Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Resurrection is for the Living
Matthew 28:1-10
Easter 2011
We are gathered here this morning because
Love is stronger than hate,
because the Power of Life trumps the power of death,
because all the evil in the world
cannot stop God’s grace from Raining Down,
because God’s Forgiveness never Fails.
This week a woman told me that when her husband died, a friend came by to sit with her and weep. And the friend then said the most profound and beautiful thing, “You know,” he said, “Resurrection isn’t just for the dead. It is also for the living.”
That’s an earthshaking message! On the first Easter morning, that shining angel descended, rolled back the stone to prove the tomb is empty, and told the women, “Jesus is alive! He’s going to meet you where you live.”
The women were from Galilee, you see. As were most of the disciples. That’s where they had linked up with Jesus. It was home. And when Jesus rose from the dead,
when he defeated all the evil and pain
and sorrow and sin
that the powers of this world could throw at him,
he left the message that those women and their “brethren” could meet up with him where they lived
and worked
and raised their families
and confronted their own challenges to faith and life.
Christ is alive! We may encounter him where we live!
On Easter my job is so easy, because I don’t have to explain the resurrection, or make sense of all the details of each of the four Biblical accounts. You don’t need to be reminded of the disciples’ psychological processes, or their stages of grief, or whatever. Or told what you have to believe about the how and wherefore of resurrection.
I like what theologian Rowan Williams said about the church’s job -
“For the Church does not exist just to transmit a message across the centuries about what people must believe; it exists so that people in this and every century may encounter Jesus of Nazareth as a living contemporary. Everything the church does – celebrating Holy Communion, reading the Bible, baptizing believers, (even raising butterflies, I might add) – is meant to be in the service of this contemporary encounter. Our every action ought to be transparent to Jesus, not holding back or veiling his presence.” – Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Easter Sermon excerpt, (2008?)
All that we have to do together this morning is to point out and to celebrate the amazing presence of the living Christ in our lives. Resurrection is for living, and we are living it - some in dramatic ways, some in more subtle transformations, some in individual lives, some in reconciled relationships and resurrected families.
Some of the resurrection is visible when we look around the church, especially when we baptize and welcome new members into the life of faith.
You want to see new life in the church? We can point to Brenna, and Clay and Lexy and Henry and Madeline. They asked to be baptized and confirmed. They wanted to take this step and publicly join the family of God. New life for them. New life for us. Hallelujah!
The resurrection is being lived in our choir. You don’t know how long that choir loft stood empty. And now, songs of praise rise from willing voices!
I look at this congregation and see people who have met the risen Christ in the pages of scripture. “Human words with divine energy behind them.” (Rowan Williams, again.)
I see people in Recovery. New Life emerging. People who have taken hold of a second chance at health, a second chance at love, a second chance at a life of meaning and purpose.
And I see those who wait in faith and trust as Jesus wipes the tears of grief and sorrow from their eyes. The Risen Christ is living each day with those who face the uncertain future with the certainty that Christ will somehow be there.
How is the Risen Christ alive in us and among us? Let me count the ways!
But it’s better if YOU count them, and count yourself among those who live life with the friendship and support of the One who rose from the grave to share His life with you.
If you are longing for his presence in your life, Easter morning is the perfect time to let the angel’s message shake your world and open whatever stone is blocking the entrance to your heart. Easter morning is the perfect time to put aside your fears and encounter Jesus, the Savior. There’s no better time than Easter morning to spiritually fall at His feet and worship one who wants, more than anything, to live with you and through you, now and forever.
The poet Rumi wrote,
The Risen Christ runs down the street
Knocking on every door
Come out! Come out! he calls,
I want to resurrect somebody!
Easter 2011
We are gathered here this morning because
Love is stronger than hate,
because the Power of Life trumps the power of death,
because all the evil in the world
cannot stop God’s grace from Raining Down,
because God’s Forgiveness never Fails.
This week a woman told me that when her husband died, a friend came by to sit with her and weep. And the friend then said the most profound and beautiful thing, “You know,” he said, “Resurrection isn’t just for the dead. It is also for the living.”
That’s an earthshaking message! On the first Easter morning, that shining angel descended, rolled back the stone to prove the tomb is empty, and told the women, “Jesus is alive! He’s going to meet you where you live.”
The women were from Galilee, you see. As were most of the disciples. That’s where they had linked up with Jesus. It was home. And when Jesus rose from the dead,
when he defeated all the evil and pain
and sorrow and sin
that the powers of this world could throw at him,
he left the message that those women and their “brethren” could meet up with him where they lived
and worked
and raised their families
and confronted their own challenges to faith and life.
Christ is alive! We may encounter him where we live!
On Easter my job is so easy, because I don’t have to explain the resurrection, or make sense of all the details of each of the four Biblical accounts. You don’t need to be reminded of the disciples’ psychological processes, or their stages of grief, or whatever. Or told what you have to believe about the how and wherefore of resurrection.
I like what theologian Rowan Williams said about the church’s job -
“For the Church does not exist just to transmit a message across the centuries about what people must believe; it exists so that people in this and every century may encounter Jesus of Nazareth as a living contemporary. Everything the church does – celebrating Holy Communion, reading the Bible, baptizing believers, (even raising butterflies, I might add) – is meant to be in the service of this contemporary encounter. Our every action ought to be transparent to Jesus, not holding back or veiling his presence.” – Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Easter Sermon excerpt, (2008?)
All that we have to do together this morning is to point out and to celebrate the amazing presence of the living Christ in our lives. Resurrection is for living, and we are living it - some in dramatic ways, some in more subtle transformations, some in individual lives, some in reconciled relationships and resurrected families.
Some of the resurrection is visible when we look around the church, especially when we baptize and welcome new members into the life of faith.
You want to see new life in the church? We can point to Brenna, and Clay and Lexy and Henry and Madeline. They asked to be baptized and confirmed. They wanted to take this step and publicly join the family of God. New life for them. New life for us. Hallelujah!
The resurrection is being lived in our choir. You don’t know how long that choir loft stood empty. And now, songs of praise rise from willing voices!
I look at this congregation and see people who have met the risen Christ in the pages of scripture. “Human words with divine energy behind them.” (Rowan Williams, again.)
I see people in Recovery. New Life emerging. People who have taken hold of a second chance at health, a second chance at love, a second chance at a life of meaning and purpose.
And I see those who wait in faith and trust as Jesus wipes the tears of grief and sorrow from their eyes. The Risen Christ is living each day with those who face the uncertain future with the certainty that Christ will somehow be there.
How is the Risen Christ alive in us and among us? Let me count the ways!
But it’s better if YOU count them, and count yourself among those who live life with the friendship and support of the One who rose from the grave to share His life with you.
If you are longing for his presence in your life, Easter morning is the perfect time to let the angel’s message shake your world and open whatever stone is blocking the entrance to your heart. Easter morning is the perfect time to put aside your fears and encounter Jesus, the Savior. There’s no better time than Easter morning to spiritually fall at His feet and worship one who wants, more than anything, to live with you and through you, now and forever.
The poet Rumi wrote,
The Risen Christ runs down the street
Knocking on every door
Come out! Come out! he calls,
I want to resurrect somebody!
Saturday before Easter
Even the tardy butterflies have come out of their cocoons and are flitting around their enclosure. I can't wait for tomorrow.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Ted emerged!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Tree of Life #6 - The Hanging Tree
Palm/Passion Sunday
April 17, 2011
I Peter 2:21-24, Matthew 27:45-50
There is an Arab proverb that says, "It is good to know the truth, but it is more pleasant to speak of palm trees."
Palm Tress - beautiful, tall, fruitful and evergreen - are indeed lovely subjects for conversation. Those of us who are lucky enough to have vacationed or traveled where palm trees are native associate them with some of the most enjoyable times of our lives. After a hard winter like the one that doesn’t seem to want to let go of us, who hasn’t longed for a life lived under a palm tree.
Ahh - palm trees! There is nothing like the sound of their huge fronds, rustling in a tropical breeze.
Their flowers scent the desert air.
They bear delicious dates and coconuts.
Their fronds are used in the thatched roofs of homes.
Their fibers can be woven into tropical garments, and the mats that line tent floors.
They provide oil - palm oil - for eating and for lamps.
The shade of the palm tree is welcome and pleasing.
Life is good under the palm.
And it is tempting, especially on palm sunday, to speak of palm trees. After all - the Bible tells us that palm trees played an important role in welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem when he, accompanied by a jubilant crowd, made his triumphant entry. So we could speak of Palm Trees - only palm trees - this morning. It is better to speak of palm trees, the proverb says. Yes, but what is that first part again? It is good to know the truth.
And, the truth is that the palm tree plays only a bit part in what Jesus did in Jerusalem during Holy Week. The tree that stars in our spiritual lives this week is the Tree of Life that, for all the world, looks like a Hanging Tree - the cross. It is on the cross Christians say, that Jesus won our salvation - our healing, our wholeness our full and complete humanity.
I’ll confess that, as your resident theologian, I have no idea how Jesus’ hanging accomplishes salvation. Theologians have debated it as though there was one answer. Biblical witness includes at least seven or eight (depending on how you read some passages) theories of how Jesus’ death on the tree accomplishes our salvation. I’ve read them until my head hurts. But the death itself makes my heart hurt. It takes all my faith and all my trust to stand in the shadow of the hanging tree and hang on to the idea that this, too, is how God works in the world - by hanging in with human suffering and pain.
Here is what we know - experiential. From our own lives: Life is good under the palm. But standing under the hanging tree teaches us lessons we need.
Because we know that the tree of life includes suffering. Some of it is just part of living - broken hearts, aches and pains, aging and the losses that come with it. Some suffering comes from things gone terribly wrong - our bodies or brains malfunction. A pathogen overwhelms the immune system. An accident happens. Random and wrong.
But some suffering, to me the most horrible kind of suffering, comes at the hands of cruel or thoughtless but powerful people: Bullies and demagogues - at school, or in high office - who choose to hurt those who are not as strong as they are. This is the suffering that causes me to despair. Shooting protesters. Demolishing homes. Torturing prisoners.
The Hanging Tree is both an example of and an answer to all these kinds of suffering. It is the peculiarly Christian resource in responding to suffering of all kinds. It is our daily reminder that Jesus chose to share our lot - our pain, our vulnerability, even our despair.
It provides the Christian perspective on the kind of cruelty and human caused suffering that pervades our world. The Hanging Tree shows us where Christ is found. We see that He chose to put himself at the non-existant mercy of those forces in the world which protect their power at all costs, who don’t give a rip for collateral damage, who willingly shed the blood of innocents in what they tell themselves and the world is a greater good.
He carried all of that to the tree and hung it up there in full view of the world. it is clear from the Biblical witness that Jesus’ heart hurt, too. “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” he cries. We don’t have to make any logical leaps, or wonder for a moment if Jesus knew the kind of pain that darkens our hearts sometimes. The man of Calvary knows Utter despair and heartache.
He displayed it - Naked. Horrifying. Repulsive.
Some preachers say - sometimes I may have said - that the disciples and women who stood there by the cross were failures because the stood by and watched this horrible thing happen. But it is equally plausible that standing there and watching, being witnesses and not closing their eyes, or turning away, or running to shield themselves from the pain and sorrow was an act of faith. To see what evil does to good. To see the cost of human sin. To stand in the shadow of the hanging tree is an act of faith.
This tree is what it takes to transform human horror into human hope.
Faith that stands under the hanging tree transforms us from unwitting participants in the cruelty of the crowd to fully conscious beings who recognize the divine in life’s victims. That is the beginning of salvation. It starts under the cross, under the hanging tree, gazing up at innocence of Christ.
So this week - my invitation and my prayer is that we will, as a congregation, hang in there with Jesus on the tree, because this is where it starts.
But, Praise God!, this is not where it ends! Salvation does not end with Christ on the cross. God’s plan for us passes through this dark chapter and on to the relief and the joy and the triumph of life over death, life beyond death, life more powerful than death in every way. And it is just a week away.
But we can’t fully know and appreciate and celebrate that Life - we can’t enter into the Joy that Easter brings - until we have stood in the shadow and fully known the truth that can only be apprehended under the Hanging Tree.
April 17, 2011
I Peter 2:21-24, Matthew 27:45-50
There is an Arab proverb that says, "It is good to know the truth, but it is more pleasant to speak of palm trees."
Palm Tress - beautiful, tall, fruitful and evergreen - are indeed lovely subjects for conversation. Those of us who are lucky enough to have vacationed or traveled where palm trees are native associate them with some of the most enjoyable times of our lives. After a hard winter like the one that doesn’t seem to want to let go of us, who hasn’t longed for a life lived under a palm tree.
Ahh - palm trees! There is nothing like the sound of their huge fronds, rustling in a tropical breeze.
Their flowers scent the desert air.
They bear delicious dates and coconuts.
Their fronds are used in the thatched roofs of homes.
Their fibers can be woven into tropical garments, and the mats that line tent floors.
They provide oil - palm oil - for eating and for lamps.
The shade of the palm tree is welcome and pleasing.
Life is good under the palm.
And it is tempting, especially on palm sunday, to speak of palm trees. After all - the Bible tells us that palm trees played an important role in welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem when he, accompanied by a jubilant crowd, made his triumphant entry. So we could speak of Palm Trees - only palm trees - this morning. It is better to speak of palm trees, the proverb says. Yes, but what is that first part again? It is good to know the truth.
And, the truth is that the palm tree plays only a bit part in what Jesus did in Jerusalem during Holy Week. The tree that stars in our spiritual lives this week is the Tree of Life that, for all the world, looks like a Hanging Tree - the cross. It is on the cross Christians say, that Jesus won our salvation - our healing, our wholeness our full and complete humanity.
I’ll confess that, as your resident theologian, I have no idea how Jesus’ hanging accomplishes salvation. Theologians have debated it as though there was one answer. Biblical witness includes at least seven or eight (depending on how you read some passages) theories of how Jesus’ death on the tree accomplishes our salvation. I’ve read them until my head hurts. But the death itself makes my heart hurt. It takes all my faith and all my trust to stand in the shadow of the hanging tree and hang on to the idea that this, too, is how God works in the world - by hanging in with human suffering and pain.
Here is what we know - experiential. From our own lives: Life is good under the palm. But standing under the hanging tree teaches us lessons we need.
Because we know that the tree of life includes suffering. Some of it is just part of living - broken hearts, aches and pains, aging and the losses that come with it. Some suffering comes from things gone terribly wrong - our bodies or brains malfunction. A pathogen overwhelms the immune system. An accident happens. Random and wrong.
But some suffering, to me the most horrible kind of suffering, comes at the hands of cruel or thoughtless but powerful people: Bullies and demagogues - at school, or in high office - who choose to hurt those who are not as strong as they are. This is the suffering that causes me to despair. Shooting protesters. Demolishing homes. Torturing prisoners.
The Hanging Tree is both an example of and an answer to all these kinds of suffering. It is the peculiarly Christian resource in responding to suffering of all kinds. It is our daily reminder that Jesus chose to share our lot - our pain, our vulnerability, even our despair.
It provides the Christian perspective on the kind of cruelty and human caused suffering that pervades our world. The Hanging Tree shows us where Christ is found. We see that He chose to put himself at the non-existant mercy of those forces in the world which protect their power at all costs, who don’t give a rip for collateral damage, who willingly shed the blood of innocents in what they tell themselves and the world is a greater good.
He carried all of that to the tree and hung it up there in full view of the world. it is clear from the Biblical witness that Jesus’ heart hurt, too. “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” he cries. We don’t have to make any logical leaps, or wonder for a moment if Jesus knew the kind of pain that darkens our hearts sometimes. The man of Calvary knows Utter despair and heartache.
He displayed it - Naked. Horrifying. Repulsive.
Some preachers say - sometimes I may have said - that the disciples and women who stood there by the cross were failures because the stood by and watched this horrible thing happen. But it is equally plausible that standing there and watching, being witnesses and not closing their eyes, or turning away, or running to shield themselves from the pain and sorrow was an act of faith. To see what evil does to good. To see the cost of human sin. To stand in the shadow of the hanging tree is an act of faith.
This tree is what it takes to transform human horror into human hope.
Faith that stands under the hanging tree transforms us from unwitting participants in the cruelty of the crowd to fully conscious beings who recognize the divine in life’s victims. That is the beginning of salvation. It starts under the cross, under the hanging tree, gazing up at innocence of Christ.
So this week - my invitation and my prayer is that we will, as a congregation, hang in there with Jesus on the tree, because this is where it starts.
But, Praise God!, this is not where it ends! Salvation does not end with Christ on the cross. God’s plan for us passes through this dark chapter and on to the relief and the joy and the triumph of life over death, life beyond death, life more powerful than death in every way. And it is just a week away.
But we can’t fully know and appreciate and celebrate that Life - we can’t enter into the Joy that Easter brings - until we have stood in the shadow and fully known the truth that can only be apprehended under the Hanging Tree.
Advice from a Tree
"Stand Tall and Proud
Sink your roots deeply into the Earth
Reflect the light of a greater source
Think long term
Go out on a limb
Remember your place among all living beings
Embrace with joy the changing seasons
For each yields its own abundance
The Energy and Birth of Spring
The Growth and Contentment of Summer
The Wisdom to let go of leaves in the Fall
The Rest and Quiet Renewal of Winter"
- Ilan Shamir, Advice From a Tree
Sink your roots deeply into the Earth
Reflect the light of a greater source
Think long term
Go out on a limb
Remember your place among all living beings
Embrace with joy the changing seasons
For each yields its own abundance
The Energy and Birth of Spring
The Growth and Contentment of Summer
The Wisdom to let go of leaves in the Fall
The Rest and Quiet Renewal of Winter"
- Ilan Shamir, Advice From a Tree
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