celebrating easter on the labyrinth

Throughout the season of Easter, the Sunday six o'clock Contemplative Eucharist at Grace Cathedral will be held on the labyrinth. Here's my sermon notes from last night's service.

Happy Easter!

Contemplative Eucharist at Grace Cathedral Sermon Notes
Easter 2009
on Luke 24:13-49

The child of a secular Jewish family, a 20th century leftist French intellectual Simone Weil, was a person on a journey toward truth, she was drawn to Christian theology and most of all to the enigmatic character of Jesus. In her short life, she had deep conversations with mystery. As I was considering tonight’s gospel text I ran across this quote from Weil,

"Christ likes us to prefer truth to himself, because before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go towards the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms."

Tonight, as we celebrate Easter together, as we engage in our own deep conversation with mystery, whether we’re ardent believers, or passionate doubters, people who have heard this story many times, or for the first time may we discover ourselves headed towards truth and falling into Christ’s arms.

This week tells us that we can not get to Easter, with out going through Good Friday, without confronting the painful, confusing, disturbing, haunting image of Jesus’ execution by imperial power and religious oppression. The disciples who met this stranger on the road in tonight’s reading were fleeing Jerusalem perhaps afraid that they too would be arrested and killed if they stayed in the city, that they too would be executed for their subversive activity, for following this one who had confronted the powers, whom they thought would liberate their people. Who can blame them for hitting the road, for getting out of there?

What happened on that road though --- who it was that Cleopas and his nameless companion ran into walked and talked with, offered hospitality to ---- is a mystery to them until that stranger picked up bread, blessed and broke it. When they realized these familiar gestures --- as those of their teacher who had been executed --- he disappeared.

There are many things to say about this story, it is one of my favorite stories concerning Jesus’ resurrection because it is so different from the many other stories of his appearing. What makes it so different and perhaps so comforting to me is because the risen Christ appears to those who fled, who walked or ran away --- I often feel like one who has left... who has walked or run away and still wanders away. This story is for all of us who doubt, who are so often at a loss for what to do, who like Cleopas know sadness and confusion ---

Tonight the Risen Christ appears to all of us as a stranger, a mystery...a fellow traveler...who engages us where we are and fills in the gaps, and opens up our stories and our lives to greater meaning and adventure.

The Christian tradition holds that the Risen Christ is someone we may encounter, lives now and gives us that same strange joy that Cleopas and his companion experience--- The Risen Christ of Easter keeps us going on the path toward wholeness and reconciliation. Who in words, actions, and presence like this labyrinth --- keeps us journeying back toward the center --- toward the heavenly Jerusalem, the realm of God. If one studies labyrinths, you know that those built in the Middle Ages were intended to aid those pilgrims who could not make the difficult and expensive journey it to the holy sites of Jerusalem --- instead they could make the sacred pilgrimage where they were. The center there where the altar stands is sometimes called, Jerusalem, the Semitic root word for Jerusalem means peace, harmony and completeness.

So the Risen Christ is our labyrinth --- the risen Christ is our path and the strangers we meet along the way --- the risen Christ points us toward peace, harmony and reconciliation --- completeness --- the risen Christ arms outstretched brings us full circle.

The disciples who met Jesus on the road turned around, returned ... rejoined the confused and curious community of disciples in Jerusalem and gave something to them, gave them reason for hope, and to keep going...Cleopas and his companion gave those back in the city as they shared their story reason to keep sharing and living the teachings of Jesus.

As we gather in this night to celebrate Christ’s resurrection we gather on the labyrinth opening ourselves up to engage this ancient story, opening ourselves up to the strangers on our path, opening ourselves up to make space for the unexpected. We discover right here, right now reason for hope and joy --- we come finding ourselves moving closer to what we know to be true and real.

Where ever we are on the journey of faith --- may this Easter celebration inspire us to slow down, talk to strangers, share stories and food --- discovering that the Risen Christ is with us.

A few nights ago, as we do each month a group from Grace and other volunteers shared a meal with former homeless persons in the Tenderloin --- during the meal one of the women we ate with began sharing how she was about to celebrate 8 months of being clean --- being sober. By the look on her face and those around her who were familiar with addiction --- you could immediately sense just how challenging and how significant that anniversary really was. That night that meal shared amongst strangers opened up the story of liberation --- of freedom --- for us. We encountered the Risen Jesus in our midst, as we engaged in conversation with mystery and shared our yearnings for liberation.

When do we find ourselves vulnerable, and willing to take in strangers? When in our lives do we risk hospitality, welcoming another into our journey, into our stories, into our struggles and confusion?

Our tradition boldly proclaims that Jesus' violent death was and is not the end of the story --- death, injustice, cruelty, despair, disease, addiction, poverty... all that seeks to bind, trap and kill us is not the end of the story--- the resurrection, the opening up of ourselves to one another, opening our selves to new understandings, new possibilities, to new companions... finding our hearts strangely warmed…this is truth…this is faith... the resurrection tells us we are free to begin the journey again. The story continues ….the story continues to unfold, the journey is forever leading us toward hope --- and new life ---the path leads to harmony, peace and wholeness --- into the arms of Christ.

There are many places we could be on this night in San Francisco --- but for whatever reason we find ourselves together in this cathedral --- where strange stories are shared, and bread is broken.

In the midst of this supposedly hyper secular city Christian theology and tradition tells us that we’re bound to discover the presence of a living Jesus.Tonight’s gospel tells us that no matter how far we run, no matter how confused or sad ---- Christ rises, comes to us as a mysterious stranger, warms our hearts, questions our understanding and reveals truth in broken bread.

Alleluia Christ is Risen!

Passion Sunday - becoming "little Christs"

Below you'll find my homily notes from today's 8:30 a.m. service at Grace Cathedral.

Liturgy of the Passion

This is our story, this is our song…disturbing, confusing, challenging, moving, troubling, inspiring, complicated….

A lot of words, texts, stories have been read today, have been in a way performed --- it has been the church’s tradition for some time now to read on Palm Sunday the passion narrative and not simply the passages of scripture relaying the story of Jesus’ entrance to Jerusalem on a donkey and being greeted by people with palm branches.

We’re invited to read along and we --- the masses gathered here--- were given the part of the crowd, we got to say , repeatedly, “crucify him, crucify him”

Looking back at Christian history, the church has again and again betrayed the teachings of Jesus ---- humanity has again and again turned our backs on Jesus’ vision of the realm of God and those who sought to live a life in the way of Jesus. Humanity says these words “crucify him, crucify him” every time we choose violence rather than peace, whenever we are unable to tolerate the voices and perspectives of those who challenge us, when we fail to honor the dignity of others or the image of God within ourselves.

Yet reading these parts, “crucify him, crucify him” I wonder if these recitations --- don’t take our eyes off the one we’re to be following --- rather than identifying with the one who is inviting us to come and follow, to love as he loves, to live as he lives --- we on this day in the dramatic reading spoke the language of the oppressor, took the role of the betrayers. This performance, this text pushes us to ask whom do we really identify with? Whom do we really seek to follow in our day to day lives?

These two questions are central to all of the readings we heard today, all the passages of scripture we’ll engage in this week--- these questions are central to our lives --- to our moment in time --- whom do we identity with? Whom do we seek to follow?

John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg --- in their important book “The Last Week” remind us that two processions came into Jerusalem in the year 30 -- one was a peasant procession waving palm branches, the other an imperial procession with soldiers and weapons. Which procession do we find ourselves in? Whom do we seek to follow? Jesus, the nonviolent revolutionary teacher or the power and wealth of empires, corporations, the stock market?

Perhaps the church in its wisdom in having us read these words, “crucify him, crucify him” is giving us an opportunity to purge ourselves of our inclination to do that in our lives, to acknowledge the ways we betray and deny Jesus --- and even taunt the one who seeks to give us life and make us whole. This collective performance then is a confession and an opportunity for reorientation. May we see other options, may we find a different part --- may we come to more deeply identify with Jesus, and those whom he identified with ---with the nameless woman who anointed his head, Mary Magdalene and the other women who stayed with him to the very end. Let us open ourselves to the possibility of becoming “little Christs.”

Author Diana Butler Bass writes, “Early on, Romans scornfully tagged the Jesus followers with the name “Christian,” meaning “little Christ.” Being a Christian meant being like Jesus; following his way meant imitating the life of its guide and founder, even to the cross.”

As we enter Holy Week --- let’s keep our eyes on Jesus --- and invite the Spirit to help us make his script a central part of our lives, praying that our identity and our path be focused on Jesus and what Jesus was passionate about, the reign of God as Crossan and Borg write “the first passion of Jesus was the kingdom of God, namely, to incarnate the justice of God’s distributive justice that led inevitably to the second passion by Pilate’s punitive justice. Before Jesus, after Jesus, and for Christians, achetypically in Jesus, those who live for nonviolent justice die all too often from violent injustice.”

May we follow Jesus into the broken relationships, systems and institutions of our contemporary world, follow Jesus into the homes of the sick and marginalized, into the midst of demonstrations and protests, the cold complicity of churches, the inhumanity of the judicial structures, may we follow Jesus into the cruel torture chambers, the lonely jails and prisons, the bloody golgathas and calvarys, the abandoned tombs --- let us follow Jesus --- may this be our story, may this be our song. May we be known as “little Christs.” Blessed be the King who comes in the Name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and Hosanna in the Highest”

The image above is by South Asian artist, Solomon RAJ

Scripts

I noticed this morning that Walter Brueggemann's presentation to the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops last month is now available online, check that out here.

Here's a bit from the end of the document:

It is my judgment that the church, in all quarters, must repent of its lust for the absolute. But surely the Rabbis, and the Church Fathers after them, understood that there are no final interpretations. And surely we have learned in the twentieth century that final interpretations are a dangerous step along the way to the Final Solution. In my Church, the United Church of Christ, we have now adopted the slogan, “God is still speaking,” which means in that liberal context, God has something new to say about sexuality. The logo for that slogan is a comma, suggesting that after the received truth of scripture there is not a period, but a comma.

But my church is tempted to disregard everything in front of the comma. The task for Red and Blue in the church, conservatives and liberals, is to recognize that because the spirit is on the move, we must pay attention to both sides of the comma, not just what is old and not just what is new.

For those who appreciate Brueggemann, check out his 19 theses, which he presented to the Emergent Theological Conversation in September of 2004. Our friend Paul Soupiset transcribed and posted the audio here.

Faith & Fools on April 1st

A number of faith blogs have special April Fool's Day postings, here's a few to enjoy:

Rush Limbaugh to Speak at Sojourners’ Mobilization to End Poverty

From the posting:

Limbaugh, longtime champion of conservative media, announced his acceptance of the invitation on his daily radio show. Interrupted occasionally by call-ins of incredulous listeners, Limbaugh detailed months of off-the-record conversations with Wallis during which the two forged a deep friendship despite political, theological, philosophical, ideological, ecological, anthropological, eschatological, and soteriological differences. That dialogue came to a head one night when an anguished and sleepless Limbaugh called Wallis after 3:00 a.m., seeking spiritual solace.

“I responded like any good evangelical would,” said Wallis. “I told him he should read his Bible. And then I hung up and went back to sleep.”

Vexed but desperate, Limbaugh grabbed his trusty KJV, fanned it open at random, closed his eyes, and thrust his index finger upon whatever page it might find, landing upon this passage from James 5:

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

“I admit, of all the verses for him to read, this passage sounds a bit harsh—especially in the King James,” said Wallis. “But with 2,000 verses on poverty in the Bible, Rush was bound to hit one of them.”

Trinity Expanded to Include Oprah

From the posting:
VATICAN CITY, APRIL 1 -- Oprah Winfrey has been declared the fourth person of the Trinity, according to an astonishing new theological agreement hammered out by the world's major Christian denominations. Along with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the popular talk show host will be recognized as one person in the sacred and indivisible unity of the Godhead--or Quadhead, as the updated Trinity will now be called.

New green initiative for General Convention

From the posting:

Youth from the Diocese of Los Angeles will roam the floors of both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies carrying aspersories and aspergillia to keep members hydrated during sessions. “We plan to use a form of blessed Gatorade,” Straub noted, “which when placed against the skin will absorb instantly without the use of paper or plastic cups.”

The Most Rev. Rowan Williams will also reduce his carbon footprint when he visits General Convention by sailing from England to Los Angeles on board the restored 18th century frigate, HMS Compass Rose. Rumors that Williams plans to walk the entire distance from Canterbury to Anaheim were dismissed by the Anglican Communion Office as “exaggerated” because the Archbishop only walks a mile or two a day.