Monthly Archives: April 2019

Discipline & Commitment

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Second Sunday of Easter, Year C
April 28, 2019

Acts 5:27-32 Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
Revelation 1:4-8 To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.
John 20:19-31 Peace be to you…I send you…receive the spirit of holiness.

O God of life, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

 Our Gospel reading for today is a little like watching a prime-time serial program where the story leaves off at the end of one episode and picks up the next week only several hours later in the story. This passage begins, “being evening on that first day” – narratively, the same day that the women had found the tomb empty, the same day that Mary Magdalene had encountered the risen Lord. The disciples were hiding behind shut doors because they were afraid.
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Heaven

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Easter Sunday (C)
April 21, 2019

Isaiah 65:17-25 Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.
1 Corinthians 15:19-26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Luke 24:1-12 Amazed at what had happened.

Good morning! I was hoping you’d be here. You look beautiful. Thank you for coming to Emmanuel Church to kick-off the festival of the Great Fifty Days of Easter. I think that the Church gives us 12 days of Christmas, 40 days of Lent and 50 days of Easter, because Easter is the hardest to grasp. I’m glad that you’re here whether you love this holiday, or you don’t so much. Maybe you are here because it matters to someone you love, or you are here for a sadder reason. I love to say, whether you have come for celebration or solace, whether you are energized or exhausted, excited or grumpy, whether you have skipped or stumbled into this sanctuary, my hope for all of you is that, you will leave here today knowing more deeply that you are loved – that even if (and maybe especially if) you don’t feel like you “fit in,” still, you belong here today. Emmanuel Church is a place where we actively practice belonging to one another no matter what. It’s not always easy, but it is always worth it. This is a place where we focus our efforts not on whether we (or anyone else) will get into heaven, but on whether any heaven will get into us.[1]

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Beginning Our Holiest Week

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Palm Sunday (C)
April 14, 2019

Isaiah 50:4-9a It is the Lord God who helps me.
Philippians 2:5-11 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
Luke 23:1-49 “????” (So many questions.)

…they had been enemies…

1: All other Sundays we begin the service inside. Why do we begin outside on Palm Sunday?

Every year at least one person tells me how much they dislike our Palm Sunday ritual of blessing and processing with palms – and it’s never been a complaint about how, in the old days, that is, in medieval times, the procession used to be from one church to another and back again, and now it’s just out one door and in the other. “Why do we do it at all?” is the question behind the objection. My response is not intended to stifle the grumbling – grumbling is usually okay with me because it’s a sign of engagement; it’s a sign of intelligent life! My response is that I prefer embodied liturgy and there just aren’t nearly enough opportunities for folks in the congregation to move and pray, or move and sing, between our boxy seating arrangements and our Anglo-Saxon religious heritage, which is pretty buttoned up. I do understand that going outside and coming back in is disorienting and chaotic and chews up time, and it separates those who are willing and able to do it from those who aren’t. Besides, this Palm Sunday is also a day when we have visitors who are in town for the marathon. On the other hand, church is a place where we regularly have the chance to participate in things that we don’t necessarily like, with the assurance that the thing that one person dislikes is the very thing that someone else in the community loves. When we’re doing it right, we take turns liking and disliking things in this community. Sometimes we are giving by our participation, and sometimes we are receiving. Sometimes it’s both.

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Love is about to do a new thing.

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Fifth Sunday in Lent (C)
April 7, 2019

Isaiah 43:16-21 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Philippians 3:4b-14 Press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
John 12:1-8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.

O God of gratitude and hope, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

In my nearly two decades of preaching, I have ranted many times about the story we just heard our deacon Bob read from the Gospel of John. My chief complaint is about the way the lectionary and Sunday School lessons privilege the story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair, rather than the older (and I think truer) story of an unnamed uppity woman anointing Jesus’ head with costly perfume, the way a prophet anoints a king. If you haven’t heard my rant, or want to hear it again, speak with me at coffee hour![1] I have also ranted many times about the Church’s misuse of Jesus’ response to the complaint about extravagance that “you always have the poor with you.” When a complaint about extravagance comes out of the mouth of one who is stealing from the common purse, we know to suspect that the complaint is not legitimate and Jesus’ response is not about ignoring those who are poor whether he is with them a little while or not. It’s just the opposite.

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