Till All Are One

'Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said. "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

"Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."'

--John 17: 20-26

For anyone who hasn’t spent at least three minutes having a conversation with me, I am a pretty big fan of the intellectual property known as the Transformers (as if this blog wasn't your first clue!). I have a little less than 500 of these toy robots in disguise, but my interest goes far beyond collecting the action figures, watching the tv shows, or reading the comic books. It’s the story itself that has fascinated me for so long, a story that is very human, only is told through the experience of giant robots that turn into everything from cars to dinosaurs. At its core, the story of the Transformers is a story about the capacity for change, the ability to adapt to one’s surroundings and circumstances; in fact, it’s biological, these bots must change and adapt or they will die. Most of the stories center on the never-ending conflict between the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons, creations of a god-like being whose dream is that one day these warring siblings will put cast off their arms and become one single, unified people, honoring the diversity within their race while being of the same heart and mind as their creator; this is reflected in a rallying cry that is often repeated throughout Transformers stories: till all are one. These are the last words spoken by the great Autobot leader Optimus Prime just before his death, words that echo the dream of Primus, their creator, words that seem like little more than a dream but are nevertheless the hope that our ability to change will one day unite every person. Until that day, till all are one!

Optimus Prime as he appeared in 1986's The Transformers: The Movie

This is not only the hope and dream of the Transformers but also the enduring foundation of the Christian church. In this last Sunday of Eastertide, during this in-between time in which Jesus has already ascended into heaven but the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, has not yet come to set the apostles’ hearts ablaze, the Church is invited to reflect on what is often called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. The dinner is over, and Jesus goes to Gethsemane, as was his custom, to pray. The synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke make it seem like the prayer was relatively short, but not so in John. Here the prayer takes up the whole chapter, and at its core is this longing of Jesus for all to be one. Make no mistake, this unity is not one in which the self completely dissolves, but rather it involves a communion of God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit who is forthcoming, and believers in every generation. This prayer, that they may be completely one, is a reminder that the Church and its future are larger than any one generation can experience or perceive; a church that receives the glory that Jesus has given participates in his crucifixion – in loss and death – yes, but also in his resurrection – in renewed life and purpose. To be one with each other is to be one with the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

The oneness for which we pray lies in something beyond doctrinal agreement and institutional relatedness; ecumenical efforts among different denominations of Christianity very often break down, usually over one or two issues. I’m not sure Jesus could have foreseen exactly how hard it would be for his followers to maintain a sense of oneness after his departure.  Nevertheless, there is a radical nature to Jesus’ prayer, a prayer that he makes with the hope of total unity between earth and heaven, among all beings; not only for those who were alive at the time or those alive right now, but for all people, all creation, throughout all ages. Here Jesus summarizes his core mission, to call all creation back to our beginning unity in love, that we might know ourselves as the beloved of God, as Jesus himself is the beloved of God, that we might live in and from this profound and unifying love. It is the vision St. John had on the island of Patmos that led to his Revelation; a vision we see in that letter’s final moments in which all things have passed away and humanity returns to the place from which it began: union with all things in the Paradise of God.

Such a union is only possible through the power of love. That may sound trite, but it’s true. When I played baseball in high school, I had a coach who used to tell us that we didn’t have to like each other, but we had to love each other. We looked at him as if he had three heads, but what he meant was that we needed to be committed to one another, to respect one another’s dignity, bear one other’s loads, lay down a sacrifice for one another, and remember that we were in this thing together, that no matter what our differences may be, we could count on each other. Forget liking, he’d tell us, if you work toward loving each other, you’ll be unified, you’ll be one, and you’ll be unstoppable.

O how our world cries out for a felt awareness of this kind of unity, this kind of love! This week marks the start of Pride Month, a time when we remember that true unity comes when we honor the diverse expressions of God’s human family. It is a time when we recall the courage of the drag queens that began the Stonewall riot and the queer women who nursed dying men during the height of the AIDS crisis; moments throughout history when folks of all stripes have born the wounds of love for each other, and laid down their lives for the sake of communities and causes greater than themselves, just like Jesus. In the fullest expression of this month and all it stands for, we see that when we honor diversity, all truly are one. 

Do you know, beloved of God, that you were on Jesus’ heart when he made his prayer? Whatever fears and concerns you face now, you do not do it alone because Jesus was praying for you back then and promises to accompany you even now. In these moments before his own death, Jesus prayed for you, and Jesus continues to pray for you and walk with you because that’s what unity as the Body of Christ looks like. To be a follower of Jesus is to be part of this greater whole; there’s no such thing as a solitary Christian. We are one whether we agree with each other or not, whether we like each other or not. Becoming part of the Body of Christ is to become part of the community, a part of the one. I can tell you that math was never my strong suit, but the transitive formula can help with this: we see God through Jesus, we know Jesus through his followers, the Body of Christ, therefore, we know God through the Body of Christ, through one another, in all of our quirks, our brokenness, our diversity. This was Jesus’ unifying prayer, for all of us that night in the garden, and it is his prayer still, through his Body today. 

Some might wonder if it is too late for such unity. The Body feels more and more fractured by the day. But we can find hope in these words of Jesus to the one he called Abba: “I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known.” The journey is not finished. Jesus’ work, love’s redeeming work, our own work, is not finished. Until that day, till all are one.

"Do you want to be made well?"

"After Jesus healed the son of the official in Capernaum, there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids-- blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath."

--John 5: 1-9

“Do you want to be made well?” It reminds me of those sleazy salesmen peddling some sort of magic product that’s going to fix all your ills. Think of those infomercials on tv, the ones that start in black and white with an announcer asking something like “Are you tired of living with chronic back pain?” or “Don’t you wish there was an easier way to open a can?” My favorite example comes from one of my favorite musicals, Sweeney Todd, in which the sleazy con-artist Adolfo Pirelli peddles Pirelle’s Miracle Elixir, which, when rubbed all over a man’s head, will cure his baldness and thinning hair; only it turns out the Miracle Elixir is just a combination of ink and human urine. But oh what lengths to which folks will go to be made well!

This sounds legit.

Last spring Kristen and I traveled to Arkansas for a wedding, and we spent a few days near Hot Springs, which, as the name suggests, is filled with these warm water mineral pools that have, for over a century, been a place of pilgrimage for folks suffering from all kinds of ills. Babe Ruth and other famous baseball players went there in the offseason to recover from injuries; President Franklin Roosevelt traveled there after his polio diagnosis every summer, even while in office. The North American continent is littered with sites like these, where folks travel far and wide to be made well; perhaps a step up from miracle elixirs and late night infomercial purchases. 

Hot springs such as the ones in Arkansas were also common in the Mediterranean region around the time of Jesus. Excavations have uncovered such sites, and one found underneath the Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem even has five porticos, leading some to wonder if it was, at one time, this pool called Bethzatha, which means House of Olives. Like with the Arkansas hot springs, folks did come away from Bethzatha feeling better, thanks to the subterranean mineral stream beneath it. But what they didn’t understand was the why? Why did it help them feel better? Why did it bubble up? For reasons that I can’t explain, our New Revised Standard Version of this story from chapter 5 of John’s Gospel omits the fourth verse! So, after the text says that “there lay many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed – other translations, such as the King James Version, add: “For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water; whoever then stepped into the pool first was healed of their disease.” Bubbly angel water. That’s the magic product that folks thought brought them healing. 

The modern site of what is believed to have been the pool of Bethzatha (aka Bethesda).

Among those sitting there, we are told, is a man who has been ill for 38 years. The text doesn’t describe the illness, but a better translation of the Greek astheneia is “debilitating disease.” When we learn his story there are so many questions that we can’t help but ask: “Has he been sitting on that mat, that pallet, for all those years? Why didn’t anyone ever help him in all that time? How did he not, over the course of 38 years, figure out a way to get himself into the pool? The man just wants to feel ok, and we certainly can’t blame him for that.

Anyone who has lived with a debilitating disease, whether in body, mind, or spirit, understands this man’s experience. When I tell the story of my journey with bile duct cancer and a liver transplant, I sometimes gloss over the hardest part, which wasn’t the adverse effects of my chemo or the physical pain after my several surgeries, it was what was happening in my spirit. I had been so healthy prior to 2020 that I didn’t have a primary care physician, but over the course of the next year, while the pandemic raged, new problems kept arising. I began to feel that my body was betraying me. Why bother trying if something bad was just going to happen anyway? Why put forth the effort at all? Later, when I was told how many pills I would be taking, how my eating and socialization habits would need to change, I wept. Life, as I knew it, felt over. I know from many of your own stories that you have had similar experiences, especially over the last five years. 

I don’t know about you, but I began to really understand the perspective of the man on the mat by Bethzatha. I kept wishing for some bubbly angel water, or some other magical formula that would heal me, that would fix my problems, both in my body and my spirit. Do you want to me made well? I heard the voice of Jesus say that to me, and as I’m sure was true for the man on the mat, I wanted to say, “Of course, Jesus! Why would you even ask me that?” 

But it matters that he asks. Because Scripture as a whole, and John’s Gospel in particular, always has more than one layer of meaning, I suspect Jesus’ words to the man on the mat are not exclusively about his physical ailments. The question goes beyond his ability to pick up his mat and walk. It’s about trauma and the path to healing from it. Consider the community out of which John’s Gospel develops. They feel lost, having been forsaken by families and kicked out of the only worship communities that they have known. There is real grief and pain with which they live each day, for which they long to be healed. They feel stuck in an endless cycle of trauma. Like the man on the mat, they’ve been there a long time, and hope desperately for someone to come along and help them. But the question Jesus poses to the man shifts the focus away from the need for a quick fix. Do you want to be made well? It’s a rhetorical question. It's an invitation to begin to imagine a new reality, one in which he has agency. If any of us are ever to be healed, in body, mind, or spirit, that’s the first step, to listen to this question from Jesus, and rather than scoff at it, or become defensive, allow for even the smallest hope that a new reality, one in which we are no longer trapped by our circumstances, is possible.

Healing is possible. Being made well is possible. It takes owning our story and knowing deep down that we are more than our pain. Twelve Step programs understand this, which is why the first step is the admission of the problem and a desire to be healed, to move beyond it. Brene Brown put it this way: owning our story can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of the light.” 

What Jesus offers us is no mere quick fix. Even when we pray with laying on of hands and share in the Eucharist, which Ignatius of Antioch called "the medicine of immortality", we understand that these are not quick fixes like bubbly angel water, but rather physical encounters with the living Christ. The place where healing first starts in our minds, and in our hearts - in the place where we hear Jesus give us that same invitation, to imagine a new reality, claim our agency, and begin the process of true healing. Do you, do we, want to me made well? 

On Loving One Another

'At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."'

--John 13: 31-35

There was an underappreciated film from the mid-1990s called Michael, in which John Travolta portrays an irreverent, slobbish angel who has come to earth for reasons.  In one of the movie’s best scenes, he is sitting in the backseat of a car while a bewildered Oliver Platt and Andie McDowell ride shotgun. Michael quips, “I remember what John and Paul said.” Oliver Platt pops up and asks, “The apostles?!” Michael retorts, “No!  The Beatles!  All you need is love.”

John Travolta and Sparky in Michael.

While my knowledge of Beatles songs, I’m sad to admit, is rather limited—I once tried to impress my Beatles-loving girlfriend, now wife, by telling her my favorite Beatles album is The White Album, even though I didn’t know a single song on it – I DO know that song!  "All you need is love." It is a song that is filled with hope that really, honestly, seriously, love is all we need.  If we had love, then so many of the problems that we know would cease.  If we had love, we would know a world of peace and harmony the likes of which are hitherto undreamt of!  It is such a nice dream.  

But so often that’s all it is, isn’t it? A dream. When refugees in seriously dangerous contexts that have waited years for asylum are rejected in place of disgruntled white folks mad that they’re not still in charge, love seems like a dream. (I add, parenthetically, bravo to our Episcopal Church leadership for refusing to comply with this practice!) When immigrants are being used as pawns to deny basic health care to low income and disabled folks, love seems like a dream. When the contributions of entire groups of people to the rich history of this country are being erased, love seems like a dream. 

Only dreamers talk of love because it’s just too simple; there has to be more to it than that. I can’t help but imagine the other 11 apostles sitting there at the table with Jesus that evening. Judas has gone, and they must feel that something big is about to happen. He’s going to unpack all of the mysteries of the universe right here and now.  Maybe he’ll tell us his plan for ushering in a new era of peace on this earth once Rome is gone.  OK, Jesus!  Lay it on us!  

“Love one another.”  That’s all he says.  “As I have loved you.”  That’s it? No, Jesus, I’m afraid you're mistaken; you don’t understand just how cruel the world is. Love is not all we need. It’s going to take a lot more than your silly dreams to overthrow an oppressive regime or save us from corrupt religious leaders that profit from it. 

What if it’s not Jesus who is mistaken but us? What if we’ve been mistaken about love this whole time, treating it as a nicety, as little more than sentiment and pleasant feelings? Consider the context for this statement. It’s Thursday, and Jesus has given this mandate, this maundy to love, and he illustrates this love by taking the form of a servant and washing their feet – yes, even Judas who leaves immediately afterwards to betray him, even Peter who will deny even knowing him. This is love as a verb, not a noun; an action, not a concept. This is the new commandment. 

What exactly is new about it? Saint Augustine said that it was new because it was a spiritual love that was distinct from, as he put it, “carnal affection,” which for Augustine and his, how shall we say, hobbies prior to his conversion to Christianity, that’s fine and made sense for him. Cyril of Alexandria said it was a different degree of love, for as Leviticus commands the people to love others as oneself, Jesus takes this to a whole new level, in that he loves others even more than himself; his kind of self-giving love that leads to the cross is far greater than love for oneself. 

But can this kind of love really save us? 

Yes, yes it can, when we consider again the context of Jesus’ command. It is not just to love one another as he loves but in the context in which he loves; that is, in the midst of the fear and awfulness that is to come. He knows it. They’re fixing to know it. All the while, Jesus doesn’t give into fear or self-preservation, and he models that, when the time comes, nor should they. Love one another, he’s telling them, even if it means giving up your own life and all to which you have clung so tightly in the hopes of warding off pain and suffering. Love, even in the face of that, and everyone will know that you are my disciples. 

This moment is not just the memory of some emotionally charged sharing as Jesus contemplates his own death. This statement is at the very heart of his life’s message, his central theme, all the way up to his final words on the cross, “Father, forgive them!” To accomplish what he came to do means that we must love in the same manner, not only for the sake of creating good will among ourselves, but for the sake of all who will see this love and thus see him. To love in such a way is our primary duty as disciples of Jesus, and to fail to do so is to keep him hidden from a world that needs him so desperately. In daily sacrificial acts, in which we give away a portion of ourselves, we resurrect Jesus for the sake of all who long for some measure of love, healing, and hope; we love in the face of tyranny, bitterness, and oppression for the sake of the other, for the sake of the Christ that lives in the other, for the sake of the love that he has for all humanity. The enemy can take many things away from us: jobs and livelihoods, health care and status. Their cruelty knows no bounds, and it can permeate every facet of our lives, but there is one thing they cannot take from us: our capacity to love. The love in our hearts, the love in our minds, the love in our souls, the love in our strength. They couldn’t take it from Jesus, they couldn’t take it from the apostles when they, one by one, met similar fates as he did. They cannot and will not take it from us, either. 

Kristen and I are currently making our way through the entire canon of Star Wars because of course we are. Every movie, every tv series, all in chronological order, and we just finished the first season of Andor. There is a moment in that show when Maarva, the sickly mother of the titular hero Cassian Andor, insists that, despite imperial occupation of her town and threats to her life, she will remain there instead of escaping with her son. “We’ll go some place they haven’t ruined yet,” Cassian tells her. “I’m already there,” Maarva says, “That place is in my mind. They can build as many barracks as they want, they’ll never find me.” After years of fear and despair, it’s Maarva’s love that inspires her to stay and face what is coming, but even still, she knows the enemy will not win so long as she stands up and loves in the face of such cruelty.

Maarva Andor.

Love is many things, but simple is not one of them. Real love places demands on us. Love is action. Love is revolutionary and radical. It is a form of resistance. To love in the face of fear, to offer oneself instead of preserving oneself, that is what it means to love as Jesus loves, what makes the new commandment so hard but so hopeful. It is truly the one thing that will save us. In the end, John and Paul were right – the apostles and the Beatles. All we need is that kind of love. 

Turn Your Believing Into Following

'Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." [The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." He answered, "Here I am, Lord." The Lord said to him, "Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight." But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name." But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.'

--Acts 9: 1-19

'Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

'When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

'When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."'

--John 21: 1-19

Jesus by the seashore fixing breakfast.

On a sleepless, restless night, several friends decide to go fishing. But they don’t catch anything. That’s ok, though. Fishing is more about the relaxation, the sharing of stories with each other. And oh the stories they share! The memories that flood in of other expeditions taken over the last three years or so. Remember that time when Simon leaped like a frog out of the boat and took off running toward the Teacher? Remember how he forgot for a second that he was on water and not on land? That was quit a….sinking sensation, eh, Peter?! 

Then, after telling some really bad jokes, they head back to shore, and someone calls out to them, asking if they’ve caught anything. “Try throwing your net on the right side of the boat,” the stranger tells them. Even though the word that he uses – dexia – is Greek for “directionally right” and not right, as in, correct, we can still imagine him chuckling a little at his own dry humor. He knows what he’s doing. Suddenly their nets are bursting with hundreds of fish of every kind.

The stranger already has a campfire going, with fish and bread on it, and he invites them to breakfast. They’re pretty sure it’s Jesus. They’re not so sure it’s Jesus. And isn’t that so often the way that it is? We know him and we don’t know him. In stories and memories and encounters, his presence, and absence alike lead us to love him and to fail him. “Do you love me?” Jesus asks Simon bar Jonah – the one he gave the nickname Kephas, or Peter, or Rock. “Then feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” Don’t just say it. Be it. Don’t just intend it. Do it. Make your losses count for something, and let your believing become following. 

There were many losses, especially where Simon Peter had been concerned. Not long after giving him a new name, Jesus called him ‘Satan’ when Simon Peter tried to keep things the way they’d always been and attempted to prevent Jesus from going through with his mission. He even denied knowing Jesus when push came to shove. Simon Peter’s not exactly a paragon of virtue. Still, when face-to-face with the risen Jesus, his three denials turn into three proclamations of love. Jesus doesn’t bring up his past mistakes and missteps. He feeds Simon Peter and tells him to go and feed the ones who will need it most. Even Simon Peter is not beyond redemption. 

Nor was a Pharisee whose name at birth was Saul. He had persecuted the followers of the Way pretty harshly, even playing a part in the death of Stephen, the first deacon and martyr of this new faith. Like Simon, he gets a new name too after a conversion experience on the road to Damascus – that’s in Syria, not Southwest Virginia. Despite what he has done previously, the risen Jesus speaks to him and calls him, like Simon Peter, to tend and feed Jesus’ flock among the Gentiles. When he gets back to Jerusalem and suddenly says, “Hey everyone! I’m on your side now!” there’s gonna no doubt be those who’re skeptical, like Ananais; some who refuse to let him in on the meetings; or no doubt those who quit the group because they let him in. Still he is called. He makes his losses count for something. Even Saul the Pharisee is not beyond redemption.

You may be wondering why the text from John was so specific with the number of fish that Peter and the others caught: 153. Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible from Greek into Latin, claimed it was because there were 153 different kinds of fish in the sea, meaning that they caught one of every single kind. We know that number is more than a bit off, but the point remains the same. The net is big enough for everyone. You. Me. Even the ones that we may think are beyond redemption, yes, even them. Everybody. Several years ago, I was driving through rural South Carolina and saw a church sign that said “Dirty rotten sinners welcome!” It wasn’t an Episcopal church, but I think it hammers the point home much better and more directly than our generic “The Episcopal Church welcomes you” signs. Because the church is, as Saint Augustine once called it, “A hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” We’ve all lost. We’ve all sinned. And none is beyond redemption.

The mistakes Peter and Paul make are not that different from our own. They miss the mark by trying to hold too tightly to the past and maintain a sense of control, and in doing so they misunderstand and misrepresent the very reality in front of them. They deny people they care about and hurl insults at folks about whom they know next to nothing, except the religious or socio-political position they take. Who among us is not guilty of missing the mark in such ways? It’s not just the folks we tell ourselves are above and beyond the grace, love, and mercy of Jesus, it’s all of us; and blessedly, those gifts he offers are not dependent upon us. The only thing that is dependent upon us is what we, those who have been given the such gift of grace, do with it. 

Jesus shared bread and fish by the campfire with Simon Peter and the others. Annanias gave Paul something to eat before he left the house in which he was baptized. We share bread and wine at the Holy Table. In each case folks are given food for the journey, for the work that is to be done, like Peter and Paul and all the dirty rotten sinners before us. That work is nothing less than to restore all people to unity with God and each other through Jesus Christ. I didn’t make that up, it’s in our Catechism, on page 855 of our red Book of Common Prayer under the question “What is the mission of the Church?” Another way of putting it may be: to accept the gift of grace given to each of us and to be doctors and nurses to this world that is sick and suffering from sin. 

Most biblical scholars agree that the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John is an add-on, a sequel, to the original text. We heard the first ending last week with the words “These things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that through believing you may have life in his name."  Sounds like a pretty good ending.  But like Star Wars, Rocky, or the Godfather – all of which had sequels arguably better than the original – there was more story to tell, more lessons to be learned. Simon Peter needed his redemption moment and to know that love made him more than the worst thing he’d done. The people down through the years hearing this story have needed to know that the Jesus who ate by a campfire early in the morning still shows up, even when we’re not sure. And all of us, like Peter and Paul, need to be reminded of the grace that has been given to us – to everyone – and to remember our work, our call, to not just believe but to follow, and to make our losses count for something. To say, be, and do the Way of Jesus.  

The Faith of Doubting Thomas

'When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."'

--John 20: 19-29

Back in my acting days my directors would always say, “don’t tell me, show me.” What does that mean? Telling is about relaying information, it’s cerebral.  Showing, on the other hand, is experiential.  It says something without having to use words.  Telling instead of showing is seen in the artistic world as being, well, kinda lazy. The Russian playwright Anton Chekov once said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, but show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

The apostles who were met by the resurrected Jesus on Easter Sunday were so moved by the experience that they had to tell the only one not there that day about it. And that, of course, was Thomas. I’m sure they were very detailed in their explanation, painting a perfect mental picture, but Thomas doesn’t believe them.  Perhaps because he’s had his heart broken once and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up and have them dashed again. Thomas isn’t about telling, he wants to be shown.  So, the next week Jesus arrives in the same manner and shows Thomas the nail and spear marks on his body, prompting Thomas to give that beautiful exclamation, “My Lord and my God!”

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio

Jesus was a show-er.  Before his crucifixion Jesus showed people the love and mercy of God, he didn’t just tell them about it.  And after his resurrection, he doesn’t just rely on the other 10 to tell Thomas that he has been raised, but he comes to Thomas and shows him that he’s alive.  

But doesn’t Jesus chastise Thomas for believing only because he sees? “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe”? We call him Doubting Thomas for a reason. Yes, those are the words on the page, but I’m afraid that some of us have heard messages over time that have done a disservice, both to “Doubting” Thomas and to the text itself when we’ve used this line by Jesus as a kind of endorsement for what we might call blind faith – believing whole heartedly in something without any evidence to back it up. 

To understand what is really going on with this text, one needs to know what was happening with the communities that produced the four canonical Gospels, namely the community of the Gospel of John, which definitely bore a grudge against other Christian communities. You see, communities of faith grew up around the apostles and their stories about Jesus, which were all different, hence the reason why we not only have four canonical Gospels – Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John - but many, many others, including: the Gospels of Peter, Mary Magdalene, and Thomas. All of these communities had different ways of telling the Jesus story. The Fourth Gospel was reportedly based around eye-witness accounts from someone called the Beloved Disciple, whom many believed was the apostle John, and these stories were passed down for nearly 100 years before they were written. Over time this community saw their story as the most authoritative, and so in the Fourth Gospel you see not-so-favorable depictions of some of the other apostles: Peter loses the race to the tomb, Mary Magdalene takes a second before she recognizes Jesus, and Thomas is chastised for his unbelief. It’s not so much Jesus being upset at Thomas in this text, as it is the text itself serving as a way for John’s Gospel community to get a dig in at Thomas’ Gospel community. Denominational rivalries have existed as long as there have been followers of Jesus. All this has happened before, and it will happen again!

Furthermore, when Jesus gives that famous benediction – “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe”. – it is less about Thomas specifically and more about the community who received the Fourth Gospel, the folks who read and heard these words. Remember that none of the folks in that community knew Jesus or met him , either his original or resurrected edition. To pronounce a blessing on those who never saw him and yet still believed his message is to lend support and encouragement to not only this Gospel community, but also every single person thereafter who would come to believe the Good News without ever actually having met Jesus of Nazareth. 

This, of course, includes us today. And is there anyone of us right now who doesn’t have doubts at times? Of course not! I wouldn’t be a priest now had my priest growing up not encouraged my own questions and created space for me to explore my doubts and curiosities. She inspired me to be more like Thomas, to make my faith experiential, not just cerebral. For anyone to interpret this Gospel today – a story we hear every year on the second Sunday of Easter - as a knock on Thomas and folks who have doubts or questions about Jesus, the resurrection, God, or whatever misses the point, not only of what the community of the Fourth Gospel was up to but also what Jesus himself models about faith: that it is to be shown, not just told, experiential, not just cerebral. It is to be questioned and wondered about and even, at times, doubted, for in and through the questions, wonders, and doubts, lies true faith. 

Have you ever wondered why Thomas was called Didymus, or the Twin? Some have said it may have been because he had a literal twin who was a disciple but not one of the apostles, others have even said it was because he bore a strong resemblance to Jesus. But the most prominent theory is that it’s because he holds doubt and faith together. Like Janus, the god of beginnings and endings, Thomas embodies two sides of the same coin, sides that have long been considered adversaries but are, in fact, siblings. To paraphrase a sermon from Cardinal Lawrence in the recent movie Conclave – which seems very appropriate right now – “There is one sin I have come to fear above all others: certainly. Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.” Cardinal Lawrence admits to his own doubts during the conclave. Oh, and his first name in the movie is Thomas. Probably not a coincidence. 

One of my favorite tv shows is the 1960s British spy drama The Prisoner, which has an oft-repeated line “Questions are a burden to others and answers a prison for one’s mind.” Fortunately, that ain’t how Jesus works. We don’t check our minds at the door when we come into his house. Thomas’ example reminds us that it is in questioning that we go deeper in our relationship with God and achieve greater spiritual, mental, and emotional maturity.  Our wondering, our doubting leads us to a place where merely telling is not enough.  Honestly, if we are to go out into the world and make disciples, as Jesus says to do, simply telling will not do it; in fact, it often pushes people away. Folks want to be shown. They want to be invited into an experience of the resurrected Jesus. Ours is an experiential faith, not merely a cerebral one. Thomas was not content with a mere cerebral idea or theory about the living Christ. Why should we? For all of us doubters, blessed Thomas, pray for us. 

The Day of Resurrection: Tell It Out Abroad!

'On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.'

--Luke 24: 1-12

It’s amazing, isn’t it??  How every single year, he wins.  Every year we tell the story once more, but even still some years it looks like he might not pull it off. Years of pandemic and heartbreaking transitions. Years of oppressive regimes and the fear of what could happen next. Years when Friday’s grief feels like it will never end and Sunday is merely a dream whispered on the wind. And yet Jesus proves everybody wrong year after year after year. Even this one. He wins again.  God wins again.  Love wins again. Preachers try every Easter to put some new spin on the story, something that’s gonna make the newcomers or someone who hasn’t been in church for a while say, “Man, I’ve been missing out; I gotta come back next week!” But nothing quite captures the image of an empty tomb and the rhetorical question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” 

Because Christ is alive. That’s not a theory or a pleasant thought or a theological statement based on research.  It’s a fact. Christ is alive – present tense – no longer bound to distant years in Palestine, as the hymn says. Despite his newfound aliveness, we don’t see Jesus in the Gospel text for Easter Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene, Johanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women must have, no doubt, been more than a bit disappointed, but Jesus’ no-show is, I suspect, kind of the point. The women didn’t just stand there, they went and told others what they had seen – or, rather, what they hadn’t seen. They expected to see death but didn’t; instead they got a message of life. They expected to see sadness but didn’t; instead they got hope and meaning. Leaving that empty tomb and sharing their experiences, the women were, in the words of the poet Wendell Berry, practicing resurrection.

When we speak of resurrection we often confine it to this happy morning and to Jesus’ actions and his alone. The Day of Resurrection is about Christ conquering death and the grave, being raised to newness of life, yes, however if it is about Jesus alone, then it is little more than a pleasant story. But through our baptism we are the Body of Christ, meaning that his resurrection is our resurrection, not only the promise of physical resurrection after our own physical deaths, but the everyday resurrections that we must keep an eye out for, that we must cultivate in this world of freed Barabbases. And believe me when I say this, resurrection happens every day.

Last Sunday I was on my way home and picking up some Chinese takeout because nothing fuels you for the start of Holy Week like General Tso’s chicken, and I met a young family outside the restaurant. A mother and father and their daughter Harmony, who had just turned 2 years old that day, they said. Seeing my clerical collar they flagged me down. They asked for no money, just a meal. So we went inside, and as her father ordered for them, Harmony climbed all over the chairs, telling everyone she saw hi as they walked by with a grin that woulda melted the coldest heart. I asked where they were staying. Harmony’s mother told me, “In a tent, over by the railroad tracks.” And before I could say another word, she pointed to the ceiling and said, “But he’s been so good to us, Pastor!” There was nothing more for me to say. That family is practicing resurrection. 

To practice resurrection is to have a kind of perspective and knowledge that comes from walking the way of Jesus and experiencing for ourselves a version of the thing that only Jesus did. And I’m not talking about being raised from the dead because that happened to his friend Lazarus a few days earlier. No, what Jesus did was go to hell and come out clean on the other side. And let me tell you, if Jesus can go to hell and come back out the other side, then what in the world is there that cannot be done, huh?! Tell me: What is impossible now?! To quote from the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom, which we heard last night –  and quite possibly the greatest sermon ever written by anyone about anything– “Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was in an uproar for it is destroyed, it is annihilated, it is now made captive. Hell took a body and discovered God. It took earth and encountered heaven. It took what it saw and was overcome by what it did not see. Christ is risen, and life is liberated!” Jesus literally loves the hell out of each and every one of y’all! And when we live our lives truly believing that, deep down in our very dry bones, then we can practice resurrection. Like that family I met. Like the patient facing a terminal diagnosis who refuses to let death have the final say. Like the queer teenager who will not retreat into the shadows and let their identity be erased, even in the face of legislation that threatens to do just that. Like the faithful nonprofit whose funding has been slashed but whose workers keep showing up day after day. Like the migrant worker who puts the needs of his family ahead of his own and takes a bold risk each time he steps out his door just to try to make a better life for the ones he loves. Like the Christians in Jesus’ own homeland, who despite bombings, the reality of apartheid, and the threat of ethnic cleansing still, somehow, came together this week and in the face of occupation and death still managed to shout, “Alleluia! Christ is risen! They are all practicing resurrection because they have all walked the way of Jesus. The way of love. And if the Gospel teaches us anything, if Easter teaches us anything, it is that love always, always wins. 

We are an Easter people. Jesus Christ is risen today and everyday. We need only eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to believe. What would our lives be like if we lived them each day, not just believing, but knowing, way down deep inside, that it’s all true: the cross, the empty tomb, all of it? Some of y’all might have heard the saying that you may be the only Bible anyone ever reads? Well, you may be the only Jesus anyone ever meets. You may be the example of resurrection that loves the hell out of someone else, that preaches light and life where someone has known only darkness and death. Mary and the other women told Peter. Peter told the folks who were too scared to go to the tomb themselves. Who will you tell? Who 

Everything is changed because of what Jesus has done. We have been changed. This Easter Sunday, the first day of the week, the ever-new day of Resurrected Life, allows us from here on to read all our lives backward with understanding, and read them forward with hope, the kind of hope that tells us that things finally have a victorious meaning, no matter how grim they may seem. So, Easter People, what will you do with this wild, resurrected life of yours? 

The Paschal Triduum: One Worship, Three Sacred Days

 Maundy Thursday - Jesus gives the new commandment

As we near the end of this week, our experience begins to shift. Gone are the crowds that greeted Jesus with a king’s welcome into Jerusalem on Sunday. Last night, one of the apostles, Jesus’ most trusted followers, mysteriously snuck away to conspire with the authorities on how to have him arrested, and soon the police will come and take him away, leaving more questions than answers. Yet even knowing what lies ahead for both himself and his friends, Jesus has this last supper with them, one more chance to teach them something about this kingdom of his, a kingdom he has said is both already here and is still to come. That teaching, that mandate that gives this night its name, Maundy Thursday is this: love one another, as I have loved you. 

It's as simple as that. Or is it? Because love isn’t really simple. Love is not a noun, it’s a verb. It’s action. It’s never passive. Love, real love, places demands on us. Real love is about showing, not just telling. Fortunately, Jesus is a shower, and tonight he shows his friends, and all of us, what this kind of love looks like when it’s put into action, and he does so in two ways.

The first we hear about in the letter to the church in Corinth in which Saint Paul recounts the story passed on to him of Jesus, and that last night, taking bread and wine, and, giving these simple gifts new meaning: “This is my Body, my Blood,” he says. A few years later, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke would include this story in their accounts of Jesus’ life, too, but Paul adds that as often as others eat this bread and drink this cup they proclaim Jesus’ death until his coming again. Maybe we take these words for granted somewhat because we hear them each week, but the earliest followers of Jesus understood something very important, that when he told them to do “This” he didn’t mean a ritual action in the context of church worship – because such a thing didn’t exist yet. They were sure that the “This” meant breaking bread and sharing the cup, whenever and wherever they gathered in those house meals that had been part of the Greek symposiums. All of these meals, no matter how mundane they seemed, were sacred because bread and wine were made holy whenever the people of God gathered, took these gifts, blessed them, broke them, and gave them to each other and told stories of their faith. Eventually these gatherings evolved into the celebration of the Eucharist – Greek for ‘Thanksgiving’. This is the first example of love Jesus gives. Yes, to share the thanksgiving meal that is the Eucharist – his very Body and Blood in the context of our worship as it has evolved now – but also to share a meal made holy with others, particularly the kind of people he shared meals with – the poor, the marginalized, the undeserving, and those with whom we are at odds – and to know in those contexts, no matter where and when they happen, that he is there. 

The other lovely example he gives is one only found in the Gospel of John. There is no Last Supper here – at least not the way Paul and the other Gospels tell it. Instead, during the meal, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.  If you understand travel in 1st century Palestine you’ll understand how big of a deal this was. The feet were a mess, callous and muddy, and often bleeding. A servant stood at the house entrance ready with a pitcher and basin to wash the feet of guests and travelers, but since Jesus’ little band had no servant, the master of all takes the servant’s part. They are reluctant to accept such a gift from the one they call rabbi and Lord.  But Jesus compels them to do so. They must empty themselves of their pride, their ego, everything they have stored up for themselves to give them a false sense of security and control. This emptying in Greek is kenosis, it’s what Jesus does tonight, what he will do on the cross; it’s what Paul encouraged the Church in his time to do, what we are called to do. Jesus tells them that they may not understand now, but in time they will.

Do you want to know what really strikes me about these two incredible acts of love? It’s that Judas participates in them. All of the Gospels agree that Judas was there that night. He got washed. Jesus shared the bread and cup with him. Let’s consider that for a moment. He feeds even Judas. He washes even Judas. He knew what was happening. How could he not?! All the signs were there that this guy was pretty shady – stealing from the ministry’s purse and what not. Jesus does it anyway. If the message hasn’t been made clear up to this point, tonight Jesus gives it to us in no uncertain terms: not only is this thing he offers for everyone, but everyone who receives it – the disciples, the community of the Fourth Gospel, us here tonight – must give it away. Without exception. Without judgment. Without smiling faces that mask contempt and ridicule, even to the Judases with whom we are all well acquainted. It ain’t easy. But that’s the mandate. That’s the Maundy.

If you’re anything like me, maybe you find it easier to do the washing of feet than to receive it. The first time I ever experienced a foot washing the priest who did it told me that there was grace in receiving as well as in giving. But that message didn’t hit home truly for me until mid-December of 2021, just after my liver transplant. I had been moved from ICU and due to some medications I’d been given, I had what I’ll just call a pretty big accident in the middle of the night. I yelled and yelled and help finally arrived in the form of a nurse/angel named Linda. She helped me move, and cleaned me up. Through my tears and my shame I apologized over and over, and she just gently said, “Honey, if it happens 10 times I’ll be here 10 times.” That night, she was Jesus. And she made me at last understand the thing that that priest who had washed my feet 15 years earlier had tried to teach me: that we cannot give away what we ourselves have not already received. 

One of the selections that we will sing during our Washing of Feet in a few moments is the ‘Servant Song,’ whose lyrics are especially poignant on Maundy Thursday. “Won’t you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you; pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.” I am privileged and blessed to be surrounded on a regular basis by such servants of Jesus. The Advocate is filled with people eager to help, eager to be Jesus’ hands, feet, and heart to others. I have no doubt that this a church where far more people participate in the washing of another’s feet than do not. However, this evening, in the spirit of that night in the upper room, in the spirit that our Orthodox siblings are also observing this night, it is your clergy – myself and Fr. Nathan – who will wash you, so that you may know what it means to receive this love from us, and then give it away.

A friend of mine shard on social media today a picture of his church’s Maundy Thursday set-up with the caption that they were preparing for the reenactment of Jesus’ washing of feet and institution of the Holy Eucharist. With apologies to my friend, what we do tonight is no reenactment, no simple remembrance. We are there, in that upper room, partaking Christ’s Body and Blood, experiencing the washing of feet, and fully receiving his love. What wondrous love is this, O my soul?! And they will know we are Christians, not by the church we attend, not by how blessed we are with riches or good health, but by what…by our love, by our love! They will know we are Christians by this kind of love. Not mere sentiment, but action – Jesus’ own action, for if he is the head and we are his Body, then our actions are Christ’s own. This holy Table may be the source, but every table you set and share with anyone anywhere is an extension of it. The love you pour out for friend and stranger out there finds its truest meaning here as you receive it for yourselves.  We may not always know what Jesus is doing to us or through us, but in time we will all understand. 

Good Friday - Jesus dies on the cross

Did Jesus have to die?  For the first 1000 years of Christianity’s existence, this wasn’t exactly a question everyone was asking.  It wasn’t that the story of the crucifixion was ignored, far from it. The pilgrim Egeria wrote in the late 4th century about the Holy Week scenes she observed in Jerusalem, and among other practices, she saw folks walking the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus took when he carried his cross up to the Place of a Skull. The pilgrims, she pointed out, would stop at each station and observe periods of silence as they reflected on those events some 450 years prior.  So, no, the crucifixion wasn’t ignored.  Instead, the faithful were invited to walk the same walk as Jesus, to be transformed by their participation.  The event itself, though, was remembered as a senseless act of violence carried out by the government in collusion with a small group of religious fundamentalists.  It was gut-busting, heart-breaking, and not at all redemptive.

Yet we hear all the time that God gave Jesus to die for our sins. Didn’t those folks know that?  It’s not that they didn’t know it, it’s that such a theory wasn’t part of Christian thought and theology until around the year 1050.  It was about that time that a man named Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury formal, introduced a doctrine that shaped how Christians in the western world would view the crucifixion all the way up to today.  His theory, called penal substitutionary atonement, stated that the sin committed in Eden was so great, so awful, that all humanity was damned from that day forth, which was backed up by the examples of violence and cruelty still present in the world. Nothing, Anselm said, was ever going to satisfy God’s wrath against all of us sinners except a blood atonement, a sacrifice like that of the Passover lamb. That’s where Jesus comes in.  Anselm’s theory, then, stated that God substituted Jesus on the cross for all of the rest of us who actually deserved death.  This sacrifice paid the debt humanity owed to God, and thus made it possible for us to know God’s love now that God’s wrath had been assuaged. Jesus doesn’t so much willingly give himself up to death to mock and shame this instrument of human cruelty, as he is an instrument used by God to pay this blood libel. It’s around this time, the turn of the first millennium, that images of Jesus’ suffering, crucifixes showing a dying Jesus on the cross, start popping up, and slowly but surely they become the norm, much more often seen than images of Jesus healing or feeding folks. The emphasis shifted toward the wretchedness of humanity, rather than the goodness of God, and the crucifixion as substitutionary atonement still hammers that point home.

The problem with thinking of the crucifixion in this way, as something that had to happen, is that it not only paints God as a vengeful, angry deity – something Christians in the Orthodox East never adopted -  but it implies that the end justifies the means.  Our salvation was wrought by the cross, therefore the killing of Jesus by the state must ultimately be considered a good thing.  Such thinking naturally led people to consider that, perhaps, there were other instances where the ends justified the means, other times when killing could be a good thing, where violence could be redemptive.  For the first 1000 years of Christianity, however, the idea that violence could be redemptive was antithetical to the faith, as soldiers could not even be baptized and monarchs had to do penance if they participated in any kind of war. But shortly after Anselm proposed his theory of penal substitutionary atonement, all of that changed when Pope Urban II called the First Crusade to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims.  To kill a Muslim infidel was not murder, the Pope decreed, but it was the ticket to the Kingdom of Heaven and could even absolve you of your sin.  The end—the restoration of Jerusalem into the hands of Christians—justified the means—the killing of innocent people.  

From there, well, you know the rest of the story.  The myth of redemptive violence is all around us.  From our favorite superhero films that show the “good” guys killing the “bad” guys, to the state killing men and women in the same manner as Jesus, we cannot escape these images of so-called redemptive violence.  And in the most painful and evil circumstances, individuals are left stuck in cycles of abuse because they are told that their suffering is a good thing and will lead to something positive in the end.  It is not really suffering, no, it is salvation, they are told.  Jesus suffered, after all, so why shouldn’t they.  Indigenous peoples of this continent systematically slaughtered, while those who survived were assimilated into white culture with the motto, “Kill the Indian, save the man!” Enslaved Africans taken into captivity and mercilessly beaten so that their so-called savagery may be cleansed by the violence of their Christian masters, who quoted the Bible while they beat them.  Women suffering at the hands of men who tell them they deserve their beatings and will learn from their mistakes, that they must “submit to their abusers” as the good book says.  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Non-Binary teenagers denied basic health care, the opportunity to learn and grow and hone important, life-saving skills, or even use the proper restroom, because their very existence goes against God’s supposed plan.  And still to this day leaders, both civic and religious, misquote the Bible to promote discrimination and abuse, while the crowd once again chooses Barabbas over Jesus. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. So we call this day good, we are told, without the violence God predestined Jesus to endure, humanity would never know salvation.

But we must remember that God did not crucify Jesus.  Humanity did that, and to be more specific, human institutions of power – collaboration between religion and the state - did it.  This is where human power leads, to violence that is reframed as redemptive; to abusers claiming a sense of righteousness over the abused, who go about their lives believing that this is what they deserve, while those in power wash their hands of any blame, just like Pilate.  No!  This is not God’s power. God’s power invites humanity into something more, into a relationship that deconstructs the myth of redemptive violence.  God’s power calls us OUT of those patterns of being, not into them.  And Jesus’ death is the last straw.  

The crucifixion does, in fact, save us, but it isn’t because we turned Jesus into the ultimate scapegoat who shoulders the blame and punishment for the truly evil things humanity has done. Plenty of Christian preachers focus solely on the crucifixion, pouring guilt onto faithful people who have known nothing but shame and fear of an angry, wrathful God, whose only Son had to be killed because he had to stand in for the violent death they rightly deserved. Violence is NEVER the answer, it is NEVER redemptive, and it is NEVER the way of Jesus.  The crucifixion does save us from hell, but as one theologian put it, “This (the crucifixion itself) is the hell from which we are saved!”; the heretical belief that this is what we deserve, that the end could justify the means.  Jesus did die for us, it’s true, but not in the sense that his death took the place of a death that we all deserved, but rather his death is in solidarity with our own, a death freely offered by Jesus, not imposed by a vengeful God, so that the world could see how senseless it was and never do it again.

Today is not about trying to put a hopeful spin on a tragic situation.  No, I do not believe that Jesus had to die because God was so wrathful. But Jesus DID die, and he died in the most gruesome fashion imaginable at that time.  Today is a day to let that sink in.  Today is a day to pray that we will learn from it, somehow and some way, that we will forsake notions that violence such as this can be a positive thing. and that we will be rid of our own scapegoat mechanisms.  Today is a day to lay everything at the foot of the cross and pray for God’s grace to move us out of such patterns of being and into the way of love.  Only then can we call this day Good.  

The Great Vigil of Easter - Jesus passes over from death to life

“Do you want to go to a Vigil?” the Curate asked me. “Sure,” I said, “what’s that?” It was 2008, and I was working as the youth minister at St. Thaddeus in Aiken, South Carolina. I was 24 years old, a Postulant for Holy Orders, and a lifelong Episcopalian, but I had never seen an Easter Vigil before. My tiny mountain church growing up never spoke of it, and in that first year of working at St. Thad’s, even they, a church with more than eight times as many people, didn’t do it. So I said yes to our Curate, this freshly minted priest who became one of my best friends because he had knowledge that I cleaved to for dear life, even if no one else did. I joined him at his old college church, Good Shepherd in Columbia, and I experienced my first Easter Vigil that Saturday night in 2008. The impression it made was so strong that when we went to St. Thad’s the next morning I told the priest, “We gotta get us one of those!” The next year we did, and that church has had one every year since. 

What was it that moved me so? Was it the lighting of the fire outside that continued to burn and signal to passers-by that God was kindling something in the darkness? Was it the readings – so many readings – that told every piece of the story, bit by bit, from creation, to liberation, to new life? Was it the roaring of the small but mighty congregation as they sang the Gloria en excelsis as the lights came on, bells were wrung, and it was suddenly Easter (no dancing, though)? Or was it getting splashed in the face with holy water – asperges, I learned they called it – for the first time in an indoor liturgy with the words “Remember your baptism”? As you can likely guess, it was all of it. Because it’s all here, everything we are as Christians is wrapped up in this most holy night, the culmination of this three-day liturgy we call the Paschal Triduum. A couple years after that first Easter Vigil a seminary professor would tell us that if we Christians were only permitted one night to worship all year long, it would have to be this one, even more so than Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. My friend the Curate would’ve agreed with that. And so do I. 

We began tonight in darkness, just as the world did, just as we all did before we burst out of our mother’s womb. We did not hear all of the suggested readings for this evening – some are happy about that, others not so much – but we did hear again the purpose for which God created all things, which was love, as Julian of Norwich reminds us. All of it, plants of every kind, winged birds and sea creatures, and humanity itself, all made manifest through the breath, the wind, the spirit of God for the purpose of being in right relationship and balance. Over time this relationship was shattered when humanity, unlike the rest of living matter that stayed in the Garden, decided that we were just fine on our own, and through this missing of the mark, through sin, we fell further and further out of relationship with one another, with creation, and with God. Yet we heard also tonight how God did not give up on God’s people, how our God who created all things and intervenes in human history, brought this people out of the bondage of empire and into freedom. But empires are not easily vanquished, and so as Egypt fell away another, Babylon, took its place, and sin and darkness seemed to take hold of God’s people once more. But then we heard the story of a prophet named Ezekiel, who listened to God’s voice and witnessed God doing an impossible thing, bringing a valley of dry bones back to life – bone to its bone, sinew to sinew, muscle to muscle; this, God said through the prophet, is what I will do to the whole nation of your people, and truly to the whole of creation itself. 

And in the fullness of time, God’s love for the creation was so great that God had to become part of it and experience it from the other side. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, God would taste the fullness of the human condition, even the bitterness of death, a violent and senseless death. There was no meaning to any of it on Friday afternoon. But there’s fixin’ to be. The promise God made long ago is about to be fulfilled. We’ve walked with Jesus through betrayal and death and we sit in the darkness with him now in the tomb. We can feel it coming, can’t we, inching closer and closer? We are there at the very threshold of a new creation.

But not…just…yet. Jesus still has work to do. On this night, at this very moment, he is loosening the bonds of hell itself. Going to the place where the dead have resided, cut off from the light and love of God, Jesus grabs them by the wrist, pulls them up from their graves, and locks the doors from the inside. And as he goes to hell and comes back out again, as the dawn of Easter breaks in a few moments, and we ring our bells and noisemakers and dance the Troparion that proclaims that Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, we receive once more the waters that makes us part of his very Body, the waters of our new birth every bit as sacred as the waters of the womb from which we burst forth, waters that wash us not merely from the outer grime and dirt of our daily lives, but from the inner anguish and despair that whispers so sweetly that it’s easier to stay in our personal hells than to let Jesus pulls us up out of them. We are renewed this night by those waters, just as the whole of creation is renewed by what St. Augustine called the Paschal Mystery, Jesus’ Passover from death to life. It’s the opposite of what we are told is true, but this, sisters and brothers, is the truest story that has ever been told, and it’s all right here.

“Do you want to go to a Vigil?” Oh yeah! Every year. I want to hear the story, our story, again and again. I want to know that our God that created all things is still setting the captives free and bringing life to what was dried up and left for dead. I want to experience the waters splash on my face, the lights break forth, and the Bread and Cup passed around and remember that because of what Jesus does this night, tomorrow will be different. Easter Sunday, the first day of the week, the ever-new day of Resurrected Life, will allow us from here on to read all our lives backward with understanding, and read them forward with hope, the kind of hope that tells us that things finally have a victorious meaning, no matter how grim they may seem. It is the hope that tells us in spite of our disappointments, failures, and broken hearts, the light of Christ – that very light that burns both in our Paschal Candle and in our hearts - cannot ever be extinguished. That is our hope, the Easter hope, and this is the night when it is fulfilled.