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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Lent V - Lynn Campbell


“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
In the name of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

It makes perfect sense, from a biological point of view. Think of a seed with its hard outer shell. We know that the potential for life lies dormant within it. We know that for life to burst forth from the seed, we must plant the seed in the ground and allow it to be nurtured. The scientists, gardeners and those of you who took biology more recently than I, could, I’m sure, explain how a seed becomes a plant. But from what I remember, as the seed gets the nutrients it needs, the plant within the seed begins to grow, and soon it breaks through the shell. The seed that was planted no longer exists as it once did. It had to die in order to become something new. After the beautiful weather we had last week we are able to see reminders of this death and new life all around us in the flowers that are blooming in our yards. The colorful flowers and plants are not possible unless a seed as been transformed into something new. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

It makes perfect sense. Of course the seed must die before new life can emerge. But what happens when we take this metaphor given to us by Jesus and apply it to his life and then to our life as well? That’s when I start to get a little uncomfortable. Perhaps you have a similar reaction. But, I think this is the challenge our readings present to us this morning. Deep into the season of Lent, with Holy Week only a week away, we are invited to consider how dying can lead to new life. We are invited to walk with Jesus as he prepares to suffer and die on the cross– and then in the Easter mystery, rise to new life. And as Lent begins its crescendo towards Holy Week, we are invited to consider what needs to die within us so that new life can emerge.

Let’s look at this morning’s reading from Jeremiah. I think it can help us understand and respond to the challenge before us. The prophet Jeremiah is writing during a time of great turmoil and destruction. The people of Judah have seen their temple in Jerusalem destroyed by the Babylonians and their leaders dragged off in chains. They have lost their power, security, prestige, and freedom. Jeremiah tried to warn them this was coming if they did not change their ways. He called them to turn away from their corruption and their worship of idols but they did not listen. Despite the fact that they did not listen, despite the fact that they turned away from God, despite their break in the covenant relationship established between God and the people on Mt. Sinai; neither Jeremiah nor God leaves them to suffer alone.

Instead, Jeremiah speaks a word of comfort and hope from God. The Lord promises to make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. The Lord says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and I they shall be my people.” Here is some good news that was unexpected. God brings hope to what seems to be a hopeless situation. God promises to bring life out of death. God will make a way forward where there seems to be no way.

God’s law moves from being something external, written on tablets, to one that is written on the heart of each and every person. For us, as we approach the altar with contrite hearts, we remember that the law is held collectively: our One God makes us One people with One law: to love the LORD our God, with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Yet, we sometimes prefer our own laws, which separates us from God and from one another.

If the law of God is written deep within each of us, what keeps us from living as God calls us to live? What keeps us from living into the truth God speaks to the people through Jeremiah and speaks to us today: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” ? I think, in part, it is hard shell that can grow around our hearts. Perhaps this shell comes from ways we have been hurt or the ways we have hurt another. Maybe it is from the sin that we know all too well to be a part of our lives. And by sin I don’t necessarily mean particular actions. Rather, I mean, anything that causes a break in our relationship with God- actions or patters of behavior or thought that keep us from living as a unified people who belong to God. Maybe it is those things we cling to, when what we need to do is release them.

Lent provides the invitation to look into our hearts and to clear away whatever is keeping us from living transformed lives, living in a way that witnesses to God’s love. We are asked to die to an old way of life, ways that bring death rather than true life. We are challenged to die to those things that are not of God: Die to the temptation to put our own needs before the needs of others. Die to unhealthy attachments to power, prestige or pride. Die to the fears that consume us and keep us from becoming the person our heart, our God, is calling us to be. These parts of us must die before new life can be born, before our lives can be transformed, before we can know the power Jesus’ Resurrection. “…Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

The seed must break the hard shell that has protected it before the flower can bloom. How do we break through the hard shell that keeps us from new and transformed lives? I think one way is to let your hearts be broken by the pain in the world. The Jesuit Volunteer Corps- the one year service program I was a part of after college- had the motto “Let your heart be broken.” I have to admit that we mocked the cheesiness of the motto. Looking back on it, I think we made fun of it because its truth scared us. Having your heart broken is scary business.

As you know, I was in Haiti for the first week of Lent. My heart was broken open by the poverty I saw and the painful stories I heard. How could I not cry with the woman who lost everything in the earthquake, who husband recently died, and whose 4 kids are not in school because she can’t afford it? Her hopelessness and despair broke my heart. All I could offer was a hand to hold, a prayer, and holy oil placed in the form of a cross on her forehead. But in that holy moment, I knew God. In the vulnerability and in the brokenness, God’s light shined through. I felt connected to this woman whose language I could not speak and whose life I really could never understand.

Sometimes it takes these experiences to crack open our hearts, so that relationships can be built and God’s love and compassion can break forth into our lives and into the world. How they grow and how they are built is known only by God, because it is God who tills and waters and weeds and prunes. But God will only do that if we allow it. And the first gift that God asks of us is to allow that hard shell around our hearts to be cracked open. Only then is a new and transformed life possible.

“…Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Lent IV - Skip Windsor

John 3:14-21
Broken Light

“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.”


The beginning of John’s Gospel proclaims that Jesus is the light of the world and the darkness did not overcome him. His shimmering and shining presence to John is manifested throughout his gospel narrative from the moment of Jesus’ transfiguration on the holy mountain to his secret encounter at night with the powerful Jewish leader, Nicodemus. Oscillating between light and darkness, John recounts how the light of Christ pierced the darkness of despair, disbelief, and death.

Today’s Gospel lesson is part of a broader conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. This “Nick at Night” encounter exemplifies a person’s faith journey from darkness into light. At first Nicodemus is afraid to be seen with the so-called enemy, Jesus; but driven by the message of Jesus, he rises to the occasion, comes into the light as a disciple of Jesus, and claims his body for burial. Nicodemus’ faith triumphs. The light of Jesus broke through to him.

Looking back so long ago, when the elderly John wrote his Gospel from Ephesus, we know how his story ends with the risen Christ speaking to Thomas, to Peter and to the other disciples. Whatever darkness they saw, whatever fear they felt, was dissipated by the presence and the assuring words given to them by the Master. Yet, that light, that true light, appears now to be like broken light when we consider the events of the modern world today.

We do not have to go far to see how broken the light is when we read about the murders in Boston, the plight of the homeless and hungry in our Commonwealth, the illiteracy of boys and girls, and the rising crime in urban and suburban locations. We read in the papers and see on television the destruction of towns and lives in far off places like Syria and Africa.

I sat with a parishioner last week that shared with me her concerns for the world. She is sad to the point of anger seeing the malice and violence so prevalent in so many places. She sees the injustice in the world and asks how can God allow such terrible things to happen. If God is all-powerful why does God seem so powerless to do something about it? Her question is not hers alone. Like my parishioner, we hope and pray for a better world, a peaceful world, for all people in our time and in the future.

Several weeks ago, I saw that ray of hope, a light shining in the darkness when I viewed a documentary film called “My So Called Enemy” by the Emmy award winning director, Lisa Gossels. The film chronicles and traces the journey of six girls of Israeli and Palestinian heritage who meet in 2002 for ten days at a women’s leadership program called Building Bridges for Peace. Getting to know their “enemies” as human beings complicates their lives for the next seven years as they return to the Middle East and confront the realities of their lives at home.

The central message of “My So Called Enemy” is the transformative power of knowing “the other” or “the enemy” as a human being. This is movingly told through the abiding friendship between Gal, an Israeli, and Rezan, a Palestinian. “If peace is going to happen in the Middle East,” says the founder of Building Bridges for Peace, Melodye Feldman, women have to be part of the process. Women have a different way of communicating. How do we empower these girls to change the world?”

At the conclusion of the film after many months apart we see Gal and Rezan reunited on the Palestinian side of the Security Wall in the town of Al Zaiem where Rezan lives. Gal is an Israeli soldier in the army but wears civilian clothes as not to draw attention that she is with a Palestinian friend. The security wall is meant to divide such relationships.

As they stand by the 10-foot tall concrete wall, Gal and Rezan dare each other to write some graffiti on the wall since the wall has become a writing wall for the Palestinians. It is arrayed with brightly covered words sprayed on the concrete. With a stone the young women write the words of the great peacemaker, Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see the world.”

We live in a world of broken light. We live in the fractured light between war and peace, love and hate, despair and hope. Yet, the light shines through young women like Gal and Rezan and the film’s director Lisa. It still shines, however, dimly, whenever a man or woman tries to comfort, console, and heal those in need. A beam of light is illuminated when someone takes a stand, risks themselves to do what is right, and does not back down in the face of adversity.

Be the change you wish to see the world.

Reflecting upon our Gospel lesson, we are able to see how this light shines in the world through Jesus Christ when we remember the words, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” God so loved the world. Those words remind me of the poem by the Welsh poet, R. S. Thomas, called “The Coming,”
And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off.
As through water. He saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows; a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
                  On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.
Is it possible to read the Bible, from the creation in the Garden to the end of history in a City, as God’s love story to the world? Was it not love that stirred God’s heart to promise to Abraham and Sarah descendants more numerous than the stars? Was it not love that led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt to liberation in the Promised Land?

Was it not divine love, not calculating the cost, when the people rebelled, captured by the Babylonians, but saved and returned to Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple and their lives? Was it not God’s love that sent Jesus, his only Son, to love into being not only family and friends but also the alien and the stranger? Was it not love that brought table fellowship to both Jew and Gentile alike? Is there enough love to make a difference today?

It is quite common to speak of the world in terms of scarcity and abundance. We look at the world’s fragile and dwindling resources such as fresh air to breathe and good water to drink. We read about the destruction of the rain forests in South America, the disappearing wetlands of Africa, and the pan skillet heat in deserts where crops once grew. Scarcity breeds not only starvation and disease, it enhances fear, worry and violence. In the face of scarcity, is it possible to think in terms of abundance?

There was a time when God provided just enough manna each day. No hoarding. Just take what you need. The people came to believe that God’s love was abundant. And in that sure knowledge, they kept on, remembered, and found the Promise Land.

What we have in abundance in an age of scarcity is God’s love. Just as the Israelites were given manna from heaven every day, the Spirit will give us the spiritual food to envision and seek to create a more perfect world.

Can we be bold enough to dream the good dreams of God in an age of anxiety? Imagine a world in which God’s love is tearing down the walls of division and discord. Imagine a world where Gal and Rezan can walk freely as friends in Israel. Imagine a world where there is no hungry mouth to feed. Imagine a world where the weight of glory is hung on every shoulder – every shoulder – whether Iranian, Israeli, Afghani, American. Imagine a world where love is so abundant that no one can ever forget what the shape of love looks like.

God so loves the world… God so loves the world… Biblical history bends toward love. Let us bend our heart and minds towards justice and mercy and pour out God’s love with whomever and wherever we may be; and be the change you wish to see the world.

Let us pray:

Loving God, in your dream of Creation, you made us in your image. Through your Son, Jesus, you showed us the enduring mystery and majesty of your desire to be one with us. Guide us we pray to be worthy of your trust and to see your face in all people and in all things. Grant us your peace and restore within us the wisdom knowing that all things begin, continue, and end you. All this we ask in the Name of Jesus, your Son, our Lord. Amen.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Lent III - Skip Windsor

Ex. 20:1-17; John 2:13-22

Be of Good Courage

I once heard the definition of courage as fear that has said its prayers. This morning I would like to speak to you about courage. Now the courage I am going to reflect with you about is not necessarily the kind of courage that soldiers display in battle; although that image is the kind of courage we might think of first. Rather, the kind of courage I am referring to is the courage to stand up for an unpopular cause.

I would like to reflect with you on the kind of courage that allows a person to seek help when confronted with addiction, to get out bed when dealing with deep depression, or to speak the truth in love, as St. Paul writes, when there could be the cost of a job, the cost of a friendship, or maybe the cost of one's life. Our Hebrew text from Exodus and our reading from John speak about the cost of discipleship and how it takes courage to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

I am reminded of another definition of courage from William Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar, when Caesar says to Cassius, "cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once." Only the valiant know the cost of discipleship and in Rome it would not be their soldiers who were courageous but those men and women who resisted Roman power to find their way to freedom and to a new life in Christ.

When Julius Caesar died, it was the advent of Rome's growing power over the world. By the time of Jesus' birth over 70% of the known world was enslaved by the Romans. The sun rose and set on men and women who would never taste the air of freedom. To most, it was only a dream. Through military might, economic sanctions, and paid vassals, Rome was able to enslave foreigners and captives and to stamp out all rebellion with punishing results. It was into this world that Jesus was born.

As a boy, Jesus went with his parents to Jerusalem as all pious Jews were encouraged to do especially at the time of the Feast of the Passover which recalled the Israelites eventual liberation from the Egyptians by Moses. The Temple in Jerusalem was the heart and the soul of Jesus' people. The holy building was created and assembled under the orders of King Herod, a well known vassal of the Emperor Tiberius. Inside the Temple the people would offer sacrifices in thanksgiving to God by paying for a bird, such as a dove, to give to the priests as an offering. People would have to pay with Roman coins and then given their tokens of sacrifice to be offered.

As Jesus grew up, we can imagine how hard the people of Nazareth worked. Scraping together enough money to leave work, make the journey to Jerusalem, and then give their hard earned wages to the priest. When Jesus grew into his public ministry one of his first acts, according to the Gospel of John, was to go to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover with his disciples. Seeing his people year after year give their wages to the Temple priests using Roman money to buy the sacrificial offerings was a defilement of the Temple and all it stood for as a visible tribute and sign of God.

Some people might say that Jesus lost his temper. He was not himself. He lost it. He made a bullwhip, poured the coins out onto the floor of the Temple, overturned the money changers tables,and rebuked them sternly. Then Jesus added the cryptic remark, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." I don't know about you, but I find this incident early in Jesus' public ministry disturbing. Many of us tend to think of Jesus meek and mild. His demeanor is more one of gentleness and tenderness. Not here. He is like a lion here. No wonder C.S. Lewis used the image of Aslan, the Lion, to portray symbolically Jesus.

From this moment on Jesus is targeted for arrest and tattooed for death. But, up to this moment, Jesus was not marked. Yes, he was well known as healer; and true, he was a rabbi of renown. Yet, now he steps into the darkness of evil; and it will be this interplay between light and darkness that will be a hallmark of John's Gospel. Yet, into this wilderness of darkness, Jesus' courage, would lead his people, and all people for all time, into the everlasting life and light of the living God. Instead of a Temple made of marble, ivory and stone, it would be made through the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Jesus shows us the face of courage. He shows us his humanity in full view with his righteous anger for the injustice and oppression laid upon his people by greedy and powerful people. You and I do not have to look far to see that greed and power are still with us when we look to Darfur, Syria, and to our country where people are out of work, still without adequate healthcare, where violence in our cities goes unabated. The picture that is ingrained in my mind of courage is the picture of the unknown man standing in front of four tanks during the Tiannimen Square uprising. If you notice the man he is carrying a bag in his left hand as if he had made a choice of rather going to his office like a good worker, he went the other way and walked out on the Tarmac and stood in front of the tanks as a silent witness to freedom. An ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. He follows in a successive line of courageous people like Rosa Parks, Gandhi, Joan of Arc, St. Stephen, and Moses.

Through the courage of Moses and Aaron in the face of the Pharaoh's power that the people were lead from slavery into freedom. And, it was in the wilderness that the people were given a guidepost for living a faithful life in God through the Ten Commandments. I know people riff on the Commandments as the ten suggestions as if they could be taken or left. Yet, for those Israelites they were a gift from God. By keeping the Commandments, God would always be their God through thick and thin, through wind and fire, through war and peace.

The Commandments were given by God to Moses on two tablets. One was God centered; and the other one was neighbor centered. They offered a direct edict from God about how to live with faith, compassion, and courage. Keep the Commandments and I will keep you. Through the centuries, the Ten Commandments have served as the guideposts for Jews and Christians alike. I am sure many of you have seen or remembered the Commandments posted in churches, homes, and even in public places. Over time, these reminders have been either replaced, removed or forgotten. Yet, I would offer to us that they are as much a gift to you and me as they were to those first men and women who saw them.

Of all the Commandments which hold equal value, the one that reminds us to be courageous people, like Jesus was in the Temple, is the one in the middle of the Commandments about keeping the Sabbath daily holy. It reminds us of creation and how God rested. It reminds us of liberation and freedom that the Israelites enjoyed as they left their yokes behind to find a promised land of milk and honey. It reminds us of the Resurrection of the Lord's Day that every Sunday is Easter as we celebrate our Lord's life, death and resurrection and are connected to God and one another through the Holy Eucharist. To practice Sabbath is to take a leap of faith.

During the Lent, this Commandment of keeping the Sabbath Day holy is a reminder of how far we can stray from God's hope for us. It takes courage to take a time-out, a real time-out. Consider how you make time for God. Consider how you make time for joy. Consider when was the last time you intentionally took time for joy. When we are faced with tough decisions or seem to be falling into the abyss of anxiety God has given us, even commanded us, to take time away from work and from the pressures of life. Read the Commandment carefully because it includes all people - family, friends, aliens and strangers -- even animals -- even all creation. Through God's gift of this commandment all creatures become the same. No rich or poor. No male of female. No black or white. No slave or free. All of creation become as one in this Commandment.

The Sabbath allows us to be free not enslaved to time nor wedded to others' authority nor to the personal, economic, and political forces that eat away at us. Taking Sabbath time allows for all people to long for a better world, to dream the good dreams of God, and to consider alternatives from a world that can fetter us down into slavish, routine lives. Sabbath time is a subversive act. It is countercultural. It is not the way of the world. Sabbath time is the way of God.

Jesus embodies for us the courageous life. He took time with God, considered his options and then acted. And he beckons us to follow his good example to keep our convictions, to live honestly, to stand up for the absent person, to refuse to do something that is wrong. He may push us to the edge of our fears but promises us we will not fall. I am reminded of the poem by Apollinaire, which says,

"Come to the edge. We can't. We are afraid"
"Come to the edge. We can't. We will fall."
"Come to the edge." And they came.
And he pushed them and they flew.

And to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory. Amen.