The Gate, The Door*

May 3, 2020 

Fourth Sunday of Easter - Year A

Good Shepherd Sunday

Every year

On the 4^th Sunday of Easter we hear part of the what is known as

The Good Shepherd discourse in John’s Gospel 

John’s Gospel is full of SIGNS

And it is full of long DISCOURSES

Jesus performs a sign and then he talks about it

…that is the rhythm of the first half of the Gospel of John

And John does things BIG

All the signs are OVER the top…they are grace upon grace (as John puts it)
1) not just SOME water into wine 

…but Gobs and Gobs of it!

2) not just a man down with an illness

…but a man ill for his ENTIRE life---38 years!

3) not just man freshly dead

…but Lazarus 4 DAYS dead!
4) and not just a man struck by blindness

…but a man blind since birth!

And all of these are accompanied by a discourse…Jesus talking

…Jesus interpreting the sign.

If we peak back at the 4^th Sunday of Lent 

we will remember reading the long story of the Man Born Blind 

It takes up all of chapter 9

And it is followed by today’s Gospel

A section of the Good Shepherd discourse.

The discourse…or the teaching

Helps us NOT to stay focused on the sign…not matter how BIG it is!

Rather…the discourse invites us to look and see BEYOND the sign.

We are invited to ask 

What now? What next? So what?

So, we need to make a quick visit back to the story of the Man Born Blind

It is essentially a story of a man coming to life

Coming to Abundant life

Jesus and his disciples are walking

And they see this blind man begging

And they ask the master “was it his sin or the sin of his parents?”

And Jesus answers “neither…it is so that the Glory of God might be revealed…”

Jesus makes some paste out of mud 

He puts it on the man’s eyes

And commands him to go wash in the pool of Siloam

So he does.
Then there is a scene of astonishment!

All the people around him are astonished!

And they ask, What just happened here???

And the newly sighted man says

“Well it was this man, you know, the one called Jesus…he made this paste, put it on my eyes, told me to wash and, well, there you have it…now I see”

The next part is like a hearing

It has the air of a legal proceeding

The Pharisees are interrogating the healed man AND his parents

(At the time the penalty for confessing Jesus was being thrown out of the synagogue)

Slowly as the interrogation moves along
the man gains courage

And begins to wonder why the Pharisees can’t see!

After the Man has been expelled from the synagogue
Jesus enters the story again

he seeks the newly sighted man out and invites him

Jesus welcomes him into the community of the disciples.

The Pharisees are supposed to be shepherds!!!

Symbolic shepherds --- The Shepherds of Israel! 

They are supposed to CARE, PROTECT, NOURISH the flock

But as the story unfolds, we witness how they REFUSE, CONDEMN, and EXPEL

---and then the discourse follows---

The Good Shepherd discourse

The discourse reveals who the true shepherd is.

And where he leads.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd

Jesus is the Gate---or the Door

Today’s image…Jesus as the door… really speaks to me

Especially now in our current state of isolation

I tried to Imagine…or recall…when I last had a visitor

When was the last time the doorbell rang

When was the last time I heard a gentle knock

Imagine it

You have been eager to see your guest…your friend

Your reach for the door handle

And you open the door.

I long for this chain of events

I can’t wait to turn the knob and open the door 

And INVITE and WELCOME and HUG!

Come, Come inside! Let me take your coat or your umbrella!

Let me get you something to drink

Or something to nibble on

Come in---Let’s visit for a while!

Jesus fills the role abandoned by the Pharisees

He will NOT EXPEL, CONDEMN, or REFUSE

He will CARE, PROTECT, and NOURISH

He will INVITE and WELCOME

In today’s Gospel

Jesus calls us all by name

Baptism…I think of it as the sacrament of being called by name

Called by name
welcomed and invited

To ABUNDANT LIFE!

And what is this abundant life?

It is a life free from shame,

Free from resentment

Free from isolation

Full of promise

Full of right relationship

Full of fellowship 

But it isn’t magic

Because aren’t we all, at times, like the Pharisees
I know I am.
It happens when my impulse to 

PROTECT, GUARD, maybe HOARD gets tweaked

And I want to hold tight to whatever little bit of power I think I have

It creeps up on me

Especially when the atmosphere surrounding me is charged with fear.

After sitting with today’s texts, I thought

There it is!

Right there in Psalm 23

The antidote for when the creeping is gaining momentum

…a simple prayer mantra!

Shepherd me O God

Beyond my wants

Beyond my fears

From death into life

The first reading from Acts (2:42-47)*  reminds us 

It is not magic but devotion

Devotion to the teaching and the fellowship 

and to the breaking of the bread and prayer.

This devotion continually remakes us

It is also like a door
as we go through again and again

We are remade into the Body of Christ

That is what the Incarnation means

God took on flesh 

That we might become his flesh for the life of the World

St Teresa of Avila puts it this way:

Christ has no body now but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. 

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands

Yours are the feet

Yours are the eyes

You are his body

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

But…for me

At times

that sounds so overwhelming!

Sometimes, I need someone else to be the hands, and feet and body

But that is the mystery of 

Abundant Life

Is never about ONE

We aren’t the whole body…we are parts…we are members

Vital parts

Vital members

The mystery of Abundant Life

Is that it is a life of giving and receiving

giving and receiving

giving and receiving is the lifeblood

that keeps us in right relationship

with God 

with our families

and with our neighbors

As I do this weird video Morning Prayer

I can feel it

I have the Church directory taped up on the wall

So…I can see your faces 

And I feel the giving and receiving

And I know that together we are…right now…sharing in Abundant Life!

Shepherd Us O God!

*On this Sunday the first reading in the RCL differs from that in the Catholic lectionary

A Rousing Word

Palm Sunday of The Lord's Passion

Isaiah 50:4-7

Matthew 26:14-27:66

The Lord has given me a well-trained tongue, 

that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them. 

Isaiah 50:4 

This opening line from today’s first reading reminds me of my need to be nourished by a rousing word. 

  

Did I hear something in today’s proclamation and/or homily that invited me to relate to any of the characters in the drama of the Passion?

Did I hear something to ‘rouse’ me from…
…from Judas’ greed, from Peter’s bravado-turned-fear, from the disciples’ weakness, from a follower’s impulse to violence, from Caiaphas’ self-importance, from Pilate’s indecisiveness, from the crowd’s mob mentality, from the soldiers’ need to demean and torture, or from the passers’ by who fell so easily into reviling?  

Did I hear something to ‘rouse’ me toward…
…toward the Cyrenian’s compassion, toward a bystander’s comfort, toward the risky witness of the centurion, toward the steadfastness of the women, toward the generous action of Joseph, or toward the love and commitment of Mary Magdalene? 

What did I hear?

No But's About It!

4th Sunday of Lent

John 9:1-41

“You know…that man…the one over there…the one called Jesus”

This is how I imagine the response the newly sighted man gave to his neighbors in the story narrated in John 9:1-41. A bit further in the story, when answering the Pharisees, he calls Jesus a prophet. And by the end of the story, we might even call him a theologian as he steps in to defend Jesus and give glory to God.

The newly sighted man has gone through all the stages in the RCIA process in one episode!

What he has is the kind of sight that can take in the broad view of things. He won’t get caught in arguments that don’t seek true understanding. 

All I know is that I was blind and now I see. 

Let’s work backward from there. 

Let’s presume that such a marvelous happening is a very good thing.

There is a signal, in my language, that I must listen for.
Yes…but.

Yes…but.

When I say YES and then BUT

I really mean NO, BECAUSE

It is a false YES

It is a YES to something I have already stopped listening to
It is a YES that says “just skip to the end and let me tell you why you are so wrong”

It is a YES, that…well, really means NO!

The man says he was blind, and now he sees

Yes…but.

Yes…but was it the Sabbath?

Yes…but are you a sinner?

Yes…but are your parents sinners?

The man born blind has the kind of sight I want

The kind that leads to Glorifying God

No YES…BUT’s  about it

The Joy of Being Someone*

Third Sunday of Lent

John 4: 5-42    

The Woman at the Well

From Morning Prayer service recorded for the St. Stephen's community who are practicing social distancing

(I love this icon because beyond Jesus and the Woman there are the confused disciples in the upper left and the receiving townsfolk in the upper right---it captures better the wholeness of the story)

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL:

The encounter between Jesus and the Woman at the Well
is by far the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in the entire New Testament

The Gospel of John is very deliberate
we can be sure that this fact is meaningful.

The story of the Woman at the Well is so rich on its own
But adding the context…better to say contrast…with what came just before
adds even more depth and richness

It was last week’s Gospel reading
Nicodemus seeking Jesus
(But today…Jesus seeks the Woman at the Well…there is an aura of divine appointment in the story)
Nicodemus came to Jesus under cover of night
(Jesus meets her in the full light of day)
He is well-known
He is powerful
He is a man…and a Jew
He has a name
She is an outsider…worse she is a hated Samaritan
She is an outcast among her own people
She has no name and no power
He, Nicodemus, doesn’t listen
He comes with his answers
He isn’t open…at least not yet…to the power of the encounter…he leaves confused
She leaves to evangelize to share her Good News

John puts these stories side by side
the contrast helps illuminate the meaning

Encountering Jesus happens in conversation, in dialogue, in listening.
Sometimes it takes the form of prayer and meditation
Sometimes it happens in Worship when we hear the Gospel proclaimed and expounded upon
Such an encounter happens sacramentally in our sharing around the Eucharistic table---(Sacrament with a capital ‘S’)
And we encounter Jesus in the ‘other’ as we allow ourselves to serve humbly in Jesus’ name
We encounter God…God’s beauty…in all of creation

God wants to know us
Jesus came and through the Incarnation, we can know God concretely
We are invited to use all of our senses to experience that presence

And so the three of us are going to read the narrative in parts.
I invite you to put your bulletin down
you can always go back and read it again
but the idea of encounter always involves
person to person contact

Though we aren’t physically together…
Let's pretend that we are
       
Let's do our best to experience an encounter
an encounter between the three of us
all of you
the gospel story itself
And, of course, in the power of the Holy Spirit
an encounter with Jesus

READ THE GOSPEL IN PARTS 

HOMILY 

Homily/Monologue-in-Character:

You just heard it…
Or did you???
Perhaps you’ve just heard
what you have been trained to hear…
Filling in all the gaps in the story
with what you’ve been taught
since you started coloring pictures of me at the well in           Sunday school
Brain-washing that's what it is…Gotta be suspicious when the stories are told by the winners...
the ones allowed to go to school
the ones who can afford quills and ink
         and…parchment

It seems to me that we all need is a good dose of robust Christian imagination!!!

So how about we try real hard to listen as I set a few things straight.

First of all…Why do I go to that well in the scorching heat every day?
Hint: 4 husbands ago I went in the morning with all the other women…that was when I was welcomed in the community…when I wasn’t so isolated
…AND when it was cool and refreshing

But now…I’ll take the scorching heat over having to cross paths with those…those…self-righteous hypocrites!

What’s that? You want to know what happened?
Okay…you asked…Wow…you really want to hear my side.

See…what they saw in me
Was an easy convenient place to heap a ton of lies…
an easy scapegoat

Well…It didn’t take long for me to get the message
…I said “go ahead if that’s what it takes for you to feel good about yourselves…I CAN DO WITHOUT THE LIKES OF YOU!

It was all about this husband thing.
As if I had ANY control at all!
There isn’t some big sex scandal here…
And they know it
But juicy gossip is so very tantalizing!!!
         …addicting really...

The 1^st two…both before I was 18
         …thanks Dad for that arranging!
They divorced me…OF COURSE
         …I have no rights to such action
Why…you ask?
They got a little too impatient when I didn’t conceive right away…Sticking me with that word
         that cursed word:  BARREN!
CRUEL they were…It’s like having a sign around your neck   saying:
CORONOVIRUS---COME AND GET IT!!!

Then Josiah (He was a builder)
Truly such a fine man
The love of my life
Laughter, and music, and joy…
And then the miracle…
I was pregnant.
Joy upon joy!
It is amazing the healing power of pregnancy
What a different time it was around the well then…

……He was working alone on that roof…
Getting a little overtime to help us prepare for the baby
Then came the accident…the roof collapsed

It is hard to speak of it
I was so grief stricken
         …I didn’t even notice the labor pains…
         just a few hours…that’s all.
         She lived just a few hours.
Just long enough for me to behold and adore.

Then the rumors began in earnest
I must be cursed…I get it from 1st-century folks
But NOT you all…you know better than that...don’t you?

Things went from bad to worse
Jeremiah then Philip
It was a blur…such grief…two years of grief and blur …grief and blur

Ever been there?

Then I slowly, slowly began to come back together.
And YES…He’s not my husband
         But he’s a good man…a Greek
         A traveling salesman---comes home twice---three times a year
It works for both of us.
I feel safe…I feel quite free… actually.
I know I don’t look so good on paper
And so I keep to myself…
I’m too tired to fight for a place at the morning well
It’s my life…
I come to the well at noon
It works for me

Well…enough about that aspect of the story
I’ve given it too much ink as it is
but two thousand years of really bad interpretation
I suppose I needed to.

Back to the story:
To put it mildly
I was shocked when this Jesus man talked to me and asked me for a drink…
It just doesn’t happen
Jewish man…Samaritan woman…public place
On so, so many levels…it just doesn’t happen…just wrong

I was a bit sassy,
I’m a little gun shy with men…as you can understand

And…when he started talking all weird and creepy
I was only half listening…

But then……..Lengthy pause……

When He spoke my story…
I knew…This guy is different
but I was so frazzled so confused
So uncomfortable

And he just waited…it was such a comfortable silence
And slowly courage welled up inside me
and I asked him about Worship
about the ONE thing that between Samaritans and Jews
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS
sparks contention and debate and hatred

But this man stayed with me and my question…
He followed my lead…
No sparks, no contention, no debate
Just a revelation
A revelation about worship…and what matters most
…Spirit and Truth and Living Water that wells up to eternal life!!!

And then he put his hands on my face (cup my face tenderly)He did, he touched me, I know it doesn’t say it
But…trust me…he touched me.

My face…He HOLDS it
As a treasure
Do you remember EVER being treasured that way???

And Jesus
Jesus…he revealed himself...his heart...his peace
         and his truth to me...
         He did it then…and will do it every day…
         if I but let him HOLD MY FACE…

It felt like a lifetime
but I'm sure it was just a few moments...

The men returned
They were caught off guard when they saw my face
         in his hands...
         my tears rolling down my cheek...
         they couldn’t hide their disbelief

I didn’t care
HE certainly didn’t care…he didn’t notice!

They couldn’t break the moment…
truth and life...can't break

And so I went…bringing my newfound courage with me
I Called the community
I must have changed
Because…They listened to me…
And because of what I said…they too went in search of him.
They begged him to stay and he did.

…Lengthy pause…

Being seen by Jesus
Really seen
Well…it just makes you someone!
And when you’re someone…really someone
you can’t help but go and tell everyone all about it!!!

And they listen…
no matter what time of day you come to the well!

My friends 

“Living water that gushes up to Eternal Life”
That is surely what everyone is thirsting for!

-----

I received an email from a friend this week
Someone who I shared ministry with years ago

And she signed off the message with
“MAY YOUR LENT TURN YOU INSIDE OUT”

The woman at the well was turned inside out by Jesus
by his tenderness
his compassion
by his ability to see through
         to her tired, wounded, frightened, inside
to see it and love it and free it to come out in the open
He gave her the gift of being a person…a ‘someone’

We are all
each one of us…seen and cherished…and therefore…‘someone’
our faces are beheld and cupped in God’s hands!

 MAY OUR LENT TURN US INSIDE OUT

Admirer or Follower?*

Homily - February 2, 2020

Feast of the Presentation of The Lord

Today’s feast

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Hasn’t fallen on a Sunday in a long time

And the downside to that fact

Is that we rarely hear this story proclaimed at Sunday worship 

So this is a happy day

I love this story

I love the details

And the characters

And the setting

I love how easy it is to visualize

And imagine yourself there

…just another pilgrim finding some peaceful prayer space

Luke is telling us that Jesus was born into a particular world

A Jewish world 

A world wrapped up in a sacred covenant between God and Israel

The notion of “purification”

May sound strange to our ears

But it arises in a context 

…and out of a community…sensitive…if not preoccupied with the notion of the HOLY

Still today this traditional Jewish ceremony marks a child’s birth

And when the people are gathered they pray:

As this child has been welcomed into the covenant, so may she grow into a life of Torah, marriage, and good works.”

This is a prayer HEAVY with hope and expectation

I so get this

When I set eyes upon my tiny new grandson…Luke

That was the overwhelming emotion

HOPE

Hope and expectation

For everything True and Beautiful and Good

To overflow into the life of this tiny child

Mary and Joseph 

Simple, unworldly, village folks

Stretching to bring a pair of young pigeons in dutiful sacrifice

come to present Jesus in the Temple

They are full of hope

Simeon,

the righteous and devout Simeon

Finally sees his hope fulfilled

And he erupts with what is now known as the Canticle of Simeon

A prayer recited every evening in the Liturgy of the Hours

And then there is Anna

The Gospel of Luke loves to have the male and female side by side

She too witnesses this great hope 

But unlike Simeon who can now retire from this world

She, after living in the Temple night and day

can’t stop spreading the marvelous news…at the advanced age of 84.

We just heard  all this wonderful news proclaimed

…Just now when we read the Gospel

But that wasn’t all we heard

We heard the warnings of things to come as well

We didn’t miss the cracks

Because…This is NO EASY HOPE

It is not CHEAP 

It is not SHALLOW 

Just as Simeon declares the marvelous fulfillment of the promise

He turns to Mary and Joseph…With his addendum:

“Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, 

‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, 

and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—

(or laid bare like in some other translations)

and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’”

What is this falling and rising?

How are hidden thoughts laid bare?

I don’t think it is by war

Or by economic destruction

Or by natural disaster

Inner thoughts are revealed

They are laid bare

Through Becoming transparent

Becoming real

Becoming a person whose outside matches the inside

Becoming a community whose outside matches the inside

On Wednesday night I went to see the movie 

A Hidden Life

And I have been haunted by it ever since

It interrupts my sleep

And catches me unawares with its challenge

It is a three-hour movie

But just to give you a brief intro

It is the story of Franz Jagerstatter

A simple, unworldly, Austrian farmer 

With limited education

But of devout and intentional faith

It takes place in the aftermath of the Nazi takeover of Austria 

Which happened almost overnight with little resistance.

Like nearly all his fellow Austrians 

He is called up to join the Nazi army

He has already gone through the basic training

Which is where he became aware of the Evil at the heart of Hitler’s plan

…an evil, he notices, that has everyone around him 

caught up and quick with their ‘yeses’

Franz can’t say yes

He can’t raise his right arm in salute…it won’t go

He can’t do it

All he has is his ‘No”

Everyone tempts him by saying

“What good will it do…

“You will only get killed…and then what

     What of you wife and children

     What of your aging mother???”

"Surely you know that it won’t make one iota of a difference in this war bloody???”

His love for his family is nowhere in doubt

…by his family anyway

And his wife in the end speaks her final words (gospel words) of love

“Whatever you do, I am with you always…”

And he is beheaded…guillotined along with other treasonous Austrians

This is all a matter of historical record

The movie was filmed in his village

Even in his same house

the same prison was used in the film

And even the same courtroom

But for me today

On this feast day

Where we contemplate Luke’s story of The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

I am reminded of one short scene in the movie

It takes place in a small chapel

Franz comes upon an aging artist who is painting (or restoring) frescoes on the wall of the chapel…

And the old painter wonders aloud (to the best of my memory;)

“I paint these sweet lovely scenes of Christ…and perhaps they gather a few admirers…Christ has a lot of admirers…but I often wonder how many followers there really are? I wonder, am I an admirer or a follower? Most days I'm not so sure.”

In Luke’s scene of the Presentation

we hear and see the whole story…loud and clear…cracks and all

But the grace in this text is that

It isn’t enough

The cracks…the anticipation of opposition, and trial and suffering

Are not enough

Not enough to diminish the hope

     the joy of recognizing a promise fulfilled

So

Where does all this leave me?

Where does it leave you?

Where does it leave us?

I feel fairly certain…though one never knows

That we won’t be faced with a choice 

A choice between yes and no

as stark as Franz’s

a choice that led to literal martyrdom

But what are those choices that confront our lives

What are those choices that when you put them together

And balance them out

They will reveal our inner thoughts

And make us transparent

…as admirers or followers?

I believe

I believe 

That those choices ...the ones that move toward becoming a follower

are the ones when there is something…even a little something…at stake

They are the choices that clearly lead to my becoming a person whose outside matches her inside

Does what I buy

Or what I sell

Or what I store

Or what I throw away

(and how I throw it away)

Does what I say

And how I say it

Does how I give and how I take

And how I weep

And what I weep over

Does how I show love 

And how I challenge and correct

Does the way I act on all these

Lean me into becoming a follower?

or just a well-polished admirer?

This is what has been haunting me since Thursday night around 11pm.

There is grace in the text

And there is grace here among us

Because here is a safe place 

A safe place to be haunted a little

And to wonder

And to be challenged 

And to be formed and reformed over and over again

In the fine art of becoming a follower

Simeon and Anna…Mary and Joseph…And Blessed Franz Jagerstatter

Pray for Us

The humble…followers…of St. Stephens Church, New Harmony