Jesus.  Centuries later, Mark fans “fixed” it by adding in Jesus and another 8 verses, but where I stopped today, really is how Mark ended it.  So what do we do with no Jesus on Easter? 

We could, of course, just read John’s Gospel on Easter.  The lectionary police say that’s a completely acceptable way out of this “no Jesus on Easter” predicament.  But this year, with us having been locked in this pandemic tomb now for way longer than just three days… I think Mark's version might just be the story we need to hear again for the first time.  For the Marys, Salome, and the disciples, the world as they knew it had come crashing to an end.  Things they had always taken for granted… including the dead staying put in their tombs… had been tossed up in the air and had yet to land, who knows where, all around them.  

Our world too has been tossed up in the air and still has yet to land, who knows where, all around us.  Things we had always taken for granted… things as simple as going to the grocery store and sitting in a theater… those things still haven’t landed from being tossed in the air.  Just as those women’s heads were spinning then, our heads have been spinning for over a year now.  Everything… EVERYTHING!… has had to be figured out for the first time all over again… Everything is harder, more exhausting, more lonely… we’ve all… to one degree or another, spent this last whole year, just like those women in the story... seized with amazement and even terror.   

Could it be that after this last, long year, with all of us gripped in collective weariness, exhaustion, terror, and amazement… all struggling under the crushing weight of the unfathomable volume of death in this past year….  Could it be that on this Easter Sunday, when we’re feeling more like those women than perhaps we’ve ever felt before… waiting for it all to land wherever it’s all going to land… Could it be that the words of Mark’s angel, are this year, more than any other, a divine message spoken as much to us now, as it was to them, then?  

Let’s listen to the words of Mark’s angel, spoken directly to us this Easter:  Do not be alarmed my amazingly faithful friends.  I know… I really do know… that you are looking for normal, for comfort, for the companionship, for the life you’ve lost.  I know you are looking for a way through all of this grief and pain and isolation.  I know you’re looking for a guide… a Way… you’re looking for a savior… you’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth.  

Well, my friends, take a look around, He’s not here the same way he used to be, is he?  You’re all on screens and not in person… and rightly so!  But still, it’s not the same, is it? Before all this, you remember, the Bishop was here in person with all of you and then… in the blink of an eye it was all gone… changed in an instant and not in a way any of you liked!  And you may not like this next part I’m going to tell you either, but what comes next, after this pandemic, that will not be exactly like it was before either.  It just won’t be. 

But that truth doesn't mean your story has come to an end, my good and joyful, faithful friends of Christ Trinity!  Very soon now it will be time for you to GO!  Very, VERY soon now it will be time to get a move on, shake a leg, get cracking, get a wiggle on, put the hammer down, and even to move yur bloody arses!  Because while you all are still locked down here for the moment, again, just as you should be for now, Jesus has gone ahead of you… he’s out there, on the road, showing you where to go when it’s safe… when it’s time!

  

So, for right now, just get ready.  Get your spices together, get vaccinated, and keep masking up until everyone has their jabs and keep watch for the moment that this last bit of darkness comes to an end and the Son begins to rise!  Because as soon as the stone gets rolled back from this pandemic and the light shines into our year-old, locked-down tomb, you’ll need to hit the road running once again!  You’ll need to get out there!  You'll need to catch up to Jesus… begin walking the Jesus WAY out there again… creating your corners of kindness for hikers and bikers and Sheffield Priders.  You’ll need to get out there again, bringing joy to your neighbors with concerts and hot dogs and a reimagined Parish Fair!  You’ll need to get out there and meet up with Jesus, joining him outside again, bringing kindness into the world… a kindness that starts with you right here, and then just ripples out to who knows where!  Once that pandemic stone is finally rolled away, it will be time to GO!  Out there!  Because out there… THAT’S… that’s where you’ll see Jesus!  

The angel’s right you know?  Our story isn’t over, but it has changed.  The church we return to will never be exactly like it was before it was laid in this pandemic tomb over a year ago.  I suspect as we begin to experience that truth there will be some real sadness in that, just as there was for those women.  But for those women, the loss of what had been was not the end of their story, even if it was the end of Mark’s.  This pandemic and how things will look on the other side will likewise not be the end of our story either.  

The word from that angel to the women then, is the word from our angel to all of us now.  When this is over… when we see that the stone that has trapped us inside and apart for over a year is finally rolled away, our Easter angel will have already told us what to do!  We’ll know that the time has come to gather up the gang and Go!  Because it really is, out there, bringing joy and kindness into the world, where we will see Jesus.  Amen.  

The Greek Brothers, The Vatican, and RuPaul

 John 12:20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

The Greek brothers, Nick, Gus and Nick pulled into town along with everybody and their mother!  The traffic was terrible.  They, like everyone else, had come to Jerusalem for Passover, which was out of the ordinary, because they weren’t Jews.  They were Greeks!  But they weren’t the usual sort of Greeks either.  They were what were called “God-fearers.”  They faithfully practiced the Jewish faith and yet, would never be welcomed in as REAL Jews, because they were BORN and Greeks and not Jews, and you can't change how you were born!

But recently, scrolling through social media, they had stumbled upon a the video of a man who was teaching with authority, doing great signs, who might… just might… be the promised Messiah.  Nick, Gus and Nick really wanted to see him.  Not just to set their eyeballs on him, but REALLY SEE him… get to know him... follow him in his footsteps… because, you see, if this man really WAS the Messiah, well… HE would have the power to change everything.... even the power to include Greeks as Children of God!

Nick, Gus and Nick arrived right at the moment of “judgement.”  But it wasn’t a “guilty/not-guilty” sort of judgement.  The Greek work translated as “judgement” is “Kresis” and in spite of sounding like the English word “crisis” it’s not exactly that either, with that word’s almost exclusively bad connotations.  It was a dangerous moment to be sure, but it also contained all the elements of infinite possibility as well.  THIS was THE moment that God had taken to do the DANGEROUS work of transforming the way all of creation worked, which would create the beautiful OPPORTUNITY for ALL to be included.  

God at work in the world to include ALL, sounds great, but not everyone gets excited about change.  In fact some people are willing to do anything… even kill… to stop things from changing.  But Nick, Gus and Nick thought it was worth the danger.  THIS was the moment to which everything in John’s Gospel had been pointing.  Remember the wedding in Cana when Jesus told his mother that his hour had not yet come?  Well, THIS was now the HOUR!  This was THE moment!  But even the moment itself was unique.  This wasn’t a moment that just came and then went.  THIS was the sort of moment that comes and then ripples out in never-ending waves through all of time and all of creation.  The Greek grammar make that clear… God was turning the world upside down and THEN, the implications of God’s work would continue to ripple out, changing everything, through all of time, for everyone… everywhere… forever.     

But the world isn't always a fan or change. Even when that change comes from God!  Because change means that “the way we’ve always done it before” needs to die and “the way we’ve always done it before” rarely ever goes quietly into that good night.  So even here in John’s Gospel where Jesus seems most in control, this isn’t a cake walk.  Even Jesus himself says his soul is troubled.  Even for Jesus... even for the good… change is hard.  But like it or not, God's change rolls on right into today, where we too now have the very same dangerous opportunity to really SEE Jesus! 

Now, before you get all excited about that, I have to warn you... SEEING Jesus isn’t the same as HEARING about Jesus.  It isn’t the same as intellectually agreeing to a list of doctrines ABOUT Jesus.  SEEING Jesus means allowing all that we’ve grown comfortable with to be lifted up and crucified with him to make room for what God has in mind to bring to new life in us next!  It means letting go of the way it is now and fully embracing the Kingdom of God.

That’s what the Greek Brothers wanted… that’s what they NEEDED!  Because they knew that nothing short of death and resurrection would have the power to change the world enough to fully include them as Children of God!  This was the hour… their hour… and in ways I can’t wrap my head around, it is our hour today as well.  The moment of God’s radical inclusion of all people came 2000 years ago and is, at the same time, this particular moment as well.    

The sad truth of that is that now, like then, the powers of the world, both religious and secular will fight God's change for full inclusion.  They will continue to decide who is “out” and who is “in”, who’s a saint and who's a sinner.  Greek brothers and sisters then... gay brothers and sisters now.

But the take home message of this Gospel story is that in spite of all that persistent ugliness then, they couldn’t stop Jesus from drawing the Greek brothers into God’s loving embrace then and they can’t stop Jesus from drawing all people into that same loving embrace today!  

The Dangerous Opportunity that God brought into this world as a child in a manger has NOW become the judgment of this world!  And that Judgement IS, that each and every one of you, no matter where you were born, no matter the color of your skin, no matter who you love… the judgement of Jesus is that YOU ARE A FULL and COMPLETE and ABSOLUTELY PERFECT CHILD OF GOD just as you are!  

The rulers of this world who continue to sell division, hate, exclusion, and anxiety are annoying as hell... but they ARE being driven out!  And as that Dangerous Opportunity named Jesus is lifted up from this earth, he will draw all people… all people… ALL PEOPLE to himself, and include each and every one as a beloved Children of God.  There will sadly always be people who don’t like it, but as St. Ru of Paul says, “If they ain’t payin’ your bills don’t pay them no mind” because for God, ALL… MEANS… ALL!  Amen.  

Snakes on a Stick

Numbers 21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

John 3:14-21

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

I have a snake bias and serpents are just Bible snakes in my book.  My bias is I don’t like ‘em!  I also have a God bias.  My God bias is that God SO LOVES the world, and God sent Jesus NOT to condemn the world, but to save it.  For those reasons, while I’m sure Moses and the people genuinely BELIEVED that God sent the Bible-snakes as punishment in that first lesson, when I look back through Jesus’ time on earth, I’m more inclined to think the Bible-snakes were more likely just a natural consequence of the people’s impatience.  

To me that makes more sense… not just for back then, but for last week!  This past week several governors stood up and basically said…  “Why have you brought us up out of the land of fully opened bars and restaurants to die in this locked down wilderness? For there is no taco Tuesday and no happy hour, and we detest these miserable masks.”  Then the people burned their masks and opened their bars. Inevitably the Lord now, just like back then, will allow the natural consequences of those choices to happen.  Infections will surge, new variants will take hold, more people get sick, and more people will die. 

Still though, an all powerful God allowing natural consequences to happen… how is that loving?  The answer, I think, is because real love isn't manipulative.  Love doesn’t make choices for the other, even when the other is making a TERRIBLE choice!  LOVE certainly does all it can to convince the other to choose the better path, but in the end, love allows free choice or it isn’t really love, is it? The end of this Bible-snake story shows that truth just as much as the first part does.  In the end, God doesn’t do what the people ask.  God isn’t the people’s puppet any more than the people are God’s puppets.  This is a mutual relationship founded in love.  So God does not magically whisk away the poisonous Bible snakes… God does not take away the consequences of the people’s previous choices.  But God, still deeply in love with God’s people, does provide a pathway through… God loves them THROUGH their impatience.  God loves them THROUGH their privileged complaining.  God loves them THROUGH the slithering, poisonous, creepy consequences of their impatient whining.  God loves them THROUGH all that by telling Moses to put a non-lethal version of those lethal Bible-snakes on a stick.

 

This story from Numbers might as well have been downloaded from the New York Times just yesterday!  These vaccines we’re lining up for are literally a non-lethal version of the lethal thing itself and the syringe is the stick it comes in!  We too, after being whiney and impatient, are still deeply loved by God, and have been offered a pathway through this time.  A path provided by God through the hands and hearts and minds of gifted scientists who worked night and day to offer us, God’s whiney but still beloved people, a path out of death and into life.

Today marks one full year of online only worship for our congregation.  None of this last year was God’s punishment.  Sadly much too much of this past year was, however, the natural consequences of our impatience as a people.  We chose as a nation to turn wearing masks from an act of love for one another into a battlefield.  We’ve shown never ending impatience wanting to get back to normal, and as a result we’ve ignored the scientists who told us how to get through.  We have failed for a year to find a way as a nation, to be generous enough to allow one another to stay home AND at the same time not starve, loose our homes, or loose our businesses.  In that failure we chose as a nation NOT to work together to knock the virus out in one, single, unified, patriotic blow. 

In spite of all of our national impatience, selfishness, and constant complaining that we “Hate these miserable masks!” I  am still convinced, because I live on THIS side of Jesus’ time on this earth, that God still really DOES…  SO LOVE THIS WORLD.  All through this past year, in spite of all the selfish whining and pig headed stubbornness of our nation, God, out of God’s infinite love, has been constantly inviting us to come into the light… to follow Jesus in the way of selflessness, to give of ourselves for the good of our neighbor, and humble ourselves to be led by the science.  

As a nation we didn’t do so well, but here and there, people shone the light in the darkness, doing what could be done in the places they lived.  Now, after a year that light has really grown and we’re closer to the end than we’ve ever been.  I’m even getting hopeful and Kelly will tell you that hardly EVER happens!  We’re not yet in the Promised Land and there is still more virus out there than there every were Bible snakes in the wilderness, BUT… God continues to love us.  God continues to call us to the light.  God continues to coax us out of death and into life.  God calls us to follow the light and follow Jesus, caring first for our neighbor, doing things like wearing our masks and feeding the hungry.  

We’ve been at this for one whole year and God is pleading with us now, just like God was pleading with us a year ago… for us to make choices in these next few months that will lead to life and not to death.  God still… SO LOVES THIS WORLD… that God is asking us all now, when the end really is in sight, to remain faithful and patient, until all of world that God SO loves, makes it safely across the finish line.  Amen.  

Thick as a Brick

 Exodus 20:1-17

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

“Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”  That may at first seem like a throw away line before you get to the meat of the commandments but in Walter Brueggemann’s book “Sabbath as Resistance” (book study on Tuesdays at 7 pm) he insists it’s actually the hinge on which all the rest of these commandments swing.  

It's the answer to the question, "Are you one of the gods of Pharaoh?  A god that is never satisfied?  The god for whom enough is never enough?  The god who always wants more and more bricks to build more and more bins, to store more and more grain, to provide more and more wealth to those at the top of the pyramid?  No?  You’re not that god?  So, which God are you?  Oh, YOU are the God who brought us out of that land of insatiable, and unrelenting demand!  You’re THAT God, the One who threw the Divine “Let My People Go” monkey wrench into the brickworks of Pharaoh and his gods.  You AREN’T the god of endless producing.  You AREN’T the god of relentless box checking, resume building, ladder climbing, award collecting, and money hoarding.  You AREN’T the god who sells the lie that “if you buy this one more thing you’ll finally be happy” over and over and over again.  You… YOU… you are the God who pulled us OUT of that endless repetitive mire!  You are the God who stopped that not-so-merry go-round and brought us OUT of the land of Egypt.  You… YOU… you… you’re different.  You, God… are VERY different."  

VERY different indeed, because Pharaoh’s gods sacrifice humanity for the good of production.  This God… Israel’s God… OUR God… sacrifices production for the good of humanity.  This God… Israel’s God… OUR God… insists that RELATIONSHIPS, not more bricks, should be at the top of the pyramid.  This God created us for relationship, not for slavery and it wasn’t just Egypt’s particular brand of slavery that God had a problem with either.  It turns out that God had… and still has… a giant problem with ANYTHING that grinds humanity down to the bone in any sort of endless loop of production and consumption.  

The gift of the commandments (and they really are meant to be a gift) is that they are a set of tools that all of us can use to help keep ourselves and our neighbors out of ANY sort of slavery, and IN relationship.  In relationship with God yes, but just as importantly, with our neighbors as well.  God created us for relationship, not to be ground to bits by the machinery of any ancient or modern brickyard run by some two bit gold plated god.  The first three commandments are the tools that guide us into a healthy relationship with God.  The last six guide us into good relationships with our neighbors.  Then, right in the middle of those nine, is the commandment on Sabbath that links the two together.  

In that same book, “Sabbath as Resistance” (Book study on Tuesdays at 7 pm Eastern) we are shown that it is in Sabbath… right there, at the corner of God and Neighbor… where you and me, our neighbors, AND God the Divine self… ALL OF US TOGETHER, stop our creating, our doing, our making, our running, and our going.  It is there, in that Sabbath temple, that we, God and everybody... all together, just stop… and in that stopping we all join together in a mini rebellion against the culture (and the gods) of “always more” and the lie that there is never enough, and we can’t afford to stop working, achieving, reaching and striving even for a second.  

Author Michael Fishburn writes that Sabbath is, “a time of mindfulness in a society of increasing mindlessness.”  It is a time to push back and tell the rat, that for today, we simply refuse to race.  Today, my dear rat, we’re only going to BE… with our God and with our neighbor.  Today we’re going to build one other back up, after a week of the world’s gods trying to grind us down into dust.  Today we are going to be neighborly, right smack dab in the middle of a world that tells us there is no time to be neighborly because being neighborly takes away from making more and more and more bricks.

“Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”  So, for God’s sake!  Don’t be in such a God awful hurry to rush back into slavery so dang fast!  You weren’t created for slavery!  Not the slavery of brick making.  Not the slavery of endless shopping.  Not the slavery of the market and making more and more money.  You were NOT created for slavery.  You were created for relationship.  YOU were created to BE… with God and with one another.  SO STOP... BE WITH THEM and be FREE!

The pharaoh’s and taskmasters of this world are constantly calling us, enticing us, wooing us all back into a slavery of one sort or another every moment of every day.  It is very hard to resist that call with all those around us racing at full speed determined to always get back to making more bricks!  So take these commandments as the gift they are meant to be… Divine tools to arm yourself for the resistance.  Use them so that you are not so easily lured back into being less than you were created to be.  Use these commandment to deepen the relationships with God and neighbor that give you life!  THAT, is what God want for you... life.    Amen.