Retired progressive Lutheran Pastor. Exploring the DIVINE MYSTERY that some call, "GOD," hoping to learn about the LOVE which is BEYOND the BEYOND and BEYOND that also.
Holy Week marks a sharp uptick in visitors to this blog. In comments, messages, and emails I hear from fellow preachers who, like me, are daunted by the task of preparing the Good Friday sermon. That task is even more daunting for those of us who serve progressive communities. My fellow progressive-christian-preachers tell me of the dearth of progressive-christian Good Friday sermons to be found on the internet and encourage me to re-post my own attempts to rise to the occasion. So, here are the links to some of the Good Friday sermons I have preached over the years of my journey with the progressive community that I serve. The people Holy Cross Lutheran Church have over the years provided an invigorating space for me to pursue my questions. They have also provided the resources which make this blog possible. So, if you find the work posted here of value to you and your community, please consider supporting this ministry of Holy Cross. I rarely solicit donations. But Holy Cross is a small community that continues to give to others in so many ways and your encouragement is greatly appreciated!!! (Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 1035 Wayne Dr., Newmarket, On. L3Y 1N3)
Follow the links to Good Friday sermons and feel free to use/adapt/repost
2016 I’m still working on getting my body out of the tomb in which it was laid all those years ago. – reflecting on everyday crucifixions click here
2015 Not Salvation! Solidarity and Transformation click here
This Good Friday reflection was offered following we explored The Stations – a collection of posters designed to inspire worshippers to reflect upon the crucifixions that happen each and every day. You can view the posters here the art work is by Graeme Mortimer Evelyn
“The tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.” Jesus lived so fully, loved so extravagantly, and allowed his passion to help him become all that he was created to be and in Jesus his friends and followers and generations to come are able to see the embodiment of the LOVE that we call God.
On Good Friday, we remember that passion and we do so knowing full well that the embodiment of the LOVE that is God, failed, suffered, died, and was placed in a tomb. This morning, as we have explored the via Delarosa the Way of Sorrows, we have been reminded of our passions as we have gazed upon reminders of the failures of LOVE. We stand in the midst of images of suffering: the suffering of those who shared a vision for justice and who were executed, the suffering of innocents, starving children, poor children, dead children, the suffering of the oppressed, the suffering of our planet, the suffering of our fellow creatures. recent suffering designed to strike terror into our hearts. Around us the suffering of life in this amazing creation of which we are a part is write large. But not all suffering is of this magnitude. Passion can be laid in a tomb all too easily. It doesn’t take events as horrific as an execution to entomb passion. Most of our suffering is done on a much smaller scale. Many of us have seen our passion die a subtler death. Our passions have been laid in the tomb and without our passion we cannot live fully, love extravagantly, and be all that we are created to be.
I remember a little girl full of life. I must have been about twelve or thirteen. My body was bursting forth as my womanhood was beginning to come alive. I’d saved up all of my babysitting money and bought myself a new outfit. I remember it well. It was the end of the 1960’s and I managed to buy myself a pair of hot pants. They wouldn’t even qualify as short shorts today. But back then, wooo HOT PANTS. And a peasant blouse and a pair of huarache sandals. Oh my, I looked good. I felt good. I felt like I could in the words of Hellen Reddy, “do anything….as the song goes, “I am strong. I am invincible, I Am Woman.”
I was a passionate young thing, ready to face the world and be all that I could be. I had a babysitting job, a good one that paid over the going rate. The kids loved me, because I was the best babysitter that I could be and I looked marvelous. Suddenly, without warning, my employer’s tongue was in my mouth. I didn’t invite it there. I was shocked, dumbfounded, I didn’t know what was happening. He was an old man. He was stronger than me. I couldn’t understand what was happening. All I knew was that I didn’t want his tongue in my mouth. With all my strength, I tried to push him away. But he was bigger and stronger than me.
I’m not sure how I managed to get away. But get away I did. I ran and I ran and I ran. I was a child. I didn’t understand what had happened. I only knew that it was wrong, so very wrong. I also knew that it must be my fault. I was the one who got all dressed up in my Hot Pants. I was to blame. I buried those damn hot pants in the back-yard and it was decade or more before I ever wore shorts again. I buried my childhood that afternoon. My confidence in myself, my appearance, my womanhood, died and was buried.
I wasn’t sure if I could tell you this story today. Not because it is so very tragic or sad. But because as some of you must know, the residue of this particular death, lingers with me still. It is no secret that to this day, I struggle with my body image. I have, for most of my life, tried to hide behind my weight and I became a master of wearing layers and layers of clothing to cover up what became for me my horrific body. I’m still working on getting my body out of the tomb in which it was laid all those years ago.
Each one of us could tell a story about the death of our passion. We have all laid to rest some passion. Our passion for justice, may have died at the hands of our own cynicism. Our passion for the environment, killed by our own sense of being overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude task of taking on the empires of our day. Our passion for endangered species killed by our own inability to know where to begin. Our passion for the plight of the poor, overcome and snuffed out by the overwhelming need that we can never seem to achieve enough. Our passion for the oppressed smothered by the sheer numbers. Our passion for justice strangled by our need to pay the bills. Our passion for love snuffed out by our failures.Continue reading →
I was asked by a colleague, “So, if you do not believe that Jesus died for your sins, then why bother celebrating the events of Holy Week?” Behind this question lies the assumption that the only way to understand Jesus’ death is to frame it within the context of the theology of “penal sacrificial atonement” ie “we are judged to be sinful creatures, punishment is required, God sends Jesus to pay the price for our sin”. That Anslem’s theory of sacrificial atonement was formulated in the 11th century and continues to hold sway in the minds of so many followers of Christ is a testament to the power of our liturgies and hymns to form our theology. However, Anslem’s theory is not they only faithful way to understand Jesus’ death.
When one seriously engages the question, “What kind of god would demand a blood sacrifice?” the answers often render God impotent at best and at worst cruel and vindictive. I have often said that atonement theories leave God looking like a cosmic son of #%#%# ! Progressive Christian theologians are opening up new ways of understanding the death and resurrection of Jesus that empower the faithful to see new possibilities. To my colleague, who fears that I am leading the faithful astray, and to those who find little comfort in the theories of an 11th century monastic, I the following notes, crafted in my preparation to lead Maundy Thursday worship.
Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: Love one another. And you’re to love one another the way I have loved you. This is how all will know that you’re my disciples: that you truly love one another.” That we should love one another is not a new commandment. There have been many before Jesus and many who came after Jesus who have commanded, advised, encouraged, implored, and even begged us to, “love one another.”
What is new about Jesus commandment is that we are to love one another the way that Jesus loved us. Which begs the question: How exactly did Jesus love? I believe that Jesus loved in ways that I am only beginning to understand. I believe that Jesus was so open to the power of the LOVE that is God; that Jesus was able to live his life fully without fear. I believe that Jesus wanted more than anything else for his followers to be so open to the power of LOVE that is God so that they too would live their lives fully without fear. I believe that that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “I have come that you might have life and live it abundantly.” I believe that Jesus lived life abundantly and that means that he loved abundantly and without fear. Jesus was so open to the power of LOVE that is God that Jesus would not let the powers of darkness stop him from loving and living fully.
The kind of LOVE that Jesus embodied and taught has no boundaries. No darkness, no power, no fear, not even death can limit the power of LOVE. For if LOVE is limited by death, then love will always be qualified and quantified. That Jesus was willing to LOVE without boundaries, came at great cost to himself. But Jesus was willing to pay that price in order to show others the way. The way to LOVE without limit, without fear, without boundaries.
LOVE without boundaries is abundant life. That Jesus’ LOVE endured the worst that the world could send his way, that Jesus’ LOVE was for all the world, dead and buried, and yet bursts free from the grave, bears witness to the power of LOVE. That Jesus LOVE could not be destroyed, not even by the thing we fear the most, death itself, saves us from the need to fear death.
Jesus has shown us the way. We can live abundantly lives that are free from the fear of death. Because Jesus has shown us the way we are free to live fully, to love extravagantly and be all that we were created to be.
LOVE shines in the darkness and darkness shall not overcome LOVE.
If Jesus, life, death, and resurrection teach us anything, surely they teach us not to be afraid.
Not to be afraid of the darkness.
Not to be afraid of living fully.
Not to be afraid of loving extravagantly.
Not to be afraid of the powers of evil.
Not to be afraid of the power of death.
LOVE will endure.
All will be well.
Jesus can’t save us from life.
There is evil to contend with.
There will be darkness and there will be death.
Jesus couldn’t save himself and he cannot save us from life. Darkness and death are part of life. Each of us must walk into the darkness that lies before us. We can beg God to take the cup from us! But the darkness will still come. And there will be days when the darkness will triumph. There are good Fridays too many to mention out there. We can shout all we want for Jesus to save us, but in the end we too will have to take up our cross and find a way to follow Jesus into the darkness and beyond, trusting that even though it feels for all the world that God has forsaken us, we will make it beyond the darkness.
The cross will not look the same for each of us. But there will be crosses to bear. Jesus has showed us the way. If we are to follow Jesus, then we must love one another they way that Jesus loved. It is the way beyond the darkness. Do not be afraid of evil, of death, or of the darkness. Follow Jesus who by love frees us from the power of darkness to hold us captive to our fears so that we can have life and live it abundantly.
This Sunday worship services will begin with the proclamation that: Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia! Let me follow that proclamation up with a good Lutheran question:“What does this mean?” What does it mean that Christ is risen? What does resurrection mean? The truth is that there are about as many different explanations of Christ’s resurrection as there are Christians. And that’s a good thing, because the question of the resurrection is a question that lies at the very heart of Christianity. So, is it any wonder that Christians have been struggling to come to terms with resurrection since the very first rumours that Christ had risen began to circulate. Over the centuries the various responses to the question of resurrection have divided Christians as various camps work out various responses.
For many Christians and non-Christians alike Resurrection is the dividing line. But this is nothing new. Indeed the drawing of that line can be seen in the earliest Christian writings that we have. The Apostle Paul himself, wrote to the community of followers at Corinth: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then all of our preaching has been meaningless—and everything you’ve believed has been just as meaningless.”
There are many believers and non-believers alike who point to these line’s in scripture and say, “Ah ha, there it is, either you believe in the resurrection or you don’t!” Continue reading →
In the wake of a week that saw sarin gas released once again on the people of Sryria, followed by the firing of U.S. tomahawk missiles, parading around waving Palm Branches seems as foolish as it did when Jesus lead a parade into Jerusalem to face the Roman Empire on an ass. Today’s gospel picks up where the Gospel According to Matthew’s story of Jesus’ parade into Jerusalem ends, when Jesus overturns the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple – Matthew 21:12-16. Listen to the sermonhere:
Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! Save us! Save us! Save us! This morning, as we shout our Hosannas to the world, the world remains entangled in a vain attempt to achieve peace through violence. The two most powerful nations on earth are leading the charge: as I speak the United States has dispatched an aircraft carrier-led strike group to the waters off the coast of North Korea, while the Russian Navy has dispatched a frigate to the Mediterranean Sea so that its cruise missiles will be in striking distance of Syria. We’ve been here so many times before; seeking peace through violence.
On Friday, according to CNN, “Raytheon, the company that makes the Tomahawk missiles used in the air strikes on Syria by the United States, saw its stocks rise. Investors seem to be betting that President Trump’s decision to retaliate against Syria after the chemical attack on Syrian citizens earlier this week may mean the Pentagon will need more Tomahawks. The US Department of Defense asked for $2 billion dollars over five years to buy 4,000 Tomahawks for the US Navy in its fiscal 2017 budget last February.
Nearly five dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at military bases in Syria from U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea late on Thursday. Raytheon wasn’t the only defense stock that rose sharply on Friday. Lockheed Martin which partners with Raytheon on the Javelin missile launcher system and also makes Hellfire missiles, gained nearly 1%. Defense stocks General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman also rallied Friday, a day when the broader market was flat due to a mixed US jobs report. It’s unclear whether President Trump and his Defense Secretary James Mattis will ask for a lot more money for Tomahawks once they officially submit a fiscal 2018 budget request. But Trump said in his preliminary budget blueprint last month that a brad increase in defense spending was needed. A sizable chunk of that was earmarked for upgrading warships, fighter planes and missiles. So it should come as no surprise that defense stocks are among the top performers on Wall Street not just on Friday, but for all of this year.”
What this CNN report doesn’t say, is that according to his own disclosure forms filed during the election, Trump hold a substantial amount of stock in Raytheon. Now, the cynic in me can’t help but marvel at the Commander-in-chief’s selection of Tomahawk missiles as the pathway to peace. If I only I could figure out which tables to over-turn I would lead the parade.Continue reading →
Last year our Palm Sunday worship began outside in the bright sunshine of the first morning of springtime, where we spoke of the reenactment of one of the two parades that took place in Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago. Embracing Jesus’ political act of performance art we processed into the sanctuary waving our palm branches and shouting our hosannas. Rather than the familiar Palm Sunday readings our worship included the story from Genesis chapter 32 which tells of Jacob wrestling with God, Psalm 118, and John 12:12-15. you can read them here and listen to the sermon here
Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! Save us! Save us! Save us! Once again, we travel back to Jerusalem to welcome Jesus into the city where we all know that the powers of empire will execute him. Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna: save us from this story that has the power to turn us into cheerleaders for an abysmal, obscene, cruel, madness that portrays the creator of everything that is, was, and ever shall be as a maniacal child killer who cannot bring himself to forgive the very ones he has created unless the most beloved of his children sacrifices himself upon a cross on a hill far away.
It happens every Palm Sunday. Over and over again, we hear atrocious interpretations of the meaning of Jesus execution that continue to distract us from the power that embodied love might have to resurrect the world in ways that will see the violence end as justice climbs out of the empty tombs into which we have tossed our dying dreams of peace. In our darkness, we have wrestled with the One who gave us light. Like Jacob of old, we too have fought, demanding a blessing from the divinity of our creation. We have wrestled in the night to find the God who will save us from ourselves. Praying for peace, longing for justice, shouting to the heavens for a blessing that will save us, save us from our hunger and greed, restore justice, and lead us forth to peace. Like Jacob, we long to know the name of our Creator, so that we will recognize our saviour when the saviour comes. Like Jacob we too have been wounded by the very sight of the face of God. For in the darkness of the night, we have wrestled our God to the ground only to discover that the blessing this God delivers, leaves us limping into the future wounded, stumbling forth with as many more questions than simply to know the name of the One whose blessing we seek. As the first light of sunrise shines on a new day, we too can but limp along injured, still seeking the One whose reluctant blessing we carry forth into an uncertain future. Hosanna, save us! Save us from our woundedness. Save us from the desires that haunt us, over power us and fracture our humanity.Continue reading →
I have an old copy of a sermon by John Claypool, entitled “Easter and the Fear of Death” 1997. Whenever the story of Lazarus comes up in the lectionary, I dig out the old typewritten manuscript and once again discover the brilliance of Claypool’s work. I have played with Claypool’s words once before in a sermon, but this year the laughter it evokes compelled me to once again explore the possibilities of Claypool’s work. You can listen to the sermon here
“Jesus wept.”
“Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb.”
“Lazarus come out!”
“Unbind him and let him go.”
These phrases echo down through the centuries into my being, opening me to the mysteries of our existence. For who among us has not wept when confronted by the death of a loved one? Who among us has not been halted in our tracks by the reality of death? Who among us have not gone over and over again come to the tomb, greatly disturbed?
Greatly disturbed, the Greek text could also be accurately translated as “groaned inwardly“ or “deeply physically moved”; as if his whole being groaned in pain. Who among us has not come to the tomb of a loved one, greatly disturbed? Death looms large in our imaginations. Death calls our very existence into question. Death moves us to tears. The Greek text often translated ever so briefly as, Jesus wept can also be translated as, “Jesus began to weep.” Who among us has not known the pain of beginning to weep, beginning to grieve, beginning the process that moves us beyond the concerns of this life, into the darkness of the tomb; the tomb in which our deepest darkest fears disturb us to the very core of our being? In each of our lives the pain of loss has moved us into the deepest and darkest of places, where weeping and groaning has disturbed us, shaken us, and moved us to begin to weep tears that feel like the shall never end.
This morning, I invite you to enter the darkness that permeates the mystery of death so that we might feel the contours of our fears. I invite you to gaze upon this photograph of a doorway into the darkness and imagine yourself wrapped in the mystery that is your own death. They say, you know the experts, the psychologists, the psychiatrists, the anthropologists, the spiritual advisors, the soothsayers, the priests and preachers, they say that death, or own death, inspires the kind of fear in us that inspires all our fears. Death, the mystery of not knowing, the fear of not being, this fear inspires all our fears. The fear of non-being, of ending, of what lies beyond our ending, this fear gives birth to all our fears. The fear that there won’t be enough time, gives rise to the fear that there won’t be enough love, enough experience, enough stuff, enough joy, which circles back to enough love, enough time, enough being.
These fears circle back to our ultimate fear that there won’t there won’t be enough time, these ever encircling fears wrap themselves around our being like the ancient bands of a burial cloth, binding us, wrapping us up in circles of fear that constrict our life. For who among us has not worried about whether or not there’s going to be enough life, enough love for us?Continue reading →
I am indebted to John Dominic Crossan and Gretta Vosper for the content and the challenges of this sermon.
Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14, John 11:1-45
In churches all over the world, preachers are hauling Lazarus out of his well-worn tomb. Some preachers will go over the details of this story in an effort to persuade their congregations that Jesus was a miracle worker who could raise the dead. Some preachers will deconstruct the details of this story in an effort to relieve their listeners of the responsibility of believing that Jesus was a miracle worker who could raise the dead. Other preachers will dazzle their congregations with their knowledge of the biblical details, the history of the community that produced the text, the traditional doctrines and dogmas that the church has used to interpret this text and once dazzled by the preacher’s intellect congregations will be set up to prepare themselves for the forth-coming Holy Week. Other preachers will zero in on a particular detail in the text and relate it to something that is going on in the world. I must confess that over the years I have used all of these approaches. Earlier this week, I traveled back to Lazarus’ tomb to sniff around for a sermon that would make some sense of this text in light of what many of us have been studying in the Sunday Morning Adult Education Class and the Wednesday Morning Lenten Study. I had hoped that somewhere between “Painting the Stars’” evolutionary approach and “Atheism for Lent’s” intellectual critique, I would discover a way to dazzle you with a new way of understanding Lazarus, but all I really came up with was, “He stinketh!” So, I pulled out my best sermon on the raising of Lazarus and began to rework it using some of the details I have learned since I last preached on this text. I produced quite an entertaining scholarly sermon with just the right amount of humour to keep you smiling, as I dazzled you with fascinating details about the story and deconstructed what some believe is a miracle so that the story could be of some use to us as we journey through Lent in the 21st century. It’s a pretty good sermon, but I left it on my hard-drive and maybe I’ll preach it some day. But not today. You see, a few of us spent the last few days listening to John Dominic Crossan as he dazzled us with his brilliance which shed such a bright light on the history of the life and times of Jesus that left us all sighing so appreciatively as we realized that what we thought we knew is just peering through a class darkly and there is a totally clear way of approaching this story; a way that will not offend our 21st century intelligence.Continue reading →
John Dear is a Jesuit priest who is living into Jesus’ call to be a non-violent activist peace-makers. In this video he presents a radical retelling of the Gospel that will change the way you hear all too familiar stories about Jesus. This is perhaps the most exciting interpretation of the life of Jesus that I have ever heard! It will challenge everything you thought youknew about who Jesus was and is. Father John’s gentle style may deceive you into thinking he is just an idealist. But hear him out and I’m convinced you too will be challenged to re-think so many of the stories told about Jesus in the New Testament. I know I will never again hear or preach about the raising of Lazarus without referencing Father John’s insights. A word of caution: you cannot un-hear this passionate call to peacemaking and it will in all likelihood lead you into some dangerous place where you are compelled to deny our culture of death and take up the mantle of peacemaking.
Their baby was stillborn. Their pain was unbearable and so they asked, “Why?”
Her husband went out for his regular run; something he did every morning as part of his effort to stay healthy so that he would live long and prosper. Her husband was run over by a car and was dead by the time she arrived at the hospital. To this day she asks, “Why?”
She was raped. The pain of violation refuses to leave her even after nine long years, during which her marriage fell apart. She could not and she cannot stop asking, “Why?”
On Friday, I watched a news briefing about the massive famine that encompasses much of Africa. Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and Ethiopia are suffering from the ravages of starvation. More than 20 million people, many of them children are about to starve to death; 20 million people. It is the largest humanitarian crisis in the history of the United Nations. As I watched the horrific footage from the comfort of my living-room, all my being asked the question, “Why?”
This “Why?” was and is so much more than all the other Whys. This aching “Why?” is not the same as the other Whys. The Why that groans in me, that cries out for an answer is not: Why are babies still-born? Why do accidents happen? Why is there so much violence? Why are millions of people, so many of them children, starving to death? These whys we can seek and find answers to. The Why that groans in me, is the Why that has haunted our ancestors for generations. I’m talking about THE great big existential WHY?
Why does God allow some people to suffer while others escape suffering? There must be a reason that you and I were born. There’s got to be a reason that we were born here and not in Africa. There simply must be a reason that some of us escape suffering while others of us can’t seem to catch a break. Why? Why God? Why? Nearly two-thousand years have passed and still this great big Why screams out from the deepest darkest places of our being. Why?
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I even prayed like a child. I prayed to God to save me and mine from all sorts of suffering. I believed that God heard my prayers and that God saved me and mine. But when I grew up, I put away my childish notions as I began to see some of my dear ones suffer. I saw the suffering but I refused to see what the suffering did to my carefully held beliefs about the god I chose to worship. My faith blinded me to the idol that I had created. Out of the stories handed down to us from our ancestors I, like so many of the members of my tribe, I had carefully constructed an idol which I believed was worthy of my worship; an all-powerful, all knowing god, whose wisdom was more powerful than my reasoning; who loved me beyond measure and just as surely loved all those dying babies and suffering victims. Mine was not to reason why. Mine was but to trust and obey. The “big guy in the sky” would work it all out in the end. In the sweet by and by all would be revealed; no more blindness, no more doubt. In the meantime, all we could wonder, “Why?” as long as we didn’t let our questions draw our attention from the idol we chose to worship. Blind faith was the only answer that could keep our attention firmly at the feet of the god of our creation.
Then one day a child died; a child I knew and loved, a child who had suffered most of her short little life and I was overwhelmed by the “Why?” that screamed out from the depths of my being. I, we had put all our faith in the omni god, this omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient god, the all-powerful, everywhere, and all knowing god that we willed into being, confident that by worshiping our idol, our precious little one would not be subjected to such suffering. When she died, the idol of my worship died with her. I was blind but now I see the folly of worshipping a god of my own making. My omni idol, had all the answers. No mystery, just reassurances. Nothing beyond my ability to imagine or conceive. Like the Pharisees before me, I could not see beyond the parameters of the Law and the traditions handed down to me. But once my eyes had been opened, my vision changed and I could no longer see the way I once saw. My WHY? Shattered my idol and my eyes were opened to a new reality. Where once I could only see death as an enemy to be conquered, the death of one so sweet, so dearly loved, revealed to me the precious beauty of life. My eyes were opened to the reality of death as a part of life, the part that makes life so very precious. It took a long time, and more questions than I can begin to recall, but slowly, I began to see the contours of a MYSTERY beyond my wildest imaginings.
There is no sin in blindness. Blindness can be a safe haven from the tremendous MYSTERY that lies at the very heart of all that IS. But there is beauty beyond the darkness. Beyond the shattered pieces of our idolatry Beyond the horizon of our limited views, there is an EMBRACE the likes of which the mystics longed for; an EMBRACE that comes from the Source of all that IS, the great I AM of which our ancestors insisted permeated all that IS. An EMBRACE that is so much more that we can ever begin to express, and yet an EMBRACE whose contours stretch beyond the heavens to permeate all of life.
This MYSTERY that some of us call God, is the LOVE that is the ground and source of all being; the RELATIONSHIP that touches every life and lures us into being more than we dreamed possible. This MYSTERY may shatter our idols, but it also compels us toward a faith that opens the eyes of the blind to possibilities that deepen life by deepening relationship in ways that broaden our vision so that we too can become all that we are created to be. This MYSTERY invites all our WHYs. This MYSTERY is powerful enough to walk with us and all our questions into the dark clouds of unknowing that make life so very precious. This MYSTERY does not demand blind faith. This MYSTERY opens our eyes to the beauty of becoming, over and over again, ONE with the MYSTERIES of LIFE.
These days, the great big WHY continues to overwhelm me and I confess that I am so very grateful to be overwhelmed because every time I am blinded by the idols of my own creation, Jesus comes along, heals my blindness, and disturbs me with visions that lead me Beyond my wildest imaginings. WHY? I do not know the answer. But I can see a way Beyond the WHYs a way that does not deny the pain or the beauty of the quest, a way that deepens and expands the beauty of the journey, a way that compels me toward the MYSTERY that is the LOVE some of us call God.
That LOVE empowers us to reach out in love to those whose whys overwhelm them; those who are grieving, those who desperately trying to recover from violence, and to do what is necessary to feed those who are starving. May your WHYs open your eyes so that you too can see BEYOND the BEYOND, and BEYOND that also, to the MYSTERY that is LOVE. Amen.
Today’s sermon includes a video clip from the short film Overview.
You can listen to the audio and watch the video clip from the “Overview” below.
I was just a little girl the first time I flew in an airplane. I can still remember just how excited I was to get on that airplane. I couldn’t wait to fly high up in the sky. I was convinced that once we got up into the clouds I would be able to see things; amazing things. I couldn’t wait to see God and Jesus, and angels, and people who had died all walking up there on the clouds. Heaven, we were going to see heaven. Jesus would be up there. I can’t remember what I was expecting them all to look like. I vaguely remember peering out of the airplane’s window desperately trying to see them all. But I could not see them.
I was too young to understand what happened to me that day. But something did. I saw things differently after that. I had seen the clouds and they were lovely, but nobody was living up there. I could see that what I thought was true was not and there was no going back. My eyes had been opened and nobody could ever convince me that heaven was up there in the sky, or that Jesus was waiting for me up there, or that God was watching me from up there, or that anybody was looking down on me from up there. I once was blind to this reality; it only took one ride on an airplane to cure my blindness. I once was blind, but up there in the sky I could see. Having seen the reality of what was actually up there, I knew enough to look elsewhere for Heaven, for lost loved ones, for Jesus, and for God. Once your eyes have been opened, the gift of vision opens you to an entirely new realty and once you’ve seen the new reality you can never go back to your old ways of thinking.
Watch the video.
It may have been simpler when we could not see; when we were blind to the reality that surrounds us. The blind man was a beggar. He knew the contours of his reality. He probably got up each morning and travelled by a familiar route to his spot on the street. He’d adapted to his reality. He learned to live in a world that was defined by his lack of vision. Having his eyes opened exposed him to a world he’d only known by touch. Suddenly a whole new sense was opened up for him. New vision can be exciting and terrifying all at the same time. But once his eyes had been opened, he could not go back, he could not un-see what he was seeing, he could only shut his eyes, or look really look and see.Continue reading →
When I was a child, the word God was one of those words that adults either used in vain or in hushed tones. Outbursts of anger always included the word God. Strange and mysterious circumstances often resulted in the word God being used in hushed tones. I remember the very first movie I was ever taken to see. Bambi may have been a Disney movie, but when the shot that killed Bambi’s mother rang out, as far as my mother was concerned, I broke one of the ten commandments when I shouted, “Oh my God.” Mom warned me that when we got home there would be dire consequences for this offence which confused me to no end, because before the movie began, they did what they always did in back in the 1960’s, they played, “God save the Queen” as we all stood to attention. God’s name being sung out incurred no dire consequences.
When I was little the words of “God save the Queen” mystified me. Not because the words are particularly mystifying, but because I heard them through the ears of a child. “God save our gracious Queen, long live our noble Queen.” I had absolutely no idea what gracious or noble meant, but our Queen, who always managed to cause an argument whenever she was mentioned in Belfast, our Queen was both gracious and noble. “Send her victorious”, that was the queen’s name: “Victorious” “Send her victorious, long to reignoverus.” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was that the queen did that was so bad that everybody wanted to send her all the way to a place called reignoverus. Whatever it was, this horrible thing, it was so bad that only God could save her. Poor old Victorious.
On this St. Patrick’s Day it is fitting to receive a blessing from a grand Irishman whose writing reaches into my soul. Followers of this blog know that John O’Donohue is one of my favourite sages. I am indebted to a follower of the blog for sending me this podcast of Krista Tripett’s interview of John O’Donohue recorded shortly before his death in 2008. O’Donohue’s words continue to open my soul.
Dave Van Ronk, aka The Mayor of MacDougal Street, haunted my teen-age years with folk songs that still inhabit my soul. Some say The Mayor is the inspiration behind the movie Inside Llweyn Davis. But to me the growly voiced Mayor remains a poet who inspired me to put pen to paper. As I prepare to tickle my keyboard to create a sermon about John 4:1-42, his voice echo’s in my soul. van Ronk died in 2002 and imagining his journey “on down to Galilee, on that promenade in green” soothes the ache of his absence even as it inspires me to speculate on the rocky road the Samaritan woman travelled to that ancient well. “uka duke soda cracker!”
Watch the video below which was shown in worship after the reading of the Gospel: The Woman at the Well (below) and then listen to the sermon.
You can listen to the sermon audio here:
I did not know her. She had been calling the church for years and I had been responding to her calls for help for, I’d say about three years. But I did not know her. She was just another woman down on her luck who needed help to buy food for her family. She would call, almost every other week and because she did not have transportation, I would drive over to whatever hovel she and her two boys were living in. But I did not know her. She was just another woman who couldn’t seem to get her act together and so she relied on hand-outs from the church to supplement her social assistance. Whenever I went over to wherever it was that she was living, she would always invite me in and I would always agree, but just for a moment, I’d tell her I was very busy and I had other places to go and other people to see. But the truth is, the places where she managed to find shelter always smelled so band and I usually just wanted to be on my way so that I could escape the odors that permeated the filthy apartments in musty basements. Her various homes were so depressing that I could not bear to sit down. She would always offer me tea and I would always politely refuse, claiming that I’d just had a cup, thank-you very much. I did not know her.
I suppose I did not want to know her. Maybe I’ve met too many women just like her. Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe the thought of becoming immersed in the sinkhole of sadness that is her life was just too much to bear. So, I’d just smile and give her a handout. I’d learned a long time ago not to ask too many questions; her problems were more than our meager resources could handle. I’ve been down that road before, so I’d hand over the grocery vouchers and indulge in some small-talk. I did not know her. I did not want to know her.Continue reading →
There’s a commercial currently running on the TV and each time it comes on, I can’t help myself, it makes me smile and if I let myself, it makes me laugh. It’s a collection of scenes in which lovely little babies laugh. They laugh and they laugh and they laugh and before you know it you’re hooked and you just can’t help yourself you are laughing too. Laughter is a great tonic! Laughter is good for the soul! And yet, for some unknown reason we tend to exclude laughter from our religious life. Religion is serious business and so we don’t laugh much in worship. There’s a quote from St. Teresa of Avila that served as a warning sign for me as I was preparing this sermon. “NOT YET TICKLED” writes St. Teresa, “How did those priests ever get so serious and preach all that gloom? I don’t think God tickled them yet. Beloved—hurry.” The thought of being tickled by God is delightfully refreshing.
I must confess that I don’t spend much time laughing with God. Listen to this quote from the writings of St. Teresa: “Just these two words God spoke changed my life, “Enjoy Me.” “What a burden I thought I was to carry—a crucifix, as did Christ. “Love” which is Teresa’s name for God. “Love once said to me, ‘I know a song would you like to hear it?’ And laughter came from every brick in the street and from every pore in the sky. After a night of prayer, God changed my life when God sang, “Enjoy Me.” Enjoy Me. What a different place the world would be if we could only hear God beseeching us, “Enjoy Me.”
We are a serious lot we Christians. Duty, responsibility, guilt, and consternation have left us precious little time to “Enjoy!” We’ve got things to do, stuff to learn, values to instill and standards to uphold, so we’ve put enjoyment on the back-burner. After all, God is far too high and mighty to be trifling with, we daren’t laugh in the presence of our God. And yet, God continues to tickle us. Over and over again, with the most absurd wonders, and we can’t help ourselves, but smile. Creation is so full of laughs. Life is so funny! And church, I mean, whenever I think of the ridiculous things we get up to in church, well its enough to make you laugh until you cry. So to those of you who insist upon personifying our Creator, don’t you try to tell me that the Creator of all that is or ever shall be, the one who is responsible for creating humour itself, doesn’t just roar with laughter at the stuff that we get up to. So, isn’t it just possible that when it comes to laughing babies, God has plenty of scope for delighting in us? Surely, laughter is one of the most sublime forms of prayer? We ought to lighten up and enjoy our time with God. Cause lord knows, serious people are all well and good but who wants to spend time with a bunch of folks who can’t enjoy a joke.
So with that said, let’s turn to this mornings Gospel reading. This story is a real tickler! But in order to get the jokes, you’ve got to know some of the stuff the insiders knew. It’s a bit like trying to understand British humour, sometimes you don’t quite get the joke, if you don’t know something about life in Britain. The Gospel of John is full of stories that play on the local humour of Palestine in the first century. This story, about the Woman at the Well is full of double en-ton-dras. Indeed, this story is so outrageous that when the powers that be were sitting around deciding which books would make it into the New Testament, The Gospel of John almost didn’t make the cut. This story was far too racy and I mean racy in both senses of the word, this story was about race and it was far too risqué for the likeings of the religious authorities who were functioning as the thought police for the early church. So, sit back and allow yourselves to be tickled as I let you in on the jokes. Continue reading →
Way back when I first began the formal process of becoming a pastor, the church committee responsible for helping people become pastors, recommended that I get a “spiritual director.” Among the many pieces of paper that the candidacy committee gave me, included both a definition of what a “spiritual director” is and who I might approach to be my “spiritual director”.
I remember three things about the church’s recommendation:
A spiritual director walks with, guides, encourages and challenges people to deepen their relationship with the divine.
A spiritual director is someone whose wisdom is derived from their own deep relationship with the divine together coupled with formal theological education.
The spiritual director is someone in whom the candidate for the ministry of Word and Sacrament can place their trust.
Although, I was blessed to know several people that that I trusted who might be able to walk with me, guide, me encourage me, there was only one person who I could trust to challenge me; I mean really challenge me. The problem was, I wasn’t actually sure if Henry’s theological education was quite what the church had in mind. Nevertheless, I decided to ignore that particular detail as I proceeded to invite Henry to serve as my “spiritual director”.
I had met Henry years earlier when we both were working for a package tour operator. Henry was responsible for graphic design and we worked together to produce some pretty snazzy travel brochures. At the time, I thought Henry was a little odd. He was older than everyone in the office. Henry came from Brooklyn and looked very much like the stereo-typical Jewish rabbi. I’m talking full black beard, black clothes, and a yarmulke. Turned out, Henry looked like a typical Jewish rabbi because he was a Jewish rabbi. Henry was working as a graphic designer to put food on the table for his family while he took a long-deserved break from serving as the director of a Jewish Yeshiva. Henry and I became fast friends.
Ours was a strange sort of friendship. Most of our conversations comprised of a series of questions without answers. I’d ask Henry a question, to which Henry would respond with an even deeper question, which would inspire and even deeper question with which I would be compelled to respond; it was kinda like dancing with ideas. Years later Henry would teach me that our dancing was actually an ancient form of the Jewish art of pilpul used by Talmudic scholars to get to the very heart of the sacred mysteries. It took me years to realize that Henry had become my spiritual director long before I ever asked him to formerly take on the role.
It turned out that Henry had studied at one of the best rabbinical schools in New York and was an accredited to be a “spiritual director”. Somehow, despite the urging of the church to select from their list of suggestions, I managed to get my candidacy committee to approve Henry as my spiritual director. To this day, I think the committee members over-looked the fact that Henry is Jewish, only because Henry offered to serve as my spiritual director without me having to pay him the going rate, which back then would have cost me way more than I could afford. As it turned out, Henry’s direction was priceless. So, many of the treasures that Henry shared with me continue to shape and direct me to this very day.Continue reading →
As preacher, I attempted to join Nicodemus in playing the fool. The sermon is a playful attempt to poke at our dogmas, much the way a jester plays the fool poking fun to reveal what is hidden.
Poor old Nicodemus, like so many literary devices this character is at the mercy of his author, doomed to play the fool; in Nicodemus’ case, a fool whose image of reality needs to be reborn. The unknown author of the gospel we call John imbues his priestly character with all the foibles of the powerful: “A certain Pharisee named Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, came to Jesus at night.”
Under cover of darkness the truth of the matter will be revealed as Jesus’ embodiment of the Divine reduces this powerful fool to the role of a gestating infant lying helpless in a mother’s womb, longing for life, unable to see beyond the darkness of his sheltered state.
Only the perilous journey into the light will restore Nicodemus’ sight; a journey the reluctant Nicodemus is loath to undertake.
Has he not already survived this perilous journey toward the light?
Is he not already privy to the wisdom afforded the powerful from their lofty positions of authority? He cannot go back there and do it all over again.
What could be worth all that misery, all that gasping for air, the danger of the passage, the crushing weight of innocence struggling for the wisdom of life, daring to breath deeply of the unknown, learning to trust, opening oneself to adventure, flailing and failing, weep and wetting oneself, fearing and trusting, weeping, crying, relying on the tenderness of others to supply your needs, making all those mistakes, not knowing who are what to trust, wondering where and how to be.
Rabbi, teacher, we know who you are and from whence you come?
We’ve seen the signs.
No one can do what you do unless, unless you have access to the power of the very One we seek to know; unless the power of the God we claim as HOLY, Holy, Holy, unless the power of all powers flows through you.
Flattery is the currency of the powerful and so the author of the gospel we call John imbues his literary device with the power to fawn and pose the questions, which lie in our very own hearts.
For we too want to know just who this Jesus character is?
Does the power of the One we seek flow through Jesus.
“The truth of the matter is, unless one is born again, one cannot see the kingdom of God.”
I am indebted to Jim Kast-Keat, a pioneering preacher who inspired me to open this sermon with the video below. I am also indebted to Bishop John Shelby Spong for teaching me more that I can articulate with words. His excellent book The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic opened the Gospel According to John in ways that have helped me to see aspects of the Divine to which I was once blind. Much of the sermon consists of extensive quotes from chapter 9 of Jack’s book.
Readings: John Chapter 2 and John 3:1-17
Watch the video below carefully before reading or listening to the sermon the sermon below.
Listen to the sermon:
So, before tackling the story of Nicodemus, I want to toss two balls into the congregation. The first ball I want to toss over here to this side of the congregation represents something all too familiar, biblical literalism. We know all too well that this particular ball has been distracting the church and most of the western world for the past few centuries. The second ball I want to toss over here to this side of the congregation represents historical biblical criticism. This particular ball is newer. It’s only been seriously tossed about for the past couple of centuries, but it is a really serious contender for our attention. But these balls have acquired a rather rhythmic bounce that tends to mesmerize us. Add to that these other balls the balls of church doctrine and theological dogma and before you know it we are so distracted that we forget what game we were trying to play in the first place as we try to keep up with the various passes made by players that have taken on a professional edge that leaves us watching from the sidelines unable to focus one of them.
None of these balls commanded the attention of the early Christians. They simply weren’t interested in taking the scriptures literally, nor were they particularly interested in the historicity of the scriptures. As for doctrine and dogma, well they were left to the professionals who only came to town on those unpleasant occasions when the league needed to ensure that it’s franchises continued to rake in enough money to keep the game on a sure footing. The scriptures, like all sacred writings, were about so much more than words scribbled on a scroll. The scriptures, like all scared writings, are about the mysteries of life. But these balls have been served up for us to play with and literalism and concerns about historical accuracy have done a magnificent job of distracting us from what really matters in these texts. Our fascination with the details of the fight-patterns of the balls that are tossed around whenever the stories in these texts play through our lives, have caused us to miss so many moon-dancing bears over the years.
Please don’t get me wrong, I love tossing these balls around and over the years I’ve learned to play ball with the best of them. But when a moon-walking bear dances onto the court, at the very least, we ought to notice the bear’s moves because the only way we’re going to learn to dance with these bears is by paying attention.Continue reading →
Holy Week marks a sharp uptick in visitors to this blog. In comments, messages, and emails I hear from fellow preachers who, like me, are daunted by the task of preparing the Good Friday sermon. That task is even more daunting for those of us who serve progressive communities. My fellow progressive-christian-preachers tell me of the dearth of progressive-christian Good Friday sermons to be found on the internet and encourage me to re-post my own attempts to rise to the occasion. So, here are the links to some of the Good Friday sermons I have preached over the years of my journey with the progressive community that I serve. The people Holy Cross Lutheran Church have over the years provided an invigorating space for me to pursue my questions. They have also provided the resources which make this blog possible. So, if you find the work posted here of value to you and your community, please consider supporting this ministry of Holy Cross. I rarely solicit donations. But Holy Cross is a small community that continues to give to others in so many ways and your encouragement is greatly appreciated!!! (Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 1035 Wayne Dr., Newmarket, On. L3Y 1N3)
pastordawn 