It Has Just Begun . . .

Easter Day
Acts 10.34-43; Colossians 3.1-4; John 20.1-18
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Spoiler alert! Christ is risen!

Although the details of the Easter narratives as contained in each of the four Gospels vary in specific details, in all of the accounts women are the first to arrive at Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning. In John’s version, Mary Magdalene, common to all the accounts, is the only woman to come to the tomb that morning. Having a women be the first witnesses to such a monumental event is a remarkable thing in and of itself. In that day and age, women were not considered credible enough to give testimony in Jewish courts. Yet, women were the first to offer witness to the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he promised. And Mary Magdalene is the first to have a face-to-face encounter the Risen Christ.

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Earthshaking News

Great Vigil of Easter
Genesis 22.1-18; Exodus 14.10-31, 15.20-21; Ezekiel 36.24-28; Romans 6.3-11; Matthew 28.1-10
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

“Suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it” (Mt 28.2).

In Matthew’s account, the resurrection is heralded by an earthquake. And if you remember back to our Passion narrative on Palm Sunday, at the moment of Jesus’ death, “the earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Mt 27.51b). Coincidence? Of course not. In the Hebrew scriptures earthquakes are often interpreted as a signs or manifestations of God’s power and authority. We see this reflected by the response of witnesses at the crucifixion – “when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’” (Mt 27.54).

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What God's Love Looks Like

Good Friday
Isaiah 52.13—53.12; Hebrews 4.14-16, 5.7-9; John 18.1—19.42
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

We once again enter into God’s time. We now find ourselves standing at the foot of the cross, looking up at our Lord, nailed there, dying a horrible death. How did we get here? Our minds reel with the memory of the events of the past few hours. How a meal of unity quickly gave way to an act of betrayal. How a celebration of God’s justice gave way to an act of injustice. How an impassioned message of “love one another” gave way to hate-filled cries of “Crucify him!” How a celebration of life gave way to a sentence of death. It’s hard not see evil and hate in this gruesome scene.

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Model of Loving Service

Maundy Thursday
John 13.1-17, 31b-35
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

As we again enter into God’s time, we are gathered in the Upper Room with Jesus and the disciples. We are here to celebrate a special meal. This is the Passover feast, instituted some 1,200 years before as the children of Israel are preparing to flee Egypt – the meal described in our Old Testament reading. A meal that is established as a “perpetual ordinance” for the Jewish people. But tonight, that meal takes on a new meaning for those of us who follow Jesus. In God’s time, this meal commemorating the liberation of our people takes on a greater significance. Jesus takes the bread and wine, common elements of the meal, and gives them new meaning only possible in God’s time. The elements of a past meal are signified with meaning of a future event – Jesus’ death and resurrection. Elements of bread and wine becoming Christ’s body and blood, given as a symbol of Christ’s redeeming life and work. Given as a new covenant for the salvation of us all. Given as a sign and a promise of a deeper form of liberation – liberation from sin and death. In God’s time, in this one meal, we are experiencing the beginning of the Exodus toward new life in the Promised Land, and a New Exodus toward eternal life in the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God.

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In God's Time

Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday
Matthew 21.1-11; Matthew 26.14—27.66
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

How do we make sense out of what we have just witnessed this morning? Throughout Lent we have talked about being on a journey. The journey we make with Jesus to Jerusalem. Today, we have arrived at the gates of Jerusalem. And suddenly, we find ourselves in the midst of a disorienting time warp. We find that time is suddenly compressed. We have traveled the span of five days, from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, in the space of a half hour. In this brief time, we have gone from shouting “Hosanna!” to shouting “Crucify him!” We have gone from raising palm branches to raising Jesus on the cross.

The events of these five days are clearly defined. Jesus has made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He celebrates his last meal with his disciples on Maundy Thursday. After supper, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying. He is then betrayed by Judas, one of the Twelve, whereupon he is immediately arrested by the temple soldiers. He is taken to the house of the high priest, where he is put on trial. As the trial is ending Friday morning, Peter denies Jesus three times. Jesus is then taken to Pontus Pilate, the Roman governor, for a second trial. Being found guilty, Jesus is tortured, and then led away to be crucified at Golgotha.

These are the chronological events. A matter of record. These are the events, horrendous though they may be, that we commemorate on this day. The events we will repeat in more detail, in the coming week. Such is the flow of events in our reckoning of time. What the Greeks termed chronos – the linear movement of time from past to present to future. The way we all experience time, chronologically. From where we sit today, on April 9, 2017, this is all in the past. But is it really in the past?

As Christians, we are also subject to a different flow of time – an alternative experience of time. In the events we have witnessed in the last half hour, we have moved out of chronos into the mystery of what is known as kairos. Another concept borrowed from the Greeks and imbued with Christian significance, kairos means “the appointed time in the purpose of God.” Kairos is God’s time. Eternal time. What Peter, in his second letter, describes when he says “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” (2 Peter 3.8). That God experiences all moments at the same time. Past, present, and future occur simultaneously in God’s perception of time.

Theologically speaking, whenever we worship, we enter into that sense of kairos. When we worship, we, in our present, enter into the events of salvation history and participate in how those events are played out in the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God – played out in what we perceive to be some future time. In our worship, all time comes together – past, present, and future – into one moment.

Nowhere – or maybe no-when – is this more evident than in Holy Week. Particularly so in our commemoration of Palm Sunday [slash] Passion Sunday. While we are not readily able to experience kairos other than as a momentary gift from God, we can at least get an idea of it through the compressed sense of time we experience on this particular day. Approximating that all the events of this coming week are happening at once in God’s time.

In our participation in kairos, we have a different experience of the events we heard recounted today. Again, the Greeks have a concept for this – anamnesis, which literally means “remembering.” This is a key concept in our theology of worship. In worship we recall God's saving deeds. This is not simply a passive process of recalling the events we commemorate, but rather is one in which we actually enter into the Paschal mystery – specifically, the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In short, we don’t just recall the events of Holy Week. We are participating in them. We are re-membering them. Made a member of, a part of, what is going on. In God’s time, we are actually there, witnessing the events of Holy Week, alongside Jesus.

In God’s time, we are actually there, at the gates of Jerusalem, as Jesus makes his triumphal entry. We are there in the crowd, waving palm branches as we follow him through the city streets – just as we did during our procession from the garden into the church. We are there with the crowd shouting “Hosanna!”

In God’s time, we are actually there in the Upper Room, as Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with his disciples – and with us. The Last Supper. Just as we are there every time we celebrate the Eucharist. We are there at the table as he takes the loaf of bread, blesses is, breaks it, and gives it to us, saying, “Take, eat; this is my body” (Mt 26.26). We are there as he takes a cup of wine, gives thanks, and gives it to us saying “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26.27-28).

In God’s time, we are actually there in the Garden of Gethsemane, after supper, as Jesus goes off to pray. We are there with Peter, James, and John – like them, unable to stay awake for just one hour as our Lord asks.

In God’s time, we are awakened as Judas, accompanied by temple soldiers, comes into the Garden. We look on as Judas goes to Jesus, greets him, kisses him, and in so doing betrays him. We stand by helplessly as Jesus is arrested and taken away.

In God’s time, we are there outside the house of Caiaphas, the high priest, where Jesus is on trial before the scribes and elders of the Temple. All the rest of the disciples, except for Peter, have fled into the night. Maybe we wanted to go with them. But we are here, waiting. And then we hear Peter, confronted by onlookers, deny three times that he knows Jesus. We look on shocked that Peter, the de facto leader of the disciples, would do that. Particulalry after saying he would go to his death for Jesus. But would we have done any differently?

In God’s time, we stand helpless as Jesus is taken to Pontus Pilate. Standing in the courtyard we are dismayed, even offended, by the shouts from the crowd – “Crucify him!” In the aftermath of those frenzied cries, we watch in disbelief as our teacher, our friend, is sentenced to death. We look on helplessly, as he is beaten, mocked, humiliated, unable to do anything.

In God’s time, we follow Jesus as he carries a cross to Golgotha, the garbage dump outside the city. We watch in horror as Jesus is stripped naked and nailed to the cross, then lifted up for all who pass by to see.

In God’s time, we stand at a distance, with Mary Magdalene and the other women, watching Jesus die a slow, agonizing death.

(pause)

This is what it means to be Christian. Particularly as we begin Holy Week. To be willing to enter into kairos – God’s time. To experience the joys that come with shouts of “Hosanna!!” And to experience the pain and sorrow that come with shouts of “Crucify him!” For it is only by entering into the fullness of this Holy Week experience that, one week from now, we may similarly enter into the fullness of the Easter experience.

May this Holy Week be for you a rich and blessed experience of life lived in God’s time, as you re-member first-hand what this journey is all about, and where it will ultimately lead you. In God’s time.

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The Promise of Resurrection

Fifth Sunday in Lent (Year A)
Ezekiel 37.1-14; John 11.1-45
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Today we begin the final leg of our Lenten journey – the journey to Jerusalem. For next week, on Palm Sunday, we enter with Jesus into Jerusalem, where over the course of what we know as Holy Week, we will witness betrayal, injustice, death. And after that, Easter. And the Resurrection.

Today’s readings give a glimpse of what is to come at the end of this long journey. A flavor of the final victory that is to come. The victory achieved by Jesus. The victory achieved for us.

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Life-Giving Water

Third Sunday in Lent (Year A)
Exodus 17.1-7; John 4.5-42
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Humans can survive three weeks without food, but only three days without water. Even fewer in less hospitable environments like deserts. Water is absolutely critical to maintaining life. As we’ve seen in our own state, now in the sixth year of drought, with California being the driest it’s been in 500 years, access to water is an increasingly major concern. So critical is this precious resource that many experts are now saying that the major regional, even global, wars of the future will not be over access to oil or food or land, but over access to water. 

In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated March 22 as World Water Day. World Water Day is about taking action to tackle the water crisis. Today, there are over 663 million people living without a safe water supply close to home, spending countless hours queuing or trekking to distant sources, and coping with the health impacts of using contaminated water. The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015, include a target to ensure everyone has access to safe water by 2030, making water a key issue in the fight to eradicate extreme poverty (source).

Against this backdrop, our lectionary readings for this Sunday – a mere three days before Word Water Day – just happen to be about water. About access to water. Our lectionary readings were set long before the designation of World Water Day. While pure happenstance, one might question if there was a little divine inspiration at work.

In our first reading from Exodus, Israel is wandering in the desert. They are thirsty for water, so they cry out to God, “Give us water to drink” (Ex 17.2). Their thirst for water, while very real, is symbolic of a deeper thirst. A thirst for God, for assurance of God’s presence among the people. At God’s command, Moses strikes a rock, bringing forth a stream of water. In this act, God, through Moses, demonstrates his presence among his people. This is God’s gracious provision to his people. They receive water that sustains them physically in their desert journey. And they receive the assurance of spiritual sustenance through the presence of God, symbolized by that water. They see God once again bring life from a totally unexpected place.

And water plays a key role in our Gospel reading, as well. The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well is the longest pericope in the Gospels. The longest recorded conversation between Jesus and another person. And it’s about water. Stopping by Jacob’s well, deep in Samaritan territory, Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. The woman is puzzled that Jesus, obviously a Jew, would even speak to her, let alone ask for something from her.

First off, there was a great, centuries-old animosity between Jews and Samaritans. Contact between the two peoples was prohibited. Second, she is a woman. A Jewish rabbi would never publically speak to a woman. And to top it all off, this particular woman was clearly a sinner of note. She has had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband. Why, because of this alone, she is even shunned by her own people. Hence her coming to the well alone in the hottest part of the day, instead of coming with the other women of the village in the cooler, morning hours. Such is her shame.

In response to the woman’s expression of puzzlement of these clear breaches of social norms, Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (Jn 4.10). This leads to an almost theological discussion about water – physical water as a symbol for something deeper, which Jesus refers to as “living water.” After lengthy discussion, it is apparent that Jesus is this “living water.” The Samaritan woman comes to realize that Jesus is the Messiah who, just as water gives life, is the one who gives eternal life.

The woman is so moved by this encounter that she returns to her village, where she puts aside her shame and the ridicule of her neighbors to tell them what she has experienced. She demands to be heard. “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (Jn 4.29). And she is heard. Through her personal testimony, even though she was initially disrespected by them, the people of her village come to believe who Jesus is. In John’s telling of the Gospel story, this woman proclaims the first public profession of faith.

Jesus reaches across barriers that separate him from the woman – barriers of nationality, religion, gender, her implied promiscuity, whatever sins she has committed. These meant nothing to him. He is willing to reveal his identity, not to his disciples, not to other Jews, not to religious leaders, but to this woman who was marginalized in so many ways. All he saw was a child of God in need of his love, his grace, his mercy. He treats her with dignity and respect. The woman is surprised that Jesus knows so much about her. That he knows the truth about her. She is even more surprised that, knowing what he does about her, Jesus accepts her anyway. For her, this is truly an encounter with the holy. And this encounter enables her to be profoundly transformed and to find a new identity as a beloved child of God.

In her new identity, made possible by the gift of living water that Jesus provides her, through the gift of his love and mercy, she finds the courage she needs to forgive herself and to look beyond what others may think of her. She demands the respect of having her voice heard – a voice that opens the way for others to receive what she has received. By proclaiming to others what she has experienced, the Samaritan woman demonstrates one of the prime characteristics of discipleship repeated throughout John’s Gospel – that of becoming a faithful witness.

So important is the example and the testimony of the Samaritan woman that the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity has honored her with a name – Photina, which means “Enlightened One.” In the Russian Orthodox Church, she is named Svetlana, and is celebrated annually as “equal to the apostles,” acknowledging the significant effect of the word she proclaimed. I don’t know why we, in the Western branch of the Church, have not embraced her with equal honor. For us, she is just the Samaritan woman at the well. But she is, nonetheless, one of the best examples of how Jesus approaches all those whom he encounters. That he sees beyond those barriers that we or others create to separate us one from another; those barriers that often also seek to separate us from God. He reaches beyond those barriers and offers himself to us out of love. And the Samaritan woman is a wonderful example of the transformation that can occur, if we just let it. An example of the perfect response to be made in that transformation – to share Christ with others. To invite others to “come and see.”

Since the fourth century, this story of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman has been used to explain Christian baptism. That baptism is the living water that cleanses us, transforms us, makes us new. But there is another aspect of this living water that we need to always keep in mind, particularly during this season of Lent, as we move ever closer to Easter and the time when we renew our baptismal vows.

The story of the waters at Meribah and Massah in Exodus and the story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well illustrate the importance of water. Both stories start with the need for water to sustain physical life. But as we see in both the people of Israel crying out to God and in Jesus’ offer to the woman at the well, we also have need of that which sustains our spiritual lives. To accomplish this, God provides water flowing from the rock, symbolizing his presence with them. Jesus offers the woman living water, transforming and nourishing her own spirit. Not only do these waters lead to renewed spiritual life. Living water symbolizes the health and vitality of our spiritual lives. For living water is always moving, always flowing. Like a stream or river. So, too, our spiritual lives must always be moving, on a journey, always progressing, lest they become stagnant. Ever carrying us forward into deeper relationship with our Lord who loves us so much that he gives us the living water that sustains us on our journey, that leads to new life.

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Admirers or Followers?

Second Sunday in Lent (Year A)
Genesis 12.1-4a; Romans 4.1-5, 13-17; John 3.1-17
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

It’s pretty obvious that our friend Nicodemus is a great admirer of Jesus. Nicodemus is a pious and holy man. He is a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin – the assembly that was at once the supreme council exercising authority over religious matters and the high court of Israel. As such, he represented the epitome of Jewish orthodoxy and would have been above reproach in theological perspective and in his behavior and actions.

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Temptations – Set Up for Success

First Sunday in Lent (Year A)
Genesis 2.15-17, 3.1-7; Romans 5.12-19; Matthew 4.1-11
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Every year, on the First Sunday in Lent, we hear the account of the temptation of Jesus. Immediately following Jesus’ Baptism, the Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. This forty-day experience is itself reminiscent of the children of Israel wandering in the desert for forty years as they journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. And both Moses and Elijah endured forty-day periods of fasting during their ministries. A forty-day period that is the basis for our own forty-day Lenten journey.

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Preparing for Our Lenten Journey

Ash Wednesday
Isaiah 58.1-12; Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Today we begin our Lenten journey, where we travel with Jesus to Jerusalem and what awaits him there in what we call Holy Week. Historically, the Lenten journey is a period of intentional preparation for baptism at Easter. Of preparation for our incorporation into the Body of Christ. Even though we ourselves are not going to be baptized, we do renew our baptismal vows at Easter. A reminder of who we are and whose we are. Lent is a time for us to intentionally focus on what it means to be a child of God, to prepare for the renewal of our commitment to God and Christ at Easter.

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