April 10, 2016 - 3rd Sunday in Easter - By the Charcoal Fire

I know that we are here on the Third Sunday in Easter, but I am hoping you would indulge me for a moment and go back in time a bit with me. I want us to go back a few weeks to Holy Week. Imagine with me that last night of Jesus' life before he was crucified. The meal he shared with his disciples. The foot washing. The bread. The wine. Judas rushing off to betray him. Jesus giving his new commandment that they love one another as he has loved them. Jesus telling Peter that Peter would deny him three times before morning. Jesus taking a few of his disciples with him across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane up on the Mount of Olives. Jesus praying there. The disciples falling asleep. The back and forth. Jesus in agony. Asking God to let the cup pass from his lips. But not my will be done, but yours, O God. Judas coming. Betraying Jesus with a kiss. The arrest. Peter and the Beloved disciple following as the soldiers took Jesus away, but at a bit of a distance. Do you remember all of this? Can you step away from the Easter joy and get your mind back into that Holy Week mindset with the darkness and the fear and the sorrow and the confusion?

The soldiers at this point would have taken Jesus back across the Kidron Valley to the house of Annas. And there, Jesus goes in, held prisoner. Perhaps there might have even been a prison cell there. The Beloved Disciple knows some of the guards, so he gets himself and Peter into the gate, a little bit closer, into the courtyard, but still, they are keeping some distance. It's late, late at night. On the threshold of morning really. Nights can be chilly in Jerusalem, especially in early Spring. And so, the servants and the guards, the police, they make a fire there in the courtyard: a charcoal fire more precisely, at least in John’s telling of the story. The word here in John's version is not the standard word for fire, which is pyr, a word used 71 times in the New Testament, and is used by both Mark and Luke when they are telling this part of the story. Rather John uses a very specific word, anthrakia, meaning a fire made with charcoal, and it is rare, only used twice in the New Testament (with a derivative of it being used once by Paul). This all may seem a bit detailed, a bit off track, but hold with me. So by this charcoal fire, by the anthrakia, Peter is asked if he is one of Jesus' followers. And Peter, denies it. And a second time. And a third time. Just as Jesus had said. Peter, you will deny me three times before the cock crows. And then the cock crows. Peter has denied Jesus three times, his master, his teacher, the one he loved and the one who loved him. Peter has denied the one whom he had confessed as the Messiah, the one he had confessed as the Son of God. Peter has denied the one for whom he had said he was willing to die. By this charcoal fire, he has denied Jesus three times.

So, come back with me now to today's Gospel. Also taking place in a similar time of day, at that moment between night and day, that sort of moment when a rooster crows to usher in the sun And again, we have a an anthrakia, a charcoal fire, the only other time this word is used in the New Testament. John is a highly symbolic writer; the odds that this is just coincidence is nearly zero. John is using this charcoal fire to link these two stories together. And again we find Peter by the charcoal fire. But this time Jesus feeds him by this fire. And three times, Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Once for each of the three denials. The three-fold denial is met with the three-fold restoration. By the charcoal fire, in the early morning, Jesus restores Peter. In mercy, in grace, in love, Jesus undoes the horrible thing that Peter had done by betraying him. And he invites Peter to follow him all over again.  

This is what the resurrection accomplishes. This is Easter. In Christ, through Christ, by Christ, we are restored. We are brought back into the fullness of relationship with God. And it is done through love. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Is the restorative question that Jesus asks. This connection to Maundy Thursday that the charcoal fire and the three-fold denial and restoration invoke, Should also remind us also of Jesus' new commandment that he gave at the last supper, that they love one another as he has loved them, that we love one another as he has loved us. Love. It really all comes down to love. God's love for us. Our love for God. Our love for each other. It's all intertwined. And of course it is when we think about it. For God is love as we later learn in the First Letter of John. And we, who were made in God's image, as we learn in first chapter of Genesis, the first chapter of the first book of our Scripture, can only be who we truly are, who we were made to be, when we acting in that love, living in that love, when we are dwelling in that love. And so to restore Peter, it has to be about restoring that love. Jesus has to ask, Do you love me? And Peter has to say, yes, of course, I do.

The question for us today is: What part of us is needing to be restored? In what ways are we disconnected, from God, from each other, from ourselves, internally disconnected from who we are, who God made us to be? How have we denied Christ in our lives and in this world? How do we need to love and to be loved? I don't have answers to these questions. These are the questions that each one of us has to ask for ourselves. These are the questions with which each one of us has to sit and maybe wrestle and struggle. This is the deep interior work that we need to do. It's not easy, but it is the work we have to do if we want find that restoration. We have to recognize how we ourselves are like Peter by the charcoal fire of Holy Week - a people who succumb to fear and anxiety and darkness and confusion, a people who have some of those elements in our lives. And then we have to recognize how Jesus is inviting us by the charcoal fire of Easter, by the Paschal light, into a full, restored, life-giving relationship of love. It is not easy, but the work is good and transformative and ultimately joyful as we walk the Easter journey. Amen. 

April 3, 2016 - 2nd Sunday in Easter - The Theology of Showing Up

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Isn't it great to cry out our Alleluias again? Easter is this wonderful, celebratory time. It's the most celebratory time of the year for us as Christians. Now, I know what you are thinking, "What about Christmas?" Remember: Christmas is only 12 days long; we get 50 whole days of Easter. 50 days. So, when you see that half-off candy at the grocery store, buy it! It’s still Easter! And the candy is still tasty! And completely liturgically appropriate to enjoy it because we have 43 days of Easter left.

But oddly enough, our joyful celebration does not parallel or mirror the experience of the disciples on the first Easter. They were not yet shouting or singing Alleluia. They were not yet excited about what had happened. We heard that reality last week in Gospel reading when we heard of Mary Magdalene sad and confused when she found the tomb empty. She was the first to encounter Jesus raised from the dead, and she became the Apostle to the Apostles because Jesus commissioned her to tell the others, but they didn't believe her. Luke says that they considered it an idle tale. I suspect we can all read between the lines on what that is supposed to mean. And we again hear of disciples not yet filled with Easter joy in our Gospel today when we find them huddled together in fear, fear that is so counter to the Good News of resurrection, of Easter. Fear that isn't resolved even after they first encountered Jesus risen, for we find them again locking themselves in a week later.

I would like to think that they weren't yet filled with joy because they are still trying to figure it all out, but if we are honest with ourselves, aren't we still trying to figure it all out, too? Do we really recognize that much better than Mary when Jesus is in our midst? Do we really have that much less fear than the other disciples even though we, too, have seen the vanquishing of death? We really aren't that much different than those early disciples. Many of us still find the resurrection something that raises as many questions as it answers. Many of us still have difficulty seeing Jesus, even when he is right in front of us, in a stranger, in a child, in bread, in wine. Many of us still lock ourselves into rooms out of fear. Many of us still find ourselves, from time to time at least, asking God if we couldn't just have a little more clarity, couldn't just see a little more concretely. We are not that much different from the first disciples. We are quite similar, in fact, to Mary and Peter and John and Thomas, and the rest of the gang.

But the one thing that we have figured out is that this resurrection, Jesus' resurrection, is a good thing, a joyful thing, a thing that draws out our Alleluias. Through the generations, Christians have found their joy in Christ's resurrection… even as they were still are trying to figure it all out; even as we are still trying to figure it all out. That is what the Thomas story so importantly teaches us. We can take the time to figure it out. We can still have questions and doubts and faith at the same time. We just have to keep showing up and trying.

Thomas' questions, doubts, fears, didn't keep him from showing up to that room with the other disciples. It was his very questions that drew him in. And it was in that showing up that he encountered Jesus. One of the details that I love about this story is that Thomas didn't even do what he said he had to do in order to believe. He said that he would have to put his finger in the mark of the nails and his hand in the side. But when Jesus offered just that, the story doesn't say that he took Jesus up on the offer. Carvaggio got it wrong in the painting! Instead, Thomas simply blurted out "My Lord and My God." The offer was sufficient. He didn't have to experience what he thought he had to experience. But even that required showing up, to be there in the room with the other disciples, to be there with the other folks who were all just trying to figure it out.

90% of life is showing up, the old saying goes. And that is about right. We gotta keep showing up.  Showing up when we have doubts and when we don't. Showing up when we are confident and when we are afraid. Showing up when we are sorrowful and when we are filled with joy. I call this the Theology of Showing Up. It’s not the most intellectually rigorous of theologies. It is quite simple, but also quite important. We have to keep showing up like Thomas. Not because we have it all figured out, but precisely because we don't. Not in spite of our questions, but because of our questions. For in showing up, we can encounter Jesus. This is good news. This is very good news. This is joyful news. We can encounter Jesus. Like Mary, like the other disciples. If we just keep showing up. Showing up to the tomb, to life's death, where we can find Christ raised. Showing up to the locked room, to life's fear and anxiety, where we can receive Christ’s Peace.  Showing up to the table, to life's hunger where we can be nourished by Christ's Body. My friends in Christ: Just keep showing up. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!  

April 3, 2016 - 2nd Sunday of Easter - So Now We Wait

When my brother, sister and I were children, we thought holidays were awesome. You were hard pressed to keep us in bed after five in the morning because of our excitement. Christmas, Easter, Independence Day, Birthdays…it didn’t matter. We would wake up early and sneak into each others’ rooms to talk, play, read books and wait. Wait for when mom would ring the sleigh bell tapestry that hung on the door of the coat closet signaling to us that we could come out. And then she would step back and let her three-child-stampede rush down the hallway. We were full of joy and optimistic anticipation.

During this Easter season, we have entered a period of anticipation and hope. We hope for salvation because of the sacrifice of someone important, someone who walked into the Garden of Gethsemane and told God “not my will but yours be done.” As one of our sacred creeds proclaim, “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried”.

From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, the story is a rather simple one. Jesus enters Jerusalem in celebration on Palm Sunday only to be crucified by the same eager crowd Friday afternoon. During the three days of profound grief, all seemed hopeless. We read in John’s gospel that Mary Magdalene was beside herself in grief and the eleven surviving disciples had locked themselves away in fear. For three days, these followers of Jesus lived not knowing what would become of them and some even doubted their master because of how easy his messiah-ship had ended. Surely, some of them thought, God would have saved Jesus from the excruciating beating he took and the awful brutal way he died.

But on the third day, everything changed.

Mary finds herself before a corpse-less tomb and the disciples find themselves once more in the company of their beloved master. End of movie, roll the credits right? But that’s not the end of the Easter story.

Not this movie and not this story.

This was just the beginning. Jesus is only back for a short period of time. He said as much when he told the still stunned disciples that as the Father has sent him, he was sending them to carry on with his ministry. Then he returns to Heaven to prepare for the next step of his own story.

Every week here at St. Mary’s during the celebration of the Eucharist there is a statement of mystery that we boldly and jubilantly proclaim: Christ has died. Christ is Risen. And Christ will come again. Christ did die on the cross and He is risen from the tomb. Christ has done this, Christ is doing this and Christ will continue to do this.

 So, now we wait.

While we await the second coming of our Lord and Savior – in whatever form that will take – do we just prop up our feet and twiddle our thumbs until he gets here? We can’t, Jesus makes it clear that we have work to do. Like the disciples, we have an obligation to preach the good news of the gospel to those around us.  

When the disciples were later arrested preaching Jesus’ message as is recorded in the Book of Acts, they faced a dilemma: abandon their master’s mission and deny him again or to take a stand. When they told the high priest “We must obey God rather than any human authority”; they made that stand. It is far easier to remain silent than to speak in faith.

Like those apostles before us, we have to ask ourselves a very serious question: do we back down from Jesus’ Great Commission? Do we deny our Savior and not take care of those that need the good news?

 When others watch us, this can be a difficult question. It can be difficult act to obey God. But at the end of the day, we have been given a task and that task is to spend our time waiting for Jesus by acting like Jesus and preaching his words.  

Allowing our actions to reflect our words is imperative because the gospel is a medicine. A single drop can heal a broken soul whether it’s preached through a genuine smile, a kind word, or a small act of service.

We have so many brothers and sisters that are in need of healing. There are some among us today that are struggling with brokenness and through Jesus Christ, we can give them relief. For many of us, we may need it as much as the person we hold out our hand to.

Jesus commanded all of us to preach forgiveness while he prepares for us. If we speak and act with mercy and kindness, we are preaching to others the good news of the gospel, loving each other as ourselves, and accepting the sacrifice that we are unworthy of, but is all the same offered to us; we are proclaiming that very mystery that is both glorious and beautiful.

While my brother, sister and I are no longer small children; we still find thrill in anticipating holidays. We may not get up as early as we once did, but we still sneak into each other’s room with cups of coffee in hand and wait for our time to be with each other.

We as the body of Christ are brothers and sisters and we are awaiting the greatest holiday of all, the return of Jesus of Nazareth. We should anticipate our Savior’s return with child-like excitement. And while we wait, let’s be healers to those who need the Gospel and answer the call of him who gave us our reason to hope and our reason to rejoice. Amen.

March 27, 2016 - Easter Sunday

March 26, 2016 - Easter Vigil - Salvation History: Variations on a Theme, Variations on our Hope

Easter Vigil 2016

The Rev. Bingham Powell

Some say that history repeats itself. I don't think that's quite right though. Rather, I think that there are variations on a theme. And that theme that our faith teaches us is one of hope, of liberation, of salvation, of resurrection. Tonight is the Easter vigil. Our first celebration of Easter. And every year during the Easter Vigil we go back into the story of our faith, the history of salvation we call it, and as we go back we see some the ways that God has been working throughout history. We see the theme as it unfolds in various ways.

We started with part of the story from Exodus, the story of God freeing a people living in bondage, a people who had been crying out in the agony of their slavery and oppression. With the help of Moses (and Aaron and Miriam), God confronted Pharaoh, who claimed to be divine.

God told him to let my people go. And when Pharaoh refused, God tried all kinds of ways to convince him, finally getting the people safely across the Red Sea as we heard tonight.

And we heard those readings from Isaiah and from Ezekiel. They are written as prophecies, but there are stories here, there is a history behind the writings. These are stories of people who are living in exile. Refugees who have lost their homes, livelihoods, often family members due to the violence of war and conquest. And in the midst of this horror, the exiled refugees hear these hopeful messages from Isaiah and Ezekiel. These messages of water for the thirsty and food for the hungry. Messages of a people scattered among the nations being restored, sprinkled with clean water as a sign of their new hearts and new spirits that God will give them. Messages of resurrection, new life being breathed into old dry bones. We know from history that this hope was not misplaced, that these words were true and the people were eventually allowed to return and rebuild, that those who had sowed with tears would reap with songs of joy.

And finally we heard the story of Jesus. Living in a time not of exile, but of occupation, brutal Roman occupation, violent occupation to maintain the so-called peace -Pax Romana - though it surely wasn't peace for everyone. It wasn't peace for Jesus. It wasn't peace for his followers who lived under its brutality. After three years of preaching, teaching, and healing, the powers-that-be killed him as we heard last Sunday, as we heard on Good Friday, but in our Gospel tonight, we heard that they and their brutality did not get the final word but rather Jesus conquered death on the third day as the disciples find the tomb empty. "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Surely that is a question we need to keep asking. "He is not here, but has risen."

All variations on a theme. These aren't the only stories playing with this theme: the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, Ruth and Naomi, David, Elijah and Elisha, Hannah, Esther, Jonah, Mary and Elizabeth, and so many others all play with this theme. All variations on a theme. Variations of hope in the midst of despair, liberation in the midst of bondage, salvation in the midst of destruction, resurrection in the midst of death. All variations on the light of Christ shining forth in the world's darkness, that light of Christ that we lit tonight.

We study history, therefore, not just to avoid the doom of repeating it as the old expression warns, but to give us confidence. Confidence in the midst of the awful despair of whatever challenges we face. God is doing good and amazing things to liberate, to save, to heal, to resurrect.

Our history teaches that ultimately there is no reason to be afraid. That does not mean that horrible things won't happen. They will. They will. Tragedy strikes our world every day. Those large scale tragedies like a terrorist attack or war, and those more individual tragedies of personal loss and suffering and pain. But God is working through them. God is playing variations on the theme. I think that Frederick Buechner puts it best when he is trying to describe grace: "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you."

I am with you. That is what God told Moses in the burning bush when Moses was afraid to follow God's call. God's first response to Moses' first objection was "I will be with you." That is what God told the people of Israel through Isaiah. "Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God." That is what God told us in the incarnation when God dwelt in humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. And when God dwelt on the cross, that beautiful thing dwelling in that terrible thing. Jesus: the incarnation of God's promise to be with us. More variations on the theme.

Paul plays with the theme in our reading from Romans tonight: “

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead... we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his."

That is us. We who have been baptized; we, the Body of Christ. We share in both Christ’s death and resurrection. We are now making the new history - the new chapter in the salvation history - as we live our lives. Don't forget that it is all a variation on the theme. For God can free us also from whatever chains us; new life can be breathed into our dry bones today, too; death has been vanquished and resurrected life is ours to start living right now. God is still playing with the theme. Amen.

Holy Week Clergy Renewal of Vows, March 23, 2016 - The Foolishness of the Cross

Lessons: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; John 12: 37-38, 42-50                       

Where is the debater of this age? I can give you a partial answer to that question. I met a lot of them last weekend when I was invited to judge at a high school speech and debate competition held at the University of Oregon. As a former high school and college debater myself, I was pleasantly surprised by these high schoolers. Many were solid in their reasoning and passionate in their argumentation and advocacy. They effectively tried to embody the various components of Aristotle's three-fold typology of persuasive rhetoric: ethos, pathos, and logos.

Oratory was very popular in the ancient Roman and Greek world. Although certainly much older, classical oratory really took off in 5th and 4th century Greece and continued through the time of Jesus and beyond, at least for a few hundred more years. Demosthenes and Cicero were certainly some of the most famous, but oratory was an activity that everyone in the educated classes studied. It was as fundamental as the 3 Rs - reading, writing, and arithmetic - are today. Oratory was a hugely popular activity. People regularly went and listened to speeches and debates on all kinds of topics. And this was the world in which Paul engaged in ministry.

Paul, situated in this world, asked "Where is the debater of this age?" This was not a literal question whose answer would have been that they are found in every public square and building. No, this was a rhetorical question whose purpose is to almost dismiss his opponents, to mock them. Now, I have nothing against speech and debate. I enjoyed it. I still do. And I learned so many valuable skills from it. And Paul really doesn’t have any problem with debate either. He is being rather cheeky in his point, since he is a remarkably good debater himself and is setting up a solid argument that has stood up well through the ages.

But debate is ultimately about success and winning. You want to convince everyone - or at least the judges - that you are right; that your opponent is wrong. This was as true then as it is now. There are winners and losers. To win, to convince people, as Aristotle taught and as every orator would have learned in the first century when they read his work, you use some combination of your own ethos (your presence, your expertise, your position) and the pathos of your audience (their fears, their worries, their anxieties) and your logos (the carefully structured logic of your words). Ethos, pathos, and logos.

But Paul wants to remind his readers, this relatively young Christian community in Corinth, that what really matters is not the logos of our arguments, but the Logos of God. In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, and the Logos became flesh. Paul points to the true Logos. Not the debater’s logos, not Aristotle's logos, but the true and ultimate Logos, the incarnate Logos, the incarnate Word: Jesus Christ.

And the image of the logos that Paul wants to start his argument with – remember, this passage is from the first chapter and Paul is setting the groundwork for what will come - is the Logos hanging there on the cross. "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God."

This is counter to everything that the debater - of Paul's age, of our age, of every age - cares about. Losing instead of winning; failure instead of success. The cross: that shameful tool of execution of the Roman State, designed to publicly humiliate the victim to make a point to the whole body politic. The cross: the equivalent of the electric chair or the needle of lethal injection or the gun of the firing squad or the hangman's noose or the lynching tree. The cross, this horrendous thing, is the foundation of true wisdom, of true knowledge, of true discernment, of true boasting. The cross is the foundation of Paul's argument that is going to take him into his audacious claims as the letter continues about what it means to be a baptized member of Christ's body - when he will claim that even the weakest, lowliest member is not only necessary, but often the most valuable - and his audacious claims about the primacy of love over every other gift that God could possibly give us. Paul is laying the groundwork for his argument about what life in Christ is really about.

Winning, success, power: these all pull at us constantly. They are seductive. We are all tempted to "love human glory more than the glory that comes from God" as we hear John say in our Gospel of some of the Pharisees who encountered Jesus. And yet, as Paul reminds us, winning, success, and power are nothing compared to God. The foolishness of God is greater than our wisdom; the weakness of God greater than our strength. Winning, success, and power are all useless in the light of the cross.

It's foolishness. It really is. Paul knows it. He says it. It's foolish. It is foolish to set the cross before the values of the world. But, it’s a similar foolishness to the foolishness of calling the old and barren Sarah and Abraham to be ancestors of great nations. It’s a similar foolishness to calling the murderer and poor public speaker Moses to lead a movement of liberation. It’s a similar foolishness to calling the foreigner Ruth to be the grandmother of David and calling the greatest sinner David to be the greatest king. It’s a similar foolishness to calling the much too young Jeremiah and the impure Isaiah and the contrarian Jonah to be God’s prophets. It’s foolishness. It’s foolishness for the Messiah to go to the cross, to be slaughtered like a lamb. It’s all foolishness. But it is the foolish wisdom of God.

And this is the foolish wisdom that we proclaim as ordained ministers: as deacons, as priests, as bishops. The foolishness of the cross we proclaim in both word and example. We sometimes carry unnecessary anxiety that our job is to convince others to follow Christ. (Though, if we are honest with ourselves, the anxiety is often to convince others to join our churches, to pack our pews, to increase our budgets, to succeed in worldly terms, basking in human glory).

But Paul is reminding us that our task is actually just to foolishly proclaim the cross. To keep sharing the story of the incarnate Logos, the incarnate Word, and not to stress about our own logos, our own words. To keep building up the Body of Christ in the light of the cross, valuing every single member, even the lowliest, especially the lowliest. To keep prioritizing love above all else. That is our task. That is our task today, as we renew our ordination vows before our Bishop. That is our task this week as we walk with our congregations and Jesus though Holy Week. That is our task always as we engage in the ministry to which God has called us. Amen. 

March 13, 2016 - 5th Sunday in Lent - The Balance between Penitence and Hope