Sermons

The Rev. Joseph Farnes

All Saints, Boise

Easter 5A

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

A friend once described the process of growing in Christian faith as one of “milk churches” and “meat churches.” The milk church was seeker-friendly, low-barrier, low-expectations. It would get you into a relationship with Jesus, but it could also keep you in infancy. But as time would wear on, the move would be toward a “meat church” – a church community where you go deeper, what was easy to digest now takes some chewing, it takes effort. And then you grow as an adult.

At the time, it made good sense to me. It might have also been a little bit of Episcopalian hubris; “Well, you can start off with *that* Christianity, but at some point you’ll come to see the light and come to the Episcopal way of doing things – Scripture, Tradition, Reason and all that,” because clearly we would be a “meat church.” We like delving into things, we like our brains, we have a long tradition of wrestling with deep theological questions and deep spirituality.

But, as you can imagine, I’ve changed my perspective on things, and I think my friend was ultimately wrong. We need both milk and meat – all of us, at different times in our lives and for different things.

When we’re little kids, we need milk – a loving community around us that models how to pray and how to love. We also need meat – we begin to encounter the big questions of life early, like suffering and death. We need people around us who won’t shield us from those things but will sit with us as we cry.

When we’re teenagers, we need milk – adults who show us the values that are most important instead of the values of consumerism or popularity or wealth. And we also need meat – to start wrestling with our own identity in God, what it means for us to be us.

When we’re young adult, we need milk – the peace of God for when we take our new wobbly steps into the working world. We need meat – going beyond the simpler ideas of our childhood understanding of spirituality and faith to see more intricacies. I imagine it’s like learning about colors: when you’re a child, you can name the big, main colors, and when you’re an adult, you can start giving them more precise names, like scarlet or burgundy instead of red… even though red is still correct.

As we get to be middle-aged, we still need milk – we need our spiritual practices to bring us back to the basics of gathering in prayer with others, in caring for neighbor, in just slowing down and being with God! And yet we still need meat, too – we now can start to look backwards on our life and see the trajectory of how it has unfolded, and we need to wrestle with the grief of what once was, and is no longer.

And even in older age, we still need milk – those little daily blessings of gratitude that keep us going when we face new limits to our strength. And meat, too – sharing wisdom we’ve accumulated and yet still learning, of giving guidance and love to others, of letting go of some of those things we’ve carried with us for too long.

And I think we as a parish can be both milk and meat for people. Remember our conversations at Annual Meeting this year? Your vestry and I have been hard at work on synthesizing that conversation. We came up with the following little summary:

Ask and Listen;

Pray and Grow;

Share and Proclaim;

In All Things: Love.

It is both milk – simple enough to understand – and meat – something we can continue to grow into each day. It is a guide for beginners, and it is a guide for those well-traveled in the way of faith in Christ. Much like the Rule of St Benedict – he said his rule was a guide for beginners, and yet it has persevered as a rule of life that takes a lifetime to live into.

We’ll be returning and revisiting this over the weeks ahead, too. Not a one-time thing!

In it, we can reflect on our own way of doing these things. We don’t all do them the same way. We live them each differently, and yet we come together to live them out together. We are still growing in these areas, and we are also capable in these areas, too.

The Gospel reading from John that we read today is a good example of this. There are passages ready to understand and bring into our hearts right now: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places” – there is a place for you, for me, for all of us. Comforting! And there is much that we need to chew on, wrestle with: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” That is something that it takes a lifelong of prayer and reflection to unfold in its depths. There is milk, there is meat, there is plenty for a life long journey of discipleship. Amen.

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4th Sun Easter, Year A

Deacon Christina Cernansky

I speak to you in the name of Source, God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, mother of us all. Blessed Good Shepherd and Earth Day Sunday, All Saints!

Say what? Yes, Earth Day was April 22, and today is also Good Shepherd Sunday. Good Shepard Sunday, the 4^th Sunday in Eastertide, and in all three years of the lectionary calendar, we get to read Psalm 23. I find that so appropriate, right, or maybe the Holy Spirit is at work!

Psalm 23 is one of my favorite psalms…

At first glance, we are reminded that we are never alone, that God is always with us, and that we can find comfort in that relationship…being cared for as a shepherd watches over its flock.

When we dig a little deeper, it brings us hope when we feel lost, and we can lean into God’s grace, God’s shepherding, and God’s unbridled love. We are encouraged to find greener pastures during times of sorrow and despair. 

Coupled with Earth Day, this is the week to focus our attention on God’s creation and on how we are called to be good stewards of that creation. We humbly have the privilege and honor of stewarding God’s creation during our time here on Earth.

Last week, we heard a great presentation from Mike Ritthaler. He shared the Bee Pollinator Garden committee’s plans to restore All Saints’ grounds to their original role in supporting a larger ecosystem. This symbiotic ecosystem would not have invasive lawn-type grass but would instead feature native plant species to support the local environment and help restore it to a more functioning landscape.  He will give the same presentation to us a little later today and invite you to hear not only about the plans but also about their progress.  Spoiler alert, he saw a bunny hopping around recently, so God’s work is most definitely at play!

After the short presentation, we will take a tour, and, God willing, our neighbors will join us for an educational conversation about how we are being good stewards of the land and inviting the community to join us in those efforts. Next Wednesday, we are going to hear a talk on the two Saints that walked the walk and talked the talk in this conversation. St. Francis of Assisi and Francis Perkins, to further empower us to do our due diligence on this plot of land, we have been tasked with overseeing.

So often, we can look at scripture as a one-way street, God directing us to do things or find comfort in God’s mercy and grace.  I offer another perspective this morning: what if Psalm 23 is a two-way street? What if we are called to go beyond a surface-level understanding?

We can look at it as a task to care for the environment, as well as a poem that asks for God’s grace, inviting God into our lives through nature. We are asking to be restored, to rest, to be renewed, to be overseen by the shepherd, and to flourish in that tender loving care. What if we are also tasked with doing the same for God’s creation?

When the Psalmists say, “The Lord is my shepherd”, they might also be pointing to how we are also being asked to be shepherds over the flock, over God’s flock, over God’s creation.

When I read Psalm 23, to not fear, to lean into being good stewards of everything that God created, but to also be righteous, to continue on with the work, it’s maybe a call to action. It’s a request to oversee all of God’s creation, to be good stewards.

What does that look like in times of caring for our siblings during Earth’s cycles of challenges, such as famine, droughts, super hurricane seasons, and, I pray, this fire season isn’t too harsh.

It is hard to grasp that God created all of these things, all of these cycles.

God has also given us the ability to continue building structures that destroy nature and to profit from it.

Psalm 23 might be calling us to return to what God is actively giving us, to steward over, to share, to love, and to preserve. Yes, the Lord is our Shepeard, but how are we overseeing his flock?

I offer a friendly reminder that, through all the pain and suffering, we have been called, have taken action in the past, and that there are miraculous things going on today.

Friendly reminder that the first Earth Day in 1970 was founded by Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin and a graduate student, Denis Hayes. They were tired of rivers catching on fire, trash littering the countryside, and the general population was dismissive of caring for God’s creation. From that important day, President Nixon created the EPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. The nation came together to clean up our backyards, our shared spaces, to preserve and be dutiful stewards over this great land.

Right here, in Idaho, we have the Idaho Conservation League. They work with industry leaders and governments; it’s a public-private partnership that has helped permanently protect the Boulder-White Cloud Mountains, earned designation for America’s first international dark sky reserve, and developed policy recommendations for the Governor’s Salmon Workgroup to further secure commitments to saving Idaho’s endangered salmon.

Did you know that we are harnessing energy from lake waves in the Great Lakes, Iceland is utilizing pioneering technology to capture CO₂ directly from the air and store it permanently by turning it into stone, which is powered by local geothermal energy, and the US currently gets 18% of its electricity from solar, and by 2027, it’s projected to jump to 21%.

That’s a lot of caring for God’s infinite creation!

So I ask you to consider that Psalm 23 pushes us to walk with Christ, as we shall dwell in God’s creation, and to come together to restore and preserve our green pastures. I pray we continue to create a sustainable future for all of God’s Creation; surely our cups will overflow if we remain good stewards of God’s Kingdom.

And we can start right here with our little plot of Earth by creating more space for bees, and, yes, maybe for some more bunnies.

Let us close with a prayer, please grab your BCP, page 814:  

For Joy in God’s Creation

O heavenly Father, who hast filled the world with beauty:

Open our eyes to behold thy gracious hand in all thy works;

that, rejoicing in thy whole creation, we may learn to serve thee with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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The Rev. Joseph Farnes

All Saints, Boise

Easter 3A

While I very much appreciate the scholarly depth and dedication to accuracy in the translation of the Bible we normally use in church, the New Revised Standard Version, sometimes the translation also can feel stiff. Part of that stiffness is because we want our Bible to sound holy, we don’t want it to sound too much like our everyday speech. If it sounds too “everyday”, then it sounds too casual, almost unserious. The other part is that we’re translating texts from vastly different cultures than ours. How do we translate comparisons and slang and phrases to modern English – do we rewrite them to match how we might say it today, or do we translate it exactly and put the information into a footnote?

            Do we go the direction of formal equivalence, translating word for word as they are, even if it sounds clunky and confusing, or do we go the direction of functional equivalence, translating thought for thought even if it means not following the source very closely? Formal equivalence wants to preserve as much of the word choice and grammar of the Hebrew and Greek; functional equivalence wants to make it sound more like natural English.

            The translation we use in church is the New Revised Standard Version, updated recently, which leans toward formal equivalence. It wants to follow the original language as closely as it can and has footnotes to help explain obscure word choices; the translating committee represents a variety of religious traditions: Christians of many different denominations, and Jewish scholars in translating the texts of the Old Testament. It also retains some of prior translation choices, too; the NRSV is, in a way, a revision of a revision of a translation revising the King James Version of the Bible, which is still claimed as the “historic” Bible of the Episcopal Church since it was the Church of England that made that translation and we come from them.

            But, again, that’s not the only way to translate the Bible. There are many translations. Some of them are perhaps more… ideological in their intent and how they translate. I’m not a big fan of those, but that’s hardly a surprise to most of you. I’d rather wrestle with a difficult Biblical passage that says something *different* than what I believe than make the Bible match my beliefs. And of course, there are times when people say something is in the Bible but it absolutely isn’t. They read into the Bible words and stories and meanings that aren’t even there, because it’s what they wish the Bible would say. That’s not ok at all.

            There are, however, functional translations of the Bible that tell the story faithfully, but aren’t focused on translating word-for-word. They try to use everyday language. Though, perhaps we sometimes shy away from reading those translations because we’re worried they aren’t faithful translations, that they’re too simplified since they’re understandable. That was a criticism thrown at the Good News Translation of the Bible in the mid-20th Century; it didn’t sound holy and lofty and so it must be a less-than-accurate version of the Bible. It’s a solid translation, though!

            Nowadays, there are many, many different translations. Perhaps too many! Here’s a translation of our 1 Peter reading from a translation that aims to be at a seventh-grade level, it’s called the Common English Bible. Why don’t you turn to the second reading and compare them as I read: “Since you call upon a Father who judges all people according to their actions without favoritism, you should conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your dwelling in a strange land. Live in this way, knowing that you were not liberated by perishable things like silver or gold from the empty lifestyle you inherited from your ancestors. Instead, you were liberated by the precious blood of Christ, like that of a flawless, spotless lamb. Christ was chosen before the creation of the world, but was only revealed at the end of time. This was done for you, who through Christ are faithful to the God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory. So now, your faith and hope should rest in God. As you set yourselves apart by your obedience to the truth so that you might have genuine affection for your fellow believers, love each other deeply and earnestly. Do this because you have been given new birth—not from the type of seed that decays but from seed that doesn’t. This seed is God’s life-giving and enduring word.”

            What did you think? Did the second reading hit differently than the first? What did you notice this time, and how did it sound to you? Did it bring to mind images and meaning that weren’t as clear the first time around?

            Part of what we are doing in listening to the Bible being read is listening for God speaking to us in the text. Just as Jesus interpreted the Old Testament for these disciples on their way to Emmaus, so we are listening to what the Spirit is telling us through the texts of the Bible. We are active participants in a process – the Bible isn’t dropped into our life for us to decipher like a code book. The Holy Spirit is at work in us, in our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds as we bridge the meaning of the sacred texts into our current world.

You see, there’s these final steps in the translation process that get ignored: your role as the reader of the translation. You read or hear the translation, and you translate it in your mind. You take it into yourself. You pick out certain phrases, words, images. You take the phrases, words, images, and take them into your mind and heart. You make them part of yourself. You translate them into your life, I hope. You take this translation of an ancient text and translate it from English into your everyday life.

            But the translation isn’t over yet! You also translate this text for other people. You take these words, these stories about God’s work in the world and translate it for other people in church, for other people in the world, for friends and family and strangers. Other people hear the story about Jesus feeding the thousands when you buy or make food for the community meal. Other people hear the story of Jesus saying to visit the sick and the hurting when you reach out to someone in need. Other people hear the story of the goodness of everything that God has made when you care for creation. Sometimes they hear the story because they see you doing it; it’s even better, though, when you share the story in word as well as in deed.             The world needs to hear the Bible translated. The world needs to hear a good translation – not just a written translation but also to hear it translated in your life, in our lives together. How will you make the words of God come alive in your life, and how will you translate the Good News for others? Amen.

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The Rev. Joseph Farnes

All Saints, Boise

Easter 2A

Alleluia, Christ is risen! We have new banners this season, so it must be time to do a theological deep-dive on the folks we are celebrating!

First at the top left are Adam and Eve. Now this is probably an odd choice – why would we pick the mythological first human beings, especially since that whole “getting us kicked out of the Garden of Eden” thing we read in Genesis? There is a beautiful icon of Christ’s resurrection wherein he grabs Adam and Eve by the wrists and pulls them out of their graves. Their biggest failure does not dissuade God from rescuing them from death. Their failure becomes an occasion for God’s great mercy. To paraphrase St Augustine of Hippo, “What a blessed fault that gets us such a wonderful savior!”

At the top right we have St Paul, also another person whose failure became an occasion for transformation. He goes from persecutor of followers of Christ, to become a pastor and missionary, and it is his letters to various groups of Christians that give us the first theologies of the resurrection. Paul writes about why the resurrection changes the world, what it means to gather to follow Jesus, what it means to be Christians.

On the left we have Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles. She is the one who for a brief moment carried the joyful cry that we Christians have repeated through the ages: Christ is risen! Even when her role and ministry was sidelined for so many years, Mary Magdalene stands as a herald of the resurrection. She was healed by Christ – seven demons had been cast out of her, according to Gospel of Luke (8:2) – and nothing would stand in her way as she follows Jesus.

And on the right side we see Mary and Martha of Bethany – faithful followers, generous givers, holy women who were disciples of Christ and who manifested the many ways that we serve Christ through our ministry: through prayer and service. They contributed to the proclamation of the Gospel in word and in deed, and we are grateful for their witness.

On the left we have John Chrysostom, whose Easter sermon is still read throughout the Eastern Orthodox churches (and at our Easter Vigil this year!) because it expresses the joy and power of the resurrection. He calls for celebration because death is no longer to be feared. But it would be too small a thing to focus only on this: John Chrysostom also lived a life of witness to the this-world implications of the resurrection. If we believe in the resurrection of Jesus, then we should not accumulate great wealth while others go without. For this, John Chrysostom was exiled repeatedly.

And on the right we have Catherine of Siena, a third-order Dominican woman whose mystical life with Christ reminds us that we need to have a vibrant, living relationship with Christ. So often we sort of stop looking for Christ – we read the resurrection stories in the Gospels, and then once Jesus ascends into the heavenly places, we sort of stop looking for Jesus. But Catherine of Siena celebrated a living relationship with Christ that she called a marriage to Jesus. He was alive, and he was alive in her life. And because of that living relationship, Catherine could call powerful people to account for their behavior.

Back to the left: John Donne and George Herbert, two clergy-poets of the Church of England whose work has inspired faith throughout generations. Gentle wisdom in the written word, expressing the depths of mystical theology that they saw in their prayer and their ministry. And complementing them on the other side is Bach, you know, that one Lutheran composer. We forget that artists and creatives can have a deep spirituality that shows up in their works. Just because Bach was never ordained does not mean that his spirituality was somehow lesser than John Donne and George Herbert’s. Bach taught catechism classes, you know.

            And on the bottom of both banners, we have Marianne Cope and Damien of Molokai, two saints who ministered to those afflicted with leprosy when few others would risk being infected. Their faith in Christ led them to care for those who had few helpers, and who have throughout the centuries been abandoned and exiled. Marianne and Damien trusted in the risen Lord to help them do what they could with great love.

            The saints we cherish have been filled with the power of the risen Lord Jesus. They proclaimed the resurrection, they shared the life and ministry of Jesus in their day and age. They lived the mystical insight and beauty of the resurrection. They did courageous things, animated by the triumph of Jesus over death itself – knowing that if nothing can separate us from the love of the risen Lord, then nothing can stop us from doing acts of love and justice to proclaim the kingdom of that same risen Lord.

            The resurrection is not simply an event that happened once and then fades into a dim fact or truism of faith. No, the resurrection is the light in which we live and walk as Christians. The resurrection animates us, encourages us, strengthens us, delights us.             There are six more weeks of Easter ahead of us. As we continue to sing our Alleluia in this season, I want you to think of how the resurrection matters to you. What does the risen Lord make happen in your life – how will you live in the light of the resurrection for these weeks and beyond?

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The Rev. Joseph Farnes

MAUNDY THURSDAY

Here we are, at the gate of the Triduum, the Three Holy Days. Tonight we begin our descent into the heartache and pain of the Passion with a depth we only taste briefly on Palm Sunday. Our liturgy walks us through transitions and changes; it becomes stranger, unsettling. Maundy Thursday begins like any other Eucharist – and then the washing of the feet starts to upend the regular rhythm. We are unsettled by the bizarre action: people remove their shoes and present their bare feet to be washed by another human being.

It’s doubly-bizarre to us modern Americans because we don’t regularly wash our feet at the front door, let alone have servants or slaves to wash them for us. We ritually act out something from a culture far removed from us.

In fact, I think that because it is so far removed from us that we do not fully get the humility, the humbling effect of washing feet. It’s strange enough that we don’t connect the act of washing another’s feet as something undignified or humbling. I have, in half-jest, suggested that perhaps our culture would make more of a connection to the work of a CNA in a hospital, caring for those who cannot do much of that self-care for themselves. Healthcare companies pay them so little and expect so much of them.

While we do not fully get the humbling aspect of being the one washing feet, we do understand that humbling – and possible humiliation – when we have our feet washed. We expose a part of ourselves that we normally keep hidden – in our feet are traces of years of our shoes cramping our toes, years of walking and worrying, all worn into our bones and flesh. We would rather hide that part of us. We would rather hide much of ourselves.

No wonder we are a lonely people.

We struggle to bring ourselves fully and completely – afraid of being judged, afraid of being wounded, afraid of being rejected.

Over ten years ago as a young priest, my boss sat in on a Christian education class I was doing on ethics. The feedback she gave me did not focus on my topic, my words, my engagement with the group, or even any pastoral sensitivities that I needed to be aware of. What she wanted to tell me about was my face. She said I needed to smile more. That my listening face, my neutral face, was “intimidating” with its little downturn at the edges like a frown. I hadn’t realized something was wrong with my face, but I took that lesson to heart.

She told me that it was important to know that as a priest, my body is not my own. I will be hugged when I do not want to be hugged. My face will always need to look happy and eager and peaceful, and my inner life cannot crack through the surface. When I was going through a particular rough patch, she was the one to point out that my voice sounded sad in my sermon, and that I needed to fix that immediately. My job was to be what the people needed me to be, and my job, in return, was to tell them that God loved them. Not that I needed to love them – no, she said, the job was only to tell them that God loved them.

She was not the only clergyperson to tell me that I needed to hide more of myself. During a clergy retreat, a priest in this diocese wildly misinterpreted something I shared about my childhood pain and threw it in my face. I’ve been told by a priest during an internship that I needed to be quiet about being gay. I’ve heard folks in collars talk about me with language like “vibes are off” instead of talking with me, if they were so concerned. Even in the Church, with people who should know better, we do not do this well.

And yet, among you I have learned to take off my shoes and let myself be seen. I am hilarious and funny … and also, to use a term our forebears would have used, occasionally of a “melancholic” temperament. I get tired, and I’m capable of overthinking anything. I’m smart and once in a while even insightful, and I’m also three seconds away from getting lost in the weeds of a theological question.

And this community of All Saints has flipped the logic of my old boss on its head. Her stance was “It’s not our job to love them; it’s our job to tell them God loves them.” All Saints flipped it around and showed me that what I felt in my heart was right all along: “It is, in fact, up to all of us to love one another, and then people will know God loves them.”

It’s hard to do, this love thing. It’s something we do in word and deed far before our emotions catch up. To love the newcomer and welcome them to coffee and to share the journey, to love the person whose way of being is different from yours, to love the person whose personality doesn’t gel with yours, to love the person in pain without rushing to try to fix them or their heartache.

It’s also hard to be loved, too. To sit like Peter and have someone wash your feet to show you love – and I imagine that the act of love stung even worse when Peter denied Christ a short while later. When we show up with our pain and let someone sit with us wordlessly, when we let someone show us kindness, when we make the risk of showing up to a community unsure of what welcome we might find.

Love is the central Christian discipline – it is what makes us disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, God the Son, the Lamb of God.

“Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end. … and he said to them, 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.”

So we begin our entrance into the sacred mystery of the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. How fitting, and how perfect it is that the entrance begins with love. Amen.

GOOD FRIDAY

What good thing happened on Good Friday? We struggle to name it at times. We aren’t sure. We who sit in the depths of Christian tradition know that something holy happened on the cross, but we lack the language to express it well. We don’t have a neat and tidy theological package to put it in. We know that the Bible uses many different metaphors for what happened on the cross. All of these metaphors and images within the Bible work together – and sometimes sit in uneasy contrast to one another. Just as the cross was not a neat and tidy death, so too is the mystery of the cross not neat and tidy and simple.

Here are some images and metaphors that the New Testament uses to share the power of Jesus’ death on the cross:

Christ ransomed us from the power of death – he put down his life as payment to buy us back from being enslaved to death and sin.

Christ is the Great High Priest who offered himself as a priestly sacrifice – to make us holy and wash us clean.

Christ substituted his life for ours – not to appease and placate a wrathful father, but to suffer the consequences of sin for us and to share with us his inheritance as God the Son.

Christ is the Passover Lamb – his blood marks the doorposts and leads us into the exodus from being enslaved to death and sin, the Passover from death into life.

Christ the Sinless One is judged by the injustice of the world – and on the cross his death renders a judgment of all injustice.

Christ is the wounded head of the body of the faithful – he shares our pain and suffering completely and perfectly in absolute solidarity of love, and he will share the fullness of his resurrection in return.

All of these images are found in the New Testament. On Good Friday, we let the mystery enfold us. It is not a comfortable mystery – it does not enkindle in us nice, warm, pious thoughts. It fills us with uneasy awe and wonder, gratitude and heartbrokenness. It is a solemn day.

This day is solemn because it is a beautiful and holy mystery that Jesus Christ died for us. His death was not meaningless; the Gospels tell us repeatedly that he knew his death was coming and he still actively chose it. He didn’t have the resurrection as a “back-up” plan in case something went wrong – his death was a key part of living out the Gospel itself. He chose his death just as much as he chose his resurrection.

His death was not powerless; something happened on the cross. In the complete humility of accepting our human body, in accepting human mortality and death, Jesus was doing something powerful. His powerlessness in dying manifested the power of God. Human power was manifest in mobs and soldiers and priests and governors and kings, the full oppressive power of human government law and order – and ultimately all that human power fails in comparison to the power of God in the weakness of the cross.

Christ’s death, then, is a sign of God’s powerful life.

Christ’s death does not sugarcoat the reality of the situation we’re in; the powers of death surround us on every side. We see how close death can be when wars and violence erupt overnight and cruelty gets cheered as policy. We see how close death can be when officers who claim to be “law and order” break the law themselves by executing citizens. We see how close death can be when healthcare becomes impossible to get, even if you have done the right thing by getting health insurance. We see how close death can be when financial consequences flood downwards to impact workers and the poor yet all the financial rewards float upward to the surface for the few to reap. And we see how close death can be when we meditate on the uncertainty and shortness of life in our own grief.

The cross keeps us from sugarcoating all this to make it more palatable. The cross is at the heart of Christianity, and it is a cross that bears the suffering body of our Lord Jesus Christ. We can’t pretend that the cross was just an “oopsie-daisy” on the way to the empty tomb; we can’t “Good Vibes Only” our way past the suffering of life and death. That’s spiritual bypassing, that’s avoidance, that’s all flimsy. If we try to skip over the suffering and death on the cross to keep ourselves happy and cheerful, we’ll find that we don’t have a strong enough hope to support us when we see the power of death all around us.

We live in a world where people are being killed by war and hunger, we live in a world where those who have little are being targeted and deprived so that the rich and powerful can have more and more. Christ on the cross, his life fading with his final breaths from a suffering, bloodied body, Christ embraces all those who suffer, all those who are dying, all those who cry out with none to help.

No wonder, then, that Christian nationalism now takes the body of Christ off the cross – they can’t have a savior who wasn’t a winner, after all, and Jesus is too merciful to be a hero – and that same Christian nationalism is willing and eager to crucify others out of the cruelty in their hearts. That form of Christianity wants nothing to do with a crucified savior who pours out his love on the cross – that form of Christianity demands that they insert some form of power and dominance into the cross. It was heresy when Constantine put the cross on weapons of war, and it is heresy now to use that same cross to validate cruelty to those who suffer.

Good Friday rips away triumphalism and cruelty from the Christian heart forever. Our God is a God who is willing to bleed for us, to bleed alongside us, to be rejected and to be abandoned. On Good Friday, we have a hope given to us by a loving Messiah who stretches out his arms of love on the wood of the cross to embrace all of creation.

Good Friday gives us the powerful mystery that is the ground of our Christian hope: Jesus Christ took upon himself the fullness of our humanity, with everything that entails, and he was willing to endure the pain of death, just like us. He was so willing to take on our humanity, that he was willing to be ridiculed, rejected and shamed.

In his death, Jesus Christ gives us hope that no matter what ever happens in this life, no matter if we are loved or hated, celebrated or despised, rejoicing or in pain, we have hope that Jesus Christ bore all of it in himself. He was loved, and he was hated; he was celebrated and he was despised; the crowds that rejoiced gave way to the crowds who demanded he be crucified.

On this solemn day, something powerful happens: this Jesus Christ, God incarnate, love fully divine and love fully human, was killed, and from his blood and death we are set free from the power of sin and death.

Christ the Passover Lamb, Christ the High Priest, Christ the Sinless One, ransoms us from the powers of death and pays the debt of Adam’s sin.

We tremble: What kind of love is this?

We mourn: Our beloved Messiah and teacher is dead.

We sit in awe: God accepted cruel death at human hands and offers mercy and healing in return.

This is the mystery of the cross. This is Good Friday. Amen.

EASTER DAY

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

It all started with Mary Magdalene. She had gone to the tomb, and she noticed the stone had been rolled away. Something had happened – and she decided she needed to tell someone. She ran back to the other disciples. She wasn’t doing this alone. Jesus’ body wasn’t in the tomb. She tells Peter and the Beloved Disciple what she had seen. They all race back. Peter and the Beloved Disciple get there, take a look, and leave to go back home.

Maybe Peter and the Beloved Disciple had seen enough – maybe they had some inklings that something Jesus had said previously about being raised on the third day was true, maybe they were too shocked by the events of the crucifixion to give much thought. But they didn’t stick around.

Mary Magdalene, on the other hand, sticks around. She’s crying. She looks into the tomb and sees angels.

For many of us, that would be the highlight of the story. Seeing angels would be the big story we’d be rushing back to share. We’d rush back to tell people of the peace we felt, maybe, or try to find words to describe what we witnessed. Maybe we’d be expecting to hear a message to go back home and share, some heavenly wisdom or prophecy.

Oddly enough, the angels are not the highlight of the story.

The angels present do not command the attention of Mary Magdalene. They actually turn our attention in the story right back on to her: “Why are you crying?” they ask. If we were dazzled or surprised by the angels appearing in the story, the angels are bringing our attention back to Mary Magdalene. If we got distracted, the angels are focusing us on what matters most.

Mary Magdalene is weeping, looking for the body of her beloved Jesus. She is heartbroken. She does not rest until she meets Jesus, and she is rewarded for her persistence with being the first to see the Risen Lord Jesus. Mary Magdalene will not rest until she can show her love to Jesus.

To paraphrase a line from St Evelyn Underhill, “Jesus is the interesting thing about Christianity.” Jesus the baby born in Bethlehem; Jesus the prophet, healer and teacher; Jesus crucified outside Jerusalem; Jesus the Risen Lord. Jesus is the center of Christianity, and Jesus gives life to us Christians.

But we need to remember Jesus the person, the resurrected body, the one who was crucified and risen – not an idea about Jesus.

In our spiritual lives, it can be so easy to be like Peter and the Beloved Disciple – we can encounter something spiritual, and then go home. The spiritual life maybe becomes a fact: yes, I believe such-and-such, but it doesn’t make a difference in my daily life. We see that when a lot of people who like to talk about Jesus sure don’t act like Jesus taught. Jesus feeds the hungry and heals the sick and calls us to love God and our neighbor – those seem like non-negotiable and uncontroversial behaviors required of Christians, but here we are.

But Jesus is not a fact or an idea. Jesus is a person. We can’t just go home like Peter. Jesus is not an idea that we can say, “Yes, I believe in Jesus” and then go right back to what we were doing. Just as Jesus said throughout his life, he says to us now: “Follow me.” Follow a person, not an idea of a person.

In our spiritual lives, it can also be easy to be overcome by seeing the angels. We get swept up in awe and emotion. For a moment we can feel our hearts expand as huge as creation and we are overcome with joy. But, human beings and human brains do not last long in that state. We shrink back on down to regular human size, and all that awe and wonder dissipate as our eyes adjust back to the here-and-now. And then we ask ourselves why we don’t feel the way we once did, why the excitement faded. We might think something went wrong.

But Jesus is not an emotion, a rush of feelings of awe. Jesus is a person. Anyone who has spent any length of time around any other human being will know that love is not a warm feeling all the time. Sometimes love is quieter – a small thing lovingly done. Sometimes it’s hard work – loving someone even when they’ve frayed the last nerve on a bad day. Loving a person is an action word.

And so the angels help us re-focus away from awe and wonder. The angels will not let our eyes fixate on them; the angels always point away from themselves, to point to God and to point at what God is doing in our very midst.

Mary Magdalene is our exemplar today of how to be a Christian.

One – always look to Jesus. Mary Magdalene was on the lookout for Jesus and would stop at nothing less. So we should take a page from her book and look for Jesus all the time, too. Encounter Jesus in the readings of the Gospels. See the work of Jesus in the world around us. See Jesus in our strangers, friends… even our enemies! Taste and see the goodness of Jesus in the sacrament of communion. In the Gospels, in the wonders of creation, in our neighbors, in communion, Jesus is always present, if we would just keep our eyes looking for him.

Two – Don’t give up. Mary Magdalene did not give up – not with the empty tomb, not when Peter and the Beloved Disciple went home, and she didn’t stop when angels showed up. She wanted Jesus. She is our model for persistence. Sometimes it feels like our faith is just an idea of faith without much life in it. Sometimes it feels like our faith is an emotion, and some days it’s easy and other days it’s a challenge. But we don’t give up. It’s not just that we need Jesus – it’s that the world needs the hope and love that Jesus offers us.

And here’s point number three – this is good news that we simply have to share. Mary Magdalene went to get Peter and the Beloved Disciple, and she went back with the news of the encounter with the Risen Lord. Our spiritual life is not a private treasure but something we are called to share. The world is heartbroken and confused. People mistake money for the most important thing, and people clamor for power and dominance. Those are things Jesus told us multiple times in the Gospel to be aware of – We can’t serve God and money, and the greatest must be a servant to others (if you don’t believe me, then feel free to read the Gospels for yourself!) The world needs to hear about Jesus, and the world needs to see that those who love Jesus really, really believe in Jesus.

Not “Believe in Jesus” as in can say all the right things about Jesus, nor do I mean “Believe in Jesus” like having all the warm feelings or ecstatic joy about Jesus all the time. I mean “Believe in Jesus” – as in, believe that Jesus really meant what he said, and that Jesus really was who he was, and that Jesus invites us to follow him and love him with all our hearts and minds, and that Jesus also asks us to love our neighbor just as much as he loves them.

Because Mary Magdalene wasn’t interested in nice, correct ideas about Jesus. Mary Magdalene wasn’t going to stop searching for Jesus even when Peter and the Beloved Disciple went home. Mary Magdalene wasn’t overawed by angels. She wanted Jesus the person, Jesus who taught her the Gospel, the Good News. She wanted Jesus the Messiah. She wanted to find Jesus who loved her so she could show him love in return. Jesus was worth everything to Mary Magdalene.

And we who want to follow Mary Magdalene in her quest for Jesus, we should also remember what he asked of her: that she not cling to him in one way, but to go back to the other disciples again and share the good news of the resurrection. While we must seek Jesus wholeheartedly, being a Christian isn’t a solo adventure, something we do on our own. We have to share it with one another and share it with the world. And when we go to share it, we will see the presence of Christ in many places we hadn’t expected before.

So on this blessed Easter:

One – Always look to Jesus.

Two – Don’t give up.

Three – The good news of Jesus is something we get to share. Alleluia, Christ is risen!

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