Easter Vigil 2016

1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.

  11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.- John 20:1-8 

Listen to the audio of the gospel reading and homily here: Easter Vigil Sermon 2016

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

It is with vision blurred with tears that Mary first sees the risen Lord. This most joyous of moments is first viewed through a watery lens, through eyes partly closed against the grief, with a mind clouded by the pain and sleepless nights of what has been and what she thinks still is. It is through tears that Easter joy first reveals itself.

But tonight is all about seeing salvation through blurry eyes.

Through the churning, leaping, foaming chaos of the deep God brings forth sky and land and light and life in the poem of creation from the first chapter of Genesis. New creatures then as they do now, open their eyes slowly and at first with unfocused vision to perceive the grace of the created world.

Through the waters of the flood pouring from the heavens mixed with the tears of those who perished do Noah and his family and the seeds of new life see the first signs of dry land returned and their fresh start given in the story that reminds us of God’s promise of never again to that kind of destruction.

Through the Red Sea God leads the people of Israel bleary-eyed with awe and wonder and a bit of healthy fear of the water walls beside them. Then they watch through the crashing water their oppressors washed away and their new journey begun.

Through eyes still heavy with anesthesia do we awake from Ezekiel’s vision of a heart transplant, the removal of our brokenness and death replaced by new life and hope.

Still in the slimy-wet belly of the fish Jonah sees the inevitability of God’s call if not its joy and wonder in this tale of God’s mercy poured out for reluctant prophets and evil cities.

Through the smoke and fire do Nebuchadnezzar and his people first see the power of God to save, just as in the midst of the burning hot flames do the three men first see their angelic visitor come alongside them to lead them out.

Through the waters of the font have we come this night to hear the Alleluia again still wet with the water of new life, wet with the waters that drowned us, the waters that tie us forever with Christ’s death.

It is always still in the tears that resurrection breaks into the lives of God’s people. It is through the treacherous seas that refugees face in fleeing Syria and through the pepper spray at a Black Lives Matter protest and through the wind and rain of violent storms in an increasingly destabilized climate and through the tears of our own weeping with the loss of loved ones dear to us. It is there that God breaks forth.

Through the tears, through the grief, Mary hears her name. As Noah, Moses and Miriam, Ezekiel, Jonah, and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego all had before her. As we hear our names called through the waters of baptism. God speaks our name and the waters begin to clear.

But this is not the end of the story. Mary is ready to stay in this moment forever, but Jesus is ever moving forward. Noah’s story is not over with the flood, nor the Israelites after the Red Sea. Nor Jonah nor Ezekiel nor the men in the fiery furnace. Nor ours at our baptism. Their life in the resurrection is just beginning. It will not be perfect. It will not be easy, but it will be in promise of life. There will be more floods, and long dark days and nights, there will be death and pain and loss. And the tears will come again. But Jesus’ rising from tomb forever transforms those tears, not by removing their pain but by promising that every time God is there calling our name through the tears, calling us through the waters into life, calling us to our own resurrection, to our own glorious Easter, tears and all.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Good Friday
March 25, 2016

On Good Friday we read the passion from John’s gospel, which you can read by clicking here.

Listen to an audio version of this sermon here: Good Friday 2016

It is finished.

These last words of Jesus before his death in John’s account are some of the better known of all the words Jesus is recorded as having said. But this holy day bids us ask of Jesus what exactly is finished at this moment in the narrative. For it seems a dark and despair-filled moment to draw the curtain on God’s incarnation among us.

When suicide bombers and gunmen destroy lives and shatter our sense of security, we do not say that it is the end. When injustice triumphs, we look to another day to fight the battle. When natural disasters destroy lives and homes and hope, we do not say it is finished. When loved ones die we do not shake the dust off our feet and move on, but instead we gather in community to remind one another of the promise of resurrection. We long for another way out, another option, some other possibility. We want to be able to change our plans or make exceptions. We are uncomfortable with finality, and with death. We are not good at saying, “It is finished.” To say it is the end at these moments feels like a huge and resounding “no,” a negation of all we cherish.

But Jesus’ “it is finished” from the cross is not a negation, it is not a final “no” to the grace and mercy with which Jesus lived, eating among the lonely, the outcast, the unclean, the sinners, and the lost. It is not a final “no” to the call for economic justice and the longing for healing. It is not a final “no” to peace and safety.

It is, instead, God’s greatest “yes.” For Jesus’ “It is finished” is the proclamation that God has now claimed all human experience, including death. God has not been enfleshed if God has not experienced the death that all flesh must. What God makes final and forever on the cross is God’s presence in human experience. What is finished, what is complete in this death is God’s incarnation in us.

It is as if this cross, this assembly of dead wood, in this moment of finality sprouts roots which dive deep into the soil, winding and twisting to lock itself forever in the dirt to become for us the tree of life. God forever rooting into the dust and ash from which we are made. The creator forever rooting in the creation itself.

What is finished is the work of incarnation. If today were not Good Friday, we might pause to acknowledge that this day, March 25^th, nine months until Christmas, is the day the church marks the angel coming to Mary, the first news of the incarnation spoken to the world. The beginning of this finishing. The beginning of that which is now forever.

What is finished is God’s claiming us in every broken, hurting place. God claiming every act of violence, every transgression against neighbor, every injustice, every moment of despair. In this moment it is finally and forever made a part of God’s tree of life sprouting leaves for the healing of the nations.

What is finished is God’s journey to us. God’s tearing open the heavens and racing down to our human reality. God’s journey through wilderness and exile, through hunger and thirst, through joy and sorrow has reached its end on the cross.

What is final and finished is God’s commitment to dwell here with us, to make the earth into heaven by having moved the throne of God to earth’s darkest moment.

We know Easter is coming. And with it comes all the new possibilities God is doing and will yet do. There will be new ways that God brings about life again in this world. For God is always doing a new thing.

But tonight we rest, we rest in the finality knowing that all those new things spring forth from this “it is finished,” from God’s throne on the cross, from the tree of life rooted in our lives, from the defeat of death forever. Tonight we rest knowing that wherever we go, and we will all one day go to die, that Christ has already gone ahead of us. Tonight we rest like bodies in a tomb, secure in the knowledge that we no longer bear this human experience alone. This completion of Christ’s incarnation cannot be revoked or undone. God is with us in life and in death. Forever.

It is final. It is finished. Thanks be to God.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Good Friday Ecumenical Service
March 25, 2016

In Amherst, our ecumenical Good Friday service includes preaching from clergy of many of the Christian denominations in our community on a segment of the passion story. Below is the section of Luke’s passion and the accompanying homily.

Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. 2 They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.”  3 Then Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He answered, “You say so.” 4 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” 5 But they were insistent and said, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.”

6 When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. 7 And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. 8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some sign. 9 He questioned him at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. 11 Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then he put an elegant robe on him, and sent him back to Pilate. 12 That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.

13 Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, 14 and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. 15 Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death. 16 I will therefore have him flogged and release him.”

18 Then they all shouted out together, “Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!” 19 (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) 20 Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; 21 but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” 22 A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.” 23 But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. 24 So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. 25 He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished. – Luke 23:1-25

This so-called trial of Jesus would almost be comical if a life weren’t hanging in the balance. It has all the maturity a bunch of school kids trying to decide who is going to climb up and raid the cookie jar. “You do it!”  “No you do it!” Each one afraid to take responsibility if anything goes wrong.

Like a ping-pong ball, Jesus is passed back and forth from the religious leaders to Pilate to Herod and back again. At least some of them would like to see the problem of Jesus dealt with so they can move on to other more important things, like who really holds the power in this out-of-the way province of the Roman Empire. But they are afraid. They are afraid of the death of their power and privilege.

And this all might have only been a tragic miscarriage of justice to be lamented and learned from if it were simply an anomaly, a once-in-a-while occurrence when things get out of hand. But we know that this kind of finger pointing, giving up of responsibility, and scapegoating is all too much a part of our everyday world.

We only have to look to our national and international political landscape to see divisive language, pandering to the crowds, closed-door meetings, and friendships formed over scapegoating others as Herod and Pilate this day become friends. We only have to listen to the rhetoric following disasters this week not only in Belgium, but in Nigeria and Turkey and so many other places, to hear the fear-filled response is all too often to point fingers at whole religions or entire ethnic groups. It has become increasingly clear that in the ping-pong game of responsibility, in our own failure to die to our fears that thousands, perhaps millions, of lives – the lives of the poor, the lives of refugees and immigrants, people whose skin color is darker than others, and really all of our lives in solidarity with them – hang in the balance.

But, like Pilate, Herod, and the religious leaders forever remembered for their failure to lead the people away from power-grabbing and scapegoating, our own out-front leaders are easy targets, because they are only a more visible depiction of the ways we ourselves seek control without responsibility and power without mercy. Our finger pointing at them is as much a deflection of our own failure to care for neighbor, our own failure to die to ourselves as theirs is.

As the Black Lives Matter movement continues, I am aware that so many well-meaning people would rather say All Lives Matter. So many would rather not face head-on the racism that is a part of our culture and history and that is a part of ourselves. It’s easy to pass responsibility for racism off to individuals who proclaim hate speech and violence from the rooftops without confronting what lies within all of us shaped by the culture around us. It is much harder to face the deconstruction of power and privilege as it has operated for so long.

And it’s not just our own racism, but our own greed that contributes to poverty, our own violence that contributes to war, our own pollution that warms the planet. It’s our failure over and over to die to the things we cling to, our failure to die to our fear, our failure to die to ourselves. It’s our fear of death and loss in all its many forms. We are not so different from Pilate, Herod, and the religious leaders after all.

What’s required of them in this pivotal moment is to confront their own fears, their own violence, their own insecurities, their own quest for power. And they fail to do it. They are afraid to die, and so they allow another to die instead.

Jesus, however, simply does not play the game. In all this back and forth he says only three words. He does not posture, or argue, or defend himself. He does not seek power or control. Instead he does the most powerful thing of all, the only thing he can do to dismantle the system of oppression in which he lives. He faces death head on, and in doing so he refuses to accept the premise of their greed, violence, and power. He is not afraid to die to self-interested advancement, to wealth and fame, to popularity among the shouting crowds. He submits to death – quite literally – rather than accepting the system in which he lived. Unlike Pilate, and Herod, and the religious leaders, Jesus is not afraid to die.

And if that were the end of the story, it would be an honorable but tragic example of selflessness for us to follow. It would be a call to do a very hard but very noble thing. But even on Good Friday we know it isn’t the end. We know that this story ends not in death but life. And that is what allows us to face the deconstruction of our systems of power and privilege without fear, because this day we proclaim that in dying we find Christ.  This day allows us to face death – the death of our self-protective finger pointing, our self-interested greed, our self-promoting power, and yes, our actual death, too – to face those deaths with the knowledge that in Christ’s death and resurrection we find in dying not the end of the story, but life renewed and restored. And though Herod, and Pilate, and the religious leaders may never quite figure it out, what Jesus does if for them, too. For though it doesn’t happen in this moment, one day they will be forced to confront their failure and their death, and they, with all of us, will find there the crucified God leading the way to resurrection.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

 1Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper 3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. 6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” 11For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
  12After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

  31b“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:1-17, 31b-35

The quotations at the beginning of this sermon come from a longer reflection by Brian Doyle in The Christian Century. 

Listen to the audio of this sermon here: Maundy Thursday 2016

Hear these excerpts from observations of human touch witnessed at a wedding by writer Brian Doyle:

“…fathers gently, affectionately lay their hands on the thin, eager, elegant, swannish necks of their children as a way to say stay or…hang on one minute while I complete this conversational business up here and then you can launch into the distance…

“and the way a woman will ever so gently touch the elbow of an older woman … and so offer support if necessary …

“and the way a man will very briefly touch the shoulder of another man as a way to say hello or good-bye without all the florid foofaraw of hugging or the formality of shaking hands…

“and the way that the very elderly men and women will, without the slightest discomfort, hold hands, often both hands, with every single person who stands next to them and talks to them and listens to them…

“it seemed to me” says Doyle, “that the very elderly men and women have stripped away all self-consciousness and worry about what other people think, and they take a deep, honest, genuine pleasure in touching their fellow human beings, and being touched, and they know better than anyone else how ancient and holy and moving it is to be touched, and they are going to touch and be touched as much as possible in the time granted them…”

Human touch has immense power. And it must be named that it can, despite these beautiful examples, be used for power over others in big and little ways that destroy human life and threaten wholeness. But that does not take away from its power also to heal.

Lent begins and ends with human touch. As we set out in the Lenten wilderness 40-some-odd days ago, we began with touch. The touch of a thumb inscribing an ashen cross on our brow. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. The feel of gritty ashes grinding against our skin. The touch of death, a touch that puts us in solidarity with those who have died this week in Belgium and Turkey and so many other places, a touch that puts us in solidarity with those beloved to us who are dying in our own families, in our own congregation. But perhaps the tracing also recalls a distant memory of the oil cross traced at our baptisms.

Tonight we end Lent and begin the great three days again with touch. Hands placed ever so briefly on our heads. Words of forgiveness spoken. Words which we might some days too easily dismiss as being not for us if not for this occasional physical reminder that no, indeed, God speaks these words to you, for you. The hands again echoing the touch at baptism. The hands conferring the weight and warmth of forgiveness poured out. The hands one more way that God uses the ordinary to communicate the extraordinary.

Among the last things Jesus does with his closest friends and disciples, is to turn with human touch in service to them, washing one-by-one their dust-laden, calloused-from-long-journeys feet. A gesture of farewell. A last act of service to remind them that our God is one who bows down for us, that our God is one who does not shy away from touching our dirty and hurting bodies. A gesture that, though rooted in their time and place of open shoes and dusty roads, still communicates to us today with human touch the love and care of God and our call to serve all our neighbors. It is a very intimate act, and one that can feel strange or intimidating to our modern sensibilities. But it is one more opportunity to feel in our bodies what Jesus does for us in this week, and to practice, as Doyle says, the “deep, honest, genuine pleasure in touching [our] fellow human beings.” And I speak from personal experience when I say it is hard to consider someone a stranger or an enemy after you have washed their feet.

And then we pass the peace again touching across the invisible barriers between us. And reconciled to one another we take in those same hands, in the hands that have been marked with the sign of death and resurrection, in those hands that have scooped the water to serve our neighbor, in the hands that wash feet and pray prayers for the people of Brussels and feed the hungry and shelter those without homes and welcome the refugee, in those hands we take the bread and wine, and again this night our bodies are touched and the life of Christ shared with us.

It was with human hands offered up for others that God came into our world, with human hands that God served us, with human hands that God emptied himself for our life, with human hands that God went to the cross. And it is with these our human hands that God comes again and again to our world groaning under the weight of our brokenness. It is with these our human hands that we reach out to one another tonight. It is for these our human hands that God will reach deep into our graves to raise us up again from death to life. And we will know again the deep, honest, genuine pleasure of touch as we are held forever by our God of infinite grace.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

5th Sunday in Lent
March 13, 2016

1Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” – John 12:1-8

Last week’s reading began with complaints about the people with whom Jesus was eating. If only they could see this dinner party. There are rules for how to behave at social functions, even small private dinners. Sit up at the table, say please and thank you, compliment the food, stay away from politics. And though I can’t ever remember hearing this explicitly expressed, I don’t think you’re supposed to break open expensive perfume and wash someone’s feet with it using your hair filling the house with the overwhelming odor. These rules, when followed, make everyone comfortable. They keep things moving along. They make sure you keep your place in your social circles.

But no one told Mary. Or maybe it’s that Mary understood that this dinner party was taking place under an entirely different set of rules. You see, when death is in the room all the rules change. We are prone to impose our rules of decorum, order, and logic on this story and our own, but they simply do not work in the presence of death. And Mary, Martha, and Lazarus know death.

Lazarus himself is sitting at the table. He has just days earlier in the narrative been dead himself. After four days in the tomb Jesus came along and called him forth again, but one wonders if the sight and smell of the dead and dying lingers on his body. Does he bear the marks of death as even Jesus’ resurrected body does just a week or so later? Does his sitting there make the others a bit uncomfortable, perhaps even Jesus’ own disciples? In last week’s reading Jesus was in trouble for eating with tax collectors and sinners. That he now eats with the no-longer-dead is sure to raise some eyebrows.

And whether or not they have actually understood that this is going to happen, Jesus has been explaining to this his inner circle about where his story is going – about the cross and about death. At this point in the story it is clear to the reader if not all those dining at Lazarus’ house that Jesus’ death is a very real possibility. The rules are different at this gathering because death is close at hand.

We know this instinctively when we accompany those we love in their final days if we are given the opportunity to do so. The rules change – nothing else takes priority. The community makes space literally and figuratively. The space and time become holy with the movement from life to death. We may not pour out thousands of dollars of perfume in a single act of lavish love, but we do tenderly care for bodies that are in pain as they approach death. The rules of careful accounting for pennies and the careful use of long-saved gifts go out the window.

This isn’t to idealize that time, as there is no such thing as a “good death.” Nothing about death that makes it pretty. But the rules are different. The end of life calls us all to engage more deeply in the present and to treasure what we have in the moment. Mary seems to be the only one who gets it, or at least the only one who does anything in response. There is no logic to her action. I don’t know that she’s been consciously saving this for Jesus’ burial and somehow suddenly realized it was time. And in other times she might have considered Judas’s legitimate question, and whether she ought to have shared that money with the poor instead. And there might have been other times when she would have done just that. Other times she might have thought it through, but in this situation, with the usual rules suspended she followed the movement of the spirit within her to this act of extraordinary grace and abundance.

And it makes me uncomfortable. It makes me cringe, in fact. There is something that makes me feel as if we shouldn’t be watching such an intimate act of love and faith expressed. Because most of the time we’re operating under this other set of rules. Most of the time we’re trying to appear put together. The exception is at church. Now don’t get me wrong most of the time in this and many other congregations we operate under all the usual rules of decorum. But week after week we hear in scripture, in bread and wine, and in Christian community a hint that the rules are different. And it’s partly because death is always before us. We are a community that supports one another as individuals face death, but we are also faced every week with the central symbol of our faith which is itself a reminder of death. But it’s more than that, because the church operates not under the rules of death but under the rules of resurrection. By the resurrection which is already hanging in the air with the smell of perfume in Lazarus’s home, we are freed to live under different rules.

As a church we are freed for lavish acts of generosity which make no real sense to people who do not understand what is going on. We are freed to host a meal to which anyone – literally anyone! – is invited. In fact we proclaim that like Jesus’s meal with the resurrected Lazarus, that our meal of bread and wine is a part of the feast of all the saints present and past. We are freed to give primary place and generous attention and support to Jesus who shows up not only in the economically poor, but also in the outcast, the sick, the grieving, and, yes, the dying.

The rules are just different when we’re dealing with the God of all life, the God who dies with us, the God who raises us to new life. It’s a different way of being together and a different way of going out to serve the world. It may be a little on the uncomfortable side from time-to-time for those of us who are so accustomed to the world’s usual set of expectations. But it makes for us a wonderfully rich banquet table, smell of perfume and all.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

4th Sunday in Lent
March 6, 2016

1Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus.] 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
  3So he told them this parable: 11b“There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. 13A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ‘ 20So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
  25“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ” – Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Listen to the sermon here: sermon 3-6-16

The basic idea of this sermon is borrowed from Rob Bell’s discussion of this passage in his book Love Wins, p. 164 ff. (The direct quote is found on p. 170.)

Just the other day I was doing it again. Rehearsing in my mind some long past event, an old argument, a missed opportunity, replaying things I wish I had said or at least would have felt momentarily good about saying even if in the long-run it was better left unsaid. Many, though I’m told not everyone does this, find that at least from time to time one’s head hits the pillow tired from a full day and the brain kicks into overdrive. Playing and replaying scenarios from our day or from years past, or turning over and over again some problem that we know doesn’t really have a solution. Rehearsing old stories of past mistakes that we fear will define who we are.

So I sympathize with the younger son in Jesus’ story. I imagine the sleepless nights when his money is gone. Perhaps berating himself for his actions, then perhaps finding others to blame – his current boss, the world around him, the father who shouldn’t have been so indulgent in the first place. Dark nights when perhaps thoughts of giving up emerge, as he begins to internalize what others have said and done to him, internalizing the message of worthlessness. And after nights of tossing and turning he develops the speech he intends to give: “Father, that I might just be a servant in your house…” And then the long walk back to his family home, tweaking the words until the speech is perfect if over-rehearsed. Maybe a whole-hearted acknowledgement of his rock-bottom or maybe a speech he just knows will get him a decent meal and a place to sleep. But it’s a speech he never manages to finish when the father runs to him on the road and interrupts his rehearsed story to call forth the best robe and the fattened calf.

I imagine in the son’s mind a nagging doubt. Maybe he believes all along he’ll be welcomed back, but even so he’ll always live with that question – have I done enough to make it up to my family? Do my wild days of dissolute living make me less worthy as a son? Does my failure define who I am forever after?

But these are not questions the father asks. The father does not wait for speeches, though he’s surely rehearsed a few whoppers of his own in those long dark nights of waiting. But in the end one cannot rehearse the grace that leaps forth at family brought home again. One cannot plan the swelling joy of welcoming the lost home as one so often and so easily plans the angry speeches. The father reframes his son’s story to focus not on his failure but on his being called son.

However, there is another son. An older son. A dutiful son. And this son has a story that he tells himself, too. He’s been awake at night planning his own speeches – speeches that demand of the father what is rightfully his, speeches that berate his brother for his selfish years away, years this son never got. He tells himself the story of a slave-driving father who demands he work long, hard hours. Rehearsing in his mind every extra hour of work he’s ever put in, every time he wore himself out for the family business, every time he put in more than his share. He tells himself that his father is stingy, not giving him a scrawny goat for a celebration, much less a fattened calf. His mind imagines the parties he might have thrown, but didn’t. He imagines the fun he might have had if he weren’t stuck being the responsible one around here. He tells himself that the father is unjust, celebrating his wayward brother while ignoring him.

He tells himself a story we hear all too often in our public discourse, a story about how the people with stable lives and stable jobs somehow deserve what others don’t. And by others we mean all kinds of things in our society – immigrants, refugees, people who go bankrupt, people who live with addiction to drugs or alcohol or sex or gambling, people with a criminal record, people who receive public assistance. We’ve all heard narratives about those who went off and squandered their money or time in self-interested pursuits. We hear stories of want or need or stories of failure and loss and sometimes we even believe we’re better than that, forgetting that we are just as self-interested and that hard work or not all that sometimes separates the owner of the pigs from the one who goes hungry feeding them is a matter of a single wrong decision, a moment of bad luck, or a disaster beyond our control. The older son tells this story, that he’s more deserving than the younger brother.

But the father again reframes his son’s story. And in the moment of his older son’s anger and frustration the words that pour forth are not complaints of late nights spent awake worrying over him, for surely the father has worried long and hard about both his sons hoping they would happy and safe and fulfilled. No, in the moment of the older son’s anger, it’s not a chastisement for his envy or a lecture about how to behave but again the unrehearsed grace from the father to his overwhelmed child: “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” The father has never been able to comprehend the son’s inability to see that all along, his inability to recognize the riches he already possessed even without the liquidation of his inheritance, his inability to see that his worth is based on his being called son and not in the hard work he does, his inability to recognize the blessing of daily bread and the experience of being home.

Each brother tells a familiar story. Each brother tells some version of the stories we tell ourselves today. But the father has a different story. The father tells a story full of unfair grace poured out for everyone. Rob Bell, who highlights these stories that the characters tell themselves, reminds us that the difference between the father’s stories and the sons’ stories is the difference between heaven and hell, and that, simply, “hell is our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story.”

You see we’re all at the party God is throwing with the fattened calf and the best robe and a ring. We’re at that party in the abundance of creation and in the blessings of community with one another. We’re at that party in the waters of baptism and at the Eucharistic table. Our problem is that we tend to be so caught up in the story about our own failure, about others taking what is ours, about our work defining who we are, that we’re liable to miss the party we’re standing in the middle of. So let us hear this parable not as a lesson about good behavior or a lesson in getting over envy, or a lesson about anything really. For in the end the father’s grace comes pouring out to both sons and both sons are invited to the celebration, just as God’s abundant grace comes running out to us and invites all of us as God’s daughters and sons to the banquet table, for the lost are found and the dead have come to life.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

Third Sunday in Lent
February 28, 2016

 1Ho, everyone who thirsts,
  come to the waters;
 and you that have no money,
  come, buy and eat!
 Come, buy wine and milk
  without money and without price.
 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
  and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
 Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
  and delight yourselves in rich food.
 3Incline your ear, and come to me;
  listen, so that you may live.
 I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
  my steadfast, sure love for David.
 4See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
  a leader and commander for the peoples.
 5See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
  and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
 because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
  for he has glorified you.

 6Seek the Lord while he may be found,
  call upon him while he is near;
 7let the wicked forsake their way,
  and the unrighteous their thoughts;
 let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
  and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
  nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
  so are my ways higher than your ways
  and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:1-9

1At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.2[Jesus] asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?3No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
  6Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ” – Luke 13:1-9

Listen to today’s sermon: sermon 2-28-16

Don’t you wonder what happened to the fig tree in the world of Jesus’ parable? What happens a year from now in the parable? What happens when the owner comes back? Have the efforts of the gardener been successful? If not, is there another reprieve or is this the last chance, the last “one more year,” the final opportunity?

The parable creates for us a moment of suspense. The end is coming. The time is now. The people walking underneath the tower of Siloam and the slaughtered masses in Galilee didn’t see it coming. Bear fruit before it’s too late. Jesus doesn’t sugar coat anything here. The time for living is now, for death is coming sooner or later.

And I suspect we don’t actually quibble with that need for urgent action. Hunger is real in our community. It’s real in faraway urban slums and rural villages and workhouses, but it’s real right here in our own community, too. There are people right here who need our help. The time for bearing fruit is now.

The climate crisis is looming ever greater. People are already dying and fighting. Agriculture is already affected. The possibility of cataclysmic destruction seems almost inevitable. We have a role to play, a voice to use, actions to take. The time for bearing fruit is now.

There are refugees coming here already and more who need homes and support. There are central American children, Syrian families, Sudanese victims of terrorism. They need safety and shelter and hope. We have resources to offer those things today. The time for bearing fruit is now.

We do not disagree with the urgency. But a lot of times we wait for tomorrow, or next month, or next year. We wait for the right time. We lose the suspense. We fail to do and say the hard things. I spent a lot of time this week trying to identify with the fig tree. I thought about dry and fruitless times in my own life. Times when I doubted God, times when I doubted myself, times when I failed. But what struck me in the end is the simply overwhelming nature of what we face as humans together. What struck me is that in big and little ways we fail to bear fruit all the time.

Which is why we are eager to know what happens to this barren fig tree. Is it a Hallmark success story, reviving with a little love and care to thrive for a long and fruitful life or is it a darker tale that ends in failure and tragedy?

It’s also why we tend to be so drawn to Isaiah’s beautiful depictions of God’s future for us. Come, all who are hungry and thirsty, receive free food and drink. For the many who hunger for real food and thirst for clean water, that image is straightforward. But it doesn’t take much poetic imagination for us to see the food and drink in God’s vision for us as the satisfaction of all we long for. Not the longing for nicer cars and bigger salaries, or more fame and success. Longing for fulfillment for the deep hunger and thirst that underlies those desires. The need for safety and care and wholeness. The need we have to overcome our barrenness to bear fruit in the world. That’s the holy ground we seek.

That is our tension. That we live with a vision of what could be and the reality, to which we admittedly contribute, that is not what it should be. Sometimes our lack of action is laziness or fear, but sometimes it’s also facing the overwhelming gap between God’s holy mountain where all are satisfied and the seemingly less-than-holy ground we walk every day past barren trees and hungry masses.

But the gardener sees a way where we cannot. She looks at a barren fig tree and sees it full of fruit. He looks at the hungry masses and sees a free feast for everyone. We have a God who sees the gap between what is and what could be and manages to love us where we are. This is a God who presides over the feast described in Isaiah, the God who desires abundance for all creatures. And this God chooses to spend time with a fruitless fig tree.

If bearing fruit were all about getting fruit to eat, there are probably more economical ways to deal with a consistently barren tree as the landowner suggests. But if the gardener is concerned about the well-being of the tree, then it’s worth the work to bring it forth from barrenness. It’s worth the work to consecrate the soil where the tree is planted to be just as holy as the ground for Isaiah’s rich feast for all.

I don’t think the urgency of bearing fruit is all about feeding others. I think it’s at least as much about God’s desire that we grow into the fullness of the creatures we were made to be. God isn’t so much demanding fruit from us, as cultivating fruit for us, leading us to experience the joy of sharing ourselves with the world.

We have a God who makes holy the ground where we are planted and even makes holy the state of our barrenness, by claiming us as we are and gifting us with more time to flourish, more time to receive the care of the gardener – sunlight and water along with pruning and manure.

Our challenge is to live in the suspense, in the one-more-year of the parable. To live firmly planted in the holy ground right where we are, as we are, and yet also hold the vision of the holy ground that has already been transformed by the gardener, the vision of free food and drink for all.

Our challenge is to pray for our daily bread, and only that. To live in the moment of now, to seek what we need in the present day, to receive the care of God in our day-to-day living, and also to feast at the Eucharistic table to acknowledge the reality of more than daily bread, more than enough, more than one more year.

It is in that tension, that suspense that we experience simultaneously God’s love and challenge. It is in that tension and suspense that we are so bowled over by the wideness of God’s mercy for us that we begin to bear fruit in abundance. It is in that suspense that we are nourished into the kingdom of God.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

31At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to [Jesus,] “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ 34Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ” – Luke 13:31-35

Listen to the sermon here: Sermon 2-21-16

It is often our task to find ourselves in the biblical stories we tell. Which part do we play? Which character do we identify with? Sometimes we get so used to finding ourselves in one particular role that it changes the story for us if we try out a new one.

Typically we rest in Jesus depiction of comfort and safety, gathered as chicks under their mothers’ wing. We long for that place of protection, warm and loved. We know we are apt to stray, unaware of the dangers lurking around us. We know we are weak and vulnerable. We know we need tender care. We need protection from those who would destroy us, if not physically then emotionally with words and actions that leave us excluded, alone, and afraid. We like to be the chicks, but there are other roles in this story.

Sometimes we are, like Herod, the fox. It may be harder for us to grasp this role, as most of us aren’t identified as villains by large numbers of people. We aren’t publicly identified as bad people. We have not, most of us, started wars or made hasty judgments of others that resulted in their imprisonment or death. Most of us do not have the disproportionate wealth or political power of Herod. And yet, many of us do have power as members of privileged groups. Even though we may not wish to, all of us participate in the oppression of others on the basis of race or class or gender or any number of other isms. Despite our best efforts we use turns of phrase or react with a subtle look or thought that betrays our bias in what have become known as microaggresions, which are anything but small in their impact on others, especially as they accumulate one after another. We have more power than we sometimes realize within our spheres and in our humanness we don’t always use that power for good.

But I suspect many times we might not be quite so actively oppressing and find ourselves more in the role of the Pharisees. The gospel writer does not assign them a corresponding animal in this scenario, but perhaps we might think of them as one of the other barnyard animals, a cow or goat perhaps, who comes to warn the mother hen and her chicks that the fox has been lurking nearby. I find myself more in this role than any other, and it is the most insidious for its lack of transparency, for its dressing up self-interest in care for the other.

You see, the Pharisees have already established themselves in Luke’s narrative as looking for ways to stop Jesus. While the threat of Herod might be quite real, one wonders whether they might be coming to Jesus with this information in order to convince Jesus to stop preaching in such a way that challenges their own authority. The Pharisees remind me of the ways I dress up pride as humility or present self-interest as service to others. They remind me of the ways we live lives that are on the surface clean and neat, but which hide so much that isn’t what we want it to be. They remind me of the ways we resent Jesus and his call to lives that love God above all and love our neighbor as ourselves. They remind me that as part of the religious establishment, we sometimes would rather keep things nice and calm than true and open and full of justice and mercy. We’d rather be nice than follow Jesus, who as evidenced by today’s reading isn’t always that nice.

But, here’s the thing. It’s not some other group of people that Jesus invites under his wing. It’s not the disciples, or the people outside the center of power in Jerusalem, or some elite group of elect people. It’s the fox and the Pharisee and all the people over the years that have killed and rejected the prophets God has sent. It’s these people, children of Jerusalem, Jesus wants desperately to protect and comfort as a mother hen does her chicks: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

That’s why Jesus refuses to back down or turn his course or tone down his message. He’s coming to Jerusalem knowing it will do what it has done to others before him – destroy him. He goes to the foxes’ den as a hen with nothing but her own life standing between the danger and the ones she seeks to protect. Jesus goes with wings open offering comfort and safety, but doing so makes him all the more vulnerable to their attack. And he does so for their sake as well as everyone else’s.

God’s journey to us is not one that avoids the hard places. It’s a journey to all of us, even or especially the foxes and Pharisees, the people like you and me who are imperfect and resist Jesus’s message and resist Jesus’s offer of comfort. It’s a journey to Jerusalem, which has become for us a symbol of every place where God’s people dwell, every place where people mistake good for evil and evil for good. It’s a stand-in for every place where we fall short and need God’s fierce offer of grace.

This passage for me describes who God is. The words of judgment, the words that seem harsh, the words that challenge us to question whether we sometimes act against God – they all stem from God’s deep desire to bring us home. Jesus isn’t traveling to Jerusalem to condemn anyone. Jesus’ journey is not about sins that can be added up and subtracted away. It’s about seeking to protect us from ourselves, and going to the heart of our worst places to do it.

However, the promise for us is that God’s journey doesn’t end as the prophets before him. The story is the same right through to where we foxes and Pharisees team up to get rid of him. But on the third day, Jesus reminds us today, on the third day is resurrection. His death serves to bring God to the depths of our pain for the sake of raising us up again with new life. His resurrection and ours is the destination, and if that means going through the den of the fox, God is willing to go.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Also check out this wonderful reflection by Barbara Brown Taylor.

1Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ”
  5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8Jesus answered him, “It is written, 
 ‘Worship the Lord your God,
  and serve only him.’ ”
  9Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, 
 ‘He will command his angels concerning you,
  to protect you,’
11and 
 ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
  so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
12Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. Luke 4:1-13

Listen to today’s sermon here: Sermon 2-14-16

Where is God going? If you get our emails or paper mailings and happened to read my introduction to Lent letter, you may know that we are thinking about “God’s journey to us” as a theme for Lent this year. That’s a big theme, but one, I think, that reinterprets some of the layers of Lenten tradition about our repentance with a focus on the one we believe comes to us rather than the one we have to find.

But like our journeys, God’s journey to us this Lent does not seem altogether straightforward. I find myself wondering in today’s text if God is coming to us, then what is Jesus doing traipsing off to the place where very few people dwell. There are religious ascetics living out in the wilderness and perhaps a recluse or two, but realistically if God is coming to God’s people this season, the wilderness is not the place to start. There’s plenty of metaphorical wilderness in the cities that it seems odd to go off into actual wilderness.

I suppose that God could be going to conquer temptation. But this story doesn’t have that kind of once-and-for-all decisive victory feel that, say, Easter does. It’s more of a nuanced philosophical argument with biblical proof-texting, which is about as effective in fighting real-life temptation as, say, the old anti-drug slogan, “Just say no.”

God could be going into the wilderness as a kind of preparatory retreat. It’s not unheard of in a variety of cultural contexts to go off by oneself to experience a difficult adventure on one’s own, aided perhaps by physical and mental extremes brought about, for example, by fasting. But then it’s not clear what comes of this.

God could be going to the wilderness to set an example. Jesus’ experience could be, and has been, used as a call to fasting and asceticism, demanding of his followers a similar experience of self-deprivation.

But I wonder if all this is about where God is not going, or rather a failed experiment on God’s part. The Bible is full of God trying one way to save God’s people and having to pick up the pieces and try again when it falls apart: Noah turns out to be a mess, Abraham and Sarah can’t trust God, Jacob is dishonest, Moses’s power goes to his head, David is an adulterer, and so on. Maybe today’s story is about Jesus exploring whether religious asceticism might be the path toward saving God’s people and discovering that it’s not the way to go.

But the final three temptations show, after a long and arduous fast in the wilderness, that God’s way of salvation is not in asceticism and rule-following. The tempter invites Jesus to turn stone into bread. Innocent enough. Frankly, not a bad idea for someone who is hungry. Not a bad idea for a world full of both stones and hungry people. But it strikes me that Jesus’ refusal here leads him back to a hungry world where I don’t think he ever feeds anyone without sitting down at the table with them in one sense or another. Even when he feeds the thousands, it seems that Jesus, too, is eating among them. God isn’t interested in handing out food, but in relational feasting that invites everyone to the table.

Then there’s the temptation for power. And who doesn’t love that? Jesus would be an interesting addition to our slate of presidential candidates. I tend to wonder whether he’d be electable in the general election, but then this seems to be the year that anything could happen. Would it have been so terrible had Jesus fulfilled the expectation of many to become a political leader? It can’t have been worse than some others that did. But I wonder that Jesus doesn’t refuse here the idea of power over rather than power with. He refuses to become the powerful one while others remain powerless.

And finally a third temptation, to risk his life to prove a point, or as he puts it to put God to the test. He could jump off and see what happens, see if the angels save him. But Jesus refuses to die attempting to prove that he himself can be saved. Instead he moves from the wilderness back into a ministry among the people that will lead him to a death that puts his life on the line for the sake of others. He has not come simply to die but to draw all people to himself as he demonstrates God’s self-emptying love. His death is not about proving that God can raise him back up again, but about the fact that he will not compromise his commitment to love and mercy.

God’s journey to us begins with an outright refusal by God to jump into quick fixes and solitary action. Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness is God’s chance to experience the incredible loneliness that marks so much of the human experience – the solitary nature of grief, pain, separation, fear, hunger, and need. And having experienced it God’s journey to us turns back to a ministry in community with others, a ministry that again and again draws people into community with him and with one another. It is in forming a community of broken people who still falter at temptation that Jesus passes on the faith.

I’d like to think this text is not so much about a lesson in overcoming temptation, but about the reality that we cannot save ourselves from it alone. And maybe that gives us a new direction for Lent, turning it into a season that is not so much about self-denial or about overcoming our individual, personal shortcomings, but about being drawn back together in community by the God who knows our lonely wildernesses. What if Lent were our opportunity to bare ourselves again to one another and to God that we might become more deeply aware of God’s walking with us?

What if Lent were an opportunity for us as a church to reverse the temptation to act alone, and instead recommit ourselves to feasting together around the Eucharistic table and around the coffee table and around the other tables in our lives? What if we recommitted ourselves to finding ways to share power and leadership, recognizing the gifts of others, just starting in our own congregation and community that it might seep out into the larger world? What if we recommitted ourselves to taking risks together, not the kind of thing that tests God’s promise to catch us but the kind of bold action done in discernment together that teaches us the ways that God is already carrying us from death to life?

It is in these Lenten disciplines and in Jesus’ refusal to go it alone that I think we more clearly have an opportunity to see and experience the God who comes to our world to redeem us.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Ash Wednesday
February 10, 2016

[Jesus said to the disciples:] 1“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
  2“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
  5“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
  16“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
  19“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” -Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

 

On Sunday we prayed this prayer over the dried palms from last year’s Palm Sunday procession: “When these palms were fresh and green we used them to sing your praises and welcome you into our hearts as you once were welcomed into Jerusalem. But as our hearts and minds turned to other thoughts, so too have these palms dried and withered. We ask you again to bless these palms as we return them to ash, that they might serve us again as a call to Lent and as a call of preparation to sing your praise again.”

We burn the palms for the ash out of a long-standing tradition and out of practical and economical use of what we have taken from the earth for our use in worship. But I am always struck by what they symbolize as withered signs of rejoicing, as a reminder of the triumphant celebration of Palm Sunday that is now so distant from our minds.

The palms stand for the fervor of our spiritual high moments. The days we live with deep awareness of God’s presence with us. They days we resist the barrage of temptations to wealth, power, pride, envy, lust, greed, and all the rest. The days we follow through on our Lenten commitments, and live up to the words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel – to pray with integrity, give alms without patting ourselves on the back, and fast from the idols we have made for ourselves. The palms stand for the days we successfully use our gifts for the service of God and one another. The days we take bold risks to defy empire by welcoming Jesus in triumphant procession with shouts of Hosanna into our centers of power, which we do by welcoming the refugee, sitting down to eat with the hungry, and refusing to participate in violence against the other by fist or weapon or tongue. The palms represent all we can be and all that we sometimes are.

But having sat for a year to wither into kindling, for me they also stand for all we have failed to do. In a moment we will confess together our past unfaithfulness, our self-indulgent appetites, our negligence in prayer, our neglect of human need, our false judgments, and our waste and pollution of God’s creation. It is a sobering list and each of us I suspect will find ourselves in it somewhere despite our best efforts. Like the palms, our excitement and energy for our life of faith go through long, dry spells. The weight of grief and pain at the world and our own lives leaves us parched and easily destroyed. Our bodies, once fresh and green, age and crumble. Like dried palms we can be nearly impossible to wrestle into a manageable shape and at the same time easily burned to nothing at all.

The power of Ash Wednesday and the burning of the palms for our ashes is that both our success and our failure come to nothing. Both are burned. Neither saves us in the end. If we are able to see ourselves truthfully, all of us will find success and failure wrapped up together. All of us will find joy and sorrow. All of us will find life and renewal and death and decay. And whether we opt for cremation or a natural burial or whether we try to postpone the inevitable with vaults and embalming, one day we all will return to the dust. We will be nothing but a pile of ash.

And yet anyone who has carried home a box of ashes from the funeral home or laid an urn to rest or scattered the ashes of a loved one knows just how precious a pile of ash can be. Today we do not wallow in the sadness of death, but rather we name for ourselves again that we have a God who treasures us, creatures of ash that we are. Jesus’ advice to us is good: store up treasures in heaven rather than on earth. But it is not advice which God follows. We can place our trust in God, store up treasures in heaven, only because God has placed God’s own treasure in the person of Jesus Christ into this world of ash. We can let go of the success and failure both because God’s heart is fully invested in our ashen lives. We can hear the words tonight with courage and confidence: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” knowing the one who creates anew from dust.

Tonight we do not sit in ashes as they did in ancient times. We do not smear them indiscriminately on our bodies. But we mark with them the sign of the cross in recognition that God can take a mess and give it form. God can cradle our messy lives into signs of God’s gracious love for the world.

And we trace the cross not anywhere but on the very brow that has been anointed with oil at our baptism, renewing the promise for us that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. We mark one another tonight with all that remains of this past year’s successes and failures, knowing that in doing so we proclaim the resurrection of all things in Christ.

-Pastor Steven Wilco