Rejoice with Glorious Joy

The First letter of Peter tells us that God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Our response to this Easter message is Alleluia.  The word Alleluia stands for and means God’s name be praised.  We respond with alleluias and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy because, as Peter said, we are receiving the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls.

During this Easter season we are called to live into God’s new age.  It is the age of resurrected life, an age of forthcoming peace, justice, mercy and love for all people and for all of God’s creation.

A couple of weeks ago Carol and I attended a presentation by Bryan Stevenson who gave a talk on behalf of Read Across Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Committee on the Humanities.  Bryan Stevenson is a law professor at New York University and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama.  He is the author of the widely acclaimed book, Just Mercy.  His presentation focused on four themes: proximity, changing the narrative, hope, and discomfort.  I cannot do justice to his remarks but the themes are important for all of us who ascribe to the Christian hope of new life.

Briefly stated, proximity is about meeting people you would not ordinarily encounter.  It means that it is important to go out of your way to meet the stranger and begin a conversation.  Here at All Saints’ we are a diverse group of people who come together each week to share in worship, service, and outreach.  As we engage each other in telling our stories we are developing conversations that can result in constructive dialogue and change.

When it comes to changing the narrative Stevenson pointed out how we have incarcerated hundreds if not thousands of people on drug charges.  We treat drugs as a criminal offense when it is really a health problem.  We do not convict people of alcoholism and send them to prison, so why do we discriminate about other drugs.  We need to change the narrative and that requires a lot of discussion. 

Then there is the matter of discomfort.  When we are engaged in living into God’s new age, engaged in sharing our stories, changing the narrative, and working for peace and justice, there are and will be times of personal discomfort.

The Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann reminds us that Easter life is risky, dangerous and demanding.  “Practicing Easter life continues to be risky because it contradicts the deathly commitments of our world -- one devoured by greed, anxiety, and violence.  A practice of Easter life continues also to be one of joy, as attested to by contemporary witnesses who are freed of ancient fears and live by Jesus' command that we ‘love one another.’"

This brings us to Stevenson’s insight about hope.  Many people today experience a sense of hopelessness.  Economic realities and the lack of equality are two examples.  The opposite of hopelessness is justice.  Justice and love are the result of hope.  Hope is a theological issue, and it is the hope of Easter that we celebrate today and throughout the entire year.

In today’s Collect we prayed that God will “grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.”  And, as we heard in the First Letter of Peter, by God’s “great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”  Our faith as Christians is being renewed into that living hope, living lives that reflect the Resurrection.  It is about practicing Easter life by living into God’s new age.

For the past seven years you and I have been engaged in shared ministry.  It has been a sincere privilege for me to work with all of you in this magnificent and beautiful sacred space.  I shall miss you, the many relationships we developed, the challenges and opportunities for pastoral care, preaching and celebrating the Eucharist.  It is always difficult to say goodbye and I do so with heartfelt feelings of gratitude and thanksgiving for our life together.  Today the time has come for me to leave and for you to embark on engaging new clergy leadership.  My wish is that you will continue to live into the future with a true sense of joy and hope.

The future of All Saints’ Church, the communities you are called to serve, and the coming of God’s new age depend on your commitment as a community of faith.  This is your sacred space and you can make All Saints grow spiritually and economically and thrive by investing yourself in its life and service to people in need.  It is God’s calling to all of you.  May your ministry and mission flourish, and may you by the gift of living hope through Christ’s resurrection share in the grace, mercy and love of God.  Amen.

Living into God’s New Age

“Alleluia, Christ is risen.”  The message of Easter is, "Do not be afraid…. He is not here; for he has been raised.'"  Christ is risen.  God’s love endures for all creation and for every person of every nation, race and religion.  The good news of Easter is that we do not need to live in fear.  God's love and the truth of Christ's resurrection cast out all fear.

The hope of the resurrection with its message that God's love gave birth to Christian faith; and that same hope sustains and motivates the Church's ministry and mission through all succeeding generations.  It is about building those things that shall endure through a vision of God’s new age.

In his book, The Meaning of Jesus, the Anglican bishop N.T. Wright says, the "resurrection of Jesus means that the present time is shot through with great significance.  What is done to the glory of God in the present is genuinely building for God's future.  Acts of justice and mercy, the creation of beauty and the celebration of truth, deeds of love and the creation of communities of kindness and forgiveness -- these all matter, and they matter forever." 

The vocation of Christians is to build those "things that will last into God's new age."  It is the "vocation to holiness: to the fully human life reflecting the image of God that is made possible by Jesus' victory on the cross and that is energized by the Spirit of the risen Jesus present within communities of persons."

The Christian vision of God's new age is a vision that is greatly transformed from present reality.  Our world is hurting and in need of repair and healing.  In God's new age there will be no famine or malnutrition, no war, no racial or religious prejudice, no crime, no poverty, no lack of health care. 

In God's new age there will be a spirit of freedom and peace, of love and compassion, of justice and equality.  In God's new age there will be a renewed respect for the environment and responsible stewardship of both natural and human resources.  The meaning of the resurrection is that all of our accepted and familiar ways of living are turned upside down.  A new day and a new age is coming.  It is up to us to build those things that will endure.

Our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry has a powerful Easter message.  Bishop Curry says, “Jesus arranged his entrance into Jerusalem  [on that first Palm Sunday] to send a message.  He entered the city, having come in on one side of the city, the scholars tell us, at just about the same time that Pontius Pilate made his entrance on the exact opposite side of the city. Pilate, coming forth on a warhorse.  Pilate, with soldiers around him.  Pilate, with the insignias of Rome’s Empire.  Pilate, representing the Caesars who claimed to be son of god…. Pilate, who represented the Empire that would maintain the colonial status of the Jewish people by brute force and violence.

“Jesus entered the city on the other side, not on a warhorse, but on a donkey, recalling the words of Zechariah:

Behold your King comes to you
Triumphant and victorious is He
Humble and riding on a donkey

“Jesus entered the city at the same time as Pilate to show them, and to show us, that God has another way…. The way of unselfish, sacrificial love.  That’s why he entered Jerusalem.  That’s why he went to the cross.  It was the power of that love poured out from the throne of God, that even after the horror of the crucifixion would raise him from death to life.”

Jesus “didn’t just happen to be in Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday.  He went to Jerusalem for a reason. To send a message.  That not even the titanic powers of death can stop the love of God.  On that Easter morning, he rose from the dead, and proclaimed love wins.”

God invites us this Easter and every day to live into his new age, to live into Christ's resurrection and to be hopeful about those things that will endure.  Love as Jesus loved.  Have a blessed Easter.  Bless all the people of God everywhere.  Christ is risen.  Alleluia!  Amen.

Giving Life to the World

This year’s season of Lent is soon to culminate with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, his Last Supper with the disciples, his trial and execution on Good Friday and his glorious resurrection from death on Easter day. 

For the past several weeks we have come together to read and meditate on God’s holy word and to reflect on the healing ministry of Jesus. Through our worship we continue to grow in the knowledge of God and in the meaning of Christ’s resurrection.  Our ministry is about sharing the gift of God’s grace through life in the Holy Spirit, and our focus has been on reconciliation, how we can heal the divisions that separate and alienate us from God and others.  The ministry of reconciliation is about restoring all people to unity with God and each other.

The story in John’s Gospel about the raising of Lazarus is an account of the work of God’s life-giving spirit.  Lazarus lived with his family in Bethany.  He was the brother of Martha and Mary and a close friend of Jesus.  John tells us that Lazarus was ill so his sisters sent word to Jesus.  The message said, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”  When Jesus received this news he said, “This illness does not lead to death, rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

We can imagine that in writing this story about Lazarus John saw it as a premonition about Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead.  “Jesus, greatly disturbed, came to the tomb.  It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.  Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’  The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”

Fred Craddock, professor at Candler School of Theology, says the primary function of the story about Lazarus is revelation.  “Some truth about the meaning of God’s glory and presence in the world is made known through Jesus’ ministry.  For the stories to function this way, they must be seen to operate on two levels.  On one level Jesus heals a cripple, opens the eyes of the blind or raises the dead, but on another level he reveals a truth about life eternal which God makes available in Jesus Christ.”

“What is really going on here is not only a family crisis in Bethany but the crisis of the world, not only the raising of a dead man but the giving of life to the world.  On one level the story is about the death and resurrection of Lazarus, but on another it is about the death and resurrection of Jesus. The sisters want their brother back, to be sure, but Jesus is also acting to give life to the world.  Jesus declares this truth to Martha at the heart of the narrative: ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’"

When Lazarus emerged from the tomb he was still bound with strips of cloth.  He was alive but he wasn’t completely free.  It took his family and friends to unbind him and to let him go.  This is not only about God’s power to renew life but it is our power to participate in the unbinding of all people who are oppressed, abused, or in any way victims of discrimination.

In an article in the Christian Century the author Christine Chakoian says, “No doubt every generation must wrestle with what ultimately matters—with what is trustworthy, what is the endpoint of life, what we allow to consume and fascinate, motivate and capture us.  But we are being sorely tested in our time as we determine where we will rest our hope, where we will set our minds.… At times like this, we may wonder whether our feeble efforts at justice and compassion and truth make any difference in the world.”

When we think about the struggles in our own lives and in our nation and the world we must keep in mind what it means to be Christian, what it means to be followers of Jesus in this 21^st century.  When we set our minds on the Holy Spirit looking to the glory of God and following the way of Christ, we are on the way that leads to life.  Being a Christian is about fostering new life, what we do to alleviate poverty, to understand and respect people who are different, to build communities of equality and opportunity, and to rejoice knowing that God resuscitates us through his Spirit both in this life and in eternal life. 

God’s Spirit “dwells in us.”  Life in the Spirit of God is about the work of God throughout our human history.  In our world, and in the Church through the ministry of all who are baptized, it is through the Spirit that we are led into a life of justice, peace and compassion for all people.  Our life in God’s Spirit is about continuing the ministry of Jesus.  It is a ministry of healing the wounds and divisions that separate us from others, and it is about bringing peace and a sense of well-being to our troubled world.  Amen.