Maundy Thursday Yr C April 18 2019

Audio  Maundy Thursday Yr C April 18 2019

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35, Psalm 116:1, 10-17

Just before the Passover feast, Jesus knew that the time had come to leave this world to go to the father. Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end. It was suppertime. Jesus got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of his friends, drying them with his apron. 

In this fourth gospel, we hear the story that takes place during the last meal that Jesus spends with his friends before his death. Jesus washes the feet of his friends, and asks them to do likewise. In this fourth gospel, John, the gospel writer points us to two central activities that show us who we are. Washing one another's feet, and eating together. God provides for God's people and God's people serve one another. So it is significant that this is what we do as we participate in these final days of Jesus' life. We eat this meal together, and we wash one another's feet. 

Imagine having been at this particular passover meal. Hoards of people have arrived in Jerusalem for the festival. All clamoring for a place to eat the meal. You, being a friend of Jesus, are in this room, with these people, reclining at this table. Bartholomew, James, Andrew, Judas, Peter, John, Mary, Thomas, the other James, Joanna, Philip, Matthew, Susanna, Thaddeus, Simon, and all the other men and women and children who were gathered that night. The meal is spread before you, the unleavened bread, the roasted lamb, and the bitter herbs. And in the middle of the meal, Jesus gets up, he takes off his robe and ties a towel around himself.

How odd, how extraordinary. He pours water into a basin and begins to wash everyone's feet. They surely needed washing, there are no clean feet in all of Jerusalem after a day of walking about, gathering supplies for the meal, visiting friends and relatives. But who does he think he is? That job is not his, Peter insists, it is the servant's work. We call Jesus King. A King, who does servant's work? Something here is astoundingly different. Something here shows us what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Wash one another's feet. Love one another by serving each other.

One of the people I really miss in our world is Fred Rogers. Recently we’ve had the opportunity to watch documentaries of Mr. Rogers, to learn more about his life. But first and foremost, Mr. Rogers taught us about being a neighbor. Fred Rogers invited a friend of his, in fact someone he had heard singing in church, to be his neighbor on his television show. Francois Clemmons joined the cast of the show in 1968, becoming the first African-American to have a recurring role on a kids TV series. Mr. Clemmons played the police officer on the show. He said he wasn’t really interested in this role initially, because growing up where he did, he did not have a good opinion of police officers. On one episode, Mr. Rogers was resting his hot feet in a plastic pool, and asked Mr. Clemmons, playing a police officer, to join him in resting his own hot, weary, feet. They sat and chatted, as Mr. Rogers did, and eventually the police officer got up to leave and get on with his day, and Mr. Rogers got down on his knees, and wiped dry the feet of his friend. In one fell swoop, Mr. Rogers shows all those watching, who is our neighbor, and how we serve one another.

The act of washing feet is sacramental, it is the outward sign of an inward grace. Something that is sacramental, or a sacrament is not beyond or above us, not holier, not necessarily even mysterious. Sacrament is what shows God’s love and grace: ordinary water, ordinary bread and wine, that invite us into love and relationship.

Sometimes life's events feel so big, and wide, and broad, and overwhelming. The pain and the joy of life bring us soaring to the mountaintops and to the depths of despair. And much of life is lived somewhere in between, in the mundane sacramental moments of making dinner for those we love, or driving our children to dance and music class, or doing our taxes, or taking a bath, washing feet or dreaming dreams. It is in the ordinary Jesus shows us sacred. In the muck and mess that is washed from our feet.

In the ordinary meal, our cracks are filled, our fissures healed, we are made whole. In the mundane washing, we overflow with mercy and compassion. Jesus seeps into our very being, washes us, feeds us, heals us. Jesus shows us who God is, and Jesus teaches us who we are, and then we may show that love to others.

Let me wash your feet, take this bread, and you will be healed. Jesus offers love, and forgiveness, healing and compassion. And Jesus shows us how to do what we are called to do.

On this night, the night Jesus is handed over to be tortured, betrayed by his friend, Love really does win.

The violence perpetrated on Jesus is hard to hear, hard to watch, because you and I are implicated in it. We have not been perfect. We have judged, we have bullied, we have missed the mark. We have offered ridicule when mercy was called for. We have fallen asleep when we should have paid attention. But, we are loved perfectly. Love still wins.

The gift we are given this night, mercy and compassion, foot washing and food, washes over us, nourishes us, puts us back together. We are re-membered. Come and receive the gift. Come, and remember who you are. Jesus, is here, in our midst, walking with us. Come, be filled with the love that gives everything and takes nothing. And you will know what love looks like.

2nd Sunday after the Epiphany Yr C Jan 20 2019

Audio  2nd Sunday after the Epiphany Yr C Jan 20 2019

Isaiah 62:1-5, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11, Psalm 36:5-10

When we listened to the first verses of John just a couple weeks back, we were reminded that the gospel writer very explicitly patterned the beginning of his story after the very beginning of the story in Genesis. The first verses of John are "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." And the first words of Genesis are "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good."

The gospel writer is very intentionally setting the stage to say something about God, and the story we have before us today does just that. God, who is creator of all that is, seen and unseen, and who calls the creation good, God, who calls the Word into being, is the God of abundance, the God of grace.

Jesus, and his mother, and many of their relatives and friends, are at a wedding in the neighboring town of Cana. The wine ran out. This is problematic. Weddings were not really romantic affairs; they were much more an agreement between families to join forces. So the party they put on not only seals the deal, but also shows everyone what they’re made, and running out of wine threatens a serious loss of honor.

Jesus' mother was called into that shameful problem. We’ll never know why she was involved in the lack of wine, but it was probably the wedding of a relative or a close friend and she was helping out with the arrangements. We do know that, family and communities came to the aid of the host of wedding, or any other party or gathering there might be. Hospitality was an imperative, an essential priority. I don’t know that we can come close to understanding how important this is, it’s about offering a cold cup of water and a piece of bread, and it is about so much more.

Mary believes that Jesus can do something about that. Standing right there were six stone jars that held the water for washing feet, and other ceremonial washings, and for drinking water. Jesus had them filled to the brim. Now, a single family would have just one of these jars in their home. The relatives may have brought their family’s stone jar so there would be plenty of water for all these people. Each of those stone jars probably held between 20 and 30 gallons of water, for a total of about 150 gallons. That's enough water to fill a very large bathtub and the trough that will water your horses for a few days; it's a lot of water.

When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, he was astonished that the bridegroom and his family had saved the good wine until so late in the celebration. He is amazed at the hospitality that wine represents. This is the first sign in John’s gospel that show’s God’s abundance upon abundance. God’s grace upon grace.

John presents us with story after story that show forth God in our midst and God’s abundant love and grace. In each story we see and feel Jesus’ presence in creation, Jesus’ presence in the people who populate the story. Each story shows us God’s abundant presence and God’s abundant love. Jesus in the living water for the woman at the well, Jesus who heals the man who was ill for 38 years, and Jesus who heals the man blind from birth. And Jesus whose abundant love feeds five thousand, and last but not least, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. John shows God’s abundance, God’s glory, in each of these signs.

And this story, this story about this party shows us Jesus providing hospitality, turning an abundance of water into an abundance of wine, so that these families hosting this party, can continue their hospitality to others.  It’s not just about showing off, or some sort of magic trick, Jesus prevents these families from being shamed. The families of the bride and bridegroom retain their status, their honor. This is important because if they ran out, if they failed to show hospitality to all these guests, they would become outcast, they would be outsiders, they would be marginalized.

Now, I want to caution us from applying our own 21^st century sensibilities to this story. My first reaction is well fine, no one needs that much wine anyway. And secondly, well, what’s the big deal about running out, no one’s going to judge them. But it was a big deal, hospitality was the biggest deal, and in this story, Jesus kept them from being cast out of the community. And this isn’t the only biblical story about how important hospitality is.

But the good news in this story is that as Jesus provides the best wine, in abundance. The good news is that God lavishes all of creation with abundant love and grace, that there are no outsiders in Jesus’ circle.

Too often we spend our time counting what we don’t have. Counting opportunities lost. We don’t have enough money or food or security or power or privilege. But that’s not what God’s love, and God’s grace looks like.

So today, I wonder if we can’t be more like Jesus. How might we surprise those around us with an abundance of blessing. What is it that you have a ton of and other people need? Is it smiles? What about hugs or hospitality? Who could we invite into our church, and our homes. Or what about space? How much more generous might we be? The possibilities, really, are endless. Another sign of God’s abundance, God’s grace, God’s love. God’s abundant love flows freely to all. There are no barriers, there are no walls, except those that we erect, that keep God’s love, and freedom, from any of God’s beloveds, including you.

Amen

2 Epiphany Yr C Jan 17 2016

2 Epiphany Yr C Jan 17 2016 Audio

When we listened to the first verses of the gospel of John just a couple weeks back, we were reminded that the gospel writer very explicitly patterned the beginning of his story after the very beginning of the story in Genesis. The first verses of John are "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." And the first words of Genesis are "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good."

The gospel writer is very intentionally setting the stage to say something about God, and the story we have before us today does just that. God, who is creator of all that is, seen and unseen, and who calls the creation good, God, who calls the Word into being, is the same God who is the God of abundance. 

On the third day of this wedding that Jesus, his mother, and all his friends were attending, the wine ran out. Probably just poor planning on the part of the host, most wedding celebrations lasted a week. Jesus' mother seems to be in a position that she knows right away the wine was gone, maybe it was the wedding of a relative or close friend and she was helping out with the arrangements. Mary believes that Jesus can do something about that, and said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Standing right there were six stone jars that held the water for washing feet and other ceremonial washings, Jesus had them filled to the brim. Each of those stone jars probably held between 20 and 30 gallons of water, for a total of about 150 gallons. That's enough water to fill a very large bath tub, or the trough that will water your horses for a few days, it's a lot of water.

When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, he was astonished that the bridegroom had saved the good wine until now, the third day. An abundance of good wine for the celebration. An abundance of good wine flowing out and over the celebration.

John presents us with story after story that show forth God's presence, some people even call them miracles. Each story points to God's presence with creation, God's presence in humanity, God's presence in and through and among us. God's presence as the Love that you and I know wins. But you and I also know the whole story, and we know it does not go well all the time. We know that creation turns away from God, that's why John the Baptist continually calls us to repent, to turn our hearts and minds and souls back to God. We know that Jesus' journey brings us to the sadness and suffering of the cross. We know that to be the story of our lives as well. Each one of us experiences the sadness and suffering of living and dying. But we also know that that is not the end of the story. Each story in the gospel of John brings us closer to Jesus' death, each story brings us closer to the grief of the death of a child. Because it is, you see, the death of a child. Mary empowers her son in this story, and grieves at the death of her son on the cross. 

And I believe God grieves as well. I believe the death of Jesus breaks God's heart, and I believe the death of each of God's children breaks God's heart.

Sometimes I think we wish for magic instead of hope for miracles, we wish for resuscitation instead of resurrection. And yet in this time when we want to fight violence with more guns, we forget about God's tears. In this time when we want to sling accusations instead of offer compassion, we forget about God's tears. In this time when we want to acquire and to consume to the detriment of this rock we live on, we forget about God's tears.

As I reflected again on this story of the water turned to wine, it occurred to me that the water in these jugs is God's tears. The abundance of God's tears is matched only by the abundance of God's love. God's tears flow as freely as the wine. 

Many in our communities and maybe in our families, wonder about where God is. Where is God when children are killed? Where is God in tragedy? Where is God when people mistreat others because of race, or gender, or sexuality? People assume God is absent from school, or work, or play, but they are wrong. You see, that is the miracle of incarnation, it's not magic. That is the miracle of God's tears made into wine, it's not magic. It is God with us. God whose son hung on a cross. God whose heart breaks. God whose tears heal. God's abundance flowing freely into life.  

Love wins. Love is worth it, even in grief God's love splashes into everything else. We want the messiah who rescues us and those we love from death, we want magic. But what we get is a God who has gone into grief deeper than most of us, and who walks with us in the midst of the mess and pain of this life. The God who makes this life new and worth living.

In the midst of God's abundant love we respond. We respond by working to change unjust systems. We respond by loving even when we see those who hate. We respond to violence with peace. We respond to tragedy with compassion. We respond to hopelessness with hope. We shine the light in dark places. We offer love over hate, freedom over oppression. 

Our country celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. tomorrow. Our church prays this collect, Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Our response to God's abundant love and God's tears of grief, matters. Bearing God's love and God's light into the world, matters. Walking with those who have lost hope, matters. You see, that's where miracles happen. That's where Love wins. Amen.

2 Epiphany Yr C January 20, 2013

When we listened to the first verses of John just a couple weeks back, we were reminded that the gospel writer very explicitly patterned the beginning of his story after the very beginning of the story in Genesis. The first verses of John are "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." And the first words of Genesis are "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good."

The gospel writer is very intentionally setting the stage to say something about God, and the story we have before us today does just that. God, who is creator of all that is, seen and unseen, and who calls the creation good, God, who calls the Word into being, is the same God who is the God of abundance.

On the third day of this wedding that Jesus, his mother, and all his friends were attending, the wine ran out. Probably just poor planning on the part of the host, most wedding celebrations lasted a week. Jesus' mother seems to be in a position that she knows right away the wine was gone, maybe it was the wedding of a relative or close friend and she was helping out with the arrangements. Mary believes that Jesus can do something about that, and said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Standing right there were six stone jars that held the water for washing feet, and other ceremonial washings, Jesus had them filled to the brim. Each of those stone jars probably held between 20 and 30 gallons of water, for a total of about 150 gallons. That's enough water to fill a very large bath tub, or the trough that will water your horses for a few days, it's a lot of water.

When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, he was astonished that the bridegroom had saved the good wine until now, the third day. An abundance of good wine for the celebration. An abundance of good wine flowing out and over the celebration.

John presents us with story after story that show forth God's presence, some people even calls them miracles. Each story points to God's presence with creation, God's presence in humanity, God's presence in and through and among us. God's presence as the Love that you and I know wins. But you and I also know the whole story, and we know it does not go well all the time. We know that creation turns away from God, that's why John the Baptist continually calls us to repent, to turn our hearts and minds and souls back to God. We know that Jesus' journey brings us to the sadness and suffering of the cross. We know that to be the story of our lives as well. Each one of us experiences the sadness and suffering of living and dying. But we also know that that is not the end of the story. Each story in the gospel of John brings us closer to Jesus' death, each story brings us closer to the grief of the death of a child. Because it is, you see, the death of a child. Mary empowers her son in this story, and grieves at the death of her son on the cross. And I believe God grieves as well. I believe the death of Jesus breaks God's heart, and I believe the death of each of God's children breaks God's heart.

Sometimes I think we wish for magic instead of hope for miracles, we wish for resuscitation instead of resurrection. And yet in this time when we want to fight violence with more guns, we forget about God's tears. In this time when we want to sling accusations instead of offer compassion, we forget about God's tears. In this time when we want to acquire and to consume to the detriment of this rock we live on, we forget about God's tears. As I reflected again on this story of the water turned to wine, it occurred to me that the water in these jugs is God's tears. The abundance of God's tears matched only by the abundance of God's love. God's tears flow as freely as the wine.

Recently many have been asking the question where is God? Where is God when children are killed? Where is God in tragedy? Where is God when people mistreat others because of race, or gender, or sexuality? People assume God is absent from school, or work, or play, but they are wrong. You see, that is the miracle of incarnation, it's not magic. That is the miracle of God's tears made into wine, it's not magic. It is God with us. God whose son hung on a cross. God whose heart breaks. God whose tears heal. God's abundance flowing freely into life.

Love wins. Love is worth it, even in grief God's love splashes into everything else. We want the messiah who rescues us and those we love from death, we want magic. But what we get is a God who has gone into grief deeper than most of us, and who walks with us in the midst of the mess and pain of this life. The God who makes this life new and worth living.

In the midst of God's abundant love we respond. We respond by working to change unjust systems. We respond by loving even when we see those who hate. We respond to violence with peace. We respond to tragedy with compassion. We respond to hopelessness with hope. We shine the light in dark places. We offer love over hate, freedom over oppression.

Our country celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. tomorrow. Our church prays this collect, Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Our response to God's abundant love and God's tears of grief, matters. Bearing God's love and God's light into the world, matters. Walking with those who have lost hope, matters. You see, that's where miracles happen. That's where Love wins.

11 Pentecost Yr B

The people of the world have been planting the seed, growing the grain, harvesting the grain, grinding the grain, making the flour, adding the yeast, letting the dough rise, punching it down to rise again, forming the loaves, laying the fire, and baking the bread, for as long as stories have been told around those fires.

Every ethnicity has a bread that arose from its particular place, the particular grain grown in its region, baked in the fire. From Mexico there are corn and flour tortillas, from the Middle East there is pita, from Italy there is foccacia, from Scandinavia there is flatbread and lefse. In all of these places people gather and break bread together. Breaking bread together is a powerful symbol of our commonality, our humanity, our unity.

Breaking bread together is one way we experience the presence of Jesus Christ in our midst. We gather here at this table and share a loaf of bread; we share a cup of wine. And something in us changes. We are transformed into the new creation that Jesus promises for us by eating this bread and drinking this wine, we are transformed into the beloved community. I think in this particular case, you are what you eat.

My earliest memory of communion was my first communion, probably when I was around six. I remember kneeling at the altar rail in my white dress and my white veil. I was a little scared, and I remembered that the nuns had told me to look straight ahead, it wasn’t polite to look around, and that I must not chew the host, that would be like crunching on Jesus bones.

As I got older, I attended the mass that was held in the church basement, it was the guitar mass of the liturgical emergence of the sixties and the seventies. It was there that I began to really experience community, I worshipped with those people every Sunday morning, I sang and played my flute in the music group. Our surroundings were part gymnasium, part cafeteria, by no means beautiful, and it is there where I knew I was part of the body of Christ. It was there where I learned that you know we are Christians by our love, it is there that mystical body of Christ became real to me in the breaking of the bread. I knew those people who gathered together, and they knew me. They knew the family I belonged to; they knew my brothers and sisters.

I have spoken about my years as a volunteer on the staff of the Minneapolis Catholic youth center. Whenever we gathered together for retreats, for trainings, for community time as we called it, we celebrated Holy Communion together. We sat on the floor around the altar, we sang together, we stood around the altar and held hands during the Lord’s Prayer, and we fed one another around our circle. We prayed for one another’s concerns, for the families that we were growing up in and leaving to make life on our own. We were nourished to go out and do the work we were called to do.

When Rick and I were married, we began our life together with communion. Our families and our friends gathered together in the rectory, we sat together in the living room in front of the fire, and we read the sacred stories and prayed together, and by then it was actual bread that we broke together. In that bread and in that place, in the power of the life that bread gives, we pledged to live our lives together for all time, no matter what. So far….. so good.

In our home church, St. Luke’s in Minneapolis, we had Tom and Willie, they were baptized in the midst of the community of faith that nurtured us, that held us up, and to which we contributed our time and talent as Sunday school teachers, Rick as a vestry member, and me as the Christian Education coordinator. The bread and the wine were central to what we did together. Our loaf of bread was delicious, it came from a local bakery, there were always leftovers, and the children clamored to get the leftovers from the deacon after we were sent out to do the work we were called to do. It was there that we really experienced what Jesus’ companions on the road to Emmaus said, “Risen lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.”

The bread and the wine that we share together are bread and wine and so much more. We gather together here in this place, we look each other in the eyes, especially in this wonderful sanctuary where we can really see one another, and Christ is made real to us. Christ is in us and through us around us and over us. We sing together the beautiful hymns of our tradition, and we sing together songs that are new to us, and Christ is made real. We pray the beautiful words of our tradition, and we pray the words that are on our heart alone, and Christ is made real. We share one bread, one cup, bread baked by the loving hands of our brother Ray Bulllinger, and Christ is made real. We are sent out into the world to do the work that God gives us to do, and Christ is made real.

You satisfy the hungry heart, with gift of finest wheat. Come, give to us O saving Lord, the bread of life to eat.

In John’s gospel, we continue to hear about the living bread, the bread that is Jesus. John is making a claim about the radical presence of God in Jesus, essentially John is saying that in Jesus, God provides everything; God’s abundance is made real in Jesus. We are invited to be present in God’s bounty. We are invited to eternal life, all contained in this loaf of bread.

We are changed by the ordinary bread, into an extraordinary community. Through the practice of Eucharist, through the practice of Thanksgiving, through the practice of eating together around the table, we become the community God desires for us to be, filled with the Spirit, singing and making melody to the Lord and giving thanks at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus.

What was comfort food becomes radical presence. And we are filled with God’s soul food, rather than the fast food that only satisfies us briefly. We are filled with God’s radical presence in Jesus, and we are sent out into the world to practice God’s wisdom, we are sent into the world to show forth the Good News, we are sent into the world to live intentionally, sacramentally, as agents of resurrection and reconciliation. We are sent into the world to bear the good news, Love wins.

Amen