The Main Character

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

April 23, 2017

2 Easter A

          Last Sunday, Easter Day, when I arrived in the pulpit for the first time, I discovered that the Easter Bunny had paid a visit to the pulpit and had left Easter eggs for me.  There is nothing quite like preaching knowing that there are chocolate filled eggs within reach, but off limits.  Beautiful music with a great brass quartet, gorgeous flowers, alleluias literally flying through the air, a full church AND a pulpit full of chocolate.  What more could a priest possibly want on Easter Sunday.

          This week, however, life is back to pretty much back normal.  The whole Easter season is festive, with silver vessels and white hangings, extra alleluias, and Easter hymns.  But the over-the-top flowers and brass are gone, there are no flying alleluias, and there is no chocolate in the pulpit.  We are in the life after Easter mode, which always involves a bit of let-down as we move from events of Holy Week and Easter back into the rhythms of everyday life.

          For the disciples, however, life did anything but get back to normal after that first Easter.  In the gospel reading both last Sunday and this morning, the risen Christ appears to the disciples, sending them out into the world.  Both last Sunday and this Sunday the book of Acts tells us of  bold preaching by Peter, the same Peter who had denied Jesus three times before the crucifixion.  The result of Peter’s preaching was that thousands of people were baptized.  That first Easter had completely changed life for the disciples. 

          On the other hand, on this Sunday after Easter, we might feel a bit more like Thomas.  Thomas missed out when Jesus appeared to the disciples, who were hiding behind locked doors.  We are not told where Thomas was, but I wonder if he was off somewhere trying to get his life back to normal after the events of the last few days.  Who would have thought Jesus would show up?  Sometimes we, too, are filled with doubt and would appreciate a direct experience that dramatically and unequivocally brings us to faith.

          This story always bothers me because Thomas sounds a bit like a demanding child, wanting what the others have. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”  Jesus comes off as an indulgent parent, giving Thomas what he wants, when Jesus shows back up and offers Thomas the opportunity to touch his wounds. And we are left feeling about ½ inch tall, remembering all the times we have doubted and questioned our faith.  Don't be like Thomas seems to be the message, except that Thomas does get what he wants.  So then, what is the message?  Are we to be like Thomas or not?

            If we let Thomas be the main character in this story, we get this mixed message about what is required for belief in the risen Christ.  But what happens when we let the Risen Christ be the main character in the story?  Then we hear the story differently.  We hear Jesus say "As the Father has sent me, so I send you...Receive the Holy Spirit."  How did the Father send Jesus?  God sent Jesus to be in the world, to be the Word made flesh and dwell among us.  Jesus is sending the disciples out into the world to be the Word made flesh and dwell with the people.  The only problem is that a week later when Jesus shows back up, where are the disciples?  In the same room behind the same closed doors.  In my imagination, Jesus says to the disciples "What are you doing here?"  No wonder Thomas did not believe them!  The Risen Christ does not seem to have made one bit of difference in their lives. I wonder if Thomas might have believed the disciple had they been out in the world, doing the kind of preaching Peter was doing, showing the world the difference Jesus had made in their lives.  Perhaps Thomas would not have needed or demanded his own private viewing of Jesus' wounds.  When the Risen Christ is the main character, we hear the story differently. 

            On that first Easter, the Risen Christ became the main character in the disciples’ lives, leading them to bold action.  There was no getting back to normal after Easter.  In the reading from 1 Peter we hear “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  Easter has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  Life will never be the same again.  Easter called the disciples and Easter calls us, to make and keep the Risen Christ as the main character in our own lives.  When the Risen Christ is the main character, we can be sent with the boldness of Peter and the disciples, despite whatever doubts we may have.  When the Risen Christ is the main character, we can seek and serve Christ in all people.  When the Risen Christ is the main character, life after Easter is as new and exciting as Easter Day itself.

                                                                                                            Amen.

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

When I was a child, my parents liked looking around in cemeteries to find the gravestones of our long-deceased relatives.  I have a vague memory of searching through what seemed like dozens, but was probably only two or three, cemeteries in Massachusetts looking for one Albert Haven Slocomb, the grandfather of the person for whom our son Slocomb was named.  In Princeton, Arkansas, a very small town known only to the people who live there or have relatives buried there, we found the graves of dozens of my great-grandmother’s relatives.  As a child, this activity seemed boring, pointless, and a complete waste of a perfectly good day.  Why would any rational person want to spend the day looking for dead people?  Now, however, I understand.  The cemeteries themselves are places of tranquility.  The graves of our loved ones give us a sense of their presence with us.  The stones remind us of our connection with our loved ones and with our past. For the people we actually knew, we are reminded of their impact on our lives. 

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary set out to do something very similar on that first Easter morning.  We are told that the two women went to see the tomb.  In Matthew’s gospel, the women do not come to anoint Jesus’ body for burial.  The tomb had been made secure by the sealing of the stone in the doorway, so there was no reason for the women to think they could get in, even if they wanted to. They simply came to see the tomb.  Perhaps they were looking for that sense of tranquility in the midst of the chaos of the past few days.  Or perhaps they wanted to remember all that Jesus had been and done for them.  Or perhaps they wanted to feel Jesus’ presence with them, even from the other side of a very large stone.

Whatever their motive, I doubt they expected an angel of the Lord, accompanied by an earthquake, to appear, roll back the stone, and take a seat.  The angel’s appearance was like lightening and his clothing was white as snow.  Between the angel and the earthquake, any hope the women might have had for a little peace and quiet was dashed.  If the women were wondering anything as they approached the tomb, they probably wondered how they would get past the guards.  In the presence of the angel and the open tomb, however, the guards shook and became like dead men, giving the women complete and total access to the surprisingly empty tomb.

“Do not be afraid,” says the angel, “Take a quick look, then go tell the disciples that Jesus has gone ahead of you to Galilee.”  There is no need for the women to linger at the tomb, nor is there any need for them to be afraid like the soldiers.  The person they came to remember is no longer there.  In fact, there is no need to remember him as if he is gone.  As the women run from the tomb, the Risen Christ meets them and repeats the message of the angel: “Do not be afraid.  Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee.  There they will see me.”

At the end of the Last Supper, after Jesus had shared bread and wine with his disciples, and after they had sung the hymn and gone out to the Mount of Olives, Jesus had said to his disciples “After I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”  Galilee?  Why Galilee?  Galilee was no place special.  Why would the risen Jesus appear to his disciples in such an ordinary place?  Why not a mountain top, or the temple, or some other place of grandeur and significance?  Why Galilee of all places?

Galilee is the place where Jesus had called his twelve disciples, healed the sick, told parables and taught about the inclusive kingdom of God, fed the 5000 plus women and children, worked miracles, preached the sermon on the mount, sent the disciples on their mission, grieved the death of his cousin John the Baptist, blessed children, settled legal questions in ways that got him in further trouble, and demonstrated the love of God to the people.  Galilee might have been an ordinary place, but extraordinary things had happened there. 

When Jesus tells the disciples that he is going before them to Galilee, perhaps he is telling them that he has been raised, not into some distant and supernatural place, or some place outside the realm of ordinary human life where there is no pain or suffering, but into our own common everyday world.  The promise to the women and to the disciples is the promise that Jesus will meet them in the midst of their ordinary lives so that they, too, can do extraordinary things.  The promise to the women and to the disciples is that even in the midst of the joy and the fear of their everyday lives, Jesus will be present. The women go into the tomb to remember a  dead Jesus, and they are sent away from the tomb, into the world, to encounter the living Christ, who will be found in the very same world that crucified him. 

Jesus’ message to the women, to the disciples, and to us is that the risen Christ will meet us where ever we are, in whatever situation we find ourselves, to proclaim that there is no stone that will separate us from the Risen Christ.  As St. Paul puts it in the well known passage from Romans “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

On this glorious Easter morning, as we stand before the empty tomb in the midst of the flowers, the music, and the resurrected alleluias, and we greet the Risen Christ, Jesus says to each of us what he said to the women: “Do not be afraid.”  And then the risen Jesus sends us out of this place and into the world with the promise that he will meet us in the midst of our ordinary lives to do the extraordinary.

Amen.

Stories

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

April 2, 2017

5 Lent A

          My father lives in the house he and my mom bought about 30 years ago.  My siblings and I never lived in this house, so the house does not contain the stories of our childhood.  However, the house is decorated in what could be called “late ancestor.”  There are pieces of furniture that belonged to relatives who entered into the nearer presence of God many decades ago.  The walls are adorned with photos my parents lovingly framed of my great-grandparents and various great or great-great aunts and uncles I never knew.  So, for my sister, brother, and I, the house does contain many stories, just not about us.  My dad can tell stories for hours about Aunt Mary and Uncle Fletcher, both born in the 1880’s, in whose chair he likes to sit and read, or the escapades of his grandfather, my great grandfather, born in the 1860’s, or my grandfather who died when I was two years old.  I love listening to those stories because they tell me something of who I am as part of a family much larger than my own experience.  Through photos, stories, and even an occasional piece of furniture, I am connected with those who came before me.

          This Lent has been a time of stories for us at Christ Church.  Our Lenten Reflection booklets contain stories from many of us, and many more of us have been enriched by those reflections.  While not a lot can be said in 200 words, the reflection we read each day connects us with the person who wrote the reflection and with the God the author loves.  Our understanding of each other, our church, and most importantly our faith has been expanded by these great nuggets of theological reflection.  I believe we are more connected with each other and God through the sharing of these stories.

          We have also heard some of the most beloved stories in scripture this Lenten season.  Jesus was led into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil, and we were reminded how we often learn more about who we are as beloved children of God when we pass through difficult times.  Nicodemus came to visit Jesus in the dark of the night time visit to where he heard the mystery of his relationship with God described with the words of childbirth.  The Samaritan woman met Jesus at the well and two people with very different experiences of the world engage each other in genuine conversation where both are renewed.  And last week, Jesus healed a man born blind, and we saw the resulting furor, calling us to look at the world with God’s eyes rather than our own.  Through these stories and their various characters, we have been able to connect with the story of Jesus and perhaps Jesus himself.

          This morning, on the last Sunday in Lent before Palm Sunday, Lazarus is raised from the dead.  With Easter two weeks away, today seems an odd day to hear about resurrection.  But from this story, I believe we connect with Jesus and his disciples in at least three ways. 

          First, when Lazarus falls ill, Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus.  While at first, we might think that they simply want Jesus to know about his friend’s illness, once Jesus arrives, we know that Mary and Martha expected Jesus to come and do something.  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  So now it is Jesus’ fault that Lazarus is dead!  But then Martha said “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”  But when Jesus asks that the stone be moved from the tomb, Martha objects.  “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.”  If we ever go back and forth in our confidence in Jesus, proclaiming him the Messiah one moment and failing to trust his actions the next, we are in good, scriptural company.

          Secondly, and this is my favorite part of the story, and perhaps my favorite verse in all of scripture, when Lazarus emerges from the tomb, having been dead for four days and alive, Jesus says “Unbind him and let him go.”  Jesus has done the work of resurrection with the words “Lazarus, come out,” and one would think Jesus could do the work of unbinding Lazarus with similar words.  The strips of cloth would fall off and Lazarus would be free.  But instead, Jesus calls on others to do the work of unbinding.  Perhaps the work of unbinding is the work of Jesus’ followers.  Sometimes that unbinding is a word of comfort of support.  Sometimes unbinding takes the form of providing food to those who are hungry.  Sometimes the unbinding takes the form of creating safe space for those who are afraid.  Perhaps our work is to make sure people are actually freed by the gospel and not held hostage by bandages that keep them from living.

          Lastly, even though Lazarus was brought back from the dead after 4 days in the tomb, Lazarus’ resurrection is not like Jesus’ resurrection as Lazarus will eventually die again.  But just as Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb that held him from life, Jesus calls us out of whatever tombs hold us from living fully.  Every time we are able to step out of darkness and into light, or out of fear and into hope, or out of death of whatever sort and into life, resurrection has happened. 

          Hearing the story of Lazarus during Lent calls us to prepare to greet the Crucified and Risen One by recognizing the stories of resurrection in our own lives and the ways we are called to make resurrection real in the lives of those around us.  The stories of Scripture tell us that in the Christian life, nothing, not even resurrection, is a spectator sport.

                                                                           Amen.                                        

                                                                                      

         

God's Eyes

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 26, 2017

4 Lent A

          When natural disaster strikes, whether on a personal level or a global level, we watch as people spring into action, to help total strangers, often at risk to themselves.  While the attack in London this week was not a natural disaster, we certainly witnessed the same phenomena at work as people risked their own lives to help those who were injured.  We have watched people pick through the rubble looking for signs of life in the case of earthquakes, risk their lives to try to save others in the case of floods, and offer generously to assist in the face of tragedy upon tragedy.  Disasters, natural and otherwise, often bring out tremendous good in humankind as we respond to our hurting brothers and sisters, often in far away lands.  Such tragedies also raise important questions about God's role in those events, and inevitably the subject of divine punishment appears.  When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, I heard suggestions that this was caused by divine wrath over egotism and populism.  I have heard the suggestion that the earthquake in Haiti in 2011 and the hurricane there last year were God's punishment for allegedly making a pact with the devil and that Hurricane Katrina was God's wrath being poured out upon New Orleans for "tolerating and welcoming wickedness in their city." On the one hand, when these disasters strike, we see all kinds of barriers come down as people and countries reach out to each other across religious, economic, racial, national, language, cultural, and countless other divides. On the other hand, when disaster strikes, there seems to be a need to blame someone.  The explanations of meteorologists and geologists do not suffice.  God must be angry and someone is to blame.  But in most cases, the great burden of that alleged punishment falls on the innocent.

          This morning we hear Jesus' disciples say to Jesus "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  There seem to be only two options for the cause of the man's blindness.  Either the man's own sin is the cause, which is doubtful since he had been blind from birth and opportunities for sin seem quite limited in the womb, or the sin of his parents is to blame.  Jesus' answer is that no one's sin caused the man's blindness, but the blindness is the occasion for God's work to be revealed.  Then Jesus spits in the dirt, spreads the resulting mud on the man's eyes, sends the man off to wash his face, and the man comes back to Jesus able to see.  While we still don't know the cause of the man's blindness, what we do know is that the man born blind can now see. 

          The resulting furor among the people sounds a bit like the resulting furor in the aftermath of a disaster when blame turns from God to whichever human being is responsible for failed levies, lack of disaster preparedness, inadequate warning systems, and on and on.  In the gospel reading, the formerly blind man is peppered with question about his healing, as if he is guilty of his recovery.  How did it happen?  Who did it? Where is he?  What did he do?  And on and on.  The man who was formerly blind does not know the answer to some of the questions-after all he was blind when the story started- and the answers he does give are not believed.  Mistrust and suspicion abound-just like they do in the days and weeks following a natural disaster.

          At first glance, the reading from I Samuel seems to have little to do with the healing of the man born blind.  The prophet Samuel is sent by God to identify the second king of Israel, Saul being the first king.  God sends Samuel to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for the new king is to come from his sons.  Seven of Jesse's sons pass before Samuel, but none is the one chosen by God to be Israel's new king.  So Samuel asks Jesse "Are all of your sons here?"  And Jesse replies "There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep."  The implication is that youngest son could not possibly be the next king. But sure enough, David, the youngest, least experienced son, is the one God had chosen to be King.

          What these two stories have in common is the call to see the world with God's eyes.  In the eyes of the disciples and the others in the gospel reading, the man's blindness must point to someone's sin.  In the eyes of God, the man's blindness was an opportunity for God's works to be revealed.  God could use that situation to show God's power in the world.  Likewise, in the eyes of Jesse and his first seven sons, and perhaps even Samuel, an older, wiser, more experienced son would be the best choice for Israel's king.  But in God's eyes, the youngest, least likely of the brothers was the best choice.  God sees the world differently than we do, and the categories we set up for success and promotion may not be God's categories.

          When disasters become occasions for finger pointing and blame, and we look to see who God is punishing, we take a dark situation and make it darker.  Yes, there is always room for evaluation and to see how people might prepare better, respond more effectively, and learn things that will help in future disasters.  And yes, human error and human sin have human consequences.  But the writer of Ephesians warns us to take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.  The same writer tells us that the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.  The fruit of light is found by seeing the world through God's eyes, seeing the brokenness and working to heal, seeing the damage and working to repair, building up rather than tearing down, seeing the youngest, smallest, least experienced and having the vision of a great leader.  This is the same God who says in the book of Isaiah "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts," and "Behold, I am about to do a new thing."  That new thing is not to tear down and destroy, but to create and build up.  On Good Friday, on the day that we mark the crucifixion of Jesus, on a day that would incur God's wrath if anything would, we do not tremble before an angry God.  Rather, we stand before God and we pray the collect for Good Friday found in our prayer book:  "O God of unchangeable power and eternal light....let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to perfection by him through whom all things were made."  We are called to proclaim a God who sees life where the world sees death, who raises up that which has been cast down, and who expects us to do the same.

                                                                             Amen.