Finding God in Interruptions

The following is the Easter sermon preached at St. James Episcopal Church:

The sermon has already been preached.  If you paid close attention to the Gospel reading from John then you’ve already heard the message.  It was short and sweet and all that really needed be said.  It was so short that maybe you missed it.  So I’ll give it to you again, just to be sure you don’t leave the church today without hearing the Easter proclamation.  Here it is: “Mary Magdalene went and announced to his disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord.’”  There is no stronger or more powerful sermon then the one preached by Mary Magdalene some 2000 years ago in a record five simple words: "I have seen the Lord."

It isn’t clear at all that the disciples believe Mary.  Perhaps they thought her hysterical or overly dramatic, or just a bit high strung.  So just to make sure they should believe her, the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples in the upper room while they were hiding from the authorities.  He passed right through the locked door and spoke to them. They were apparently speechless, but John tells us they rejoiced when they saw the Lord. They, in turn, preached to Thomas but he did not believe either them, or Mary, apparently.  So a week later, Jesus came to them again and invited Thomas puts his hand in the wound. Thomas proclaimed: “My Lord and my God!” Which, I’m sure earned him at least one, “Amen, Brother!”  Shortly thereafter, Jesus appeared again to the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias and there they shared a breakfast of fish and bread. And no one dared to ask, Who are you? because they knew who it was. There they received the Holy Spirit from which hundreds of sermons would be preached. And for thousands upon thousands, then millions upon millions of people through these 2000 years, again and again and again joy would interrupt sorrow and lives would be changes in ways no one could have foreseen. Perhaps even for you?      Who could have imagined it?

For Mary and the other women, and for the disciples, things were turning out quite differently than any of them had imagined. The resurrection had upset all expectations.  Mary Magdalene and the other women expected to continue in their roles, to care for the body, and to mourn and to pick up the pieces of their lives. But joy interrupted sorrow and everything changed.  The disciples had expected to return to the lives they had before they abandoned them to follow Jesus all around the Judean countryside.  It didn’t take long for Peter to say, “I’m going fishing.”  There was nothing left to do.  But even the fishing was off.  Or at least until Jesus showed up on the beach that morning. From the shore he yelled, “…you don’t have any fish do you?” They yelled back, “No.” So he told them to throw the net to the right side of the boat and there they would find some.  Peter recognized who it was and unable to contain himself, and jumped into the water and swam to shore.  Joy interrupted sorrow and now nothing would be the same. 

This isn’t the usual ordering of things. It’s usually the other way around, isn’t it?:  Isn’t is usually that sorrow interrupts joy and everything changes?  But that isn’t God ordering of things. The Easter proclamation is that God delivers unexpected joy that interrupts everything else.  It was this kind of unexpected joy that made it impossible for anyone who saw the risen Jesus to return to the life they had before and the same is true for us. Louis L’Amour captured this paradoxical truth of the gospel when he wrote, “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” 

Everybody hopes for a happy ending; that unexpected twist that turns a plot of his head. It’s why we love classic stories that satisfy our longing for things to turn out differently than one expects; stories like Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, and Mansfield Park. Last week I watched for the second time another favorite, Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South.  It’s the story about Margaret Hale, a young women who has moved with her parents to an industrial town in Northern England, far in every way, from the lovely, picturesque southern countryside. From a great house with lovely lawns and rose gardens she must adjust to a modest urban home in the mill district of the dark and dirty little town of Milton.  The family have had to relocate because Margaret’s father, an Anglican priest, has chosen not to sign a declaration of allegiance to the Book of Common Prayer, saying that he could not, because he could not in good conscious swear to a belief in doctrines to which he did subscribe. His wife is inconsolable, believing that he has left the priesthood based on a mere formality.  She simply can’t fathom why he would not just sign the document and go on with his life as it was before. Having left behind everything she holds dear for reasons that are beyond her understanding, she dies brokenhearted.  Though Ms. Margaret longs for the life and friends she knew in the south, she tries to make the best of her new circumstances.  Even so, she rejects much of what she encounters including the gruff, but very handsome mill owner, John Thornton, as she compares her new life with what she knew before.  After losing her father as well, Margaret returns to the South where she finds that it is not quite as she remembered.  Things have changed and there is no longer a role for her to play there.  We, of course, know what she has learned: Try as we might, we can never go home again.  Even with an unexpected windfall following the death of her father, Ms. Margaret finds herself feeling alone and quite displaced.  As the story concludes Mr. Thornton also finds himself feeling alone and displaced, facing financial ruin and the loss his cotton mill.

But this is a period romance after all, so rest assured, things will turn out well for Ms. Margaret and for Mr Thornton.  In the final scene, he is on a train returning to the north, and she is on an opposite train heading south.  The trains have both reached a station somewhere in the middle, and from their coaches they see one another across the platform.  Quite unexpectedly, in a single moment, joy interrupts sorrow, and everything changes.

We love these kinds of stories! even though we tend to dismiss them as fairytales that bear no resemblance to real life. But in truth, these stories would not work if there was not some possibility that life can turn out for the better in ways we could not have planned through our manipulations.  The possibility can only exists if this was not, at least some of the time, the way life really does turn out.   Sometimes people who long for love find it, despite the fact they are convinced they will not.  Sometimes, the events of life, as difficult as they might truly be, present us with opportunities that would not have otherwise been afforded.  Yes, sometimes, sorrow interrupts joy. But many times, in a thousand different ways, joy interrupts sorrow, and our lives are altered.

In either case is the interruption that changes everything.  Sometimes, perhaps even often, we wonder, Where is God in this?  God is in the interruptions. Interruptions make it so we can’t go home again.  They makes us grow beyond our edges, adapt to our ever changing lives, prompt us to change the things we can, and to accept the things we can’t. Interruptions press us to think about how we want to live and the decisions we make. They make it impossible to predict what to expect when even our expectations may be met with unexpected joy. Most importantly, they make us less dependent on our own abilities and far more dependent on God’s mysterious workings.  The stories we tell about our lives are nearly always based on some interruption; some place in time where sorrow interrupted joy or joy interrupted sorrow.  The stories we tell about our God are these kinds of stories too. Mary went to tomb and Jesus was not there. He appeared to her and she proclaimed the impossible: I have seen the Lord.  Joy interrupts sorrow. This is our story, our Easter story. This is the way we see the world, through resurrection eyes.  These are the kinds of stories we tell and this is the truth we preach.  

Gone: The Confession of the Passion

The theme of the Good Friday reading of the Passion can be summed up in single word: Gone.  He’s gone.

In his recent hit, country music singer, Montgomery Gentry sings about the certainty of loss with these words:

This ain't no temporary, typical, tearful good-bye,

This ain't no breakin' up and wakin' up and makin' up one more time

This is gone. Gone like a freight-train, gone like yesterday,

gone like a soldier in the civil war, bang, bang,

gone like a '59 Cadillac, like all the good things that ain't never coming back. 

No, no never, no never coming back.

If I were to rewrite Gentry's song to fit the events of today, it'd go something like this:

This ain't no hopin' for the best, hidin' out ‘till the coast is clear then I'll rest day,

This ain't no waitin' for the fall, runnin' down the hall, whew that was a close call.

This is gone. Gone like a ship in the perfect storm, gone like that decision that leaves ya torn, 

Gone like the trust we had in the dollar and the reverence for the collar, 

and all the other things that ain't never coming back.   

There are a lot of things in life that are final; final sales, final deadlines, final exams, and that final chance to finally set things right.  But there is a finality to death that is like no other kind of ending. There is deep lament when in our world every song ends with, "no, no never, no never coming back."   The reality of being gone, and the emptiness it translates, lies at the heart of the Christian confession of faith. Christ died. For three days he was gone. Really gone, no, no never, no never coming back kind of gone. We capture the finality of these dark days when we recite the Nicene creed, or whatever variation of a declaration of faith your tradition tenders.  In Christian unity we confess that we believe that, "For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried."  While we know that the grave was not, in fact, the end; we confess it, nonetheless, as if we did not.  We confess it because to dismiss the finality of Jesus’ death would be to completely undermine the power of the resurrection.  And so, for today, we make our common confession: he suffered death and was buried. On this point we do not disagree. On this point there is no theological deadlock. And it is on this point that the playing ground is level. Jesus, while fully divine, was just as much fully human; he was born as one of us, and he died as one of us, and we confess it without question.  The author of Hebrews directs us to do as much.  

He, or she, as the case may be, speaking of the Passion of Christ writes: Hold fast to your confession. And so we do. Throughout the seasons we confess it; from Advent into Christmas we confess it.  Throughout Lent into Holy Week and especially on Easter day we confess it. And again on Trinity Sunday and the day of Pentecost and all through ordinary time, we confess: "For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried."  

We who are gathered here to witness the crucifixion find ourselves at a loss of words, a loss of halleluias, a loss of all things we have perceived as holy, and are stripped of things religiously consequential. The sanctuary lies empty, without adornment. On this day there is no triumphant cross to lead us. In the sobriety of these days while yet we cannot see beyond the victory of death, we do have a rare and precious opportunity to see what remains. Because as dark and uncertain as it may appear, this time is not without grace. 

Aside from Jesus’ life, something else ended on the cross; Jesus' obedience to the Father reached its final destination. There at Golgotha, Jesus fully met his obligation. He obeyed God to the end and the strength of that obedience stands firm. While Mary and the other women wept at the cross, his obedience survived. While his lifeless body was taken from the cross, his obedience was transferred onto that empty cross. While he was placed in the tomb, his obedience persisted.  While the apostles shrank away from the scene and went into hiding, his obedience remained.   It is the constancy of Jesus’ unwavering obedience that hangs still on the cross; and it is that which today we offer our adoration as we reverence the cross.  

The Latin root word for obedience is oedire, which simply means to listen deeply. This opens a door for us as we contemplate our own obedience to God.  We perceive obedience to mean that we are to act as directed. But to be directed requires listening for a command. And so perhaps a more theologically correct way of thinking about obedience begins with simply listening. Listening deeply for God to speak.  Listening to our own inner voice as it responds to God’s call to and for us.  Listening for the voice of God in those who speak to us, or about us, or with us.  To listen is to obey.

The psalter directs us to, "Be still, and know that I am God.”  It is a call to obedience.  When we are still we can only listen.  Jesus is gone, night has fallen, and everything in the land is standing still. In the stillness, the empty vessel of these three days, listen to the steady beat of your own heart, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen to your breath, or tend to your breathlessness, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen, to the birds of spring that do not know and have no concern that Jesus has died, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen to the wind, which you cannot see, but see how it sways the branches high above you, and how it pushes against you, and in your obedience you will know God. Listen to the overflowing waters of a nearby creek, filled by snow and ice and rain which carries with it the promise of a bountiful harvest, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen to the warmth of the sun on your face, accept the assurance that surely tomorrow will follow this day, and in your obedience you will know God.  Listen deeply to all the life that surrounds you; let it fill these three empty days as we make our confession, and we wait, and the world groans, and the people cry out for God to act.   

Mary: She who thinks

The following Lenten reflection is based on Luke 2:8-20 

It may seem odd to pull into Lent what Christians now universally hear as a Christmas text.  But keep in mind that the writers of Luke’s Gospel did not write this text so that we might have Christmas plays of the Nativity.  Luke would not have recognized the word “Christmas” because there was no such thing and wouldn’t be so for at least another 300 years.  

It had been an ordinary day into which the most extraordinary events had occurred.  A child was born and shortly thereafter a host of angels had appeared to reassure some very frightened shepherds to put away their fear, for God, God’s own self, had come into the world, born of a woman.  Luke, himself, seems reflective as he writes, “But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

In the whole of the bible this is somehow a very unique statement.  It tells us that Mary thought long and hard about what had occurred.  She thought about it.  Well, who wouldn’t think about it?  In fact, it is so obvious that a great deal of reflection was done, and not just by Mary, that one wonders why this line was even included in the text.  Or we might wonder, why was the act of thoughtfulness so important here but not included in the events of the crucifixion or in the three days that followed?  Mary is there too, watching from the distance.  But this time there is no host of angels there to quell her fear. Instead she is confronted by the realized potential for human suffering; not the least of which is her own.  

It has been the pondering of her heart that has carried her through the whole of the events of the gospels and into the finality of Good Friday. And it is her pondering of all these things, things seen and unseen, known and unknown, that will sustain her for the rest of her days. It is Mary’s wonderment of the heavenly display of Godly triumph in the threat of deadly evil that sustains us still.

We Protestants have historically rejected the reverence and adoration of Mary given by our Roman brothers and sisters. For many denominations such observances went the way of altars and candles and incense and bells as Christianity shed its skin of anything reminiscent of Roman Catholicism. Even in the Episcopal Church, a Protestant body that retained a strong Catholic identity even while it rejected the papacy and its hierarchal structure, Mary’s role in Christian faith and belief is largely a mystery.  In the last several years, however, there has been an effort among Protestants to reclaim Mary’s rightful and universal place as the mother of God.   A few years ago the leading Christian magazine The Christian Century ran an article on the Protestant reconsideration of Marian theology.  In the article named, What about Mary? Jason Byassee  wrote: “[R]ecently there has been a flurry of publications by Protestants on Mary, works that suggest she could be an ecumenical bridge—or at least that the Protestant aversion to Marian devotion is eroding…. Church historians of all stripes have long granted that Marian teaching and devotion dates from the earliest days of the church. And they grant that devotion to Mary was not discarded even by the leading Reformation figures Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. The fruit of ecumenical labor on this topic can be seen in such balanced and helpful resources as Mary in the Plan of God and in the Communion of the Saints(1999), a product of years of dialogue between French Catholics and Protestants that calls for both Catholic and Protestant 'conversions' on the subject.”

Such efforts of reconciliation are not isolated to the pages of publications.  A couple of years ago an unusual thing happened at St. James (Episcopal Church); a large portrait of Mary appeared in the back of the sanctuary. Some say it had been in the under-croft for years. Others couldn’t remember ever seeing it before and were stymied as to how she came to suddenly appear, resting on the floor, leaning against the wall, half hidden by the end of a pew.  She went largely unnoticed for months.  No doubt many thought it likely I had brought her in.  But for the record, I am as mystified as the rest.  Over time a small group devoted an area of the sanctuary as a Mary Chapel.  Her portrait now hangs high on the wall surrounded by items of prayer and devotion.  Quite honestly, I’ve been amazed at how warmly she has been received. Each week at worship many pause to light the devotional candles set just below her portrait. The collective lights from those candles and their prayers rise up to her in reverence and with great respect for her place in our life of faith, even if we, Protestants cannot articulate the fullness of her role there.  Each week as I look out into the congregation from my place at the altar, I am greeted by Mary there at the back of the church looking at me.  For me there is a sense of completeness with her presence. She reminds me each week as she looks out over all of us that it was she who bore the savior to whom we owe our redeemed lives.  She is not the center of attention but rather an onlooker; gazing upon our weekly celebrations of her son’s life and his place within the mystery of the triune God.  She is for me a firm foundation upon which to build a thoughtful and reflective faith.  She is not one who acts but one who thinks.  

Mary is the one who gives us permission to ponder the depths of our beliefs.  In some circles the encouragement of the faithful to think about what they are asked to believe is not permissible.  Many of the faithful, on their own accord, chose not to reflect too long or too hard about the holy mysteries, fearing that too much pondering will somehow lead to doubt and faithlessness.  Others still treasure their beliefs as if they were pieces of a museum exhibit, leaving them undisturbed and unchallenged even while the trials of life call out for deeper reflection.  I do not think Mary had such a luxury.  I believe that as her son was arrested and tried, tortured and crucified, she held up before her the words of the angels and wondered if those words still rang true.  It is one thing to be reassured not to fear, it is quite another not be afraid.  Perhaps she wondered, Where is the angelic host now? or even, Where is the Lord God now?  Mary paves the way for us to ask such difficult questions.  She invites us to think and to question and to test so that we might not bear our conclusions lightly but that they might be borne not out of ease but out of struggle, not out of the casual assurances of others but out of God’s own promises.  A thinking faith is a living faith.

For our purposes this day in Lent, the message of the angels that Mary ponders so deeply is especially instructive as we approach the events of the crucifixion. It is good for us to remember that we can’t get to the resurrection but by way of the manger.  It is good to remember that this story begins with a humble birth and an angelic host revealed to lowly shepherds.  In a time of great fear and anxiety the Lord proclaimed an end to fear.  It stands firm.  So that if you listen very closely, even at the cross you can hear the angels’ proclaim:  “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.”