Friday, April 21, 2017
II Easter - April 23, 2017
II Easter
April 23, 2017
Holy Trinity & St.
Anskar
To you darkness and light
are both alike.
+In the Name of God,
the Holy and Undivided Trinity
The delightful Sufi stories of the Incredible Mullah
Nasruddin include one in which the holy man is crawling around under a
streetlight in the middle of the night. A friend passing by asks him what he’s
doing, and Nasruddin tells him that he is looking for a key that he has lost.
“Where do you think you lost
it?” Asks the friend.
Nasruddin replies that he is
sure that he lost it “somewhere over there,” pointing off into the darkness.
The puzzled friend naturally
asks the mullah why he is searching under the streetlight if the lost key is
somewhere else?
Nasruddin explains that it’s
dark over there and the only way one can find anything is to search where one
can see — in the light!
As usual with these stories,
behind the joke there is a profound truth. I think it has something to do with
today’s famous story about Doubting Thomas.
Poor Thomas — the twin, the
double — had a double-mind. His finger
is the finger we refer to when we speak of the “finger of the doubt.” Because
he wanted to verify the Resurrection by touching Jesus’ wounds. He was like
Nasruddin, looking for the lost key in the light. One part of Thomas’s double
mind insisted on sensory verification. “I will not believe unless…” But his
doubt was not the opposite of faith. For faith is not just an opinion about reality; it is also fidelity, and Thomas was the most
faithful of the apostles, in that sense: he was the one who admonished the
other apostles to go up to Jerusalem with Jesus and die with Him. And it was
Thomas who made the orthodox confession we heard today, addressing Jesus as “my
Lord and my God.”
So Thomas is a double-minded
person. His will was true — and fidelity, is a matter of will, not of the
understanding. But Thomas’s understanding, requires verification. Empirical verification. He was looking
for the key in the light, like Nasruddin. In that way, Thomas represents all of
us, illustrating the double meaning of belief: it can mean either opinion or
trust. In the first sense, belief has to do with understanding — what we think is true. In the other sense belief means
trust in someone or something. As
Thomas shows, it is possible to have faith in one sense and not in the other.
It is possible to be faithful to someone, while at the same time not believing
everything that is said about that person, however glorious, without
verification. The Resurrection is too
good to be true. It is probably not an accident that we remember “Doubting
Thomas” on the very next Sunday after Easter.
John says that he has
relayed this story about Thomas so that we “may come to believe that Jesus is
the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing [we] may have life in
His Name.” The NAME is not a magic word – I take it to mean reputation or the pubic narrative about
someone. So in that sense, Life in His
Name begins in faith. Not
believing that it is true, but trusting the Name – the narrative – to be a
genuine path to life, in spite of our own double-mind,
our own doubt. To live in the Name of
Jesus, is to hold in our consciousness the stories about Jesus, to accept them
insofar as we can, and that faithfully. Our fidelity in remembering these
stories and holding them in our consciousness more and more, has the effect —
over time — of nurturing the conviction that they are true. So that faith in
the sense of fidelity brings about faith in the sense of belief.
Notice that although Thomas
said that he would not believe unless he physically touched the Risen Lord, we
are not told that he did so, even though the Lord invited him to. Instead, he immediately
addressed the Lord as God. He kept his “finger of doubt” to himself. Somehow,
his experience of the Risen Lord so transcended the doubting part of his double
mind, that it was no longer relevant to his consciousness. He had found the
lost key in the darkness, that is in the hidden Mystery of reality vaster that
the little spot of light under the streetlight.
The Resurrection is beyond
our comprehension. It is far greater than anything we can say about it, and any
description will be inadequate. Maybe that is the significance of the detail
that the room in which the Risen Lord appeared was locked. Jesus is really
there, but He opens to our consciousness astounding new dimensions of reality,
so that Thomas’s previous insistence upon verification becomes oddly
unimportant to him.
Divine Reality is hidden
from us: God is invisible and silent. As long as we insist on empirical
evidence, we are like the Incredible Mullah Nasruddin, searching futilely for
the lost key to everything in the light of ordinary understanding. But the Key
cannot be found there. Ordinary understanding is no help. Divine Reality is to
be found in the darkness, that is to say, beyond our ordinary understanding, in
the Cloud of Unknowing, as the great,
anonymous, English mystic called it, beyond our ability to verify, where the
empirical finger of doubt is irrelevant
and useless.
Divine Reality — like the Resurrection
— is beyond all of our categories, our ordinary ways of understanding reality.
God is not to be found there: to God, darkness and light are both alike.
Alleluia!
Christ
is risen from the dead,
Trampling
down death by death,
And giving
life to all in the tombs.
Alleluia!
Paschal Vigil - April 15, 2017
Paschal Vigil
April 15, 2017
Holy Trinity & St.
Anskar
…trampling down death by
death…
+In the Name of God,
the Holy and Undivided Trinity
Nowadays, one hears our era
called the Anthropocene: the brief geological period in which human beings have
succeeded to such an extent that great numbers of species are extinguished by
our activity, which may well also result in our own extinction. There are some
who observe that this fearful danger is really quite recent. For most of our
time, human beings posed no threat to life on earth. The threat has developed
as a result of the economic organization known as capitalism. These people
would rather call the present geological era the Capitalocene. There is controversy about this, as you may imagine.
But most are pretty pessimistic about our future. We must change or die:
evolution or extinction, and the smart money is not on evolution!
Pessimism
and entropy — things running down, the power of death as the long-term future.
It is hard for honest scientists to see anything else, because science — to be
science — cannot consider Spirit. Science must proceed without God – as though
God did not exist, and material creation without God is a tendency toward
death. The Resurrection means that this entropy, extinction, running down, and
ultimate death — all that science can properly conclude — is not the ultimate
reality.
A
couple of weeks ago on the third Sunday of Lent, we heard the remarkable and
mystifying story of our Lord’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.
The well symbolizes life. Our Lord tells woman that it she drinks of the water
He could give her, she will never thirst again. Then He says to the bewildered
disciples
My food is to do the will of Him Who sent me and to
complete His work.
That is really an audacious
thing to say, considering that his Father’s work
was the six-day work of creation, after which God rested on the seventh day.
Jesus was saying to the disciples and the Samaritan woman that this work of
creation was in fact incomplete, and
He, God the Son, was come to complete it.
Audacious
as this is, it is not entirely without precedent in the Hebrew Scriptures. In
the second account in Genesis, we
read
So
out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and
every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each
living creature, that was its name.
If we
understand the significance of the name of the thing, for the people who composed
this record, we have to recognize that Adam — the human one — assisted God in
the process of creation, because, for those people, the name is not an incidental
label, but an expression of the essence of a thing. So if God waits for Adam to
see what he would call the creatures, it means that Adam helps God to create
them. And now the New Adam is come to
complete His Father’s work: to flood the world with living water, so that
creation might never thirst again — that is that Death might be abolished — and
to breathe into the world new life, so that all creation might worship in
Spirit and in Truth. In other words, the future of the cosmos is more promising
than the Anthropocene or Capitalocene thinkers can legitimately imagine.
The
Eastern and Western churches differ slightly in their understanding of the Holy
Sabbath that followed Good Friday, the sixth day. Jesus’ last words were it is finished. He referred not only to His
own earthly life and suffering, but to the Creation of the world. For His Death
was God’s entry into the stronghold of Death. It is hard to talk about that
place, because we are talking about that which is not — nihil — the state of annihilation, nothingness, the Abyss, the Void,
the triumph of Entropy. The West tends to think of this Holy Sabbath as a rest for the Godman. The East rather
thinks of it as a very active Day indeed, in which God the Son Tramples upon
the gates of hell, Binds Its Ruler, breaks down its prison walls, and leads all
the captives out, spoiling the spoiler of
his prey, in our translation of the ancient hymn. Although this all takes place
on the Holy Sabbath, it doesn’t sound that restful! It is the consummation of
the Victory — the completion of the Work to which Jesus referred when he said It is finished.
Death
and separation from God are destroyed. The Word of God, by Whom all things were
made, now clothed in the flesh of the New Adam, re-creates the universe. What
follows is the unfolding in time of this mighty act. In the words of the final
Solemn Collect on Good Friday
All that follows in our
history — though it be hundreds of millions of years — is one Day. Science can legitimately
discern only repetitive cycles: for the fleshly consciousness, the day that
follows the seventh day, is the first day of the following week — over and over
again as the cosmos inevitably runs down into stasis and nothingness. The Resurrection, known to worshipers in Spirit
and in Truth, reveals this new first day of the week as the Eighth Day, which
is to say a Day that is at once in
time and beyond time, the Day when the
women came to the tomb before the rising of the sun when it was yet dark, and found
it empty. What happened is beyond our comprehension, but the Resurrection is
the first evidence of the Victory, the beginning of the completion of the
Father’s work of creation, in which, despite all evidence to the contrary …all things are being brought to their perfection by Him through whom
all things were made.
Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful
servant? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!
Are there any weary with fasting? Let
them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward; If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth
hour, let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss. And if any
delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid by reason
of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives the
last even as the first. He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh
hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first. To this one He gives,
and upon another He bestows. He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.
Let us all enter into the joy of the
Lord! First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor,
rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
You that have kept the fast, and you that
have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on
it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the
cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!
Let no one grieve at his poverty, for
the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn that he has fallen
again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear
death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh. Isaiah foretold this
when he said, "You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him
below."
Hell is in an uproar because it was done away
with.
It is in an uproar because it is mocked.
It is in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It
is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for 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 saw not.
O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is
thy victory?
Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are
annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast
down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of
its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of
those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be Glory and Power
forever and ever. Amen!
Good Friday - April 14, 2017
SERMON
FOR GOOD FRIDAY
April 14, 2017
HOLY TRINITY & ST. ANSKAR
And if I be lifted up,
I will draw everyone to myself.
+ In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity
Reconciliation means the restoration of a broken relationship.
When we speak of humanity reconciled to God by the Death of His Son, we
conventionally think the sacrifice of Christ has somehow changed God’s attitude
towards us, as though God needed to be appeased. But maybe it’s the other way
around: the awful death of Christ changes our attitude toward God, the Cross appeases
US!
We all suffer. We want
to know why. Especially we want to know why the innocent suffer. It isn’t fair.
A good God would not permit that. So, we are tempted to blame God, as Adam did,
or to conclude that the whole idea of a good God is a deception. In other
words, one way or another we separate ourselves from God.
The Cross rescues us from this
brink of death, because it shows that
whatever we suffer God suffers — and more. It does not answer our question as
to why it must be so; but it
reconciles us to God by showing us that there is no limit to God’s love and
mercy.
The Cross does not change God’s
attitude towards us; it changes our attitude toward God. Thus does the Cross of the Son
reconcile us to God. Whatever forgiveness we need, God has given before we were
even born, before the creation of the world. God’s Mercy Is infinite and
invincible from all eternity. The Father
of Infinite Love does not require the horrible death of the Only-begotten Son
to pay for our sin. What Almighty God cannot do is to compel our love. Love that is compulsory is not love at all. The
Prodigal Son’s father cannot force his elder brother to rejoice at the welcome
banquet. What will change the brother’s mind? What will overcome his
self-imposed separation, that is to say his sin? What will reconcile him to his
brother and his father?
God’s answer is the Cross. When we
speak of sin washed away by the Blood of Christ — of the Lamb of God, Who takes
away the sin of the world — we can think of this Redemption as the conquest of
our own resentful, self-imposed separation. When we look at the Cross we can no
longer blame God for our suffering. God suffers with us. The Creator suffers
all the consequences of creation. God suffers everything that we do, including separation
from God, which is to say GOD DIES.
All the teachings of wisdom and all
the miracles of healing and exorcism might not be enough to overcome our
separation. But this public suffering will do it.
And if I be lifted, I will draw everyone to myself.
We worship your Cross, O Christ,
and we praise and glorify
your
holy Resurrection,
for the wood of the cross has
brought joy to the world.
Maundy Thursday - April 13, 2017
SERMON
FOR MAUNDY THURSDAY
April 13, 2017
HOLY TRINITY & ST. ANSKAR
+ In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity
Communion, service, betrayal, exposure — God-in-the-Flesh
says THIS IS MY BODY, referring to
the bread He is holding and also to the people who eat it together. [ Could it be that even expressed that in a gesture?]. A modern Greek theologian wrote
an influential book entitled Being as
Communion. Everything that is exists in relationship — from atoms to
galaxies to parallel universes (if there be any). To be is to be in communion.
The relationship between being and communion is especially apparent in
living things, and among them it is even more apparent in those capable of
reflective self-consciousness: human beings. We cannot live except in communion
with each other and the whole world. But we have a choice. One could say that
it is a choice is between HOSPITALITY and BETRAYAL.
Foot-washing was a sign of
hospitality. Guests reclined around the table, their bare feet at the other end
of their couch. Servants would come around and wash their feet. It was kind of
like the hot towel offered at a Japanese table. This is the third foot-washing
noted in the Gospels: the first two happened to Jesus: the Woman of Bad Reputation washed His feet
with her tears and dried them with her hair at the house of the Pharisee; then
Mary of Bethany anointed his feet with extremely costly perfume, causing Judas
to complain about the waste.
But this time Jesus Himself does
the washing. There are two meanings here: first, He is our Host and we are His
guests. But usually it was slaves who washed the feet of the guests, not the
host himself. So Peter objects: The
Messiah is the King, and Kings don’t wash anybody’s feet – slaves do that. And Peter gets the usual rebuke, Because the
second significance of the foot-washing is the Mystery of Divine Abasement: God Almighty has assumed the role of a slave.
In this form, He gives us what He
calls “a New Commandment,” that we love one another. (Maundy is an old word related to comMANDment). Love one another as I have loved you, meaning
that we are to make the welfare of the other our chief concern, whatever the
cost. This Maundy enacts the meaning
of the Mystery of the Bread and Wine:
Communion means that my neighbor IS myself, for we are all one Body, He
commands us to act out that unity as He showed us.
But something else happens tonight,
something terrible. The Kiss, the sign of welcome and hospitality, the kiss
expressing the mutual love and self-giving that He has commanded becomes the
sign of betrayal. Judas has exchanged New Life for money, and he seals the deal
with a kiss. As our Lord said, it would have been better for that man if he had
not been born. Like Esau, he has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, and
Judas becomes the type not only of betrayal but of avarice. Both are the
opposite of Communion, both the opposite of life, of being itself, and Judas went out and hanged himself. In this
life we choose every day between communion and avaricious betrayal.
And no one makes the right choice
every day. Let’s not forget the Judas wasn’t alone in his betrayal, his
abandonment of life. The apostles all went to sleep, and then — speaking for
all of them — Peter denied Jesus three times, as we will hear tomorrow.
Tonight we focus on the connection
between communion and exposure, communion and vulnerability. Those who would
live in communion will be exposed and vulnerable to each other. When we carry
the Body of Christ to the symbolic GETHSEMANE of our altar of repose, we refer
to it as the “Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.” Christ Himself is totally
exposed and vulnerable to us. The Great Mystery of the vulnerability of God is
part of the significance of this rite.
It is through divine exposure and vulnerability that our sin is overcome
we are reconciled to God.
Our sin is our separation from God
and from one another. Our sin is our abandonment of communion and mutual
service in favor of a miserable Thirty pieces of silver.
