SSJE Sermons

Br. Lain Wilson

George

Joshua 1:1-9

I have in my cell a small icon depicting an armored and caped George, astride a white horse, driving his lance down into the belly of a dragon. It’s a familiar and beloved depiction of a familiar and beloved saint.

Even leaving the dragon aside, this depiction of George places him in a kind of timeless medieval fantasy. This creates a good deal of critical and imaginative distance for us. Without translating his iconography to our modern visual idiom, George retains much of the romantic glow that he acquired in his association with chivalry.

Compare this to today’s texts. In hearing the plain, modern English, the promise of forcible dispossession or the hope that God will “strike all my enemies across the face” (Psalm 3:7) can make us distinctly uncomfortable. These words so easily enter into conversation with what we see in the world around us now.

What happens when we undertake a similar act of translation, replacing George’s lance with a machine gun, and his horse with a tank? What happens when George looks like so many soldiers from so many war zones across the globe? What emotions does this imaginary iconography raise in you?

For my part, I feel discomfort – and that discomfort is, for me, a surprising invitation.

It invites me to remember that we find God’s saints in every place and every walk of life – even, and perhaps especially – in those that we may find uncomfortable. If a tank and machine gun bring to my mind the governmental policies of military adventurism and hubris that have marked the entirety of my adult life, George reminds us that a soldier is not those policies, indeed, that no individual can contain within themselves the societal forces that affect us all.[1] We find God’s saints in the simple and faithful acts of a life lived day by day, in circumstances of chance or choice.

But that faithfully lived life may not run along with the societal current, but in opposition to it. George as a soldier would have been killed for his refusal to participate in the imperial cult rituals directed toward the emperor; his martyrdom was a witnessing to the supremacy of God, not Augustus. We will all find ourselves facing multiple and conflicting demands on our loyalties – whether in our churches or families or units or nations. George invites us to pledge our allegiance and loyalty to God and the gospel of hope, peace, and love that Jesus proclaims, and to reject those claims on them made by those promoting despair, war, and hate.

What this may mean for each of us, in our varied circumstances of chance and choice, will differ. But following George in putting God first is ultimately a simple choice. It is simple and enormously clarifying, not least because it reminds us of God’s own assurances to us: “the Lord [our] God is with [us] wherever [we] go” (Joshua 1:9) and “the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone” (John 8:29). These assurances give us strength and courage as we face the powers of this world, who demand so much of us, with the witness of our own faithfully lived lives.

[1] Jonathan Shay puts it well, in a more specific context, in his remarkable Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (Simon and Schuster, 1994), xxiii: “There is no contradiction between hating war and honoring the soldier.”

Br. Curtis Almquist

The Third Sunday of Easter

Luke 24:36b-48

Not long ago someone sent me an AI-generated headshot of Jesus: what Jesus might have looked like as a young man in his 30s living in Palestine in the first century Anno Domini. He has warm olive skin, dark almond-shaped eyes, dark hair with a well-groomed beard, and thick eyebrows. In my travels in the Holy Land, I have seen many young men with this same facial appearance; however, here in the United States today, a man of this appearance would easily be a target for apprehension by ICE agents, I’m ashamed to say. This AI-generated Jesus looks nothing like the Jesus pictured in my boyhood Sunday School papers where Jesus looked like the local young men: very Swedish, with blond hair, pale skin, and blue eyes.

There has been a perennial problem recognizing Jesus for who he was and who he is. It was happening even in his own lifetime given that he came from Nazareth. The word on the street was, “What good can come from Nazareth?” (John 1:45-46). He also did not have the right pedigree, some people asking rhetorically, “Isn’t he Joseph’s son,” Joseph who clearly was not regal. There was a problem with his mother who, according to the gossip we can imagine, had fabricated how she had gotten pregnant. And then Jesus himself, who was a normal human being . . . except he had not gotten on with life: no marriage; no vocation to speak of; certainly nothing close to the fabulous claims purportedly made at the time of Jesus’ birth. In his lifetime – I’ll call it his first lifetime, before his crucifixion – he came to be recognized as the Messiah by those who did. But the masses of Jews and Gentiles, and the occupying forces of the Roman Empire mostly saw Jesus as a problem, not an answer.

Our Gospel lesson for today is happening after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, as he joins up with two women on their walk to Emmaus, about 7 miles west of Jerusalem. They had known Jesus very well. Yet they do not recognize him for the longest while as they walked and talked together. How could that be? How could they not recognize him, his voice and language? Is it because his face and body is still so torn and traumatized by the crucifixion, and his gait so hobbled because his ankles had been nailed to a cross? Are they blinded by their grief? And it was the same earlier, near his tomb. Jesus had been mis-recognized as a gardener by his closest followers. Jesus also had appeared to Mary Magdalene, which she reported to other close followers of Jesus. They found her report unbelievable. There is the scene of the disciples huddled in that upper room where they had earlier shared their last supper with Jesus.[1] Jesus appears like a ghost. There were also the disciples who had resorted again to fishing in Galilee.[2] Jesus is preparing breakfast for them, and they don’t immediately recognize him. So it goes. Jesus is consistently not recognized.

This recurring experience of not recognizing Jesus continues to this day. In the Brothers’ Rule of Life we remind ourselves of “God’s presence and action in creation, in other people, and in the fabric of ordinary existence.” We affirm that “Christ is already present in the life of everyone as the light of the world.” And we recall that, “as our faith matures we come to recognize Christ’s hidden presence everywhere.” His “hidden presence” everywhere. That being so, where am I prone to miss discovering Christ? Where are you likely to miss meeting Christ? I recall Mother Teresa’s once being asked whether she and her sisters ever came face-to-face with Jesus in the person of the poor and dying people whom they served? Did they recognize Jesus? She answered, “Yes, Jesus is present, often hideously disguised.”

Do you remember the series of children’s books entitled Where’s Waldo? Waldo is a cartoon figure pictured somewhere on each page-after-page in scenes of people from every imaginable setting and culture. Waldo is always present, oftentimes rather disguised by distractions to our eyes. The child’s quest is to find Waldo on every page. He’s definitely there, somewhere. An adult version of this adventure is to take Jesus at his word that he is present everywhere, in everyone. Where’s Jesus? He’s definitely present, always. Where are we prone to miss seeing and experiencing him? Where do I? Where do you? What puts us off the trail? What distracts us? What blinds us because of our own background, our prejudice, or our discrimination? Jesus himself reminded us we how likely we are to see him (or to miss seeing him) among the least and the last the lost on our own hierarchy of favored people.[3] For us all, it is so important to keep bringing our blinding biases into the light for a good airing.

I remember our Br. David saying years ago that, as our Novice Guardian, David would tell a new incoming Brother that he would be given a special teacher, someone who would be a real source of revelation. David called this person “a special teacher,” because otherwise our new Brother might consider this person not an inspiration but rather an irritant or a disappointment. This kind of “teacher” is a person who triggers our negative judgment, for whom we easily feel impatient, whom we are prone to dismiss or denigrate. This is our teacher because he or she is exposing us. Look at you. You are so kind, and so patient, and so gentle, and so compassionate . . . except when you’re not, except when you have been triggered by someone who does not make your cut. Undoubtedly this other person also has their own stuff. We all do. However, understanding this other person as our teacher – who exposes us to our own stuff – is an excellent practice to carry in life. Recognizing that our own life is chock full of these teachers actually opens the door of enlightenment, even gratitude, for people we might otherwise only judge with irritation and condemnation. I find it quite helpful, humbling, which is good thing to always be on the lookout for teachers.

Christ is always present among us. Therefore, according to C. S. Lewis, “There are no ordinary people.” Lewis says we “have never talked to a mere mortal.”[4] As we interact with people throughout the day and throughout our lifetime, carrying a mindset that everyone we meet is something more than immediately meets our eyes – that God loves this person, is with them, is working in them, probably slowly – will make a world of difference, not only to other people but for ourselves. Presuming that God is at work in others’ lives, not only in our own, can convert our hard heart into a compassionate, humble, patient heart for others. One of the early members of our SSJE brotherhood, Father George Congreve, said that “the meaning of all [our] life is its capacity of receiving the infinite love of God,” then making that love “the substance of our being.” It’s about meeting Christ and serving Christ in all others.[5]

I would like to be able to end say, “So there’s that. Amen.” But I cannot. It’s not this straightforward with all the people in our lives, as you well know. Jesus himself warns of “false prophets” who come to us “in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”[6] Saint Paul writes quite amount about “false shepherds” and “savage wolves [who] will come in among you . . . distorting the truth in order to entice [you] to follow them.”[7] These are dress-up “Messiahs” and they keep showing up.

Jesus is very clear in his saying we are not to judge, but that’s with a qualification. We certainly must use our God-given judgmental faculties all day, all of our life. This includes our judging people: whether we believe them, trust them, are willing to follow them, want to be with them. We are judging people all the day long, and necessarily so. However the judgment we are clearly asked not by Jesus not to do is damning people to hell, our making an eternal judgment on someone. That is neither our capacity nor our job. Towards those whom we find nefarious, we may need to oppose them and work against their designs. We may also pray up a storm that those whose actions and language we find morally inadmissible be stopped. However I always find it right to end those “cease and desist” prayers with a word of love: that God’s love intervene in this person’s, these persons’ lives. They are certainly not going to get better with our hate.

In our Gospel lesson today from Emmaus, Jesus was recognized in the context of sharing a meal. At the beginning of his ministry Jesus was recognized at a wedding feast. Jesus was also recognized in the miraculous feeding of the multitudes. Jesus was recognized in the meal he served, what we call the last supper. For some reason, in the context of “table fellowship” Jesus was repeatedly recognized by his immediate followers. So for each of us, there will be ways we have come to recognize and understand Jesus’ presence and power. That is good and right and trustworthy. The invitation is to open the eyes of our heart to what more Jesus is up to. Jesus is always up to more.

[1] Mark 16:9-14.

[2] John 21:1-14.

[3] Matthew 25:37-40.

[4] C. S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory (1941).

[5] George Congreve, SSJE (1835-1918) writing on “The Being of God”: Project Canterbury.

[6] See Matthew 7:15 and Luke 10:3.

[7] Acts 20:29-30, and elsewhere.

Br. Jack Crowley

John 6:16-21

The disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea . . . and they were terrified. That’s one of my favorite lines in scripture. I love it not only for the beautiful image of Jesus walking on water, but for the disciples’ reaction to Jesus. Personally, I find the image of Jesus walking on water to be one of the most beautiful images in scripture and what I love most is that the disciples’ initial reaction to this beautiful image is absolute terror.

I often ask myself how could this be? I imagine if I saw Jesus walking on water across the Charles River coming towards me, how would I react? I’d probably stop and stare, wide eyed and open mouthed. From there I have no idea what would happen.

The point I’m trying to make here is we never really know how we are going to react to God, especially when God is at work in the particular circumstances of our life. When we see Jesus crossing the waters of our own little rivers inside our minds, it will probably scare us at first. We all have our own little boat we are trying to navigate and then to see this man walk sure footedly when we are trying our best just to stay afloat, well you can see why people’s reactions to God vary all the way from violence, indifference, to worship.

We never really know how we are going to react to God and we also never know how other people are going to react to God. When you look at the life of Jesus, sometimes crowds of people wanted to throw him over a cliff and other times crowds of people wanted to anoint him king. Sometimes crowds of people cheered his arrival into the city with shouts of hosanna, and other times crowds of people shouted crucify him. When it comes to what to do with God, we human beings can be all over the place.

The great challenge we have as Christians is how to maintain an even keel. How do we keep our heads while the world around us goes crazy? How do we keep our eyes focused on what matters, and not lose ourselves in the terror? How do we maintain a spirit of love and compassion, and not fall victim to cynicism, hopelessness, and resentment?

We answer these questions with our lives. We rarely answer these questions in one big dramatic way, instead we answer these questions in ten thousand little ways. We answer these questions in how we smile, how we look each other in the eye, and how we nod with an understanding that our human experience of the divine is beyond expression. We answer these questions in how we forgive, how we move on, how we heal, how we bring peace to conflict, and how we bring joy to the brokenhearted.

There will not be background music as we work out our salvation. There will be the mundane sounds of cars, coughing, and air conditioning. Yet the music we will feel in our hearts will be better than anything we’ve ever heard before.

Br. Jamie Nelson

John 6:1-15

Opinions about serving leftover food can be polarizing. Many people enjoy eating leftovers, and many people just don’t.

Where do you stand? Are you someone who likes dining on a remix of last night’s dinner, or do containers of leftover food tend to sit forlornly in the far back corner of your fridge until they’re only suited for the compost?

Based on the story we heard just now, Jesus sounds like he belongs to Team Leftovers. Here’s why I say that.

In today’s gospel, a child’s generous sharing of a meagre five loaves of bread and two little fish was enough to miraculously feed a crowd of five thousand hungry people. Not only that, but the meal was enough that all could eat until they were satisfied, and yet there was still more that remained. Jesus directed the disciples to “gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost” (John 6:12). When they did so, they filled 12 baskets full of leftover bread.

What would you do with 12 baskets of leftover bread?

That’s a lot of bread to use. You could do all your favorite stale bread recipes and then some. You could cook up French toast for breakfast, take a sandwich in your lunch, serve garlic toast with supper and still have plenty to make bread pudding for dessert. However you slice it, that’s more than enough.

I don’t know what recipes Jesus and his crew of friends might have made with the leftover bread, but I do know this: he intended for it to be used. No crumb was thrown out, no piece was written off as too insignificant to save. Everything was gathered up and used for good.

Some of you here might have known our Brother, Bishop Tom Shaw. He died in 2014, long before I entered the monastery, so I never knew him personally. But my elder Brothers have passed down a phrase he liked to say: “God is frugal.”

God is frugal. Not miserly, but creative and unwilling to waste what could be reused for good.

God finds a way to make use of leftover bread, and of the leftovers of our lives. Nothing is useless in God’s ever-unfolding vision. Not the missed opportunities, not the unused gifts, not the abandoned career paths, not the half-finished chapters of our stories.

We carry around pieces of ourselves that we may label as our failures or, at the very least, no longer relevant to the people we’ve become. But God finds a way to make use of those leftovers. Jesus says to us, gather up what is left. Hang onto those pieces as you live your story today. Listen carefully. Perhaps what remains can be used now, perhaps it’ll be carried with you for years until the right time comes to serve it. But that time will come, when that stale bread is just what you need to serve in order to live out your calling as a follower of Jesus.

Later on in this same gospel chapter, John chapter 6,  Jesus proclaims, “I am the Bread of Life. . . . This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:48, 51).

Through the leftover bread of our lives, the fragments gathered up to fill 12 baskets of stories, may the redeeming love of our ever-frugal God be revealed and proclaimed in our midst.

Br. David Vryhof

Acts 4:32-37

This early Christian community was on fire! Having just experienced the wild chaos of Pentecost, they are filled with the Spirit, aflame for God! Here’s how Luke describes them:

Luke’s portrayal has been a model for Christian communities, including monastic communities, for almost two thousand years. It continually calls us to reflect on our own communities – at home, at church, in the workplace, as a nation and as citizens of the world. I don’t have to tell you that its message is sorely needed today, when selfishness abounds and putting ourselves first is so strongly encouraged.

So what are we to do? What must be our priorities? How are we to live in this upside-down kingdom that Jesus and his Church proclaim?

Here is the first thing: we must heed the cries of the poor; we must attend and respond to their expressed needs. We know how deeply God cares for the poor and how often Moses, the prophets and Jesus called us to give aid to the forgotten and marginalized. How can we hope to enter this kingdom unless we commit ourselves to listen and to act on behalf of those who are desperately poor in our nation and our world? How can we say we are followers of Jesus if we ignore the cries of those who have stumbled and fallen in life’s race?

A few years ago at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the gun, they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All, that is, except one boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple of times and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back. Every one of them. One girl with Down’s Syndrome bent down and kissed him and said, “This will make it better.” Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line. Everyone in the stadium stood, and the cheering went on for several minutes. People who were there are still telling the story. Why? Because deep down we know this one thing: What matters in life is more than winning for ourselves. What truly matters in this life is helping others win, even if it means slowing down and changing our course.

“Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 18:3)

These children have a message for us, just as this small Christian community has a message for us today. They encourage us to pay attention to the needs of those who have stumbled in life and are looking for a helping hand. They teach us to put aside our own interests for the sake of others; to refuse to lay up for ourselves treasures on earth when we are surrounded by human need. They encourage us to slow down, to notice, to feel compassion, and to turn back to make sure everyone is welcome, everyone has a place, everyone is treated with the same dignity and respect that we would wish for ourselves.

Heeding this counter-cultural call to subject our own interests to the needs of others is never easy, but it is the way to true joy. If you have given freely to the poor, and especially if your gift has cost you something – time or money or personal sacrifice – you will know how satisfying it is to stretch beyond ourselves to aid others.

This is the way to life, to joy, to love. Proclaim it and act on it, that your life will be a witness to the generosity and loving compassion of God.

Br. Jack Crowley

Easter Day

Matthew 28:1-10

Good morning and Happy Easter to you all! On behalf of all my brothers, I just want to say how thrilled we are to have you here with us today. If this is your first time in the monastery, welcome. You are welcome to join us in this glorious celebration. Alleluia, Christ is risen!

When I was a child and my eyes would open on Easter morning, usually my thought was “where’s my Easter basket?!” and I would tear through the house trying to find it. My family is here, you can ask them. Later on Easter morning, I would always find myself sitting in church, full of sugar, looking at the preacher, wondering how long he would go on for. So it’s with great irony that I finally find myself preaching on Easter morning.

We all have our own memories and feelings about Easter. For some, this is the most important day of the year. The day we celebrate the resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For others, Easter is more about family, brunch, and the arrival of spring, all good stuff. The good news is, whatever brought you here today, and whatever feelings about Easter you brought with you here today, please know that you are not only welcome, you are also loved by God.

One of the truths we celebrate here is the unconditional love of God. Unconditional. It doesn’t matter what you are thinking or feeling, God loves you. It’s a love not based on conditions, it’s incredible.

We believe that God so loved the world that God sent his only begotten son into the world. We believe that God’s son, Jesus, was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day, Jesus was risen. Jesus came back and he had a few things to say to us.

Now personally, if someone came back from the dead and had a message for me, I would pay attention. I would not only pay attention to the message, I would really try to let it soak in.

So what was Jesus’ message when he came back from the dead? Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid because something greater than ourselves is at work. Something more powerful than meets the eye. Something we feel in our hearts but always have a hard time capturing. In my experience, most people have some intuitive understanding of this. They’ve experienced moments when it felt like God was breaking through to them. These moments are mysterious, but they are awesome. We live for these moments. Moments when time stops and we are present. Moments when the details of our life fade away, and what’s right in front of us is both whole and holy. This is God at work. Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid, because God is available to us all. God’s love knows no bounds. God’s love shines through and through. We, as God’s children, get to live into that love. Do not be afraid.

We take that love and we spread it. We love one another as God has loved us. This love takes many forms. We love one another so that those who are desperate may feel some hope. We love one another so that those who are lonely may feel connected. We love another so that those who think peace is not possible in this world will find it first in their own hearts. Do not be afraid.

This love has power. A power beyond our understanding. Do not be afraid of it. Do not be afraid that this love will overtake you and change you. Do not be afraid that nothing will be the same after this love. All things will be made new. Do not be afraid.

Remember that we always have the power to choose love over hate. We always have the power to choose an open heart over a closed mind. We always have the power to choose faith over fear. Do not be afraid.

Now I know it’s not easy. I know we live in crazy, crazy times. The problem is if we wait for conditions to be right in order to love one another, it’s just not going to work. Conditions may never be perfect for love, that’s why we must practice unconditional love. Do not wait for things to be normal, do not wait for this to be all over, do not wait for things to calm down, instead, charge forward with your love. Meet the coldness of the world with a warm heart. Meet the chaos of the world with loving compassion. Meet the exhaustion of the world with a loving eye full of understanding. Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid because Jesus is calling us to a courageous life. A life that does not hide from the world. A life built on truth and love. A life that counteracts the evils of this world. A life that leaves this place better than the way we found it.

As Saint Paul said, our struggle is against the cosmic powers of this present darkness. A darkness built on fear and hate. A darkness that’s always tempting. A darkness we recognize in our own shadow. We struggle against this darkness with all the light and love we bear. Do not be afraid.

Of course, we all know none of us will get through this life unscathed. We all have our falls and our faults. We will all fall short from time to time. The most important thing is to keep rising. Keep rising and heal from your stumbles. Do not stay down. Do not be afraid.

Remember that God is always calling us forward, on to something greater. We answer that call with our life and with our love. This glorious journey of ours is everlasting. Do not be afraid. Amen.

Br. Keith Nelson

The Great Vigil of Easter

Romans 6:3-11

Last year I experienced two exercise-related injuries. (I tell myself that this means I’m really acing my early forties). The first was a relatively minor but persistent shoulder injury. I found a physical therapy practice that helps patients return to their strength training goals, and I was paired with a young woman with a contagious smile, deep knowledge, and even deeper patience.

As people tend to do, she asked what I did for work. When I replied, “I’m a monk,” the predictable questions arose. But these quickly took on a unique substance and a quiet urgency. I found myself with needles in my back, hooked to low voltage electricity, muscles twitching, as she asked things like: “So how is Jesus both God and human?” or “What about hell?” or “If Christians believe in a God who is love, why are so many of them so full of hate?”

Week after week, we would dance from the robustly physical to the profoundly spiritual and back again, because of course: they are not separate. I did all I could to show her the face of Jesus as I have come to know and follow him. And I was shown more of Jesus through her healing touch.

I had barely returned to exercising when the second injury occurred, a major lumbar disc rupture that caused the most incapacitating pain I have ever experienced. Walking, standing, lying down – everything sent lightning bolts of pain radiating down my left leg. In the thick of this experience, I despaired of ever lifting anything heavy again. I could hope only for a few hours of sleep each night and the basic ability to walk without agony. A spine specialist got me on heavy pain medication, outlined a course of treatment, and said: Find a physical therapist as soon you can.

I know just the person, I said.

I returned to physical therapy a broken person, my basic sanity threadbare, weary of the constant burden of chronic suffering. But I trusted her care as she had come to trust my counsel and conversation. Our genuine alliance of healing in body, mind, and spirit helped me through a very dark time.

Four months later, my body is mostly healed. I have strategies for handling the chronic flare-ups, I sleep eight hours a night, and I can exercise, albeit more cautiously. I have been returned to the life I love.

The young woman whose baptism we have just had the joy of witnessing, Gabi, is my physical therapist. And by God’s mysterious and gracious work, she has become so much more: a beloved sister in Jesus Christ.

I begin this way because the Christian hope of resurrection we affirm in our baptism and celebrate today is not an abstraction or a metaphor.

The Resurrection is made known to us in personal relationships, as when Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary” went to see the tomb together early on the first day of the week.

The Resurrection is made known to us in places. The angel invites them: “Come, see the place where he lay.”

The Resurrection is made known to us in these bodies of ours, fragile and glorious: “They came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him.”

We are living in a time that needs the transformative hope of the Easter gospel: the message that life has meaning in union with a Savior who came to love, not to condemn the world. There are two defining features of this interpersonal, locatable, and very physical Resurrection power:

First, Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead. He was raised from death by God, by the one he called Father. That passive verb is essential.

Jesus did not raise himself– no dead creature can do this, and the scandal of Holy Saturday is just this: Jesus of Nazareth died our very human death.

The power by which Jesus was raised – the power of God, creator of heaven and earth – is not the same kind of power that arrested and crucified him. It is not an infinite supply of might, which we might be tempted to attribute to the Almighty. This is not a story about the “good guys” being stronger than the “bad guys” because God is on our side and not theirs.

The Resurrection is the mysterious working of a categorically different power than the world can grasp – power welling up from a divine Source made available where, to whom, and between whom the world least expects it. In the presence of this power, Roman soldiers become like dead men and a pair of women are armed with the proclamation of the gospel.

This power is like the roots of a tree which slowly but surely crack and rearrange every sidewalk pavement we create.

Second, the Risen Jesus is always the crucified-and-risen one.

This Jesus Christ, whom God raised, died the excruciating death of a political dissident. When Jesus is brought before Pilate, accused of claiming to be the King of the Judeans, he makes no reply in his defense. But the Roman imperial middlemen and Judean Temple authorities in collusion with them intuited that the power of God at work in Jesus was a direct affront to the power they claimed to wield. Not its rival, in fact, but its antidote.

Political ideologies of domination and will-to-power that lay claim to authority founded on the victory of God in Christ profoundly misrepresent the Resurrection we celebrate today.

They erase the wounds from Christ’s hands, feet, and side only to inflict them afresh on the true kindred Jesus names in the Beatitudes: the poor; those who mourn; the meek; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; the merciful; the pure in heart; and the peacemakers.

They discard the “weakness and foolishness” of the Gospel proclaimed in every sentence written by the Apostle Paul.

That is not Resurrection because there is no cross.

Political elites, ruling classes, powerful majorities, and those seduced by their vision and values have inflicted wounds upon the Church in every age. Their misappropriation of its message for their own ends has compromised its vital spirit. This is especially true of the powerful in our own day and in our own land.

But Christ was, is, and ever shall be a healer.

There is a way to lay hold of the Light and Life he promises. Countless saints have followed it. Major injuries to a body or mind can be healed over time through accurate diagnosis, good medical care, and reparative therapy.

The word therapy comes from a Greek root verb: “to attend, to do service, to take care of.” Therapy is never juridical or retributive. It does not concern itself with whether the wounded deserve to be healed, but with finding and coaxing forth the health and wholeness within, however marred or twisted by the pain of our human journey.

If fear and great joy are struggling for supremacy in your heart this morning, how does it feel to receive the risen Jesus as one who comes to attend to you; to do service to you; to take care of you . . . rather than as one who has come to evaluate; to discriminate; or to punish?

The crucified-and-risen Christ knows your wounds as his own. He has not come to rub salt in them. He comes, again and again, to touch them with his own and raise us up with him: “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Gabi, you asked me: “If Christians believe in a God who is love, why are so many of them so full of hate?” The question came from your lips, but it is a question in the hearts of many, many people.

Like any organism, even a mystical one, this Body of Christ on earth is constantly subject to failing and falling short of its high calling. The work of nourishing, strengthening, training and re-training that Body is endless on this side of eternity, and is sustained only by the living Spirit of Christ, who makes all things new. That is as true of this Episcopal Church as it is of others; there is no room here for self-righteousness.

But we have taken a stand for the gospel of Love.

What we have been doing in this chapel since dark o’ clock; what we have been doing this Holy Week; what this community strives to do day in and day out, and what communities like this do Sunday by Sunday has real potential to soften hearts, dethrone the world’s values, and coax forth the healing and wholeness within. It is there. It is our call to invite it out into the light.

We are sent in the name of a divine therapist to deliver the accurate diagnosis; to offer the right medicine; and to invite others into a regimen of spiritual therapy that heals our ancient wounds.

Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.

He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said.

Come, see the place where he lay.

Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’

This is my message for you.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

Br. Luke Ditewig

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

“Did e’er such love and sorrow meet?”[1]

The Good Shepherd lay down his life for the sheep, allowing arrest to final breath. “Wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”

As his followers fought back, Jesus denounced violence and retribution. “Put away your sword.” Jesus spoke with authority not coercion or oppression. “My kingdom is not from this world. . . . Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Jesus spoke tenderly to his dearest giving them to each other: “here is your son . . . here is your mother.”

“Did e’er such love and sorrow meet?”

Surrendering while sovereign, Jesus announced: “It is finished.” Found already dead, his side was pierced. The crucified, cold, corpse wrapped and laid in a tomb. God wept. God and Spirit mourned Jesus’ suffering and death. Divine communal grief. Trinity broken by death.[2]

“Did e’er such love and sorrow meet?”

Powerful like “a precious fountain,” Love reaches death, reaches all.[3] Mac Loftin wrote: “Even this is not beyond the reach of God’s love. Love reaches even here, even to the nothingness of a corpse.”[4]

Where all seems lost, our hope is found. Against violence, in community, the Good Shepherd saves. All are found and held. Love and sorrow shared. “Near the cross” let us “watch and wait” with God who grieves with us, where such love and sorrow meet.

[1] Isaac Watts (1674-1748), “When I survey the wondrous cross.”

[2] Mac Loftin, In the Twilight of the Christian West: A Theology of Mourning and Resistance (Orbis Books, 2025), 67-69.

[3] Fanny Crosby (1869), “Near the cross.”

[4] Loftin, Twilight, 69.

Br. Lain Wilson

Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-14

I’ve attended a lot of Maundy Thursday services in my life, and for me there’s a clear dividing line, a clear before and after: the year 2022, when I entered the Society as a postulant. It’s a dividing line not because of that, though. It’s a dividing line because, for the first time in my life, I participated in the footwashing.

I’m not sure what had held me back before. I suspect it was many things – a sense of restraint, keeping something of myself firmly under wraps (or under socks); a belief that I didn’t need to go forward, that I couldn’t gain something from it that I didn’t already have; and, perhaps, a bit of embarrassment, that my feet were sweaty in my socks and what if they smelled and what will people think . . .

What I experienced in that dividing-line liturgy – when I untied my shoes and took off my socks and sat shoulder to shoulder with these men – well, I can only call it surrender, the surrender of all that had held me back for so many years.

And so too each year on this night, on this night of many movements – when we come forward to wash and be washed, and again to be fed with Bread and Wine, when we process to and kneel in the garden, and finally when we go back out into the world – on this night, each of the many movements calls us to surrender, and in surrendering to be broken open by the One who is Love.

As we come forward to wash and be washed, to participate in this strangely intimate ritual, we are invited to surrender our secrecy. At the very core of our being is a mystery known only to God, but how often do we also hold a little something back, keep something in reserve, as a way of maintaining control over who we think ourselves to be? How often do we come to God in prayer and keep our shoes and socks on, shying away from the discomfort and intimacy of laying our innermost selves absolutely bare before the one who knows us more fully than we do or can ourselves?

“During supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself” (John 13:2-4). Jesus, on his knees with towel and basin, washing his friends’ feet, reveals to them something just as true about who he is as do voices from heaven or miraculous healings.

In coming forward and baring our feet, we too bare something of this inner self. In washing and being washed, in this profoundly simple act of humble service, we allow those bared inner selves to come into contact with each other, with all the heat and risk of live wires crossing. We take the risk of revealing something true about who we are to others; we allow others to know us in a way that God knows us.

We come to know, more fully and completely, that we are not in this alone.

And so, as we come forward to be fed with bread and wine, on this night when we also remember Jesus’ institution of the eucharist, we participate in this mystery by surrendering our self-sufficiency. So much of our lives, and our world, demands self-sufficiency. To show that we all have it figured out, that we can do it all, that we can climb the ladder of success by our own abilities, capacities, and worthiness. Even when we need help – and we will all need help – there’s a small voice that can so easily convince us that that help means we failed.

“This is my body that is for you,” Saint Paul reports Jesus saying (1 Corinthians 11:24). Not the body that you have earned with your own blood and sweat and tears. Not the body that you have saved up for years to purchase. This is my body that is for you – a free gift, beyond patronage and deservingness. And, This is my body that is for you – “you” plural. So too the Passover lamb: “Tell the whole congregation of Israel that . . . they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one” (Exodus 12:3-4). The bread and wine we receive – we receive – are not just for us as individuals. This bread and wine are the healing gifts given to us who comprise God’s family, God’s household, Jesus’ friends and siblings.

And so, as we go forward together to the garden, led by Jesus, present in his gifts to us, as we kneel together as God’s family, shoulder to shoulder, before him, we are invited to surrender finally our shame. We know how this story goes – disciples falling asleep in the garden, then running and hiding at Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion. We know this part of the story is one of human failure – failure of endurance, failure of courage. We will kneel together and sing together “Stay with me,” over and over again, a pointed reminder of the disciples’ failure – and of our own.

Because we do fail. Again and again. Fail in our intentions and prayers, in our thoughts and actions. We’re all fallible and frail. “Christ revealed our frailty and our falling,” Julian of Norwich wrote, “our trespasses and our humiliations.”[1] We all fall asleep in our own gardens. And we can’t help but feel shame for those failures. How familiar is Peter’s bitter weeping when his threefold denial proved Jesus’ prediction true (Matthew 26:75)?

Maybe you didn’t clip your toenails tonight; or maybe you carry something weightier in your heart, something that is closing you off to others, something that Jesus is calling you to surrender, to hand over to him in this place, on this night, when you are surrounded by the company of God’s family, when the live wire that is your inner heart wants so desperately to shoot out sparks as it comes into contact with those of others.

“Christ revealed our frailty and our falling, our trespasses and our humiliations.” But, Julian continues, “Christ also revealed his blessed power, his blessed wisdom and love. He protects us as tenderly and as sweetly when we are in greatest need; he raises us in spirit and turns everything to glory and joy without ending.” As we kneel before Jesus on this night, confessing our sins, washing feet, or pledging to remain with him, we surrender our shame to the one who raises us up not in spite of our failures but because of them. Not in spite of but because we are the fallible and frail creatures whom God loves so, so much. “God proves God’s love for us,” Saint Paul writes, “in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Tonight, on this night of many movements, we surrender to the One who is Love. As we kneel with hearts and souls bared, we hear clearly Love’s new command: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). This is risky. There’s so much heat coming from these live wires. But in this new command, and in our final movement back into the nighttime of this world, a world that so desperately needs this love, we can hear the promise of Love’s coming victory, reigning from the cross and overcoming all and turning everything to glory and joy without ending.

Amen.

[1] “Canticle S: A Song of Our True Nature,” in Enriching Our Worship 1 (New York, 1998), 40-41.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Palm Sunday

Philippians 2:5-11

When I was a young boy, I hated lima beans.

Now I love lima beans.

But I have always loved my mother more than I love lima beans.

Strong words – hate, love – used hyperbolically to catch our attention and to make a point. We do this a lot with English. And it also happens in the Greek of the New Testament. So we need to interpret here Jesus’ words about hate truthfully but not literally. He says, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Jesus is not a hater. Here in the Gospel according to John, Jesus has only just said, “For God so loves the world . . .” And that includes you, and me, and everyone-everything else to which God has given life, God loves.[1] Eternally. God is love.[2]

But Jesus gets our attention and his contemporaries’ attention saying, “those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” This Greek verb translated “hate” is not as bad as it sounds. This Greek word “hate” can also be translated comparatively, meaning to strongly value something that is more rather than something that is less.[3] In the strongest possible language, Jesus is affirming love for the full expanse of life; however, he is setting his gaze beyond just this life to include the life-to-come. That is the ultimate goal, what Saint Paul calls “the prize.”[4] Don’t live your life only clutching at what is at hand; live your life open-handed, as a generous offering of love for all that God loves, now and forever.[5] Jesus is demonstrating this on his ride into Jerusalem.

In the Near East and Mediterranean world of antiquity, palms were used to symbolize victory, triumph, peace, and eternal life. In ancient Greece, then subsequently in Rome, coinage and medals were engraved with palms. Also, winners of great events would be holding a palm “trophy” as they were publicly presented to the crowds. Whether it was Pharaoh or Caesar being heralded after a military conquest, or whether it was an athlete who was the winner of a great contest – like the Olympics – the winners would be appointed with palms and the victor’s parade carpeted with palms. Which is what we see with Jesus on Palm Sunday.[6] Sort of.

Jesus enters Jerusalem on a roadway covered with palms and riding on a donkey, which is no Roman chariot, and Jesus is no Caesar. His perceived flirtations with being divine were blasphemous to the Jews and seditious to the Romans. In the first century, Caesar Augustus had already claimed the titles “Divine,” “Son of God,” “Lord,” “Redeemer,” and “Savior of the World.” Those titles already belonged to the Roman Emperor, not to this itinerant and poor rabbi on a donkey, this Jesus.[7]

Jesus here is making a very symbolic identification with the poor and powerless. He is messing with the symbols of conquest and victory, and a lot of people are watching. So here it’s as if Jesus is teasing the principalities and powers. He knows what he is doing.[8] There are curious bystanders including some of Jesus’ faithful followers, and there are his twelve apostles. His apostles had already begged him not to do this. They had predicted if he entered Jerusalem he would be killed by the authorities. Of the twelve, it had only been the apostle Thomas who had said, “Let us go that we may die with him.”[9] Death was in the air. His apostles mostly desert him. In the end, it is only the Beloved Disciple and the holy women who would stand with Jesus at his crucifixion.[10]

We remember Jesus’ Palm Sunday provocation not as an historic reenactment. The point of Palm Sunday is a clarion call for us who are followers of Jesus, what Saint Paul calls “counting the cost.”[11] What actually are we to follow in Jesus’ example? Two things that are apparent, and one thing that is disguised.

What is apparent is that those whom Jesus lived for, he dies for. What he and society identified as “the least” in society most captured his attention. The poor are not a problem; they are a primacy. How we think, pray, and act has to include those who are among the least, and last, and lost.[12] All of us have some reach to bring God’s blessing to some person, or to some people whom Jesus called “poor in spirit,” or “those who mourn,” or “those who are persecuted” or “reviled”[13] for whom Jesus gave his life and we, by extension, ours. Identifying with the troubled, those who are victims of oppression, injustice, and tyranny is what got Jesus in such trouble, and that, too, is our call. To be troubled by the troubled. To taunt insidious power.

Secondly, Palm Sunday reminds us is how we must be on good speaking terms with life in this world and the life to come. We rehearse this in the prayer Jesus taught us – what we call the Lord’s Prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it shall be in heaven.” Jesus is serious about this, using “love” and “hate” language for us to galvanize our priorities on earth as a trajectory into God’s future, what we call “eternal life.” It’s either give or take. We either live our life giving our life, which is eternal, or we live taking our life, hoarding, clutching, which is infernal.

A third reminder on Palm Sunday is about people being scared to death: first and foremostly his own apostles from before Palm Sunday until after Good Friday. Something dramatic changes in them. They became able to hear Jesus’ words, which he spoke endlessly, about not being afraid, not being anxious. Jesus did not say these words in a scolding way; he said these words in a reassuring way. Not to be afraid. Why? Because Jesus is with us always, to the very end. We are not abandoned. Ever. If you are afraid of life, or are afraid of death, that is your prayer. Jesus will meet you, understand you, love you, carry you.

On Palm Sunday, there is one word we repeat again and again: the Aramaic word “Hosanna.” “Hosanna” is a prayerful plea. “Hosanna” means to “save us” and to “help us”: the very thing that Jesus promises us, and which we most need: to be saved and helped. We, at our lowest, can cry out, “Hosanna, in the highest.”[14] And Jesus hears us.

[1] John 3:16.

[2] 1 John 4:8, 16; Romans 5:8.

[3] The Greek verb μισέω, miséō, appears 41 times in the New Testament: to hate, to detest, or (by extension) to love less.

[4] “I [Paul] press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14)

[5] Saint Paul also writes: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1-2)

[6] John 12:12-16.

[7] J. D. Crossan, God and Empire (San Francisco, 2008), 28.

[8] Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is remembered in all four Gospels: Matthew 21:1-17; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44; John 12:12-19.

[9] John 11:7-16.

[10] At the crucifixion are Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, Salome, and the Beloved Disciple.

[11] Philippians 3:7-11.

[12] Matthew 25:40-45.

[13] Jesus’ Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12.

[14] Matthew 21: 9, 15; Mark 11:9-10; John 12:13.