Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 16

Easter

 

April 9, 2023

 

 

+ Now, some people are Christmaspeople.

 

They live for Christmas.

 

That’s it for them. 

 

For them, that’s the real magical time.

 

But for me, I gotta admit, it’s allabout Easter.

 

This is what it is all about.

 

There is nothing, in my opinion,  like gathering together here on this gloriousmorning, in all of this Easter glory.

 

I just love Easter!

 

I love everything about it.

 

The light.

 

The joy we are feeling this morning.

 

That sense of renewal, after—or stillin the midst of—a long, hard winter.

 

Yes, winter is ending even if itdoesn’t feel like it right now.

 

An Easter morning like this reminds methat there is more to this world than we thought.

 

There is a glory that we sometimescatch a glimpse of.

 

There is an eternity, and that eternityis good.

 

There’s an old saying, “Eternal lifedoesn’t start when we die, it starts now.”

 

I love that.

 

Resurrection is a kind of reality thatwe, as Christians, are called to live into.

 

And it’s not just something we believehappens after we die.

 

We are called to live into thatResurrection NOW.

 

The God of Jesus calls us to live intothat joy and that beautiful life NOW.

 

The alleluias we sing this morning arenot only for some beautiful moment after we have breathed our last.

 

Those alleluias are for now, as well asfor later.

 

Those alleluias, those joyful sounds wemake, this Light we celebrate, is a Light that shines now—in this moment.

 

It is important to remember what thatword, Alleluia, actually means.

 

It means

“Praise God.”

 

It is an exclamation!

 

It should always be followed by anexclamation point.

 

And it is an expression of true and pure,overwhelming joy.

 

Our lives should be joyful because ofthis fact—this reality—that Jesus died, that God raised Jesus and by doing so Godhas destroyed our deaths. This is what it means to be a Christian.

 

Easter is about the fact that we arealive right now. 

 

It is also about living in anotherdimension that, to our rational minds, makes no sense.

 

Even, sometimes, with us, it doesn’tmake sense.

 

It almost seems too good to be true.

 

Easter almost seems too good to betrue.

 

And that’s all right to have that kindof doubt.

 

It doesn’t make sense that wecelebrating an event that seems so wonderful that it couldn’t possibly be true.

 

It doesn’t make sense that this eventthat seems so super-human can bring such joy in our lives.

 

Today we are commemorating the factthat Jesus, who was tortured, was murdered, was buried in a tomb and is now…alive.

 

Fully and completely alive.

 

Alive in a real body.

 

Alive in a body that only a day beforewas lying, broken and dead, in a tomb.

 

And…as if that wasn’t enough, we arealso celebrating the fact that we truly believe we too are experiencing thistoo.

 

Experiencing this—in the present tense.

 

It is happening for us too.

 

We are already living, by our verylives, by our faith in Jesus, into the eternal, unending, glorious life thatJesus lives in this moment.

 

Our bodies MAY be broken.

 

Our spirits MAY be broken.

 

It may seem that all the bad things oflife may defeat us at times. 

 

But we will live because God raised Jesusfrom the dead and he lives.

 

What we are celebrating this morning isreality.

 

What we are celebrating this morning isthat this resurrected life which we are witnessing is really the only reality.

 

And all those bad things that happenare really only ultimately illusions.

 

Now, we aren’t deceiving ourselves.

 

We’re not a naïve people who think everythingis just peachy keen and wonderful.

 

We know what darkness is.

 

We know what suffering and pain are.

 

For those of us who have losses in ourlives, we know the depths of pain and despair we can all go to in our lives.

 

But, what Easter is all about isrealizing that all of that is only temporary.

 

It is God’s Light, that has come to us,this glorious morning, much as the Sun breaks into the darkness, is what lastsforever.

 

What Easter reminds us, again andagain, is that darkness is not eternal.

 

It will not ultimately win out.

 

But, Light…

 

Light will always win.

 

This Light will always succeed.

 

This Light will be eternal.

 

Easter shows us very clearly that Godreally does love us.

 

Each of us.

 

No matter who we are.

 

God really does love us.

 

Because, look!

 

Look what God does for us.

 

The bad things don’t last.

 

But the good things do last. Forever.

 

That is the best gift we could receivefrom a God who truly does love us.

 

I wish I could always feel this joythat I feel this morning.

 

But the fact is, this Light will loseits luster faster than I even want to admit.

 

This joy will fade too.

 

But I do believe that whatever heavenis—and none of us knows for certain what it will be like—I have no doubt thatit is very similar this the joy we feel this morning.

 

I believe with all that is in me thatit is very much like the experience of this Light that we are celebrating thismorning—an unending Easter.

 

And if that is what Heaven is, then itis a joy that will not die, and it is a Light that will not fade and grow dim.

 

And if that’s all I know of heaven,then that is enough for me.

 

The fact is, Easter doesn’t end whenthe sun sets today.

 

Easter is what we carry within us asChristians ALL the time.

 

Easter is living out the Resurrectionby our very presence.

 

We are, each of us, carrying within us God’sglorious Light we celebrate this morning and always.

 

All the time.

 

It is here, in our very souls, in ourvery bodies, in our very selves.

 

With that Light burning within us,being reflected in what we do and say, in the love we show to God and to eachother, what more can we say on this glorious, glorious morning?

 

What more can we say when God’sglorious, all-loving, resurrected realty breaks through to us in glorious lightand transforms us;

 

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

 

 

 

Holy Saturday

 April 8, 2023

 

I seem to say this every year on Holy Saturday morning.

 

I LOVE this service.

 

I love its simplicity.

 

I love its solemnity.  

 

I love this time to gather and just be quiet.

 

I love the fact that, after all that we’ve been throughliturgically in these last few days and all that we will still go throughliturgically in the next day, here we are.

 

Here we are in a church stripped of everything symbolic.

 

The cross hangs before us, veiled in black.

 

The altar is stripped.

 

The sanctuary light, which gently reminds us of the sacred Presence,is extinguished and has been taken away.

 

For those of us who delight in the Presence of God—who strive andlong for the Presence of God—who find our purpose and meaning in the Presenceof God—today is a bleak day.

 

That Presence seems…gone.

 

Or, at least, hidden from us.

 

For now, in this moment, on this Holy Saturday morning, time seemsto sort of stand still.

 

We are caught in this breathless moment—between the excruciatingdeath of Jesus on the cross yesterday and the glorious Light that is about dawnon us tonight and tomorrow morning.  

 

For now—in this moment—we are here.

 

And Jesus…

 

Where is Jesus?

 

We imagine his body lying there in the dark stillness of the tomb,wrapped and broken and bloodied.

 

But where is Jesus?

 

Not his body.

 

But…him?

 

One of the reasons I love this service is because it gives me thatopportunity to speak about one of my favorite Christian subjects—the so-called“Harrowing of Hell.  

 

The Harrowing of Hell is that wonderful concept in which we ponderJesus’ descent to hell to bringback those captured there.

 

For me, it is so packed full of meaning.

 

Hell.

 

That place we thought was the end all of end-all’s.  

 

That place that we dread and fear and cringe from.

 

That place in which lies every one of our greatest nightmares andthe most horrendous things we could even possibly imagine.  

 

That black, bleak, miserable place.

 

But, we have to remind ourselves that for Jesus and the people ofhis time, there really was no concept of “hell” as we have been told regardingit.

 

For Jewish people at his time, there was a term that was used forthe place where dead people go.

 

“Sheol.”

 

Now, Sheol has come to be used as another term for hell in popularChristian understanding.

 

But ultimately, again, we need to understand, that a Hebrewunderstanding of death from the time of Jesus just simply does not show this tobe the truth.

 

For them “Sheol” was simply the place where all the dead go whenthey die.

 

To put it even more simply, “sheol” could simply mean “the grave,”the “pit” in which one is buried.

 

We get an idea of this thinking in the Psalm 6, wherein we hearthe psalmist say in death there is no mention of God’s name, and in the graveno one praises God.

 

Essentially, for them, the grave itself was hell—the place whereinour existence ends and cease to “be.”

 

Even for Jesus, when he talks of “hell,” he actually uses the word“Gehenna.”

 

Genehnna is an actual place on earth, the so-called Ge Hinnom orvalley of Hinnom, referenced in 2 Chronicles Chapter 28 in which in which KingAhaz did “evil” int eh sight of God by sacrificing children int eh fire to thepagan gods.

 

It became a dump, where they burned garbage.

 

It was cursed ground.

 

He is being descriptive in his use of imagery here.

 

But, there is no place of eternal metaphysical torment in theHebrew scriptures.

 

And Jesus would have had no comprehension of ourmodern-Hellenistic, neo-Platonic understanding of “Hell” as a cavern “downthere” in which souls are tortured for all eternity.

 

In fact, most of our current, popular understanding of hell comesactually from, yes, a poet.

 

Dante’s Inferno is very much the source of so much of ourviews of hell.

 

And it is some great poetry.

 

But Jesus himself as well as his first followers would be shockedand confused by such descriptions of the afterlife. 

 

So, when we talk about the Hallowing of Hell, we are really simplytalking about Jesus going into the grave, into the place wherein all people whodie go.

 

For the Jews of Jesus’ time and for Jesus’ first followers Sheolwas the place where Adam and Eve and all their deceased ancestors went.

 

It was simply the place where the dead go.

 

And let’s face it, we fear this as well.

 

We fear the grave.

 

We fear “Sheol.”

 

We fear death and nonexistence and the end of “being.”

 

Death scares us.

 

What I love about today and this concept of the Harrowing of Hellis that the fear of this place is broken.  

 

The fear that there is a place where we will go when we die.

 

The grave.

 

And the grave seems to us like a place in which God’s love andlight might not be able to descend.

 

But what this morning’s liturgy is all about is that even in thegrave we cannot escape God’s love.

 

Why?

 

Because even God’s chosen One, Jesus, God’s very Son, Jesus theMessiah, went there. 

 

But by raising Jesus up from that place, God has “harrowed” Sheol.

 

In Christ, God has raked “hell” over.

 

Even death and the grave and “Sheol” have no power over God andGod’s love.

 

What seems to be death’s ultimately victory and God’s defeat is,in the fact, the exact opposite.

 

Now, this image carries over into our own immediately lives.

 

Yes, we fear the grave.

 

We fear separation from life and light and all the good things wehave known or hope in.

 

But we have to remember that such things are not only somethingafter one’s death.

 

Hell, for us, is not necessarily that metaphysical place ofeternal punishment.

 

Hell can be right here, in our own lives.

 

In our own minds.

 

In our own day-to-day lives.

 

Hell can be depression or severe anxiety or abuse or chronicphysical pain or any of the prisons we may find ourselves in in this life.

 

We all experience multiple deaths in this life.

 

We all know what our own hells are and how isolating they can be.

 

We know how impenetrable they seem.

 

What today shows us that there is no such thing as an impenetrablehell.

 

At least not for God.

 

No matter how dark, how terrible our hells might be, God isstronger than any hell.

 

Sheol or the grave or eternal death are not part of God’s plan forus.

 

Yes, Jesus went down into the grave, into Sheol, into that placein which all the dead go.

 

But he did not stay there.

 

God raised him up from that place.

 

And because God did that for Jesus, God will do that for us aswell.

 

In that famous ikon of the Harrowing of hell, what do we see?

 

We see the tombs broken open.

 

We see Jesus being raised.

 

And as he is raised, in one hand he is grasping Adam’s hand and inthe other hand is grasping Eve’s hand.

 

And below them is a skull and bones.

 

God’s raising of Jesus broke open the hold of death.

 

It shattered Sheol.

 

The grave was not the end, after all.

 

Even there, God’s love descends.

 

Because that is what God’s love is able to do.

 

Nothing can separate us from that love.

 

Not even the deepest hell.

 

Not even the dank darkness of a grave.

 

It is incredible when we think of that.  

 

And, for me anyway, it fills me with such hope, such joy, thateven the bleakness of this morning doesn’t seem so bleak.

 

Oh yes, Jesus has died.  

 

He truly died—he truly tasted death and partook of it fully.

 

He went into the grave.

 

He descended into Sheol.

 

And we too must die as well.

 

We too will taste death and partake in it fully.  

 

But the fact is that, not even death can separate us from God.

 

That place wherein we find ourselves, lost, lifeless, withouthope, even there  we cannot escape God.

 

In the hells of our lives, even there God shows us that just asJesus was raised from that place, so too will we.  

 

No matter how far separated we might seem from God, God will coverthat great distance and come to us.

 

Even there.

 

Even there Christ will find us and give us new life.  

 

Christ will grasp us by the hand and will pull us out from our hell. 

 

That is what Holy Saturday is all about and that is certainly whyI love this day.

 

 So, on this Holy Saturday, when all seems bleak and lost andwithout purpose, let us remember: God is at work even in those moments when wethink God is absent or distant from us.  

 

The Presence of God is with us even when it seems furthest fromus.  

 

In the darkest moments of our lives, the bright dawn is about tobreak.

 

Let us wait patiently and breathlessly for it.

 

 

Good Friday

April 7, 2023

 

Isaiah 52.13-53.12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 4.14-16; 5;7-9; John18.1-19.42

 

+ The main theme in my sermons for this Lenten season was thetheme of brokenness.

 

Brokenness. 

 

In many ways, that is what this day is all about.

 

Brokenness.

 

The Jesus we encounter today is slowly, deliberately being broken.

 

This moment we are experiencing right now is a moment of absoluteand complete brokenness.

 

Brokenness, in the shadow of the cross, the nails, the thorns. Broken by the whips.  

 

Broken under the weight of the Cross.  

 

Broken by his friends,

 

Broken by his loved ones.

 

Broken by the thugs and the soldiers.

 

Broken by all those who turned away from him and betrayed him.

 

 In this dark moment, our own brokenness seems moreprofound, more real, as well.  

 

God seems distant or nonexistent.

 

We can feel this brokenness now in a way we never have before.

 

Our brokenness is shown back to us like the reflection in a darkmirror as we look upon that broken Body on the cross.

 

 Bishop Steven Charleston wrote a few years ago:

 

 “There are few people offaith who have not crossed through that dark day when they wondered if the Godon whom they depended had gone away, deserted them, or even died. In the painof our own mortality, when we face the loss of those for whom we care, whenillness strikes us down or injustice overwhelms us, it is not hard tounderstand why we have felt this way. To receive the light, we must accept thedarkness. We must go into the tomb of all that haunts us, even the loss offaith itself, to discover a truth older than death.”

 

We’ve all known this in our own lives.

 

We too have wondered at times whether the God on whom we depend,the God we love and believe in, has gone away, has deserted us, or has simplydied.

 

It is a bleak feeling.

 

 We have known those moments of loss and abandonment.

 

We have known those moments in which we have been betrayed.  

 

We have known those moments when we have lost someone we havecared for so much, either through death or a broken relationship.  

 

We have known those moments of darkness in which we cannot evenimagine what light is even like again.

 

But, for as followers of Jesus, we know there is light.

 

Even today, we know it is there, just beyond our grasp.  

 

We know that what seems like a bleak, black moment will bereplaced by the blinding Light of the Resurrection.  

 

This God we thought had died, this God we thought had abandonedus and left us to our enemies and to our brokenness has raised us up from ourbrokenness and has renewed us again.

 

 

What seems like a moment of unrelenting despair will soon bereplaced by an unleashing of unrestrained joy.

This present despair will be turned completely around.

 

This present darkness will be vanquished.

 

This present pain will be replaced with a comfort that bringsabout peace.

 

This present brokenness will be healed fully and completely,leaving not even a scar.

 

In a few hours our brokenness will be made whole.

 

And will know there is no real defeat, ultimately.  

 

Ultimately there will be victory.

 

Victory over everything we are feeling sadness over at thismoment.

 

Victory over the pain, and brokenness, and loss, and death weare commemorating

 

This is what today is about.   

 

This is what our journey in following Jesus brings to us.

 

All we need to do is go where the journey leads us.

 

All we need to do is follow Jesus, yes, even through this brokenmoment.

 

And, in following, we will know joy—even a joy that, for thismoment, seems far off.  

 

 

 

Palm Sunday

 

April2, 2023

 

Matthew 26.14-27.66

 

+ Here we are this morning at thebeginning of Holy Week.

 

Every year, without fail, I begin thisweek with a big mix of emotions.

 

Certainly, this week is the apex of theentire Church Year.

 

Everything seems to lead either to thisweek or away from it.

 

But, on a much more personal level, Igotta say:

 

I actually kinda dread Holy Week.

 

Now, I know probably your firstreaction to my saying that is that you think I am dreading all the extra work,extra liturgies and services of this coming week.

 

Actually, no.

 

I don’t dread that at all.

 

After all, I’m a church nerd.

 

I like doing church liturgies and,frankly, doing the work I was hired to do.

 

I don’t dread Holy Week for any ofthose reasons.

 

I dread this coming week for one bigreason:

 

I dread the emotional aspects of thiscoming week.

 

I think the biggest toll of this comingweek on me is the emotional toll.

 

How can it not, after all?

 

We, as followers of Jesus, as peoplewho love Jesus and balance our lives on his life and teachings and guidance,are emotionally tied to this man.

 

This Jesus is not just some mythicalcharacter to us.

 

Yes, of course, he is the divine Son ofGod.

 

For us, he is the Messiah.

 

He is the Chosen One.

 

But on a personal level, he is afriend, a mentor, a very vital and essential part—no, he is our brother.

 

We relate to Jesus.

 

He shows us that what he endured in hislife is what we too endure in our own lives.

 

As the one we have chosen to follow, wekeep our eyes on him.

 

And, because we have chosen to followhim, we also must follow him even through this coming week.

 

So, to have to go follow Jesus throughthe emotional rollercoaster of this coming week is hard.  

 

 And today, we get the whole emotional rollercoasterin our liturgy and in our two Gospel readings.

 

Here we find a microcosm of the rollercoaster ride of what is to come this week.

 

What begins this morning as joyful endswith jeers and bleakness.

 

The Jesus who enters Jerusalem is theJesus who has done some incredible things in the past few weeks, at least inthe very long Gospel readings we’ve been hearing over the last few weeks.

 

Three weeks ago, he turned theSamaritan woman’s life around.

 

Two weeks ago, he gave sight to a manborn blind.

 

Last week, he raised his friend Lazarusfrom the dead.

 

This day even begin with us, hisfollowers, singing our praises to the One whom God has sent to us, waving palmbranches in victory.

 

He is, at the beginning of this week,popular and accepted.

 

For this moment, everyone seems to lovehim.

 

But this procession of his is differentthan the normal procession of a monarch.

 

The great theologian Marcus Borg (wholived as a teenager in that trailer park on Main Avenue in Moorhead back in the1950s): wrote this:

 

[Pontius] Pilate’s procession embodiedthe powers, the glory, and violence of an empire that ruled the world. Jesus’procession embodied an alternative procession and alternative journey…ananti-imperial and non-violent procession.”

 

Such a procession, as wonderful as itseems, is, however, dangerous.

 

Such an anti-imperial, non-violentprocession is a threat.

 

And as a result…within moments, adarkness falls.

 

It all turns and goes horribly wrong.  

 

What begins with rays of sunshine, endsin gathering dark storm clouds.

 

Those joyful, exuberant shouts turninto cries of anger and accusation.

 

Those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalemhave fled.

 

They have simply disappeared fromsight.

 

And in their place an angry crowdshouts and demands the death of Jesus.

 

Even his followers, those who almostarrogantly proclaimed themselves followers of Jesus, have disappeared.

 

Their arrogance has turned toembarrassment and shame.

 

Even the Samaritan woman, whose life heturned around, the man born blind, and his friend Lazarus have disappeared andare nowhere in sight.

 

Even God seems distant and absent fromJesus.

 

Jesus, whom we encounter at thebeginning of this liturgy this morning surrounded by crowds of cheering, joyfulpeople, is by the end of it, alone, abandoned, deserted—shunned.

 

Everyone he considered afriend—everyone he would have trusted—has left him.

 

And in his aloneness, he knows how theyfeel about him.

 

He knows that he is an embarrassment tothem.

 

He knows that, in their eyes, he is afailure.

 

Some of us have known this feeling.

 

We feel for him because we too havefelt abandoned in our lives.

 

We too have felt that those closest tous have turned their backs on us.

 

We too have felt that even God isdistant from us and we are truly, truly alone, vulnerable to the dark forces atwork in this world.

 

Throughout this coming Holy Week, theemotional roller coaster ride will get more intense.

 

On Maundy Thursday the celebratory mealof Passover will turn into a dark and lonely night of betrayal.

 

Jesus will descend to his lowest emotionalpoint after he washes the feet of his disciples and heads out into the gardenof Gethsemane.

 

In the garden, he will cry out to Godin his distress.

 

Friday will be a day of more betrayal,of torture and of an agonizing violent death in the burning hot sun.

 

Saturday morning, he descends into thegrave, into that dark abyss of death.

 

And by doing so, he ultimately facesdeath for all it is.

 

Saturday will be a day of keeping watchat the grave that would, under normal circumstances, be quickly forgotten.

 

Through our liturgies, we are able towalk with Jesus on this painful journey and to experience the emotional ups anddowns of all that will happen.

 

And next Sunday morning , the rollercoaster will again be at its most intense, its greatest moment.

 

Next Sunday at this time, we will berejoicing.

 

Next Sunday, we will be rejoicing inthe fact that all the humiliation experienced this week has turned to joy, alldesertion has turned to rewarding and wonderful friendship, all sadness togladness, and death—horrible, ugly death—will be turned to full, complete andunending joy.

 

Marcus Borg finished that quote weheard earlier in this way:

 

“Which journey are we on? Whichprocession are we in?”

 

Are we on Pilate’s journey?

 

Are we the crowd, are we the religiousleaders who call for Jesus’ death because he doesn’t meet our personal needs?

 

Let us instead join Jesus’ procession,as uncomfortable and frightening and horrible as it might be at times.

 

As we journey through the dark half ofour liturgy today, as we trek alongside Jesus during this Holy Week ofbetrayal, torture and death, let us keep our eyes focused on the Light that isabout to dawn in the darkness of our lives.

 

Let us move forward toward that Light.

 

Even though there might be sadness onour faces now, let the joy in our hearts prompt us forward along the path wedread to take.

 

And, next week at this time, when wegather here again, we will do so basking in God’s incredible Light—a Light thattriumphs over the darkness of not only Jesus’ death, but ours as well.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, be with us. Be with us as wejourney the way of Jesus this week. Be present with us as we follow Jesus to hisfinal meal, to his agony in the garden, to his arrest, to his torture and tohis death. But let us follow him beyond the cross too, to that place where youwill raise us up and give us unending life and joy. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

Holy Week 2023 at St. Stephen's

 

5 Lent

 

March 26, 2023

 

Ezekiel 37.1-14; John 11.1-45

 

+ As I’ve shared a few times over these last few years, I have been on a spiritual deconstruction journey.

 

It has been interesting.

 

And difficult.

 

But it was definitely needed.

 

I have found myself burning off some of the so-called “fluff” of my spiritual life.

 

And the faith that has emerged from this trimming and deconstruction has been something I didn’t quite expect.

 

But one of the big signs of deconstruction came during this season of Lent.

 

Several years ago, I picked up an interesting book.

 

I remember that it was one of those books I thought, when I bought it, would be great Lenten reading.

 

The book is Heavenly Bodies; Cult treasures and Spectacular Saints From the Catacombs.

 

It’s a book of photographs of skeletons—yes, skeletons— from the Roman Catacombs that were, in the Middle Ages, distributed about Europe as relics of the saints and early Christian martyrs.

 

More often than not, these relics were placed in glass cases in churches, dressed in luxurious clothing and posed in various lifelike displays.

 

It’s the kind of book that, if you saw it, you would no doubt say: “This is a book Fr. Jamie would LOVE!”

 

I certainly thought that when I first saw the book and when I first read it.

 

As you all know, I LOVE relics.

 

I love the supposed bones of saints, as well items touched to the bones of saints, etc.

 

Well, this Lent I decided to re-read the Heavenly Bodies book.  

 

What great Lenten reading, I thought!

 

I sat down with it one cold, snowy night (we haven’t any shortage of those this Lent), and…

 

…it creeped me out.

 

Looking at photograph after photograph of jewel-bedecked skeletons—full,

completely skeletons, often dressed in gold-encrusted clothing, with crowns and masks made of jewels, I will say, I actually got the creepy-crawlies.

 

I actually had to put the book aside.

 

For the first time in my life I thought it was too much.

 

It reflected a spirituality I no longer held dear.

 

And worst of all—I’m almost ashamed to admit this—but I found myself actually agreeing with, of all people, (sigh) the reformer John Calvin.

 

Even saying that feels like a bitter stone in my mouth!

 

Calvin, of course, found such displays of relics horrific.

 

He believed that displaying human remains in any way was a travesty.

 

He believed, as we do, certainly our Book of Common Prayer affirms this, that “all flesh is dust, [and] to dust it must return…”

 

Calvin wrote, “To attempt the resurrection of the dead ‘before the appointed time by raising them in pomp and state’ was an offense.” (p. 26 Heavenly Bodies)

 

And I will say there was something kind of offensive about seeing these saints bones propped up in such a way.

 

I know.

 

John Calvin and Jamie Parsley.

 

Those are two names you probably never thought you were hear in one sentence.

 

Certainly I never did.

 

But I agree with Calvin on this one.

 

At least like these relics are in this book.

 

Those relics in that book, meant to inspire people to have faith in the Communion of Saints and the sanctity of the human body, only managed to shock me.

 

They jarred me in an unpleasant way.  

 

There is something disconcerting about looking into the empty eye sockets of human skull.

 

Why? Because they make us confront our own mortality, our own deaths.

 

Certainly, our two readings today are also sobering experiences that jar us and make us sit up and take notice.

 

The first, of course, is Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones.

 

It’s a great story in this Lenten season and it speak loudly to the theme that I’ve used this Lent on our broken selves being made whole.

 

The second reading is the raising of Lazarus.

 

Both are filled with images of the dead being raised.

 

The story that probably speaks most deeply to us though is the story of Lazarus.

 

And this story takes on much deeper meaning when we examine it closely and place it within the context of its time.

 

One of our first clues that the something is different in this story is that, when Jesus arrives at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, he is told that Lazarus has been dead four days.

 

This clue of “four days” is important.

 

First of all, from simply a practical point, we can all imagine what condition Lazarus’s body would be in after four days.

 

This body would not have been embalmed like we understand embalming today in the United States.

 

There was no refrigeration, no sealed metal caskets, no reconstructive cosmetics for the body of Lazarus.

 

In the heat of that country, his body would, by the fourth day, be well into the beginning stages of decomposition.

 

There would be some major physical destruction occurring.

 

Second, according to Jewish understanding, when the soul left the body, a connection would still be maintained with that body for a period of three days.

 

(Keep this in mind when we ponder the Resurrection of Jesus)

 

According to Jewish thinking of this time, the belief was the soul might be reunited with the body up to three days, but after that, because the body would not be recognizable to the departed soul because of decomposition, any reuniting would be impossible.

 

After those three days, the final separation from the body by the soul would have been complete.

 

The soul would truly be gone.

 

The body would truly be dead.

 

So, when Jesus came upon the tomb of Lazarus and tells them to roll the stone away, Martha says to him that there will be stench.

 

He was truly dead—dead physically and dead from the perspective of his soul being truly separated from his body.

 

So, when the tomb was opened for Jesus, he would be encountering what most of us would think was impossible.

 

God, working through Jesus, not only reunited Lazarus’ spirit with his body, but also healed the physical destruction done to Lazarus’s body by decomposition.

 

It would have been truly amazing.

 

 And Jesus would truly have been proven to be more than just some magician, playing tricks on the people.

 

He wasn’t simply awakening someone who appeared to be dead, someone who might have actually been in a deep coma.

 

There was no doubt that Lazarus was truly dead and now, he was, once again alive.

 

Now, at first glance, both our reading from the Hebrew scriptures and our Gospel reading seem a bit morbid.

 

They remind us of the book Heavenly Bodies.

 

These are things we don’t want to think about.

 

But the fact is, we are rapidly heading toward Holy Week.

 

Next week at this time, on Palm Sunday, we will be celebrating the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

 

We will be hearing the joyful cries of the crowd as he rides forth.

 

Within 11 days from now, we will hear those cries of joy turn into cries of jeering and accusation.

 

And, within no time, we will be hearing cries of despair and mourning.

 

We, as Christians who follow Jesus, will be hearing about betrayal, torture, murder and death as Jesus journeys away from us into the cold dark shadow of death.

 

These images of death we encounter in today’s readings simply help nudge us in the direction of the events toward which we are racing.

 

During Holy Week, we too will be faced with images we might find disturbing.

 

Jesus will be betrayed and abandoned by his friends and loved ones.

 

He will be tortured, mocked and whipped.

 

He will be forced to carry the very instrument of his death to the place of his execution.

 

And there he will be murdered in a very gruesome way.

 

We commemorate this every Friday evening during Lent in the Stations of the Cross we do here at St. Stephen’s.

 

Following that death, he will be buried in a tomb, much the same way his friend Lazarus was.

 

But unlike Lazarus, what happens to Jesus will take place within the three days at that time required for a soul to make a final break from the body.

 

And this brings us back to the story of Lazarus.

 

We often make the mistake, when think about the story of Lazarus, that Lazarus was resurrected.

 

The fact is, he was not resurrected.

 

In seminary, I had a professor who made very clear to us that Lazarus was not resurrected in our Gospel reading.

 

It was not resurrection because Lazarus would eventually die again.

 

He was simply brought back to life.

 

God, working through Jesus, brought Lazarus back to life.

 

He was resuscitated, shall we say.

 

So, Lazarus truly did rise from the tomb in Bethany, but he was not resurrected there.

 

He went on to live a life somewhat similar to the life he lived before.

 

(Probably a life no doubt deep affected by what happened)

 

And eventually, he died again.

 

But Resurrection is, as we no doubt know, different.

 

Resurrection is rising from death into a life that does not end.

 

Resurrection is rising from all the things we encounter in our readings for today—dry bones, tombs, decomposition and death.

 

Resurrection is rising from our own broken selves into a wholeness that will never be taken away from us.

 

Resurrection is new bodies, a new understanding of everything, a new and unending life.

 

Resurrection, when it happens, cannot be undone.

 

It cannot be taken away.

 

Resurrection destroys the hold of death.

 

Resurrection destroys death.

 

And the first person to be resurrected was not Lazarus.

 

The first person to be resurrected was, of course, Jesus.

 

His resurrection is important not simply because he was the first.

 

His resurrection is important because it, in a real sense, destroys death once and for all.

 

Yes, we will all die.

 

Yes, we will go down into the grave, into that place of bones and ashes.

 

But, the resurrection of Jesus casts new light on the deaths we must die.

 

The resurrection of Jesus shows us that God will rise us from the destruction of our bodies—and our lives—into a life like the life of the resurrected Jesus.

 

We will be raised into a life that never ends, a life in which “sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life eternal,” as we celebrate in the Burial Office of the Book of Common Prayer.

 

Because Jesus died and then trampled death, God has taken away eternal death.

 

Our bodies may die, but we will rise again with Jesus into a new and awesome life.

 

So, as we move through these last days of Lent toward that long, painful week of Holy Week, we go forward knowing full well what await us on the other side of the Cross of Good Friday.

 

We go forward knowing that the glorious dawn of Easter awaits us.

 

And with it, the glory of resurrection and life everlasting awaits us as well.

 

So, let go forward.

 

Let us move toward Holy Week, rejoicing with the crowd.

 

And as the days darken and we grow weary with Jesus, let us keep focused on the Easter light that is just about to dawn on all of us.

 

Let us pray.

 

Loving God, give us faith that, even in the darkness of the valley of bones and the tomb of Lazarus, you will show us the unending Light of Resurrection and the promise of eternal life you promise in Jesus our Savior. Amen.

 

 

4 Lent/Laetare

 

March 19, 2023

 

1 Samuel 16.1-13; Ephesians 5.8-14; John 9.1-14

 

+ I know it’s not quite the word one would expect at this half-way point through Lent.

 

In fact, it sounds suspiciously like a word we haven’t used at all during this season—a certain A word that rhymes with Malleluia.

 

But “Rejoice” is the word for today.

 

And it’s a good word to have.

 

Today is, of course, Lataere Sunday.

 

Laetare means, of course, mean "Rejoice" in Latin.

We are rejoicing on this Sunday because we are now at the midpoint of Lent.

We get a little break from Lent on this Sunday.

It’s not all purple and swishes and ashes around us.

It’s good to rejoice.

It’s good to take this time and just…breathe.

It’s good to reorient ourselves.

Ash Wednesday on February 22 seems like a long time ago already.

And Easter on April 9th seems to be in a very distant future.

This is where we are—right smack dab in the middle of this season.

The Gospel reading for this Sunday in the old lectionaries was John 6:1-15, the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes -- symbols of the Eucharist to come on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week.

But, I’m happy we have the Gospel reading we have for today.

This story of Jesus healing the blind man speaks very loud and very clear to us. 

 

In a sense today—Lataere Sunday, this half-way mark of Lent—is a time for us to examine this whole sense of blindness.

 

Not just physical blindness, but spiritual blindness, as well.

 

My theme for Lent this year, as you have all heard me say by now, has been brokenness.

 

In a sense, our brokenness and our blindness are similar.

 

In our brokenness we become like blind people—or, at least, like nearsighted people.

 

We grope about.

 

We find ourselves dependent upon those things that we think give us come sense of clarity.

 

But ultimately, nothing really seems to heal our nearsightedness.

 

In fact our sight seems to get worse and worse as we go on.

 

For some of us our blindness is real spiritual blindness.

 

And the causes of our blindness may simply be things like depression or anxiety or frustration or anger or grief.

 

As you all know, I have certainly been wandering around like a blind man for the last five years.

 

These five years since my mother died have been years of deep darkness for me.

 

These were years that truly broke me.

 

And I have been very honest about that.

 

You have walked with me through these dark years.

 

This was driven home to me in my creative life.

 

As you all know, in addition to being your priest, I am also a poet.

 

And poetry has been as much a part of my life, and who I am as my being a priest.

 

But for these five years, my poetic career languished.

 

I could not get much published.

 

I shouldn’t say that.

 

I won a couple of awards during that time.

 

I did publish in some journals.

 

But I wasn’t able to write like I did for the 25 years before that.

 

The book I sent out wasn’t rejected.

 

I could’ve handled that.

 

It was ignored.

 

And that was a first for me.

 

I truly examined myself during that time and wondered if maybe I was done as a poet.

 

Examining ourselves is a good thing. But….

 

The problem to doing so is this: don’t examine yourself too closely when you are walking around like a blind person.

 

Because you aren’t “seeing” anything.

 

And grief is blindness that truly does enclose us in an ugly, dark place that does not allow growth.

 

In our Gospel reading for today, we find a man blind from birth.

 

The miracle Jesus performs for him is truly a BIG miracle.

 

Can you imagine what it must’ve been like for this man?

 

Here he is, born without sight, suddenly seeing.

 

It must have been quite a shock.

It would, no doubt, involve a complete reeducation of one’s whole self.

 

By the time he reached the age he was—he was maybe in his twenties or thirties—he no doubt had an idea in his mind of what things may have looked like.

 

And, with the return of his vision, he was, I’m certain, amazed at what things actually looked like.

 

Even things we might take for granted, such as the faces of our mother and father or spouse, would have been new for this man.

 

So, the miracle Jesus performs is truly a far-ranging miracle.

 

There’s also an interesting analytical post-script to our Gospel reading.

 

(And I’m certain I’ve shared this story with you, but I always found it interesting)

 

St Basil the Great and other early Church Fathers believe that this blind man was not only born blind, he was actually born without eyes as some kind of birth defect

 

This, they say, is why Jesus takes clay and places them upon the empty sockets, essentially forming eyes for this man.

 

When he washes them in the waters of Siloam, the eyes of clay became real eyes with perfect sight.

 

It’s a great story, but the real gist of this story is about us.

 

Our spiritual blindness often causes us to ignore those in need around us and this blindness causes distance and isolation in our lives, making our brokenness even deeper and more pronounced.

 

For me, my spiritual and creative eyes were washed too, just recently.

 

A few weeks ago, that book I had been sending around and was being ignored was accepted just days after I sent it out to what I said would be the last publisher I would send it to.

 

Suddenly the darkness lifted.

 

Suddenly, I say in a way I had not seen for five years.

 

Suddenly, the projects started rolling in.

 

The dam broke and all those years of creative energy that had been blocked up by grief and pain and darkness came rushing forward.

 

We have all experienced moments like this in our lives.

 

And when we do, how do we respond?

 

We respond by rejoicing.

 

Let me tell you, I have been rejoicing this Lent!

 

That is certainly what this Sunday, Lataere Sunday, is all about.

 

As we head into the latter part of Lent, we find ourselves rejoicing.

 

We find ourselves relieved from the heavy sense of brokenness we have been dealing with throughout Lent so far.

 

We find ourselves bathed in light—a rose-colored light.

 

Our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians shows us that we are not children of darkness.

 

We are not meant to walk around, groping about in our lives.

 

We are not meant to walk under clouds of grief and pain and anxiety and depression in our lives.

 

We are meant to walk in light.

 

We are meant to embody light in our lives.

 

And, by that, we are not just meant to hold the light close to us, as though it’s some special gift we are given.

 

We are not meant to hoard the light.

 

As children of light, we are meant to share the light.

 

We are meant to be conduits of that light.

 

To everyone.

 

Even when we might not feel like it.

 

We are anointed in much the same way David was anointed by the prophet Samuel in our reading from the Hebrew Scripture today.

 

We, who were anointed at our baptism, are now called to be what David was—a person on whom the Spirit of God comes in great power.

 

That Spirit brings light.

 

That Spirit brings spiritual clarity.

 

That Spirit brings vision.

 

That is what we are doing on this day.

 

Lataere Sunday, also known as Rose Sunday or Mothering Sunday or Refreshment Sunday—is a break in our Lenten grayness.

 

It is a time to refocus, to readjust ourselves again, to remind ourselves of our anointing, of the light that dwells within each of us.

 

Today, even in Lent, we can be joyful.

 

It is a time for us to realize that our brokenness is not an eternal brokenness.

 

We realize today that no matter how broken or fractured we might seem, we can be made whole once again.

 

No matter how blind or nearsighted we might be spiritually, our spiritual sight can be returned to us once again.

 

Lataere Sunday is a great time to remind ourselves that, even in our brokenness, we will not be broken forever.

 

We will be made whole like the blind man.

 

There will be resurrection.

 

We too will see with clarity and vision—with new eyes.  

 

And like him, we too will see the darkness lifted from our lives and God’s dazzling light breaking through.

 

So, today, on this Lataere Sunday—on this joyful Sunday in Lent—let us be joyful.

 

Let’s be joyful, even in our brokenness.

 

Let us be joyful even as we grope about, spiritually half-blind as we may be at times.

 

Let us be joyful, because our brokenness and our blindness are only temporary

 

But our joy—now that is eternal.

 

 

 

3 Lent

 

March 12, 2023

 

John 4.5-42  

 

+ I’ve been pretty honest about this from the beginning.

 

And many of you have been on this particular journey with me.

 

But…eight years this coming May, I made a decision that was, for me, an important one.

 

Eight years ago in May, I decided to not partake of alcohol any longer.

 

I mean—none.

 

Zero.

 

Well, except for Communion wine.

 

But that’s it.

 

It was not an easy decision for me to make.

 

I liked partaking of my cocktails, as many of you know.

 

In fact, a big part of my ministry was going out for cocktails with parishioners and prospective parishioners.

 

I liked the social aspects of drinking.

 

But…I suddenly, physically, was not able to drink alcohol any more.

 

Every time I did, I get physically sick.

 

I want to be clear:

 

I wasn’t an alcoholic.

 

But I definitely abused alcohol in those years before I stopped.

 

And it was getting worse.

 

And I have no doubt that I was definitely on a very dangerous slippery path to becoming an alcoholic.

 

I am certain that had I continued drinking, it would, by this time in my life, be our of control.

 

After the death of my mother, I know that I would have descended into the depths of drinking.

 

If I had continued drinking, I would be almost certain that I would not be here today.

 

I would not be your Rector.

 

Still, despite all of that, at the time, eight years ago, I will admit that I was not 100 percent happy to give up drinking.

 

And I sort grumbled about it and pouted about it for a while..

 

But, after a while, I discovered that it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

 

I have never felt better!

 

The bigger issue for me was navigating my social life without alcohol.

 

I soon discovered non-alcoholic beers (which weren’t as bad as I initially thought), as well as the wonderful world of mocktails.

 

(They’re actually pretty tasty).

 

Giving up alcohol, however, much like when I gave up meat or dairy, makes one especially conscious in many ways of the ways one can use and sometimes misuse such things.

 

And yes, we can be abusive not only how we drink, but also how we eat.

 

 Yes, I missed alcohol, and meat, and dairy.

 

For a while.

 

But after so long, the “new normal” took hold.

 

And now, I can’t imagine those things in my life at all.

 

Now, as I say that, I realize this is all a matter of a privileged person talking about giving up something.

 

This is Western Society problems.

 

In a world in which people are starving and thirsting, in a world in which people are suffering from real addiction to substances and food, I realize that my crowing about giving up alcohol sounds a bit shallow.    

 

And I apologize if it does.

 

But it also has given me a unique outlook on those people are starving and thirsting, as well as those people who are suffering addictions to such things.

 

I realize that, for the most part, thirst, for example, just like real hunger, is one of those things we simply don’t worry about too much in our lives in our privileged Western world.

 

Most of us don’t physically thirst.

 

We have our coffees, our clean water, our water machines and water tanks, not to mention our sodas and our recreational alcohol.

 

And so, for the most part, it’s a luxury for most of us to give up things like soda and alcohol, even if we’re addicted to them.

 

There’s no doubt about it: so much of our life revolves around what we drink, that thirst very rarely ever plays into our lives anymore.

 

But although we might not thirst for liquid often in our lives, we do find ourselves thirsting.

 

We do thirst for knowledge, we thirst for justice, we thirst for fulfillment, we thirst for truth.  

 

Certainly this past week, when we watched the shameful behavior of our elected representatives in this state of North Dakota turning their backs on a prayer in which gender is mentioned—and thus turning their backs on the transgender people they also were elected to serve in this state—made me thirst for some changes in our state government.

 

And we definitely thirst for spiritual truth.

 

And I think that’s very close to what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel.

 

In our very long Gospel reading, we find Jesus in conversation with this Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.

 

More often than not, when we encounter a story like this in scripture, we don’t often think about what happened to some of these people following their experience with Jesus.

 

Every so often, it might not hurt to ask ourselves: what happened to this woman at the well?

 

Did she heed the words of Jesus to her, or did she go on in her old lifestyle?

 

We know she shared the news with other Samaritans.

 

But did she reform her life?

 

We will never know.

 

But, what is more important is the message that is here for all of us.

 

Jesus talks about a “living water.”

 

What is this living water Jesus speaks of?

 

Well, if we read this scripture closely we see that, despite popular pious tradition, Jesus at no point says that HE is the Living Water.

 

But rather that he comes to give this Living Water.

 

So, what is it that he offers this woman at the well?

 

Well, we actually get our answer in another later passage from the Gospel of John.

 

In John chapter 7, it is made clear that this Living Water is the Spirit of God within Jesus.

 

The Living Water that flows so abundantly, so profusely, is the very Spirit of God.

 

Of course because he is the Messiah, the Christ, as he tells this woman he is, he has this Spirit within him.

 

But he, as the Messiah, as the Christ, offers it all.

 

And, this is important, when as Jesus sits with the woman at the well, he offers not only her that water of life, this Spirit of the living God—he offers it to us as well.

 

And we, in turn, like her, must “with open hand” give it “to those who thirst.”

 

To truly understand the meaning of water here, though we have to gently remind ourselves of the land in which this story is taking place.

 

Palestine was and is a dry and arid land.

 

And in Jesus’ day, water was not as accessible as we take for granted these days.

 

It came from wells that sometimes weren’t in close proximity to one’s home.

 

There was certainly no in-door plumbing.

 

The water that came from those wells was not the clean and filtered water we enjoy now, that we drink from fancy bottles.

 

They didn’t have refrigeration; they wouldn’t have understood what an ice cube was—so often the water they drank was lukewarm at best.

 

And sometimes it was polluted.

 

People got sick and died from drinking it.

 

Which is why people drank alcohol.

 

But despite all of that, water was essential.

 

One died without water in that arid land.

 

Water meant life.

 

In that world, people truly understood thirst.

 

They thirsted truly for water.

 

And so we have this issue of water in a story in which Jesus confronts this woman—who is obviously and truly thirsty.

 

Thirsty for water, yes, but—as we learn—she is obviously thirsty also for more.

 

She is thirsty as well for love, for security, for stability, all of which she does not have.

 

Now, we have to be fair to her.

 

For a woman to be without a man in her day would have meant that she would be without security, without a home, without anything.

 

A woman at that time was defined by the men in her life—her husband or father or son.

 

And so, widowed as many times as she was, she was desperate to find some reason and purpose in her life through the men in her life.

 

This woman is truly a broken prson.

 

She is thirsty.

 

Thirsty for the water she is drawing from the well and thirsty for more than life has given her.

 

In a sense, we can find much to relate to in this woman.

 

We too are broken people, as you have heard me preach again and again during this season of Lent so far.

 

We too are thirsty.

 

As broken people, we are thirsty for relationships, for money, for food, for alcohol, for anything to fill that empty parched feeling within our broken selves.

 

And as broken people, we find that as much as we try to quench that thirst, it all seems to run right out of us.

 

We find that we will never be quenched until we drink of that cool, clean water which will fill us where we need to be filled.

 

That cool, clean Water is of course the Spirit of Life.

 

God’s Spirit is the Water of which we drink to be truly filled.

 

It is the Water that will become in us “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

 

What better image to take with us in these long, spiritually thirsty days of Lent?

 

As we journey through the desert of Lent toward Holy Week, toward the darkness and violence of Good Friday, what better image can we cling to?

 

Because that is what we are doing during Lent.

 

We are traveling through the desert.

 

We are walking through the arid wasteland of our own lives.

 

We are journeying toward the Cross and toward the destruction, thirst, pain and death it brings.

 

We are wandering toward that tomb, that dark, dank place.

 

We are that woman at the well—parched and alone, thirsting for something more.

 

In Lent, we bring ourselves—our fractured, shattered, uncertain, frightened, insecure selves—to the well, expecting only for a temporary quenching.

 

But we know what awaits us.

 

We know that if we, like the Samaritan woman, is patient, we too will be given what we long for.

 

So, let us drink fully of the Living Water of God’s Spirit that is offered to us there.

 

Let us drink deeply of God’s Spirit, who is offered to us fully and completely.

 

And in that Water, we will find all that we desire.

 

Our insecurities will be washed away.

 

Our wounds will be cleaned and healed.

 

Everything we have done or failed to do will be made right.

 

Our brokenness will be made whole.

 

We will be remade into saints.

 

That thirst that drives us and nags at us and gnaws at us, that drives us to drink from places where we should not be drinking, will finally—once and for all—be quenched.

 

And in that Living Water we will find Life—that Life that Jesus the Messiah, the Christ brings us.

 

That life we find in those Living Waters is a Life without death or suffering or wanting.

 

All we have to do is say, “Give me some of that water.”

 

All we have to say is “give me the Spirit of the living God.”

 

And it will be given to us.

 

And those of us who drink of that water will never again be thirsty.

 

Let us pray.

 

Creator of the universe and all people therein, you who formed humankind in your image, placing them in this world in all their diversity differing colors, genders, races, ethnicities and language; we praise you for the splendor of your creation and the love that motivated your hand on this Earth. Amen.

(The prayer prayed by the Rev. Dr. Leanne Simmons, pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Bismarck, at the North Dakota Senate on February 8th; two senators turned their backs in protest).

The funeral for Ellen Crawford

 The funeral for

Ellen Crawford

(March 12, 1955 – Feb. 27, 2023)

Boulger Funeral Home

Fargo, North Dakota

Monday March 6, 2023

 

 

As I said at the beginning of the service, It is a real honor for me to do this service for Ellen today.

 

For those of you who might not know, I am a poet, in addition to being a priest.

 

I am the author 13 books of poems, including one that was just accepted the day Ellen died.

 

And Ellen was a proofreader and editor on my book, Fargo, 1957.

 

She was also an Episcopalian.

 

And that is also how our lives intersected.

 

Well that, and the fact that we knew so many of the same people.

 

I had the great honor of being Ellen’s priest at the end of her life, over these last few weeks.

 

We shared Communion, I prayed with her and anointed.

 

And I was with her about an hour or so before she died last Monday, at which time I anointed her and prayed the prayers at the death of time.

 

So, as I said, it an honor for me both as a poet and a priest to officiate at this service for a fellow writer.

 

This service is a service in which we celebrate and give thanks for Ellen and for all the good she did in this world.

 

And there is so much to give thanks for.

 

This strong, independent, sometimes opinionated woman.

 

And it has been so wonderful to hear about all the people who admired and respect her and just enjoyed her.

 

To hear all these stories and to hear the wonderful things people have to say is a big sign that a person made an impact in people’s lives.

 

And Ellen obviously did that.

 

But it is these stories that we need to hold close as move from here.

 

As a writer, as a person to whom stories were important, any of who are writers know:

 

These stories, these words we share are our legacy.

 

They outlive us.

 

And they keep us alive.

 

These stories we share keep Ellen alive.

 

And they are her legacy.

 

We need to hold them close.

 

We need share them.

 

We need to continue the story.

 

Yes, it is a sad day today for those of us who knew and cared for Ellen .

 

But we do have our consolations today.

 

Our consolation today is that all that was good in her, all that was talented and charming and full of life in her—all of that is not lost today.

 

It is here, with us, who remember her and who cared for her.

 

The consolation we can take away from today is that, all of the difficult things in her life is over for her. 

 

She is now, in this moment, fully and completely herself.

 

She is whole in this moment.

 

Of course that doesn’t make any of this any easier for those who knew her and cared for her.

 

Whenever anyone we care for dies, we are going to feel pain.

 

That is the very big price we pay for love.

 

That’s just a part of life.

 

But like the hardship in this life, our feelings of loss are only temporary as well.

 

They too will pass away.

 

And all the goodness of a person’s life rises to the surface and overwhelms most of that loss.

 

Realizing that and remembering that fact is what gets us through some of the hard moments of this life.

 

This is where we find our strength—in our faith that promises us an end to our sorrows, to our loss.

It is a faith that can tell us with a startling reality that every tear we shed—and we all shed our share of tears in this life—every tear will one day be dried and every heartache will disappear.

 

So this morning and in the days to come, let us all take consolation in that faith that Ellen is still with us.

 

She is in the stories we share.

 

She is in the words we use.

 

She is here in our hearts every time we remember her with fondness and gratitude for all she was in our lives.

 

Let us hold her close in our memories and celebrate her life with a sense of gratitude for all she was to us.

 

Let us truly be thankful for Ellen.

 

I’m going to close with my own words, with a poem from my book, Fargo, 1957, a book she had a part of.

 

This book chronicles the tornado that’s truck Fargo in 1957 that killed 12 people.

 

But the book is more than that.

 

It is a book of loss and hope.

 

One of the poems I know she appreciated was a poem called,

 

The Wind Will Take It

 

                                          

 

If everything you worked for

and longed for,

if everything you loved

and hoped in,

is taken from you

one summer evening

          shrug your shoulders

          and say, “so be it.”

          There is no grand art

          in mourning

          or loss.

          No one is going to feel

any more sorry for you

          than this.

And what’s the use of pity after  all?

          Because, as we know,

the wind will take it.

 

If anyone praises you

for your bravery in the face of death.

If anyone marvels

at your strength

as you make it through funerals

without breaking down or crying

          ignore them.

          This kind of praise never sustains.

          It will not comfort you

          in those long nights

with no one else around

to stroke your aching shoulders

or caress your face

numb with crying.

          Besides, who knows better than you that

the wind will take it.

 

 

If anyone says to you

in your grief

you’re a saint.

If they praise you

for clutching at your faith

even when it seems

heaven turned against you

          turn away from them politely

          and let their compliments

return to them unclaimed.

Sainthood, like all praise,

is fluff these days.

And, like fluff,

the wind will take it.

 

And if your luck changes

and you find yourself surrounded

by everything you ever wanted in this life,

by money, houses, cars,

and that evasive thing, love,

by all the things that bring

to your mouth a taste like sweet cane sugar,

          say “thank you,” but in doing so

          remember how quickly it can all go again.

          Say, “yes, it’s nice” but maybe soon

the wind will take it.

 

If they tell you

those who died

never were.

If they say,

their graves are empty,

their names are random letters

on eroding slabs of stone or bronze,

and we have forgotten,

once and for all,

the sound of their voices…

If they say

“look around! it never happened!—

it was only a dream,

a nightmare one long summer night,

          they are lying to you.

          Stand up to them and say

          “You’re wrong!” for, as we all know,

          now better than before

the wind will take it.

 

2 Lent

 

March 5, 2023

 

Genesis 12:1-4a; John 3.1-7

 

+ Yesterday your Rector and your Deacon were off doing their duty to the Diocese.

 

We were both at All Saints in Valley City at the Commission on Ministry meeting.

 

Now, I love being on COM.

 

As many of you know, I was Chair of COM many years ago.

 

And I have always been honored to serve on that Commission.

 

Why?

 

Because I have a passion for ministry.

 

I love talking about ministry, helping others with their vocation to ministry, building up ministry in this diocese.

 

Now, many people think the Commission on Ministry is only about issues such as approving people to go forward into the ordained ministries of the Diaconate and Priesthood.

 

And a lot of what we do is just that.

 

We discuss canons regarding ordination.

 

We interview people who might have a calling to be ordained ministers.

 

But…as Deacon John can testify, I regularly—and by regularly, I mean almost every meeting—make a point of reminding the COM that it is not our job to ordain everyone who comes before the COM.

 

I am very vocal about the fact that ministry is more than just ordained ministry.

 

Ministry is more than just Priests and Deacons and Bishops.

 

Ministry is also lay people, and lay leaders.

 

And our job on the COM is as much about lay ministry as it is about ordained ministry.

 

And I very regularly caution us from ordaining all of our lay leaders in this diocese which, in the past, seemed to have been the trend.

 

Each of you are doing ministry in your own ways as well.

 

But don’t take my word for it.

 

Let’s take a look at our trusty Catechism.

 

Let’s take out our Books of Common Prayer and let’s take a look way in the back.

 

We’re going to page 855

 

And there, under the section called “The Ministry,” we find this:

 

 

The Ministry

Q.

Who are the ministers of the Church?

A.

The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops,
priests, and deacons.

 

 

Q.

What is the ministry of the laity?

A.

The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his
Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be;
and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on
Christ's work of reconciliation in the world; and to take
their place in the life, worship, and governance of the
Church.

 

 

 

 

 

 Then we get questions on the ministries of Bishops, Priests and Deacon.

 

Finally, we get his question:

 

 

Q.

What is the duty of all Christians?

A.

The duty of all Christians is to follow Christ; to come
together week by week for corporate worship; and to
work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of
God.

 

So, when we look long and hard at what ministry is,, we need to remember something.

 

Our ministry together is not just in what we do.

 

It is in who we are.

 

Our ministry is often a ministry of who we are.

 

Of our personalities.

 

Of bearing witness

 

Of representing Christ---by not only our words, but by our actions as well.

 

Of the person that God has created, even in our very brokenness.

 

It’s all bound up very tightly together.

 

And if each of us listens, if each of strains our spiritual ears and hearts toward God, we can hear that calling, deep in our hearts.

 

We can find that God is calling us to the ministry of our day-to-day lives, the ministry of the person God has formed us to be, the ministry to serve others in the way God sees fit.

 

In our reading from the Hebrew Bible this morning, we find a clear call from God to Abram.

 

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to a land that I will show you.”

 

Essentially this is the call to all of us who are in ministry.

 

God calls to us wherever we may be and when that happens, we must heed that call.

 

We must step out from our comfortable places, and we must step out into our service to others even if that means going to those people in strange and alien places.

 

And sometimes when we step into those uncomfortable places, we are made all the more aware of our own brokenness—we become even more vulnerable.

 

But that’s just a simple fact in ministry: when God calls, God calls heedless of our brokenness.

 

In fact, God calls us knowing full well our brokenness.

 

And—and I hope this isn’t news to anyone here this morning—God uses our brokenness.

 

God can truly work through our brokenness and use our fractured selves in reaching out to other fractured people.

 

For too many people our brokenness divides us.

 

It separates us.

 

It isolates us.

 

It prevents us from moving forward in our lives and in ministries.

 

I see this all the time in the world and in the Church.

 

Yesterday at the Commission on Ministry, our meeting for a while turned into a much-needed therapy session.

 

We talked for a bit about our divisions in this Diocese—and why we have been divided.

 

We talked about the pain we have each endured in the past.

 

And, in the midst of it all, I did something I did not expect to do.

 

I apologized.

 

I apologized to those who I had not long ago thought were continuing to the divisions and pain by their silence, by what I believed to be their shunning.

 

I apologized when I realized that they had been hurt and humiliated and treated as less then who they are by past leadership.

 

This was an example to me of the damage our brokenness can do .

 

Our brokenness can truly become a kind of self-condemnation.

 

It becomes the open wound we must carry with us—allowed by us to stink and fester.

 

But when we can use our brokenness to reach out in love, when we allow God to use our brokenness, it is no longer a curse and a condemnation.

 

Our brokenness becomes a fruitful means for ministry.

 

It becomes a means for renewal and rebirth.

 

It becomes the basis for ministry—for reaching out and helping those who are broken and in need around us.

 

In our Gospel reading for today we get that all-too-familiar bit of scripture.

 

“For God so loved the world that [God] gave [God’s] only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

 

How many times have heard this scripture bantered about?

 

We have heard that scripture so often in our lives, we almost don’t realize what it’s really saying.

 

I actually love preaching on this scripture.

 

I love to for one simple reason:

 

The message is so basic, so straightforward.

 

And it has gotten lost over time.

 

God so loved the world---

 

The world here is you.

 

The world here is me.

 

The world here is us.

 

God so loved us.

 

God loves us.

 

Plain and simple.  

 

How do we respond to that love?

 

We respond to it by following Jesus.  

 

And if we do, Jesus will lead us to eternal life, to the same eternal life he himself received from God.

 

Each of us is called.

 

Each of us has been issued a call from God to serve.

 

It might not have been a dramatic calling—an overwhelming sense of the Presence of God in our lives that motivates us to go and follow Jesus.

 

But each Sunday we receive the invitation.

 

Each time we gather at this altar to celebrate the Eucharist, we are, essentially, called to then go out, refreshed and renewed in our broken selves by this broken Body of Jesus, to serve the broken people of God.

 

We are called to go out and minister, not only by preaching and proclaiming with words, but by who we are, by our very lives and examples.

 

So, let us heed the call of God.

 

Let us do as Abram did in our reading from Genesis did today.

 

“Abram went, as the Lord told him…”

 

Let us, as well, go as God has told us.

 

Let us go knowing full well that heeding God’s call and doing what God calls us to do may mean leaving our country and our kindred and our house—in essence, everything we find comfortable and safe—and going to a foreign place—a place that may be frightening.

 

And going will be doubly frightening when we know we go as imperfect human beings—as people broken and vulnerable.

 

But let us also go, sure in our calling from God.

 

Let us go sure that God has blessed each of us, even in our brokenness.

 

Let us go knowing that God loves us, because we too love.

 

Let us go knowing that God will use the cracks and fractures within us, as always, for good.

 

And let us go knowing God will make us whole again in our eternal life.

 

God will make us a blessing to others and God will “bless those who bless us.”

 

What more can we possibly ask of the ministry God has called us to carry out?