St. Aidan's Anglican Church, Kansas City - weekly talks

Every human being has traveled on the road to Emmaus. Who hasn’t been disappointed?

What is it? Disappointment is a failed expectation. It’s that disposition that visits us when something or someone didn’t meet our expectations.

It can be as trivial as being let down by a new restaurant with raving reviews to more serious unmet expectations in one’s education, career or marriage relationship.

Disappointment and disillusionment are two sides of the same coin. Disillusionment is when we find out that something we really believed in isn’t true. “I invested all this time!” “How could this be?” It leaves you feeling misled.

Faith is no stranger to disillusionment. The couple on Emmaus Road told the companion walking alongside, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (v 21).

Learn how disillusionment turns to joy. Journey with us to Emmaus.

During this 3rd Resurrection appearance (John 21), Peter is confronted with his limitations. Jesus accepts Peter's honest assessment of his own capacity to love, phileo (familial love) rather than agape (selfless love). Through Peter's failure, denying his Lord three times, and confessing his limited capacity to love, he is entrusted with Shepherding the flock of Jesus. Jesus transforms us through our failures.

Image by Seiger Koder

This morning we have followed some of Jesus’ disciples to an upper room. There’s a deep sense of emptiness. They are still perplexed by the empty tomb, and now, as the night closes in, they are gathered in an empty room.

The room is full of failure and fear. Rightly so, for Rome’s most effective tool for keeping order throughout the empire has been exercised on their Master.

Despite the locked doors, the failures and the fears, Jesus breaks through. God’s grace expressed now in Jesus raised from the dead, can break through our fear and failures.

“Peace be with you.” The Gospel is in the person of the crucified and risen Lord. By this one word, Peace, Jesus is announcing that the cosmic war is over.

How is this peace given and received? “He showed them his hands and side.” His scars are the results of a darkened, sin sick world. The author of life came and we killed him. He took all that we could sling at him, Jew and Gentile … the horrors of Rome’s most intimidating instrument … hanging naked on a cross. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. In the face of rejection, ridicule, false witness, the greatest humiliation, he allowed us to crucify him … the wounds are not scars of punishment from his Father, but the scars of the ones he came to heal. His scars are a memorial of a sacrifice, at our attempts to punish and eliminate Jesus.

When he breaks into our lives, we must see his wounds. This is how he becomes peace to us. This is how he imparts his peace to us. His wounds show us the power of love … his non-violent humility. His peace is our reconciliation.

He sends us out of our own locked rooms, out of isolation, to proclaim the power of his wounds in our lives. By his wounds we are healed.

And how shall we go? Receive (welcome) the Holy Spirit (New Breath – Genesis). We are sent out to breathe that same Spirit into the world.

Out of this new breathe, we are called to witness the forgiveness of sin (see Eph. 1:7; Col. 2:19-20).

Only God can forgive sins? Yes, and that’s why we’re called to forgive just as Christ has forgiven us. He forgives through us. This is the mission of the Church.

Our mission is to bear the message is that the world has been forgiven and reconciled to God through faith in Christ. You are forgiven, but you must receive it.

We have the power to forgive and retain sins. In the broader context, beyond our personal confession of sin and receiving absolution, we are called to forgive others. Some will not accept the Word of Reconciliation in Christ. Jesus forgave his enemies on the cross … a forgiveness that is prior to any repentance or faith. As we proclaim it, others can receive it.

Thomas was absent. Why? Thomas was missing in his own disillusionment. Thomas, like so many, isolated in his grief. But because he heard the testimony of the disciples … we have seen the Lord … he showed up … to be convinced.

Thomas, being a twin (Thomas is Aramaic / Didymus is Greek for twin), knows that people are often mistaken for another, and so he wants to confirm for himself that it is indeed the crucified one. His doubt is not out to disprove, but to confirm (Fr. John Behr).

Gregory the Great says, “This disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ’s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection.”

Faith seeking understanding results in the greatest testimony among the apostles, "My Lord, and my God." Thomas is able to worship the risen Lord.

“The resurrection is not an alien power breaking into God’s world; it is what happen when the creator himself comes to heal and restore his world, and bring it to its appointed goal.” NT Wright

Thomas reminds us that no one is to be written off … there is hope for everyone.

According to the ancient Passover structure, Jesus would have ended his last Passover meal on Maundy Thursday with chanting Psalm 118, today's responsorial Psalm.

But is there a biblical allusion to this? Both Matthew and Mark's account of the Last Supper end with a delightful line, "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives" (Matt 26:30; Mark 14:26). I love the image of Jesus singing, most likely chanting, this magnificent Psalm.

The Psalm describes a day in which the Lord has acted (v. 24), we will rejoice and be glad in it." What day is the Psalm describing? This Psalm describes a mysterious event in which a great deliverance from death occurs (vv 14 - 21). The next verse, "The same stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" ... is used throughout the NT as referring to Christ (vv 22 - 26). How does Christ, the rejected Stone in the quarry, become the Chief Cornerstone? By his birth, faithful life, death, resurrection and ascension.

Our Eucharistic liturgy draws from this Psalm, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord ... Hosanna in the highest ... Hosanna meaning "save, Lord." Jesus wept over the holy city and said, "You won't see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Again, quoting this amazing Psalm (verse 25, 26).

Our Gospel reading, Luke 24:1-12, brings us into the company of stunned, heart sick friends of another failed Messiah. We join a company who are making plans to care for the dead body of their Master. Even through Jesus told them again and again that he would be handed over and killed and, on the third day, rise. They, like us, heard the words but didn't understand. They discounted it as Jesus trying to prepare them for the worst. It just wouldn't happen ... it couldn't happen, so they thought.

So when the company of women head towards the tomb with select spices to anoint his body, they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and upon entering found no body (v 3).

Christianity is rightfully obsessed with the body. Last night at the vigil, we confessed the Apostles' Creed and we're getting ready to affirm it once again. The Creed says "I believe in the resurrection of the body."

We have entered the fifty days of Eastertide where we will once again consider the staggering implications of the Resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of the body.

What is this saying? God is the maker of this good world. Early Christians confessed this in opposition to wave after wave of gnostic teachings about the evil of the physical world. No, this is a place brought into being by a good God.

This good God makes contact with the ordinary, fleshy stuff of our lives by coming in the person of Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, born of a woman.

God took on a body ... fully human and fully divine in order to take on death and destroy it in his glorious resurrection.

What is this saying? We are called to value every-BODY ... to rid ourselves of indifference and renew our wonder for every-BODY. This is the NEW COMMANDMENT - instituted on Maundy Thursday! To love one another as Christ loved us! In Christ, matter matters and everyBODY matters! Amen!

The image is by Father Sieger Köder

Fr. David poses the question, what's so good about Good Friday?

Passion Sunday: The Triumphal Entry -- Today we enter the holy city with Jesus and his disciples. We are coming to Holy Week. Given the events of Good Friday, the death of Jesus, why is today called the triumphal entry? Why did Jesus choose to voluntarily consent to suffer such psychological and physical torture at the hands of his enemies?

C.S. Lewis says that he came as a weak, unassuming baby, voluntarily emptying himself of attributes of divinity (Phil 2 reading today)because he was being snuck behind enemy lines, into a dysfunctional, fallen world. And, therefore, as he began to emerge, he attracted opposition.

We see the climax of this opposition to God’s covert operation in the Passion narrative. In reflecting on the success of this operation, God’s mission to redeem and restore fallen creation in the person of Jesus, Paul says that “we speak a wisdom (in Christ crucified), a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.’ But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit (I Cor. 2:7f). Holy Spirit come and reveal it to us.

Today in the holy city, Luke wants us to see how all forms of human sin and dysfunction come out to meet him, in the Temple, in the Garden, in the Roman Praetorium, and at Calvary.

In the very wounds of Jesus shout the brokenness of the world. But now all that sin, all that disorder has been swallowed up, conquered by the ever greater forgiveness and love of God.

What we see in the cross is the greatest act of love. The Father sent the son, why? Precisely because in the beginning all things were made through him … God said … and the Word, the Logos effects the created order (John 1). The creator is rightly the redeemer. Thus, he sent the son all the way into our human condition, what we call incarnation … the Logos divinely conceived by the Holy Spirit in the flesh of Mary. He did this because forgiveness is not enough. The whole life and mission of Jesus is effecting new creation, not just a forgiven creation. Let me stress that forgiveness is absolutely amazing! But Atonement is about restored union with God. Forgiveness in Christ makes this possible.

Paul tells us that as a result of this glorious work of redemption that though outwardly we are perishing, inwardly we are being renewed day by day (2 Cor 4:16). In Eph. 4:23 he says to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. That can’t happen by merely being forgiven. We must have a divine infusion of Grace, of the Holy Spirit within ourselves.

That’s a total restoration of what was taken away from us. It takes a second Adam, fully human and fully divine, to be born, live, die and rise for us and for our salvation. We determine to know nothing by Jesus Christ and him crucified. This presupposes that Christ has died, Christ has risen and Christ will come again. This is the victory of God.

Today we reflect on Philippians 3:7-14. We hear through Paul’s expressed personal passion, the core of the Gospel, the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord.

Paul is like a passionate coach, before a make-it or break-it game, attempting to instruct and inspire his team with an inexhaustible passion and value for the game in which they’re about to play.

Paul’s chief aim is to impart to us the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ. He begins with his own story of moving from self-righteousness to Christ's righteousness:

1. JESUS SURPASSES EVERYTHING

(a) Paul counts everything as loss for the sake of Christ (v. 7). There’s nothing more worthy in Paul’s life than Jesus Christ.

(b) He counts everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus (8a). To know Christ is a journey of faith in which he becomes our intimate companion. Paul is writing in Greek but thinking in Hebrew … see Gen 4:1 Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived .... This is a knowing by experience with the other, a knowing that is inexhaustible, yet keeps us reaching for more.

(c) “I count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (8b). Jesus has become the animating center and source of Paul’s life. He has reviewed his ego-drama and counted it as loss in order to have Jesus.

2. JESUS SHARES HIS RIGHTEOUS LIFE IN & THROUGH US

(verse 9) In comparison to his exceptional moral achievements, Paul points to Christ and calls us to be found in Him, not having a righteousness of our own, but one which is through faith in Christ … Christ IS our righteousness … Jesus gives us the same status he has before the Father … His beloved children in whom he is well pleased. By faith & grace, we share everything Jesus is and has by nature. This is what it means to be "in Christ". We count Christ above all things because only in Christ do we have a righteousness that counts with God.

3. INTIMACY WITH CHRIST INVITES US TO SHARE IN HIS SUFFERINGS (10) … I want to know Christ & the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings

It takes His resurrection power in us to fellowship, to share in his sufferings. Com-passion = to suffer with (Latin). One of the marks of Christ’s Body on earth is compassion … the ability to suffer with others on all sorts of levels … from living a life of forgiveness, to loving our enemies, to being patient, to being merciful and serving the needs of the poor, the suffering, and so forth.

We are called to be LONG-Suffering. Marriage is form of suffering, right? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and GAVE HIMSELF UP for her. There are many ways to lay down our lives for others … this is one way to share in the fellowship of his sufferings.

4. EMBRACED, WE REACH FOR HIM

(v. 12) – This is an amazing statement … Paul is saying that he presses on to apprehend, to take hold of Christ … BECAUSE he has already taken hold of him. Our response of love for Christ is only because he has first loved us. Because we are loved, embraced and held by Christ, are we able to reach towards him. Knowing we’re loved is so vital to drawing near to God.

5. WE PRESS TOWARD THE GOAL, THE END OF THIS TEMPORAL JOURNEY, TOWARDS THE ETERNAL PRIZE OF FULL COMMUNION WITH JESUS FOREVER

How do we press on? vv. 13 – 14 … forgetting … straining … pressing on toward the goal, the prize of eternal communion with Christ.

The past is over (we can choose to live there), the present is now and the coming Kingdom is on its way. We press toward it as it presses towards us.

God the Father is calling us home … the upward call of God … in Christ. In Christ we are able to press beyond the past, through the trials, the challenges of this temporal life, knowing there is a prize, a reward that will not disappoint. We fix our eyes on the unseen … says Paul … the temporal is not his focus, the eternal is his present reality and goal.

The Faith handed down to us by the apostles is not merely a set of beliefs, doctrines and propositions on which to sign off, but an integration of apostolic teachings expressing itself in a wide spectrum of holy practices as demonstrated throughout the NT writings.

St. Paul concludes that nothing really matters in this life except “faith working (expressing itself) through love” (Gal 5:6). I believe this expression is both vertical and horizontal … as the great commandment prescribes, to love God with all and to love one's neighbor as oneself. To love others as oneself requires self-reflection, self-care and personal sacrifice (laying down our lives for one another).

Jesus warns against ascetical frippery, to be impressive with one's spirituality; rather, Jesus lays out three holy practices, giving to the poor, fasting and prayer (Matt. 6:1-18), to be executed in a worshipful spirit before an audience of one, whether in private or corporate prayer and fasting.

I want to submit to us that the phrase “practice your righteousness” needs to be restored more concretely as a type of shorthand for uniting faith and practice as the assumed baptized lifestyle … that Christianity, involving our ever-evolving, personal conversion in Christ, should not be seen just as a set of beliefs, but as a set of holy practices.

The liturgical calendar sets two ascetical seasons in place, while minimized in the Western Church, offer a way forward. After Vatican II, Advent and Lent became less ascetical in nature. Why? In short, left to ourselves, no matter how busy we might be in church, we drift inwardly, exhibiting a complacent piety. We must pay attention to the inner works of the heart to continue in becoming Christlike.

Finally, righteousness is a person, Jesus Christ. We have become the righteousness of God IN Christ Jesus. Entering into prayer and other disciplines is a way of our communion in Christ.

"Christianity should be seen not just as a set of beliefs, but as a set of practices," says Fr. Stephen Freeman. This is a paradigm shift for many. The Eucharist is one such practice, instituted some 15 years before any New Testament Scriptures were written … “Do this” in remembrance of me … an ancient practice central to Christian worship.

Today’s Gospel addresses three holy practices in Matthew 6:

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen, ascetical frippery, summons us to a sincere practice of righteousness ... before an audience of One.

1. Generosity towards the poor

Acts 10:1-4 Cornelius … The eyes of the Lord are upon this

Gentile man for his devotion to prayer and alms to the poor.

2. Prayer

3. Fasting

These three holy practices are foundational for the People of God. In the following talks, we'll explore these and other holy practices which unite faith and practice in our lives.

Jesus is retracing the roots of our fallen humanity by recapitulating both Adam and Eve’s interaction with the Serpent and Israel’s initial failure in the wilderness. This is part of why God became a human being … to experience life in a dark, broken world; as a real human being, to experience all the trials and temptations common to us, yet without sinning. To enter the desert to begin his life-long mission of overcoming and undoing the original temptation of Adam and Eve.

Being tempted is an essential part of Jesus being a human being, a part of his downward journey into fellowship with us, into the depths of our need. His temptations do not end in the desert. The same three questions continue to resurface as fundamental considerations we all face in life. Thus, the sum total of Jesus’ temptations help us see the nature of his mission, a struggle we all share to align ourselves in communion with God, to be in the world but not of it. The way in which he handles his temptations show us the way to be human, how to choose what is most important, most fundamental and primary about living our lives, the ultimate thing, the primacy of God. This occurs in the moment when we are faced with concerns, the needs and desires of the moment to be more important than he is – this is the ever-present temptation before us.

Engaging with the devil takes place within the imagination and so here, with Christ in the desert. There is no visual encounter but an inner chatter, real and unseen. The fallen angel, the serpent, the devil, is being bound by the Second Adam's obedience and submission to God. He speaks only Scripture to the thoughts and imaginations assailing him. As with Christ, this too is how we overcome temptation.