From Vulnerability to Good Shepherding

4 Easter b  April 29, 2012

Acts 4:5-12  Psalm 23 
1 John 3:1-8     John 10:11-16

Lectionary Link

   The Gospels just like much of the Bible reflects in metaphor the occupational situation that pertained in the lives of the original listeners and readers.  So during the time of Jesus it was common to use agricultural metaphors.  In John’s Gospel, there must have been familiarity with growing of grapes, because in the Vine discourse, Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.”  But today on Good Shepherd Sunday, we have the adoption of metaphors that pertains to animal husbandry, particular in the care of sheep.  There was a long history of shepherding in Israel.  Before becoming settled in the Promised Land, the tribes of Israel were nomadic sheep herders.  The most famous King of Israel who was the archetype for the expected Messiah, was King David.  Perhaps the most famous Psalm of all is Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”  This Psalm is associated with King David who began as shepherd boy of his father’s flock and he rose to become the most famous Shepherd of the people of Israel. 
 In the Hebrew Scriptures leaders and Kings were referred to as shepherds; some were good shepherd and some were bad shepherds who forgot God and exploited their people.

   And while today is Good Shepherd Sunday, one must note that the writers of the New Testament used many, metaphors to speak about Christ, so many that one wonders about the explosion of metaphors that surround Christ.

  How is it that Jesus could attain so many titles and inspire such metaphorical descriptions of his life?   Each person within one’s community inspires contrast and comparisons.  Each person gets nicknames, titles and designations, and sometimes you really can’t repeat everything that you’ve been called.  We give our public heroes and athletes special names and title.  Who in popular culture is the King?  Elvis, of course.  Which athletes get called the Great One?  Muhammad Ali and Wayne Gretzky.  When one falls in love, it creates new language as well.  When in love people use superlative language, exaggerated language as an attempt to represent their feeling in language.

   On Good Shepherd Sunday, we can note some ironies about the use of shepherding metaphors.  Jesus is the good shepherd.  Jesus is also the gate to the sheepfold.  But in the Gospel of John, Jesus is also the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Jesus is Shepherd, Gate, and Lamb.

   In ancient shepherding, the shepherd was literally the gate of the sheepfold.  The sheepfold was a stone walled enclosure with one entrance.  And the shepherd literally slept in the one entrance and exit from the sheepfold.  His body kept the wolves out and the sheep in.

  Jesus as the Lamb of God stands in the ancient tradition of God’s people understanding that God has found a way to provide for mercy and forgiveness.  When the human community practiced “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,” the lamb of God was a message to humanity that God is so great that God forgives.  Jesus as the Lamb of represents the end of retaliation as a way of understanding our relationship with God and with each other.  God’s mercy is great enough to allow forgiveness as the way of relationship.

  Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, and we have read the famous discourse in John’s Gospel about Jesus as the Good Shepherd, and we've read perhaps Psalm 23 is the most popular portion of Scripture in the entire world.  This Psalm includes a discovery about God and so the psalmist wrote, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want.”

  Shepherds symbolized the leaders in ancient cultures and the church has adopted the image of the shepherd as a metaphor for the role of the clergy of the church.  A bishop carries a crosier or shepherd’s staff as one of the symbols of the pastoral office.

  I actually think that the shepherd image needs to be re-worked to be made applicable in modern and post-modern times.  The shepherd image was a metaphor with more richness of connotation when societies and churches were more paternalistic in nature.  By paternalistic, I mean when the educational gap between leader and the herd was so great that a lay person in the church was regarded to be in the role of a dependent child with a parent who made most of the important faith decisions on behalf of the child.

  We in the Episcopal Church retain hierarchical structures with bishops who carry shepherd’s staff but at the same time we do not regard lay people to be like children who are to follow the orders of the clergy.  Our baptismal vows are the great equalizer between clergy and laity since we both recognize only one Good Shepherd, Jesus himself.

  I believe that there is a fuller application for the good shepherd motif and I think that this motif has tremendous relevance for our lives and our world today.

  To simplify the Gospel lesson, we can say that the human condition can find us in one of three conditions: the sheep, the good shepherd and the bad shepherd.

  All of us in life are often in the role of the sheep.  By being in the role of the sheep, I mean that each person in life experiences the conditions of vulnerability.  Vulnerability can be seen in both extreme and benign ways.  If I am building and I don’t have architectural or engineering skills, I need the skills of one to help.  That is a benign sort of vulnerability and in the ways in which division of labor in society works, we are often dependent upon the experts in fields where we lack expertise.  There are other conditions of vulnerability that are more pronounced in terms of human need.  A young child is vulnerable and dependent for many years.  A sick person or a person weakened by the conditions of age or poor health lives in vulnerability.  A person can be in vulnerable conditions when in financial difficulty or relationship problems, loss of job, or loss of a family member or friend.  The conditions of vulnerability call out for good shepherding.

  Our world experience shows us that both good shepherding and bad shepherding happens in our world.

  The greatest dilemma in our world today is not that things happen that cause the conditions of human vulnerability—vulnerability is the human condition.  The greatest dilemma is that the skill and resources that are available within the human community do not always get applied to the conditions of human vulnerability.

  There is enough knowledge and there are enough teachers; and yet conditions of illiteracy and ignorance prevail in many places in our world.  There is enough money in our world, but the money does not get applied to the conditions of poverty in many places in our world.  There is enough food in our world, but that food does not always get to the people in our world who are hungry.  There is enough medicine and there are enough doctors in our world but equal health care does not get distributed to the needs of our world.

  There are enough religious people in our world, but the message of the Gospel and God’s good news for everyone does not get out to people who see their lives as dominated by bad news.

  We are not going to change the fact of vulnerability in the human condition.  The conditions of freedom means that vulnerability will continue in this life.  But since freedom is a condition of life, freedom figures prominently in whether this world will be dominated by good shepherds or bad shepherds.

  What is a bad shepherd?  A bad shepherd is someone who has power, knowledge and wealth and uses power, knowledge and wealth for either one’s benefit alone or actually uses power to exploit those who do not have power, wealth and knowledge.

  The good shepherd passage is a rebuke of bad shepherding.  Certainly just having the ordained offices of ministry does not automatically make one a good shepherd and there are many failures amongst ordained ministers to prove that office does not guarantee that one will be a good shepherd.  And it is also true that just having a medical degree will not automatically make one a good and compassionate doctor.

   What is the motivation for us to be good shepherds in our lives?  First empathy should be enough to motivate us.  When we are vulnerable, we want good shepherds to come to our aid and assistance.  We don’t ever want to be exploited by others.  Our experience with our own situations of vulnerability should motivate us to be good shepherds to those who are in need.

  The example that Jesus set for us is the chief inspiration for us to use our power, knowledge and wealth to be good shepherds.  The essence of the good shepherd is this:  The good shepherd lays down his life for the life of the sheep.

  We have lots of room to grow towards being good shepherds.  Can we lay down our financial lives, our power, our skills and ability to serve and lift up the vulnerable?  That calling to be better shepherds is always before us.

  So we have three images that simplify our life roles into three positions.  A vulnerable sheep.  A good shepherd.  A bad shepherd.  In our vulnerable conditions, I pray that each of us will always find good shepherds to help.  And when we are brought in the path of those who are vulnerable, let us respond as good shepherds knowing that the prime reason that God has blessed us with power, knowledge and wealth is to learn how to be good shepherds in life.  Let us give thanks for Jesus as our Good Shepherd and who has shown us how to lay down our lives in service for one another.  Amen.

Post-resurrection Day Appearances of Episcopalians in Church

Father Brown was having breakfast and sitting at the counter of the local diner and he happened to be seated to a local skeptic.


Skeptic:  Father Brown does it worry you that there seems to be many discrepancies in the resurrection appearances of Christ in the Gospel?


Father Brown:  No that doesn't bother me; what bothers me is the sparsity of post-resurrection day appearances of Episcopalians in the pews on the two Sundays after Easter!

We Are an Easter-ly People

3 Easter Sunday  b      April 22, 2012     

Acts 3:12-19  Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7  Luke 24:36b-48

Lectionary Link

  If we are to take the resurrection appearances of Christ as literal historical events, does it not seem rather odd for Jesus to say to his disciples whom he was with on Thursday to say to them on Sunday, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.”  And these words are supposedly said by Jesus to his disciples while he was eating fish with them.  How is Jesus eating fish with his disciples and speaking about being with them in the past tense?  Yes, we can smooth this over by saying that Jesus was with them in a different way 72 hours ago because he was not yet in his resurrected body.  And we can also note that from the Gospel accounts this resurrected Christ can be in Jerusalem and then 60 plus miles away in Galilee in the same day and make a 7 mile trip to Emmaus to meet with disciples on the road.  And be back in Jerusalem to meet the Doubting Thomas for a meeting with the disciples, and by the way, did you know that in the Gospel of Luke  after eating fish with his disciples Jesus ascended in to heaven presumably on the evening of Easter Sunday.  But then to agree with other Gospel writers Jesus has to return and re-stage his Ascension to lift off on the 40^th day, a Thursday for the liturgical calendar, 10 days before the feast of Pentecost.  You know that Jesus has to be ascended before the Holy Spirit can come to everyone, because presumably the Spirit and Jesus could not be with us at the same time? 

  The body of Jesus in his Easter appearances is some resurrected body!  This is a super body, a super being beyond our empirical imaginations.

  Now if we try to import modern reporting techniques back onto the Gospel as the sole criteria for determining whether something is “true” then we have a big problem.

  Why do we celebrate an annual feast day of Easter?  Do we do it to mark a limited set of appearances of Jesus to his followers after he had been crucified?  Or do we do it because the entire nature of the Church is Easter-ly?  What I want to suggest is that Easter and the resurrection appearances of Christ are every day.  There does not have to be logical consistency to the resurrection appearances of Christ because he can appear to anyone in any way and he can appear to different people at the same time.

  And isn’t that the really the good news of the resurrection?  The risen Christ is not a singular event but a way of experiencing a real presence of God in our lives at any potential time.  The historical Jesus transformed to the risen Christ is a breaking forth from the tomb of the merely physical and an incorporating of the interior reality through which most us experience what we call our exterior worlds.   We lives from our interior worlds and so in that sense our entire life is in some way visionary and even people who do not see still project from their interior lives.

  Those who are so attached to the resurrection of Jesus as being a coming to life again of his physical body seem to limit all of the activity of God’s grace within an event of two thousand years ago.  It seems to me that the resurrection of Christ was an unleashing of a plentitude of possible presences of Christ to people everywhere and in all times.  And these presences of Christ need not be limited to only people who have had the privilege of being born in a place that gave them Christian knowledge.  Why limit the resurrected Christ to but the Christian world?  Why not reconnect the resurrection of Christ with God as creator and the one who is always recreating an ever new world?

  I suspect that if each of us went public about the times about when we have sit down with Christ and eaten fish with him, we might all be wearing strait jackets by now in our modern and post-modern world.  But what about other God-experiences that you have had?  The ones that you don’t even want to talk about because they might be misunderstood by people who could not be in your skin to understand or experience them in the way that you did?  When and where did your experiences of the sublime occur?  Shh….don’t tell anyone.  They are uniquely your experience.  They came to you in the tapestry of your life experience as a unique child of God.

  We have a public and corporate church, liturgy, Scripture, doctrines and creeds, not to say that Christ presence has been exhausted and finished in past events; we have all of these to remind you and me that Easter is today, it is now and it has always been.  We do all of this in a public and corporate manner as a way to encourage each person to recognize and embrace the holy experiences of one’s own life.  I am here today to say that each and every one of you has already had such experiences.  And you can claim your own experience as being in continuity with experiences of the risen Christ that are recounted in the Gospel.  This is what St. Paul did and we too can claim the validity of the presence of the risen Christ to us.  And we don’t have to make the details of our experiences public but we can bear witness to the results of joy, love, friendship, hope, awe, ecstasy, faith, goodness, deliverance and redemption in our lives.  Each of us has had enough of life changing experiences to bear witness to the reality of the presence of the sublime in our lives.

  And we gather each Sunday as a corporate witness to the reality of the sublime and to confess that we are always ready for a new experience of the sublime which bears the reality of the spirit of the resurrection of Christ.

  Dear people, don’t get into fruitless arguments about the details of an event that happened 2000 years ago, just live in the reality of being Easter-ly people, and find the resurrection to be a daily reality. Amen.

Can the Written Word Convey a Real Presence of the Risen Christ?

2 Easter Sunday  B April 15, 2012  

Acts 4:32-35      Psalm 133

1 John 1:1-2:2  John 20:19-31              

Lectionary Link

   The late French philosopher Jacques Derrida provided an interesting insight on language.  In his musings about the development of language he made the claim that spoken language comes into being after written language.  On the surface, this seems like it is absurd since we know that babies learn to speak before they write.  And in aboriginal cultures, native peoples often speak but do not have written language.  So how can written language come before oral or spoken language?  Well, his point is people who only know spoken language and who do not have writing do not really know the meaning of spoken language since they do not have writing to compare it with.  So spoken language only truly becomes known as spoken language after writing has occurred; without writing there was nothing to compare spoken language with to give it an identity.

  This may seem like trivial and peevish philosophical sophistry, but I think that the  Gospel of John may indeed be a very rich reflection and speculation upon the philosophy of word and language in spoken and written forms.  We assume Jesus spoke words but those spoken words could not now be known unless at some point they were written down.  But  the words that Jesus may have said occurred before they were written down and they could not have been retained in culture or tradition if they had not been written down. 

  The first verse of John’s Gospel: In the Beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.  This notion of word is an acknowledgement that human consciousness as we know it, is created because of word ability.  Words are a human mystery; human beings have language ability.  We think that we can pinpoint areas of the brain that are active when speech and language are involved but there is still a mystery as to why we have and use language in the ways that we do.  Word ability defines the very social distinction of human beings from other members of the animal kingdom.

    Spoken word happens because a person is actually physically present to create the oral sounds and the audible phenomenon of speech.

  All of the Gospels including the Gospel of John presume that there was a Jesus of Nazareth who once had a physical presence and that when he was physically present, he spoke to many people.  He spoke to enough people words that could be remembered.  But human memory is not like the technologies of memory that we have today in being able to record the human voice in a variety of ways.

  The actual voice of Jesus as it was heard by his followers had to be remembered.   And the words of Jesus had to be recounted by those who remembered them.  And when those who had heard Jesus speak recalled the words of Jesus, they did so in a future time after Jesus and so they had to relate those words to new situations.  And so those remembered words would be presented in different ways according to the situations because the original context of the spoken words was gone.  It is possible to remember the words of Jesus but the setting of where those words were said have passed and so the remembered words of Jesus had to interact with new environments and new people.

  Those who heard the spoken words of Jesus were a direct link with Jesus to people who did not experience the physical presence of Jesus.  But what happened when those eyewitnesses of Jesus began to die out?  What happened to the remembered words of Jesus?  What happens to the memories of what Jesus did in this life?

  This dilemma is what the Gospel of John is dealing with.  As a teaching on how embracing the notion of word is, the writing of the Gospel of John makes a self reference to the significance of the technology of writing as an important way for people of the future to know Jesus of Nazareth as the risen Christ.

  The punchline of the doubting Thomas story is this:  “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  For Thomas, only seeing was believing.  The writer of John is making the case that one does not have to see Jesus; one can still read words about Jesus and one can still believe.  And this kind of belief is even a more blessed state of faith than the faith of the eyewitnesses of Jesus of Nazareth.  The writer of John is trying to accomplish quite some magic by essentially stating that the absence of Jesus of Nazareth opens up another kind of presence for the risen Christ.

  The eternal word of God creates and organizes all of human consciousness.  The eternal word is evident in actual human flesh.  The eternal word is exemplified best in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  And he was word and he used words; he spoke words and his words were creative.  His words created friendships and relationships; his words created community.  And his words were spirit and life.  Jesus is quoted in John’s Gospel as saying, “My words are spirit and they are life.”  The words of Jesus created a community.  But could that community continue to have life?  Could that community survive?  Could the words of Jesus continue to be spirit and life in the future of the world long after he was gone and when his audible voice could not longer be heard?

  Can Jesus only be known in his physical historical body and is he only present when his audible words can be heard?  Is Jesus only present when his body and his scars are present to be touched?   Do you understand how the early Christians were already grappling with the reality of the presence of Christ long after the physical Jesus could no longer be heard, touched or felt?

  Can writing, a technology of memory, actually create another significant and real kind of presence?

  How many lovers have dealt with the reality of “absence make the heart grow fonder?”  How many letter writing lovers have had the imagination of faith to seemingly palpably know each other’s presence through the writing of love letters, and then when they settle in to live together as husband and wife grow to be completely distant and absent from one another?  Meaning is turned on its head: Absence is presence; presence is absence.

  Does the physical presence of a person and the ability to actually hear their voice guarantee an enhanced presence characterized by recognition, devotion and attention?

  The writer of John’s Gospel uses the doubting Thomas story to illustrate the experience of the enhanced presence of the Risen Christ that was deeply felt in the community by people who did not see Jesus but who still believed.

  They heard and read the words of Jesus and those words were spirit and they were life.  They had the reality of effecting peace.  They had the reality of forgiving sins, not retaining sins; they had the reality of another kind of presence that was real.

  And it is to this real presence of Christ, you and I are invited today.  The words of Jesus are still spirit and they are still life for us.  And that life is a real presence to us.  Amen.

Gospel Puppet Show: Doubting Thomas

Gospel Puppet Show

April 15, 2012

Doubting Thomas

Characters: Fr. Phil, Doubting Thomas, and Jesus

Father Phil:  Today, boys and girls we are going to meet a famous disciple and friend of Jesus.  But he is known for not believing things.  So his name is Doubting Thomas.  O look, I see that he’s here now.  Hello Thomas, how are you?

Thomas:  I’m not sure about how I am?  I just have some doubts about how I am.

Father Phil:  Well you do have a reputation.  Some people call you Doubting Thomas.  Is that true?

Thomas:  I doubt it.

Father Phil: Can you children say hello to doubting Thomas?

Children:  Hello, doubting Thomas.

Thomas: What children?  I don’t see any children.

Father Phil: These children right here.

Thomas:  I doubt it.

Father Phil:  What do you mean you doubt it?  Look at these children here.  Can’t you see them?

Thomas:  I see some little creatures here, but how do I know that these aren’t space aliens?  

How do I know that they aren’t  Sponge Bobs?

Father Phil: Well, you have a serious doubting problem Thomas.  You could ask their parents.  They would tell you that these are their children.

Thomas:  But if you were a space alien parent, you might not tell the truth about your space alien children?

Father Phil:  Thomas, have a really serious problem with doubt.  Is something wrong?

Thomas:  Yes, I am really having some problems with belief.

Father Phil: Why?

Thomas:  Well, you know my best friend Jesus died.  He died a horrible death on the cross.  And his body was placed in a tomb.  And now his body is missing from the tomb.  And I don’t know what this means.

Father Phil:  Well what happened?

Thomas:  Well, my friends went to the tomb and they said they saw an angel and the angel told them that Jesus had risen from the dead.  How can anyone believe that?

Father Phil: Well, that is pretty amazing.  Don’t you want to believe it?

Thomas:  My friends have teased me and I think that they are playing a joke on me.  They said that they have seen and talked with Jesus.  How can this be true?  And why would they say this to me?  I don’t think it is a very funny joke.  My best friend Jesus died and now my friends are saying that he lives again and they are saying that they have seen him and talked with him.

Father Phil: Well, what are you going to do?

Thomas:  I told them that I have my doubts.  I don’t believe them.  And I won’t believe them unless I can see Jesus and talk with him.  I want proof.  I want to put my hands in the scars on his body or I will not believe.  How can my friends tease me in this way?

Father Phil:  Well, maybe you should go and talk with your friends.

Thomas:  Well, they are having a meeting in a secret place.  They still are frightened and so they are meeting in secret.  I guess I’ll go and see them but I don’t like this joke they are playing on me.

(Thomas goes and suddenly Jesus appears)

Thomas:  O my goodness.  Is that you Jesus?  It looks like you but are you real?  Am I just dreaming?  Are you a ghost?

Jesus: Thomas, peace be with you.  It is I, Jesus your friend.  Look at my scars.  Put your finger out and touch them and feel. 

Thomas:  My Lord and my God!  It really is you.  I am so sorry that I did not believe.  I am so sorry that I doubted.

Jesus:  Well, now you can believe.  But many people will not be able to see me like you have and those people will still believe.  Look at all of these children here.  They have not seen me like you have but they still believe.

Father Phil:  And now Thomas has lost his name; he no longer is Doubting Thomas.   His name is Believing Thomas.  Don’t you like that name better.

Thomas:  I do like that name better.

Father Phil: Well, I like that name better too.  And you see all of these children.  They are Believing Children.  And now can you repeat after me, “I believe that Jesus is alive!”  Amen.

The Resurrection of Christ: Belief of the Weak-Minded?

Easter Sunday        April 8, 2012     

Isaiah 25:6-9   Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Mark 16:1-8

Lectionary Link

  Are you and I gathered here today to bear the scorn as those who are the weak-minded; those to be pitied for maintaining this ancient myth of the resurrection of Christ?  Well, we appear to be in good company and a rather large company of billions of people who have shared this “weak-minded” habit for 2000 years.  But does a large herd of people following a tradition for so many years make it necessarily true?

  Recent atheists have written their attacks upon our beliefs.  Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionist has attacked our weak-minded silly thinking.  The late Christopher Hitchens, also wrote that “God is not Great” and essentially based his criticism upon the fact that people of faith sometimes act very badly, in their narrow biases and prejudices, crusades, holy wars and inquisitions.  Why would anyone believe in a God based upon the horrible actions of those who say that they do? 

  Part of the blame for the criticism of the atheists does rest upon the way in which people of faith have presented and lived their beliefs.  People of faith have gotten tricked by trying to give their right answers to the wrong questions in the wrong way and there has been incredible symbolic confusion.  And you and I may be lost in some of that confusion as we gather here today to ponder the resurrection of Christ and its meaning for our lives today.  We live in the age where the supreme criterion of truth is empirical verification; something is only really meaningful, if and only if it can be empirically verified.  How many resurrections have you experienced?  And can resurrections be replicated by further experience?  And when we retreat to the answer of the unique occasion of the resurrection of Christ, then we fail to satisfy the criteria for real truth, scientific truth.

  How did we as a faith tradition cede or give up the ground of exclusive truth to the scientific method?  What is called Fundamentalism essentially admits that scientific truth is correct and also the resurrection of Christ is scientific truth.  And then Fundamentalism does something that science does not do; they state that their propositions of truth are final and absolute and inscrutable and not open to any questioning.  At least scientists have the humility to say that their theories and laws are tentative until a better explanation can be offered.

  The truth of our faith and of the resurrection needs a different presentation than the one into which it is often forced by the modern skepticism that attends the scientific method.  I ask you to consider some other modes of truth.  What is the truth of the experience of the sublime in being moved by a piece of art or music?  What is the truth of the sublime in being moved by the ocean, mountains or the sheer delightful form of a beautiful unique tree?  What is the truth of a recovering alcoholic who has an event of grace with a Higher Power and states that this event is so real that it resulted in a life of sobriety?  How does science account for or replicate such intermittent and serendipitous events of grace and aesthetic events of the sublime in the works of art and music?  And why would a scientist want to deny the truth value of such events?  Certainly one might want to give endless psychological explanations for such events, but what good does it do to deny the explanation of the one who has had the experience?

  If you and I can understand the reality of such aesthetic events and events of grace that result in transformation, perhaps you and I can begin to embrace the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

  Once the church moved from the reality of the transformation of personal lives, it moved into the world to offer its truth in a wrong forum.  The result was that it accepted a different truth criterion in a different forum.

  So I would submit to you that the accounts of the death and of resurrection of Jesus Christ were essentially the accompanying liturgy of people whose lives were dramatically transformed by what they could not but confess to be an encounter with the risen Christ.

  Once the growing and successful church begins to reduce its liturgy of personal transformation to creeds, doctrines, scriptures and schools of interpretation, churches and denominations, then it unwittingly moved to the grounds of truth criteria established by Plato and Aristotle and by modern science.  And it is no wonder that Christian truth suffered when it became like a fish out of water.

  So how can we correct our confusion?  I suggest that we return to the death and resurrection of Christ as ancient rites of personal transformation, otherwise known as Christian baptism.  Christian baptism is the path of personal transformation whereby we are being made Christian, and we assume this process continues even in our afterlives.

  In the blessing of the waters at Holy Baptism we say, “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit. Therefore in joyful obedience to your Son, we bring into his fellowship those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

  The Gospel Narratives of the death and resurrection of Christ were essentially the liturgy that accompanied people who confessed that their lives had been changed by an encounter with Christ in his life or in his resurrection.  This is not essentially scientific, philosophical truth; it is a truth of the heart, an inward participatory truth.  If we remove the death and resurrection of Christ from the truth of the participatory encounter of the heart in a life that knows the grace of a transformational event, then the truth of the death and resurrection will suffer in the skepticism of a thousand qualifications.

  Easter is a baptismal occasion and we are going to renew our baptismal vows today as a remembrance that the crucifixion and resurrection story is primarily an accompanying and empowering narrative of the path of personal transformation to which we have committed to walk.  The truth of the resurrection is the truth of the transformation of my life and yours and we will never be able to prove either empirically.  What we can hope for is that the progressive transformation of our lives will be a testimony to the resurrection of Christ.

  It has been my job and occupation to study and present the death and resurrection of Christ for many years now and it is still for me all about personal transformation.  I am ready each day to die to the inadequacy of my current knowledge of God and Jesus and look for a resurrection into new knowledge and experience of Jesus and God each day.  And in my process of dying and rebirth, I cannot judge anyone else’s path of transformation; I only want to encourage each of us to be committed to being on this path of dying and rising, this life process of transformation.

  The event of the resurrection also calls the church and St. John the Divine to be on this path of transformation.  How many times has the church been called to die to her inadequate practices of the knowledge of the love of Christ?  We had to die to inadequate love in our failure to include fully in our midst people of color, women, children and gay and lesbian persons.  The event of the resurrection is an event that calls us as individuals and as a community to continuous renewal.

  We are not yet there.  We are not yet made fully Christian.  We are not yet perfect in love, but are you like I am today; do you want to be more fully Christ-like and more perfect in love?  If you do, just whisper with me, “I do.”

  It is okay for us to be tentative in our not yet perfect lives and not yet perfect church because we need to have the humility to admit that there is more imperfection to die to and to put away and there is more resurrection excellence for us yet to attain.  And it is the optimism of the resurrection that invites us to keep on progressing in this personal liturgy of transformation that is anchored in the death and resurrection of Christ.  And it is with this optimism we make the Easter shout: “Alleluia! Christ is Risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen.

Easter Puppet Show

Gospel Puppet Show

April 8, 2012

Easter Sunday

Scene: The Tomb

Characters:

Soldier guarding the tomb: Ed

Jesus: Eric

Young man (angel): Alex

Mary Magdalene: Michelle

Salome: Rylie

Peter: Ed

Miss Debbie (in front of the puppet theatre)

There is a tomb with a round stone on it hanging from the curtain at the back of the theatre

Miss Debbie:  Boys and girls let us visit the tomb of Jesus.  His friend Nicodemus gave this tomb so that Jesus could be buried there.  It was so sad for the friends of Jesus when he died.  They loved him.  He was a special friend and teacher.  Look there’s someone at the tomb now.

Soldier: (pacing back and forth) Stop young lady.  You cannot go near the tomb.  The chief priests told me to guard the tomb.

Miss Debbie: Well, why are you guarding the tomb?

Soldier: Well, I’m just doing my job.  Those chief priests were jealous of this man Jesus and they think that someone might come and steal his body.  That’s strange thinking, but I’m just doing my job.  Just run along.  You can’t be hanging around here.

(Miss Debbie moves to the side)

(Multiple Flashing camera lights in the puppet theatre)

Soldier: Oh my!  I’m blinded!  I can’t see what has happened.  I think that I’m going to faint. Oooooooooooooh!

(Soldier falls off scene)

The stone has been taken off the tomb a grave cloth hangs on the opening of the tomb

Miss Debbie: Children did you see some flashing lights?  I wonder what is happening at the tomb.  Maybe I should go back and check it out.  Do you think the soldier is still there?  Maybe I can sneak back and take a peek.  Will you take a peek with me?

(Mary Magdalene and Salome are now coming to the tomb before they look at the tomb Mary Magdalene says)

Mary Magdalene:  Salome, we’ve got to get to the tomb of Jesus.  We collected so many more spices from our friends to help prepare his body.  He had to be buried so quickly, but now we have more spices.  But I’m worried Salome.

Salome: Mary, why are you worried?

Mary Magdalene:  There is a big stone that is on the entrance of the tomb.  It is too heavy for you and I to roll open.  Maybe there will be some one there to help us open the tomb.

Salome:  Mary, you don’t have to worry.  The stone is already rolled away.

Mary Magdalene:  Oh, no!  Something has happened?  Where’s the body of Jesus?  All I can see is his empty grave cloth.  Who stole his body?   This is terrible.  Why would someone steal the body of Jesus?

(Young Man sticks his head out of the tomb)

Mary Magdalene(seeing the young): Oh, you frightened me!  Did you do this?  Did you take the body of my friend Jesus?  Where did you take him?  Why did you do this?

Young Man: Calm down and don’t be afraid!  Your friend Jesus is not here.  He has been raised from the dead.  You can see his empty grave clothes.  Now I want you to go and tell the disciples and tell Peter that Jesus has risen from the dead.

Mary Magdalene:  Wow!  What does this mean?  When will I see Jesus again?  Let us go quickly and tell Peter.

(Peter shows himself in the left panel)

Peter: Mary Magdalene and Salome…slow down, why are you running?  What has happened?

Mary Magdalene:  We went to the tomb to put more spices on the grave clothes…but the tomb was already open and the grave clothes were empty.  And a young man or angel told us that Jesus had risen from the dead.  He told us to come and tell you.

Peter: Wow!  You know what this means don’t you?

Salome:  What does it mean?

Peter: It means that everything that Jesus told us is true.  He said that he would come back to life after three days.  This is so wonderful.  God did the most special thing ever on this day.  I can’t wait until we see Jesus.

(They disappeared in the left panel and reappear in the middle panel and Jesus pokes out from behind the curtain)

Jesus: Greetings my friends!  Peace be with you!

Peter:  Thank you Jesus for coming back to us.

Mary Magdalene:  We were so worried.

Jesus: Remember this day.  All you will be witnesses to tell everyone what happened.

Salome:  Now I know why Alleluia returns on Easter Day.

Miss Debbie: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  Can you say that?

Everyone: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

Miss Debbie: The Lord is Risen indeed.  Alleluia!  And now all of us are witnesses too of the resurrection of Christ.  Because Christ lives in us too.