Sermon Palm/Passion Sunday John 14:1 - 15:47 25 March 2018 Year B

-->

         Nearly six years ago I stood in the pulpit in an Episcopal Church in New Mexico where we held a public service of healing shortly after the deaths of the children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

         More than 500,000 young people gathered in Washington, D.C. yesterday, and students gathered here in Columbus, Ohio at the statehouse. And so, I ask us today, how long will we continue to crucify Jesus? Who among us is brave enough to yell, “No!” when the rest of the crowd is yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

         How long will we deny the Christ who loves us so much he gave himself to death on the cross?

         Listen again to the evasions, false promises, excuses and violent actions, and think about the things we say.

“Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”

Why was the ointment wasted this way?”

“Surely not I?”

“Even though all become deserters, I will not.”

“The one I will kiss is the man.”

“Why do we still need witnesses.”?

“I do not know or understand what you are talking about.”

“Have you no answer?”

“Then Jesus gave a last cry and breathed his last.” And God wept for what we had become.

No longer must we allow parents to weep for their children. No longer must we let children weep from hunger or cold or loneliness or abuse.  No longer must we be so wedded to our individual rights we forget the collective safety of our children.

And so I ask us today, who among us will rise up as the healers of these days? The healers who will reach out to all those who are in pain and see violence as the only answer? Who among us will gather and pray, gather and sing, gather and work, for healing our hurting and broken world?

This Sunday is much more than a dead story about a dead man who happened to be the Son of God. This is a living story about the Son of God who became powerless so we would have the power to be his disciples.

Jesus’ power is never taken away from him, even at the end. He relinquishes his power to show the power of love over the evil we can do.       The cross is the fulfillment of Jesus’ way of love and lowliness. The cross is the affirmation of the triumph of love. The horror of the cross and the triumph of the Resurrection are the story of just how far God’s love is willing to go for us.

Despite everything out there, despite everything in here, despite everything inside each of us, God reaches in and shows us evil will not win, and love always will.

         This is the Lord who calls us to work in the world God made. We are the voices, the hands, and the hearts of Jesus the crucified until at the last he comes again in power and great glory.

And while we work for these things, remember this: "Nothing is lost on the breath of God, nothing is lost for ever; God's breath is love, and that love will remain, holding the world for ever. No feather too light, no hair too fine, no flower too brief in its glory; no drop in the ocean, no dust in the air, but is counted and told in God's story." [1] AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2018

---

[1] Colin Gibson 
Words © 1996 Hope Publishing Company

Sermon Lent V Hebrews 5:5-10, John 12:20-33 18 March 2018 Year B

            “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”[1] If there were ever a phrase designed to turn people away from Christianity, that’s probably it.

         Why would any of us want to be a part of something that asks us to suffer? Why would we want to be a part of a faith that tells us you have to hate your life to gain eternal life?

         The question for some of us is this: Is this all there is, or is there something more? We want more than what we see right here. It’s not that we’re scared necessarily of what happens when we die; we want believe there is something more.

         The more complicated question, and perhaps the one to which there is no answer, is this. Why is suffering part of the deal?

         Now let me make this clear. This is something for which I do not have an answer. If I did, I’d be publishing books and appearing on talk shows and making millions. If you are expecting answers about suffering you might go have some coffee instead. As I said to someone just the other day, I don’t know the answers. All I know is a lifetime of asking questions. I do know this however; God does not deliberately cause suffering. God does not sit on a throne somewhere and say, “Who shall I ‘zot’ today?”

         Maybe we’re asking the wrong questions. Maybe the question to ask isn’t why is suffering part of the deal? Maybe the question to ask is this: Is there another way to deal with suffering rather than trying to fight against it or overcome it?

Understand please, we still need to do everything in our power to help those who suffer. Injustice, poverty, violence; all of those things need to be worked on as part of following Jesus. At the same time, the knowledge that suffering is part of the deal can be the most freeing thing we can encounter.

         We often hear “those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life”[2] as life denying. What if the intent is life affirming; affirming our selves as the self God created us to be? What if the intent is affirming an understanding that life cannot be hoarded – cannot be kept in a grain sack – it must be scattered to grow and die to live again?

         Suffering in the Gospels is portrayed as a necessity of following Jesus. Suffering is something for us to, if not embrace, at least to gather towards us as best we can. Not because we are fatalists but because we are faithful.  

         The question why is suffering part of the deal is transformed by the realization that Jesus the Christ suffered fully and is fully engaged in suffering: both his own and ours. Jesus was not vaccinated against suffering by being the Son of God; instead his suffering became that which we can look toward when we suffer.

         At what seemed like the end, the question Jesus asked was the same question we ask. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[3] That most fully human sense of abandonment brought that cry to his lips and brings it to ours. And yet the story is not over; the last words have not been said.

         We cannot have resurrection without death. Anything else is resuscitation. In Jesus’ conversation with the Greeks who came to see him, they must have been bewildered by his suddenly talking about a grain of wheat dying. And yet in that dry, harsh climate Jesus inhabited, wheat was a precious thing, just as life is. We spend our lives warding off death.

         But what if it’s the other way around? What if resurrection is what we are seeking and living is the journey to the destination. Not the final destination, but the destination of being in the presence of God, of being in the constant light of Christ, and in the holy movement of the Spirit.

         God does not promise us a life without suffering, but God does promise that in our suffering, we will be heard.  

         In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer says, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” Jesus’ giving up of his life allowed the resurrection to happen. And while there was great suffering for him, “He was heard.” That is what was promised to Jesus. That is what is is promised to us.

We are never promised freedom from pain or freedom from suffering. We are never promised happiness. We are never promised rescue from death itself. We are promised that we are heard. The cross is the question. The resurrection is answer.[4] AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2018

---

[1] John 12:25 (NRSV)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Matthew 27:46b, Mark 15:34b (NRSV)

[4] “A Blip in the Plan” The Rev Dr Karoline Lewis, Day 1, 2012

Sermon Lent IV John 3:14-21 11 March 2018 Year B

         It’s a rare person who has not experienced anxiety at least once in his or her life. It can be minor anxiety about a test in school, or a visit to the dentist. It can be major anxiety with a health problem or a large financial transaction. It can be anxiety about what kind of priest and spiritual leader this parish will call.

The reading from John’s gospel today is about part of Nicodemus’s visit to Jesus. When I read this whole story in scripture, John 3:1-21, Nicodemus’ anxiety is what I hear and see demonstrated.

Nicodemus is a community leader, a Pharisee. He comes to see Jesus at night. We can rationalize this by saying Nicodemus was a student of the Torah, the Hebrew Scriptures, and rabbis recommended the scripture be studied in the quiet times at night. But given Nicodemus’ questions, it seems much more like anxiety.

         In the part we don’t hear today, Nicodemus starts off revealing his anxiety by flattery. “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” And what is Jesus’ answer? He says something that raises Nicodemus’ anxiety even more. “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Jesus’ statement is open to misinterpretation because the word used here means both “born anew” and “born from above.”

It’s clear from Nicodemus’ next question that what he hears is “born anew.” And being “born anew” raises his anxiety even more. How can an adult be born anew? “How can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus describes this “born from above” and “born anew” by saying, “The wind (the spirit) blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

These are two messy metaphors here. Birth and wind are both uncontrollable and in the hands of others. We do not ask to be born and we can do nothing about the process. We are pushed out into the world by the birth process itself. And the wind? The wind blows where it will. We cannot control the wind by telling it where to blow or whether or not to blow. Both birth and wind are beyond our control. And this can be frightening. It can raise our anxiety to realize we are not in control.

On the other hand, admitting we are not in control can mean freedom. We can let God be in control. I wonder if this is what happened to Nicodemus eventually.

Nicodemus appears twice more in the Gospel of John. He appears to defend Jesus during an argument in the temple, although he seems to do it without much enthusiasm. And, Nicodemus appears for the last time in John’s Gospel after the crucifixion. He and Joseph of Arimathea take Jesus’ body to be buried. Nicodemus brings a hundred pounds of spices to anoint Jesus’ body for burial.

I like to think Nicodemus finally got it when Jesus said to him, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” It took Nicodemus a while, perhaps. His anxiety got the best of him when he first met Jesus. His anxiety triumphed again at the temple when he tried to defend Jesus and was asked, “Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you?”

But then, something larger than anxiety must have filled Nicodemus at the end. Why else would he bring a hundred pounds of spices to anoint one man’s body for burial? I’d like to think it was an extravagant offering from someone who finally understood the extravagance of what Jesus offered him on that night they talked: Freedom from anxiety.

Jesus offered Nicodemus freedom from anxiety. Jesus offered Nicodemus perfect peace, the peace that passes all understanding. He offered him blessing, abundance, and love.

The part we usually hear and see of this Gospel is John 3:16 – held up at football matches, no less – possibly one of the most anxiety-producing events for a diehard football fans. Maybe it’s a misplaced attempt to relieve anxiety about the outcome of the match? “God so loved that world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

But what follows that popular verse is John 3:17. A promise that lifts us out of our anxiety and into a world of peace and blessing, abundance and love: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (Repeat.)

There is freedom from anxiety. There is peace. There is blessing. There is abundance. There is love. All these are found in Christ Jesus. Trust his freedom. Trust his peace. Trust his blessing. Trust his abundance. Trust his love. These were given for the world. These were given for me. These were given for you. AMEN. 

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2018

Sermon Lent III Exodus 20:1-17, John 2:13-22 4 March 2018 Year B

An Episcopalian walks into a bar, hikes up on the barstool and says to the bartender, “Gimme a scotch on the rocks.” The bartender slides the drink across, and replies, “So…what have you been up to lately.” The person on the barstool replies, “Well, let’s see, I committed adultery last week.” Or maybe, “Oh I killed my neighbor last night because I covet his wife.” I wish I had a great punch line for what sounds like the beginning of a joke. But there isn’t a punch line because most of us wouldn’t boast about breaking that particular commandment.

         How recently have you heard this happen though, and not even in a bar? Or maybe even done it yourself, just like I have. Two people drag out their iPhones or Smart Phones or pocket calendars. The conversation goes something like this, “I just don’t know when we can get together. My schedule’s completely full. I don’t even have time to sleep.”

         There we go, boasting about breaking one of the commandments. “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”[1] Our reading from Exodus continues, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.”[2]

I am hardly suggesting we return to the rigid and uncompromising Sabbath of our Protestant forbears. What I am suggesting is that we are desperately in need of a Sabbath. A time each week to slow down, hush up, and turn off.

Many of us, even in retirement, are too busy to rest, to enjoy the gift of time God has given us. This gift of time, of slowing down, of being quiet, and turning off the busy world, is how God draws us back to God’s self. It is in quiet and rest that we so often find our selves again as the people God has created us to be.

Perhaps the reason, then, for Jesus overturning the temple tables, has to do with calling the temple and its people back to its reason for being, its reason for being created: as a house of worship and a place in which time stands still before the living God.

And, this Sunday, when we are halfway through Lent, is a good time to remind ourselves of who we are and the covenant we have made with God, in particular the covenant to rest so we have time and energy to find the blessings in all the commandments.

The Ten Commandments, especially the commandment to rest, to have a Sabbath, have become “the ten suggestions” in contemporary society. We need to remind ourselves the Ten Commandments are the word of God, given by God, as part of an agreement sought by God, between God and God’s people.

The Ten Commandments are not law in the sense we know secular law. The Ten Commandments are a law of redemption and mercy rather than a law of judgment. As God redeemed the nation of Israel from bondage to Egypt, the Ten Commandments are a gift rather than another kind of bondage. They are a gift of freedom in which the community can now act; free to form the obedience to which God has called them. Rather than subjection to Pharaoh or any other despotic leader, we can now claim our freedom to make a covenant, an agreement, with the Almighty God who rescues us from bondage.

         At the same time, the Ten Commandments are not something that we can pick and choose. Since it is the covenant between God and God’s people, the commandments choose us, rather than us choosing any or all of them. When we are invited into covenant with God, we do not get to choose what we promise. God does the inviting. God manages the terms of the contract.

         We are reminded each time we take a Sabbath rest, on whatever day that occurs for us, that in these Ten Commandments we have words that are living and true, words of redemption and grace. These words invite us into a “speaking” relationship with the Living God, in which the commandments laid out from the beginning continue to speak to us and bless us. Keeping the commandments becomes not a burden but a blessing.

The Ten Commandments are living words in a living world, with things to say to us about how we are dealt with by God, and how we respond. They are living words from a living God that speak to us about how we treat God, how we treat ourselves and how we treat our neighbors. The commandments speak to us not from the walls of the courtroom, nor from the judicial system, but from the mouth of the Living God, in response to our relationship with God. AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2018

---

[1] The Book of Common Prayer (350)

[2] Exodus 20:8-11 (NRSV)