On the Virgin Mary

Mary, Mother of our Lord. 

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Galatians 4:4-7

Luke 2:1-7

St Luke’s Yea, 2014

Let’s start with a prayer by Thomas Ashe, an Irish poet, patriot, martyr of the early 20th century who wrote these words...

“Christ, look upon us.. 

and keep our pity fresh and our eyes heavenward, 

lest we grow hard”

I hold that prayer close to me lately because I am trying to relearn how to get a balance between human, having compassion and pity for what I do and see and how I live as a human being in my day to day world; and somehow holding onto a kind of holy and eternal hope. And that’s where I might be able to meet, to make sense of Mary. 

And so my question is, how might Mary matter, what does Mary mean for us today? Can she be in part an icon of that kind of balance she lives: in her innocence and her virginity, her discipleship and her work; does she witness a   deeply practiced and informed pity and hope that can inform us, keep us from getting hard?

Its been a few years since I saw the 1960s movie, “The Gospel according to Matthew.” and my memory may be faulty, but there are some scenes that I will never forget. It’s a bold and thoughtful film, directed by Paolo Pasolini; an atheist, marxist, murdered under mysterious circumstances, but he  came across a Gideon Bible in some hotel room one morning and put together one amazing movie. It’s filmed in Sicily, in glorious black and white, with amazing Italian faces, dry empty hills, moving crowds, wide sky, ancient ruins. Mary is almost a child; at that age where children start to show the the hope, beauty, potential they might bring forth as an adult if things go right. And she’s in this ruin of a garden, for some reason I think she’s reading, and suddenly there’s a sound and you see this angel. I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl but this beautiful long-haired delighted angelic kid is shining with hope, delight, almost audacity; and the angel looks at Mary and she looks back and they both smile, maybe because there’s nothing else you can do at a moment like that. And the angel starts to speak and says what is still almost unspeakable:

“Hail Mary full of grace, charity, love beyond deserving or measure...the lord is with you!”

And Mary says Yes!

And you can see why; partly because she's young, she knows no better than not to say Yes, and partly because she gets the full orchestra of something we might hear dimly, occasionally, but mainly because she is young enough to know thats what life is about; that there are times when you just have to say Yes. 

And I think that’s not true for us too, for each one of us gets an occasional look into the face of a loving eternity looking back at us right in the face, calling us to take the chance to be servants, messengers, to show pardon, mercy, hope, to be  birth-givers in new instance and occasion of love. The truth is that we, like Mary, are called to say yes, to be obedient, to some new unimaginable but always almost seen and always hoped for future. 

And in the end I believe  we are more faithful than we might first know or imagine:, we so often give our lives over to be open to a gift, to give a gift or to be a gift, to a future we cannot completely conceive; and we mutter, “I'll try,” and, when we do (even with the delay, the doubt, the evasive mutter) something does take birth within us, within the world. 

So Mary stands as a model to each of us as virgin and birth giver, to be pregnant with compassion and pity and heavenly hope, to be a sign, an instance of a loving eternity, happening just in time.

Mary models... what Isaiah says, the young and willing joy, “rejoicing in the Lord, exulting in God, ready to be clothed with salvation... willing to be covered with righteousness, as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up…” We might just try to say yes to a task, a troubled friend, someone in need, 

We might just say yes, To carry compassion, pity, hope, but it is the same

“Let it be to me according to your word.”

So remember this isn't just about her, this is for us. She opens the way for each of us to receive and give God's mysterious gifts, in so many ways, and I say this with some great respect: we are so many pregnant virgins. Because we know in our hearts that we also come here to say yes!

We cannot plan for this, but we can prepare: remember that we are born for advent, we too are born to be “theotokos” -- bearers of God, keeper of Christ! 

For, as Thomas Merton writes: 

"At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence,"

And I would add, as our virginity; and Mary is the model for the way this intimate ministry takes place, gives birth, in all of us.

 But there is more than birth, young people, the holy family.  That icon only lasts so long, even with Jesus and his family. There is a moment when Mary and her family go to be with Jesus, and his disciples say, “‘Your mother and your brothers, your sisters are here.’ And Jesus says, ‘My mother and brothers and sisters are those who do the will of God.’” It isn't always easy to be the mother of god,  Holy families can be icon, but icons can break, into a transition time when things get tender. It happens in relationships when a parent, model, mentor must become a fellow worker, simply another disciple sharing hope, caring, pity, being a friend.

And so Mary must become more than a mother, she is now a disciple doing the will of God. But perhaps she was the first disciple: listen to Matthew's gospel for an outline on discipleship and ministry.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

And she had been there at the start, giving food and drink, sharing substance and spirit, giving him body and blood, bound by love and born forward by grace to share his life. She had shared her confinement at the start, and she would witness his confinement as it all seemed to end.

For those disciplines once begun, abide, do not easily leave you. Again, that's why were here: to get those actions, that love, that dance, deep into our own heart, soul, mind, strength. The love of God and neighbor; even God as neighbor, even God as a neighbor we carry in our body, into the  deepest heart  of who we are.

And Mary was a witness at the end too. We all know there are dreadful days when eternity seems to die in time, we all have lived through those days when, no matter who or where we are, the hope we lived to love might come to fall and die. And yet I cannot imagine what it was for her. 

In the Pasolini movie, on that Good Friday, you see this old woman, wearing the weight of years, walking up the hill, hoping the stone might be moved so she can do deaths duties to the very body she embodied, the hope she held to tightly; so she shows up there too, a model for all of us at the times when love seems to die, 

And the stone is taken away, and the old woman looks, and the music comes up, and she sees the same angel! The beginning and the end are all held in the same love: eternity wins! And Mary  remembers all the moments when time turns and something new is born, and now she sees the time when death itself falls dead and she know love is bigger than death and love lives forever. And she holds that truth for us as well.

The tradition states that she did not die, was taken up to be near her son, some would say the Queen of Heaven. Given her record, I'd say that would not be surprising. She had said yes to so much: she had said yes to love living in her, yes to be the messenger, the vehicle bringing God's word of love and life into human being, God's body and blood into our kind, her assent enfleshed god, making us kin together. She also said yes to discipleship to watching, guarding, serving God's love in the very middle of all the art and pain and necessity we call life. She even said yes to witnessing the end of all that, looked at death and loss and and found a message: that love is one and that God's life will wins; that the love of Christ shall be all in all.

So, even if she didn't get a direct flight to heaven, I would think that woman could pass through death like "light through a window"; her love, obedience, discipleship, all bear witness to life larger than death, that would not, could not,  does not end, a love that is always beginning, even here and now.

And that's our task today. Today we are called like she was; to say yes to giving life to God's love, to being the birthplace, the bearer, of the body of Christ here and now and always, in the birth, the living, the dying, the rising up again of God’s love in human life. That’s what church is about: it is here in the stories we hear, the substance and spirit we share,  the body and blood of Christ we come to incorporate here  so that we might give it away on purpose everywhere.

And that's Gods own truth, that by here by grace we can see that the world is full of the most unlikely and wonderful pregnant virgins, that each of us is invited to share in giving birth to God’s word of love and grace; that, with our pity fresh and our eyes heavenward, we are called to take on holy.   enfleshed living, dying, rising in love, for we are highly favored and the Lord is with us..

“And Mary said, let it be to me according to your word.”

Pentecost 11C

Jesus said to the crowd, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ Then he told them about a rich man who decided to pull down his barns, build larger ones, store all his grain and goods and relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves  but are not rich towards God.’

That reminds me of a story about the easiest way to trap a monkey which is to take a coconut, punch a smallish hole in it, empty it, tie it to the ground and fill it with a few pieces of good food. I am not sure what qualifies as good monkey food, maybe straw, although I am inclined to go for pizza and chocolate, but am prepared to see that as pure projection. 

Anyway, when the monkey comes exploring, he sees the desired food inside the coconut, he puts his hand in, he finds he can’t grab hold of the food and get his hand out at the same time. And he won’t let go. He’s that greedy. Supposedly a monkey will hold onto the food even when the people with the nets come ‘round, even when he’s going to get trapped, lose everything, he’ll still try to hold on. 

This story scares me more than a bit, because there is something like that greedy monkey in me that often wants to hold on, to an old idea, to an old idol, to an old pain or an old plan. Those things matter! I want to hold on; 

But as today’s Gospel puts it: “And the things you have prepared [the stuff you try to hold on to], whose will they be [when you die] ?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves  but are not rich towards God.” I believe that’s true, even good news, but I can understand the  frustration felt by the reading from Ecclesiastes we just heard.

“All is vanity [and] all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, [and] I must leave it to those who come after me – and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet…. What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest.  This also is vanity. “

Don’t you hate nights like that? But it’s true! 

It also reminds me of the story of two men talking after a third man’s funeral: One said, Did he leave much? 

The second said, Well, yes, he left it all! 

In the end we leave it all. 

But maybe we get it all too. Maybe, if the Epistle to the Colossians is right, then, by God’s grace, we are stripping off “the old self with its practices and have clothed… ourselves with the new self… [and] being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. [then] … Christ is all and in all!”

That’s not a bad consolation prize!  And if that is true, what is more important than saying yes to life and to God in the present moment? 

What else are we trying to hold onto? Again, Is there an old idea of failure or success? Is there a worn out list somewhere of people we tried to impress when we were younger? Is it an old idea of our religion, of how to act it out and live it out? What do we hold onto today that can trap us, trip us up, keep us from turning around to say yes to the present reality of celebrating life and love right now, when that’s what might matter most? What keeps us away, if we are being called by God, as Jesus tells us, to be rich towards God, to mindfully walk with God in the openhearted possibilities of the present moment?

Part of it is that this openhearted process is not easy to get hold of, is not easily condensed into a book or a creed, a dogma or doctrine. And don’t get me wrong, none these things are bad; we need benchmarks and rest-stops, records, standards, starting points, places where we can remember, turn around and begin to live again. But they are not the way, and there is even a danger that they can turn into detours, get us out of God’s own way, keep from from being that new self-in-Christ … who is being “renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

And this is less like a bank account, a barn, or a lesson plan, more like a flower or a fresh breeze, or love: Maybe Jesus’ ministry is breathing the breath, singing the song of the intimacy of God breathed by the spirit in every moment of creation. Maybe that’s the gift that lasts, maybe that’s the way the way works in each of us as well as in all of us together. We can’t get hold of it easily, but that’s the way I believe we’re called to follow. 

And if God’s open-handed love, which we see in the life of Jesus, is the way to follow; then the greedy, self-directed documentary of who we want to be, where we ought to go, and what we want to hold on to; all those plots, hopes, fears, memories and desires, follies and forecasts that we cleave to: why, we can let all that go! 

For here we can be held in the free-gift of God’s true love, right here, right now in the middle of the way, willing to be filled with renewing acts of creativity, redemption, blessed mercy and surprise; when love lights us up with spirited,  surprising connections of compassion, wisdom, justice, love. 

But there is always something in us that wants to fight that light, keep our hand in, hold on to what we can, get what we want. That relates to what the letter to the Colossians is talking about with that earthy, dirty little list: “fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)... [to say nothing of]  anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth” all of these are tight-fisted attempts to grip power, passion, grab control, make the world work our way, the places where sin is so often found. 

But that’s not where we are, as the writer of the epistle goes on to say: instead,  “you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!”

So if Christ “is all and in all” risen, if we are renewed in knowledge according to the image of our creator, if we are invited to share in that resurrection life,  then we are all called to open our greedy hands, our grimy hearts, our grasping lives, and leave ourselves open to be companions, neighbours, lovers of the life God gives us, freely giving without the need for control or power. We can be something as light and lively as a bright dance, a procession from the heart of creation, from the deepest heart of love, to be found and offered in the fragile centre of the human journey.

So don’t let your hand be caught in holding on to what you wanted, or feared, or planned for your life, instead let yourself come home to Christ in the midst of the world of living and dying, in the hope of heaven. 

For we are called to  strip off the old self with its practices and clothe ...ourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!”

Pentecost 9C

I mentioned last week that I found some parables and biblical stories get larger every time I look at them; that as I  read and explored some stories and parables I find them questioning me. And I find these experiences of growth sometimes make me extremely uncomfortable. Growth in grace is not easy, and I am often surprised that God goes farther then I understand, and comes closer than I might like. But the God of Luke’s Gospel, the God who Jesus points to, articulates in all his teaching, his miracles, his life, death and resurrection, presents us a with peace that passes understanding: and that can often be disconcerting.

For the gospel of Luke, in its own way, leads us to different dimensions, different layers, mysteries and meanings that we might easily overlook. My sense of it is that it aims to drop us into the very middle of life: beyond expectations, categories and judgments as to what is good or bad, who is in or out, what is right or wrong, leaving us only with a great appetite for the Graceful mystery of God. 

As Luke does in the parable of the prodigal son, as he will do next week in the Lord’s prayer, as he does today with Mary and Martha, he leads us to a place without easy definitions, some where we must face, as Zorba the Greek put it, the “full catastrophe” of living. For those of us who would seek simpler solutions or look for strict lists, this is not easy.

But Luke offers a vision of a land where the prodigal son and forgiving father surprise us with reconciliation, where good priests and Levites overlook neighbours, and where bad Samaritans become signs of shining virtue; where even good Martha in today's Gospel (a list-maker if there ever was one!) while trying to accomplish good action, doing all that a good disciple and woman of her time should do: preparing the meeting, making the meal, doing the right work, right action; still has Jesus telling her that Mary (who might just be following the Buddhist meditators handbook which says, “don’t just do something, sit there!”), that her underachieving sister has chosen the better part! 

Luke’s Gospel paints a surprising portrait of a God graceful beyond guidelines, a love beyond law, following a heartfelt way beyond our understanding to a home where we will finally know God. And that is where the grace we find in the gospel of Luke is such a wonderful gift; the grace that delivers us from the law of list making into the ground of love, the grace that turns our prayers, our liturgical life together, our very journey with God in Christ into a kind of holy dance where we learn to move in and stretch out in such surprising ways. But how do we get there from here?

Some one hundred years ago, the Irish poet and revolutionary, Thomas Ashe, wrote this prayer:

"Christ, look upon us in this city
and keep our sympathy and pity fresh
and our faces heavenward,
lest we grow hard." 

This prayer can serve as a lens to see our three lessons, and our life in Christ in a new way. Because these three lessons  offer three pictures of life calling for renewed sympathy, fresh pity and a hope fully alive. 

The prophet Amos, writing in the eighth century before Christ, pictures a world of injustice where making money is more important than making justice, where the plight of the poor is less important than a pile of silver. where the bottom line of financial profits are more important than than the words of God’s prophets,

We still live in that world, and it is a difficult place in which to keep our pity fresh; let alone, to "seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.” To live in that faithful path  is not easy. One hundred years ago George Bernard Shaw wrote that the world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel; and one thousand years ago St. Simeon Stylites  wrote that one of the first gifts the Holy Spirit can give us is tears. To ask Christ to keep our pity fresh can be a very difficult place in which to practice faith. 

But that’s where the other half of Thomas Ashe’s prayer balances us with: “Keep... our eyes heavenward lest we grow hard.”  And that is where  the letter to the Colossians gives us hope, a holy vision  of a universe soaked in Christ’s triumph, saturated with holy grace, where God’s good love and compassion is more than willing to meet us and our ministry everywhere.  And with that assurance of Christ’s inevitable triumph over the principalities and powers of evil, we can be bold to meet the full catastrophe of this world with calmness and compassion; for by grace the victory is ours.

So that call to participate in that vision of heaven, that reconciliation of opposites, the assurance of life overcoming death, good overcoming bad, gives us, the courage to begin a ministry washed in eternal light and continually renewed compassion and pity, taking on Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, the church, taking our place as ministers of reconciliation and new creation.

That is a life beyond list making,  and a love that lives beyond death. It is not easily compacted into rules or roles, but it calls to be embraced in mystery, lived out fully, danced out day by day, in paradox and prayer and practice.

And to accept the gift of God’s freedom in our lives is to meet our Christian life and ministry with open eyes, open hearts, open hands, serving Christ in ways we could never envision beforehand. For we are called to be  agents of mercy and justice on a pilgrim road that take us beyond what we know of life or love or of ourselves and drives us deep into the glorious grace of God. 

So maybe our liturgy a kind of choreography for this kind of faith and action: we sit, stand, bow, kneel, cross ourselves this way and that, pass and give and receive, move forward and back, and in the end return to the same place changed somehow in this mysterious journey,  learning to be an open container where mercy, love and justice can freely take place. 

Our Sunday liturgy is a meeting place where we come to reach out, with all our ambiguous motives, like so many Marthas and Marys, Fathers and Sons, Samaritans, Scribes and Priests and lost strangers to find our way home, And Christ meets us where we are and uses our need and our desire and our incomplete faith as a way to join in his unfinished and ongoing reaching out, dancing out, ministering in the world. 

We may come here to get a grip on him; but with grace and some surprise we stay to learn by faith to hand him to the world and hand the world back to him in a very intimate action. That is what this Eucharist might mean today. For our hands, taking in the body and blood of Christ here, are the same hands and same bodies that touch the world in daily life in all the places where we make business, make peace, make war, make love, touch the lives of friends and strangers, spend our days. 

And through us the love of God in Christ can reach into the particulars of all our daily lives so that we might come to move like Christ and look like Christ, with simple and holy sympathy and pity in all these places where God’s heaven, with our help, waits to be born. 

In the name of Christ, Amen. 

Pentecost 3C St Mark's, Northern Albury

Next Wednesday marks six months since I had right shoulder total replacement surgery. I was in the hospital for two nights, the surgeon gave me a three month sick leave, and the bishop told me it would take six month before I finally felt like myself again. The operation was  easier than expected but the recovery was more difficult;  I had to learn to lean and depend on people in a new way, it changed the way I got out of bed or a chair; changed my moods, my dreams, my prayers. I had to learn new ways of moving, living, being and I learned something more about vocation; about being in, living out of, the place where God calls us. I would bet that everyone here has had, gone through, those trying times, sometimes crises of health or wealth, sometimes when life and God taps us on the shoulder, hand us someone or something new, and say, "Now, learn to live with this." I think that is what vocation is all about. 

People in each of our three lessons respond to call, honour vocation, sometimes in solitude and sometimes when vocation comes creating community, connections; when strangers look at one another and realise their lives will be changed forever: when something old has gone out of sight, and something new has come into view; when life and faith turn us round and stretch us out and nothing will ever be the same again. So let’s look at the lessons, beginning with Paul. 

Remember he starts out as Saul of Tarsus and while in todays epistle he writes: “God had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, pleased to reveal his Son to me... so that I might proclaim him.” we know this didn’t come easy. Saul had decided he already had a vocation; to search out and persecute a heretical sect called the people of the way, Christian. He had approved of the death of the deacon Stephen, he had uttered threats and furiously set out to Damascus full of righteous anger; and then a call came and Saul stopped short, struck blind by the light of Christ so that he might become enlightened, cast down to be raised up in a new calling of grace and peace. For Paul, and sometimes for each of us, vocation comes as a kind of dying and rising to new life. 

A poem by T.S. Eliot, quoting St John of the Cross, fits here:

In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not. 

Saul has to cross this wilderness, to learn to see himself, his God and his neighbour anew, with a new purpose, a new freedom, the costly gift of a free grace that requires a new faith, a new vision, a new community, a new name and a new life. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it.

Then the word of the Lord comes to Elijah, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”  Two commands, callings, there. But let’s look at the widow. 

Now maybe she liked to cook, loved to share meals in better times, that might have been part of her vocation, for as Frederick Buechner writes: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” 

But they are a strange pair, the prophet on the run and the poor starving widow with a young son who’s asked to take on another mouth to feed. And when Elijah asks for "a morsel of bread,” she says, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” 

Sometime, maybe even often, vocation comes when there’s nothing left to lose. when you thought it was all over then God calls you to begin again, take up hope, make space, knead and bake bread for the surprising stranger, and this can come at inconvenient times.

In the 1960‘s, when I was a teenager, my parents lived on my uncle’s sheep ranch midway between Sacramento and San Francisco, and a good number of family and friends used to arrive on Friday night for a few days in the country. One day my father put a plaque on the kitchen wall which read, “Weekend guests: we’re glad you’re here and hope you enjoy your time, but if we start to drink on Sunday afternoon and ask you to stay over until Tuesday, please remember, we don’t mean it.”

For it is when the weekend guest stays, when a casual conversation starts including personal information, when we witness and share weakness and hope and intimate revelation, when the gift and necessity of love brings us together to share life, it is often when we're honestly learning to live together, that a vocation to care can make itself know, and this can stretch us painfully.

And Elijah says to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake... For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail.”  And it was so. And even when her son appears to die, Elijah calls to the Lord saying, “let this child’s life come into him again.” and gives  the living child once again to his mother; who says, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” 

So maybe it’s only then that her the understanding of vocation comes clear: to feed the man whose mouth spoke the word of The Lord; to knead and bake for the one who gave her endless, miraculous bread; to give life to the one who would bring her son to life. Sometimes God calls us to take our part in that complex dance of love. 

And Jesus gives the son of the widow of Nain a new life. As he and the crowd following him pass by a funeral procession, he has compassion on this women who has lost her hope, her life in her son (and I wonder if his own mother was in the crowd, I wondered if they looked at one another, if they saw each other on this road), and Jesus touches the bier and says, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The son rises and Jesus give him to his mother. 

Vocation can get you in deep trouble, Jesus had  people in his old home town telling him who to heal, where to cure and what to do. And Jesus knows a vocation can stretch you out: he told the people in Capernaum, “there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah... yet he was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.” Not to an insider, but to the surprising stranger! And that call  can be dangerous news for Jesus and for us.

In the Narnia books, Edward asks, “This Aslan, is he safe?” The answer comes immediately, “Of course he’s not safe, but he’s good!” Three things here: the good news is that a vocation can give you a new life: the bad news is that it just might kill you, or bring you close to death, first. And the best news is that you will live through it; 

That’s why we’re here, joining in this feast, because by eating this living bread, incorporating this dying-rising life that Jesus shares with us, we shall live forever; embracing our changing and growing vocations to be the body of Christ by serving and loving our neighbour, the needy, the newcomer, the stranger that life puts in front of us. Like the widows son, we wake to new life, to meet those that God calls us to know in love: up to and including to that very odd person who peers back from the bathroom mirror every morning when we brush our teeth! 

Even there and then. here and now, God call us to the gift of life, as the place where our vocation can live. So may we today, may everyone, everyday, embrace our calling to live in, live out, share in, the love, the life, that we are given from God. 

In the name of Christ, Amen, 

Talk for Synod, Diocese of Wangaratta 2013 - Education and Formation

In 1977 I went to visit a monastery in Santa Barbara California because my life was at a crisis: as a student, as a worker, as a man trying to figure out what my place was in the world; what I had to get and what I had to give.  I had no answers and I wasn’t even sure how to ask the questions. And something happened to me. If you’re interested, I can talk you about it another time, but the end result was, I found the God believed in me. And that made all the difference. 

After that it was time to return to my life, my work, my studies, my wildly open future. As I was preparing to leave the monastery that morning I  saw the oldest monk  walking outside the chapel: a monk for 70+ years, Bishop Campbell had retired as a bishop from Africa,  was around 92  at that time and still going strong.  I went up to him and I thanked him for his presence during my time there, then said, and now I’m going back to my life.” He looked at me steadily for a moment then said, “Yes, another beginning!” And I’ve always remembered that.

I've also been very fond of a one liner from a Rhodes scholar who went in a different direction. Kris Kristofferson, in the song, “Me and Bobby McGee”, said “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” and there’s a real wisdom there. 

Now we’re in a funny place as a church. We were a cultural necessity for so long, part of the official definition of the good life, had some real glory years, and now they seem to be gone. There may be some sadness that so many things that seemed to be eternal have come to an end; but as a 92-year-old monk said to me some 36 years ago, it is another beginning.

I am no longer a young man, Bishop Campbell is long gone, even the monastery burned to the ground a few years ago and a smaller number of monks have renewed the ministry in an disused convent closer to the center of Santa Barbara. And we are no longer part of the official definition of the good life, the Anglican church is hardly fashionable anymore. We have good memories as we look for another beginning where the old answers might not fit, and the new questions are just coming into focus.

But there is a tremendous freedom in the beginning again, in looking around and wondering what the gospel will look like in the 21^st century, as long as we keep fast to the graceful hope that God believes in us more than we believe in ourselves; that God holds our church in love; then by God’s grace we have nothing left to lose and a new beginning to gain.

And where do we go from here? My personal hunch is that we have lost the battle of Sunday morning. 40 or 50 years ago, the market was closed, the playing field silent,  and sleeping in or taking brunch was not such a popular option. That world has changed and there are new and noisy gods on the horizon; the mall or the web, the media and big business, sex and popularity and money are so often the new meaning. 

And while most people have left religion behind, some others stick to a strident fundamentalism, an evangelical fervor that often strikes me as a defense mechanism against the possibility that God is calling us to something new, something larger than vision of the church we found such comfort in so many years ago. That gives me hope too. I think it must’ve been like that when the Christian community left its Jewish parentage and went among the nations; it must’ve been like that when Christians started to speak out for pacifism, against slavery, for women’s rights, against multinationals and ecological outrage. Perhaps another beginning for God’s people is growing in the heart of the church. And where do we go from here?

I think the best thing is to start small. A few years ago we started a four-year program with the bishop certificate and over 40 people enrolled. We’ve lost a few and gained a few since then. But I realized that most people are not ready or able to make that kind of time commitment. In my ministry for the diocese I’m building 4 week templates, weekend templates, one day templates, even online classes that can happen any time for anyone, anywhere. 

We’re meeting people where they are and when they can join us  by offering options for Tuesday nights or Thursday nights, Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon: short sequences that can awaken curiosity and hope, seed community and commitment, so that we can  remind people that we stand offering a tradition that carries the greatest tradition of justice, mercy, hope, community, that the world has ever seen. 

But this is not easy and there is a danger that we are so caught by our history that we could almost lose hope, we’ve already lost so much, but “We are the body of Christ” and God believes in us so much more than we believe in ourselves, so carrying this hope can be such good news, this freedom of nothing left to lose gives us everything to gain as a gift from God.

So we’re starting small from here. If you are a small congregation, 3 to 12 people meeting every week or once or twice a month, I ask you to consider  having a one-day program once or twice a year. We can do it as part of the Sunday service and try to nurture your existing membership and maybe bring in a few new people. If you’re a larger congregation, think about having a few four-week series on Bible study, on meditation, on faith and films,  on making your own rule of life: come talk to me about who you are and what you like and we can try to make a program that fits for you; and if I can’t do it, I can help you find somebody who can.  

if you’re a larger congregation this offer stands too, but I would also ask you to look at your own membership, clergy and laity, and think about, what talents or community you might share from within your congregations, amongst your sisters and brothers in the diocese, what gifts you might have to give. 

This can be a very rich moment to be in the church, a lovely time to think on these things, and while there is much that may be ending, it may well be that we are privileged to witness a new beginning, an opportunity that comes to us with a great freedom and an equal responsibility. But I am convinced that we are under an obligation, under the gift of grace, to recall who we are, what we carry, why that matters, for God believes in us, and that shall always be our heritage, our heart, and our hope.

Rob Whalley + 

Easter 7C

Six months ago today I had a total shoulder replacement. The surgery was amazingly easy, the recovery process much more complicated than I expected. I was on sick leave for 3 months, the Bishop told me it would take more like 6 months, I’ll be doing the physiotherapy for the rest of the year, probably forever, to get the maximum effect from the 2 hour operation, and it keeps changing. 

I had planned the time after the surgery for reading, writing, meditation, prayer. But it didn’t happen. I couldn’t even read a book for the first few weeks, writing was no easier, that changed as time went on, but the time for quiet meditation just got noisy, with ideas, old memories, distractions and dumb ideas all leading me astray, and my prayer life turned around too; partly because I was being away from the regular places I worked and prayed, but partly there was this lingering hunch that God was using the change of scenery to change something in me, deeper  than I knew - and it wasn’t easy. 

Now six months later I am back at work, but still not back in old routines, trying to stretch out in the  old places with some new habits, letting life move and breathe in them in new ways. And all that is Eastertide stuff.

We’ve just been though seven weeks of living with uprising. Jesus is alive, Christ is risen from the grave, and life gets confusing pretty quickly. The Gospel readings after the resurrection have some strange encounters: Jesus telling Mary Magdalene, “do not hold on to me,” asking Thomas to touch his open wounds, walking and talking with the disciples  on the road to Emmaus,  enlightening their hope and understanding, arranging a surprising fishing expedition, even serving  the disciples with a breakfast barbecue at the beach. It looks like He just might show up anywhere. And then today, as we move to the feast of Pentecost, Jesus says:

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me...that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

And that sends us in a new direction: to take in the chance, the Pentecost promise, that God comes to dwell, pitch his tent, in the middle of our daily journey, here and now, everyday. And how do we stretch out to take that possibility, to live life with God in the middle of it all?

I am doing four things to get ready for Pentecost, for this new season of the church year that leads us all the way to Advent, get us through the winter and spring us into new beginnings. Four things: one private ritual that’s an addition to something I’ve done for years, two old routines I’ve brought back, and something new I never thought of before, surprising me with me great pleasure, fresh breath, new insight, and I want to share these four practices with you today. 

First a story. Some thirty years ago I was living in a seminary in California with students from a variety of faith communities: Methodist, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, Mennonite, Congregational, even a Coptic Christan. Julian was from South Africa, had been politically involved in fighting apartheid, racial segregation, and when he finished his Master degree in Berkeley he invited some of us to a celebration, a prayer time together, where he prayed in a way I had never seen. We gathered around a fireplace, and he lit some twigs, then he chanted the Lord’s prayer very quickly, almost muddling the words together, ‘Father in heaven, may your name be holy, may your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.Give us today daily bread, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, save us from the time of trial but deliver us from evil.Amen.’ then he prayed some other prayers, moved some wood around the fire, maybe bowed, and again, “‘Father in heaven, may your name be holy, may your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today daily bread, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, save us from the time of trial but deliver us from evil.Amen.’

And I thought, this is pretty different! It's like you’re rushing like refugees away from an army, or you’re trying to turn around on a dangerous path, or you’re looking at the likelihood of your own death and trying to remember, quickly, what matters most.  And it’s come back to me now.

For some years, since I trained as a chaplain in a psych ward in 1989, I’ve often prayed when I washed and dried by my hands during the day, not many words, sometimes thinking of baptism and what that means, sometimes remembering St Theresa of Avila where she says. 

Christ has no body but yours...Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world…Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

But now I am quickly adding the Lord’s prayer, like a pilgrim trying to practice resurrection and the promise of Pentecost, and it seems to lead me to more life. I offer it to you as a gift for this new season. 

Two other routines I used to practise have returned in my sick leave and recovery time; silently saying "thank you" and "I'm sorry" to God twenty times a day, sending that quick prayer to God like an email: but not just for me but for others in this world we share: it can be a tree's autumn colors, a child’s laughter, someone leaning on a friend, the lady driver who slows down to let me cross the street. I say I’m sorry too! For other people dealing with illness, age, anxiety, all the sad and wonderful business of being human. I watch people going the tough times and I pretend I’m “an authorized friend of Jesus” and I hold them in my heart like the Lord crying over Jerusalem, and I witness the compassion and hope and the rest we share in Christ with God. 

Jesus says: that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Before the surgery I usually started the work day doing morning prayer at the Bishop’s Registry. But home alone I found another way to pray, something that surprised me: how many of you remember chanting the psalms? 

(singing) Light dawns for the righteous * and joy for the upright in heart.

Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, * and give thanks to his holy name.

It may be a little odd, sitting at my desk alone at home. But I think of all the choirs, the gatherings over centuries, in little churches and schools, monasteries and convents, cities and deserts, on the road to somewhere and in the middle of nowhere, how these songs of praise and prayer, lamentation and laudation, continue to sing out all over the world, even more than the world, and I add my voice to the choir and it gives me great joy.

Jesus says, that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

We are here to prepare for Pentecost, for the promise of God’s loving spirit, God’s very simple breath, in our lives, in our hearts. These are some stretches, basic aerobics to reach out and touch the spirit of Christ that longs to give us breath, offer a hand, enable hope, heart and glory, with the gift of the Spirit. 

Let St Theresa have the last word: 

Let nothing make you afraid.
All things are passing.
God alone never changes.
Patience gains all things.
If you have God you will want for nothing.
God alone suffices.

Amen

Easter 6C

In 1977, when I was 31 years old, I went to visit a monastery in the hills of Santa Barbara California. It was a time in my faith journey when I was no longer sure that I had the right answers and I really was beginning to wonder if I even had the right questions.

So I went to visit this monastery. The monks, the brothers living in the house, were kind and hospitable and gave this sad young man a room in the dormitory, three meals a day and plenty of time. So I stayed there a few weeks, reading books, visiting with people, taking long walks; then    one of the brothers said to me, “you seem to have a fine intellectual understanding of the faith, in your head, but you’re not giving much time for prayer, in your heart. Why don’t you spend a half-hour in the chapel every night and just pray for guidance?” So I started doing that, without much expectation but giving it time, and one night I met God believing in me. 

That was more than half my life ago and I will never forget it: but I will always remember that it came when my heart was filled with sadness, my hands were open and empty,  and my life was left without a lot of hope.  But what I found was, even there, especially there, was that God was there believing in me.

The day I left to go back to my life outside the monastery I  talked to one of the older monks.  He had been a Bishop in the African church, retired to the monastery, was around 92 years old. I told him I was going back to the University, going back home to take up my studies and work, and he looked at me and said, “Ah yes, another beginning.” So I went back to make another beginning in the middle of my life and that was the end of my time in Santa Barbara.

The lessons for this Sunday have to do with beginnings, middles and ends. In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles,  St. Paul starts a new church at the home of Lydia, “a worshiper of God and a dealer in purple cloth.” She is one of the reminders that the early church was full of strong and capable women, in the tradition of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, and up to the present day whom we remember and give  thanks for  their mission and ministry, in their birthing and building up of the Christian community.

  The reading from the Revelation to John has to do with the end of the world, The word “End” (the greek is Telos) here means both the final act and the final goal. This reading gives us a poetic picture of what we might finally hope for as we walk with God, with Jesus, in the spirit, today. It is a a place of perfect balance and perfect beauty, the hope of heaven. Interestingly, there's no church there, no need for a building, but when we're there, each one stands enlightened by God’s good light, we living eternally in the light of God’s love, in that heavenly City, joining together in that heavenly feast of which this Eucharist is a simple foretaste. 

But today’s Gospel plants us right in the middle of everything, in a difficult time, in that seemingly random parade of events from Easter to Pentecost, the weeks that follow from the resurrection of Jesus to the birthday of the church. And now, in this in-between time, Jesus is surprising people: telling Mary Magdalene, “do not hold on to me,” asking Thomas to touch his open wounds,  then showing up walking and talking with the disciples  on the road to Emmaus,  enlightening their hope and understanding. He arranges a surprising fishing expedition, even serves  the disciples a bonus breakfast barbecue at the beach. And then he tells his disciples, his friends, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ 

Sometimes it is difficult to deal with these comings and goings of the Lord. Sometimes it seems less of a dance and more like a conversation on a phone when the voice keeps fading in and out. We can try to learn to accept the rhythm of it, like the church seasons moving from feast to fast, from  penitence to celebration,  from dying faith to living hope, but sometimes it’s not easy. But Jesus says, “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.” 

And he also tell us, 

”I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you... Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

 And then sometimes he seems to leave us, even after Easter.  And our hearts can still be filled with sadness, our hands open and empty,  and our lives left without a lot of hope. He even left the disciples wondering a bit back then. It’s not an uncommon place to be.

But as we move to Pentecost Jesus still promises to meet us in the middle of the way with all our brittle doubts and our ragged faith, sad hearts, and empty open hands. And if we will still reach out he will join with us through the very center of this dangerous journey and accompany us all the way home to that enlightened city, that final heavenly festival, that great feast  that is in the middle and the end, of all creation. And Jesus promises that he will share with us the very breath that breathes the universe, that breathes through his own redemptive life, to turn us around, and that breath/spirit will join us on the way. So we wait in the middle of this Easter season to know the fire of Pentecost, that we may find here, in the middle of everywhere, that God creates another beginning to bring us home in the end.

St John Chrysostom writes this in an Easter homily some 1600 years ago, it's a good place to end:

Come…  enter into the joy of your Lord…. enjoy the banquet of faith… receive the riches of his goodness. Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed; let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone from the grave; let no one fear death, for the death of our Saviour has set us free...

Christ is risen and [death is] abolished. Christ is risen and... demons are cast down. Christ is risen and... angels rejoice. Christ is risen and life is freed. Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of the dead... To Him be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen. 

Easter 2C

Jesus says to Thomas, “Do not doubt, but believe!” But it’s not always easy to believe, for the disciple Thomas back then or for us now. You can understand Thomas’s difficulties in our Gospel lesson for today; Responding to the other disciples claimed that they had seen the Lord; that he was alive!  Thomas has been through a lot: he was with Jesus at the raising of Lazarus, when a good friend dead three days was revived, brought back to life; he was there on the journey to Jerusalem, when cries of praise with waving palm leaves and songs of triumph turn to crowds calling for execution. Thomas likely was one of the disciples watching a distance from the  crucifixion,  watching their best hope die and not wanting to believe what they  were seeing.  God knows where they went after that. With that much life and death and life, blessings and betrayals all jumbled together, Thomas and the other disciples can be forgiven for wanting to hang their heads and hide.

Because sometimes faith is the last thing you want, because keeping hope alive can really hurt, because sometimes love seems to lose and you end up feeling lost. Sometimes resignation feels easier in the long run. After the pain, after the death throes, you make peace with defeat and death, you let it go, accept the fact, cut the losses, close the door. But if Jesus' back, then life opens up again! And that’s not easy to live with for Thomas; so he can be forgiven for seeming to resist hope. When you’ve been knocked down that many times, why bother to rise up again; why risk love and hope and faith? 

Still Jesus meets Thomas in all his unbelief and Jesus says, “I am here in this broken body, alive after all this tragedy, a new triumph, a new life awaits.” And  so Thomas takes up the burden of belief and begins again to live with the possibility of resurrection, believing and living in a world where love lives, where faith unfolds old burial clothes as it is born into new beginnings, where hope can rise up and make all things new. And Thomas reaches out for Jesus’ open, welcoming, broken hands and takes on the possibility of a life lived with new faith. And we are here to witness this and to follow in that path; and the question I want to ask today is “How do we, like Thomas, learn to live with resurrection faith?”

I want to talk about how we stretch out our faith using one imaginary page with four sides, each side with two words - eight in all: four latin words that Marcus Borg uses in his book, “The Heart of Christianity” and four english words that I’ve come up with, and to see if these eight words can open up some images and ideas to increase our personal faith, our understanding, our common ministry, as the church, the living body of Christ.

The first word Borg uses for faith is “Fiducia,” related to fiduciary, a place we can trust. He uses a wonderful image here, saying we must learn to trust in God in order to live in God just like a young child must trust in the water before they learn to swim: you have to relax into the possibility that the water, that God, will carry you.  

My word here is “Formation.” The task here is learning again and again that we are formed in the image of God;  and that God’s love, God’s heart, God’s hand, creates, redeems, encourages us; all that we are and all that we do, every moment of our lives. In Christian formation, through prayer, study, and sharing, we come to see and believe, that God delights in us as we are and as God calls us to be who we are. 

Borg’s second word for faith is “Accensus,” related to what we assent to, say yes to, how we formulate and figure out our faith; and my second word here is “Education.” Just as in formation we learn who we are (God’s beloved), then we have to work, to study, to find out “where we come from, where we’re going, and why all the traveling” and that takes time and effort. 

I joke that no one would go to the gym for an hour and a half a week and expect to get fit (although I do just that!). In the same way no one would go to church for an hour and a half a week and expect to know much about the deepest wisdom, ethical, prophetic, political, poetic, compassionate, tradition that Western civilization has ever produced. We grow muscles, dexterity, stamina and faith as we learn our part in glory of our tradition, this ancient family company that works for mercy and justice, carries healing and compassion, brings the captives home, and has for over 2000 years, and this has to be seen, read, understood, rejoiced in in order to be believed.

The third word I use in this four sided model is “Celebration.” We are here because God comes to keep us company In Jesus Christ and that’s good news, especially in times when life turns corners and takes us on a new road, when we get lonely and need company, for, quoting one playwright:

In a world where so many are alone it would be an unforgivable sin to be lonely by yourself 

And every church stands as a sign that no one is alone. Jesus sees lonely crowds and feels compassion and so do we. That’s what it means to be church, the body of Christ. We come together to celebrate the Eucharist, to celebrate when a baby is born, when a couple marries, when life comes to an end: we set the space and fix the meals and tell the stories and gather the community in tragedy and triumph, in good times and bad, we honor the dignity of every human person, and we celebrate the gift of God in keeping faith, in celebrating and sharing that good news to all humankind.

The word Borg uses for this kind of faith is “Fidelitas,” We are here to keep God’s good news in growing faithful relationship with partners, family, friends and strangers who need us -- and maybe everybody needs us, needs what we have to celebrate. For as one parish put it in their mission statement: “God is love, we deliver!” And that good news has room for everyone.

Borg’s fourth and final word for faith is “Visio,’ related to Vision. We come to see better to envision more clearly, to live into our life as God’s faithful friends over time. This comes as a gift, taken up in hope and love, exercised with discipline and devotion, and leads us to a faith that works and changes and grows.

So my last word is “transformation.”  because that’s what happens. When we come to see how deeply God forms and calls us, when our ongoing education open us to see what a large company of faith, wisdom and practice we are part of, when we increasingly understand the ways we are called to celebrate God’s kingdom coming and God’s will being done; then we come to realise in doing our daily deeds and sharing our daily bread, we’re slowly but surely changing the who world.

So faith in Jesus Christ can mean accensus, fiducia, fidelitas and visio; can lead us to formation, education, celebration, and transformation. This takes time and work and company and God’s good Grace; but we’re ok, because the Gospel assures us we already have that! We might worry that we’re too new or too old, but God’s truth is we have all the time in the world and quite a bit more as well. One theologian says that our Christian life is “a marinade rather than a glaze; we are being transformed by being soaked in the gospel!” So over time, letting God’s love, God’s hope, God’s faith soaks into our hearts and lives, we come to see the world the way God sees it from the  start, soaked in Christ’s incarnation, teaching, healing, his gathering, in his love and his loss and his triumphs over death. Sharing this ministry and his spirit, his hands reaching out to Thomas, to us too, and Jesus asks us to live faithfully into the light of resurrection, for that is what we are called to do as God’s beloved creation, God's spirited friends, the body of Christ.   Amen.

Easter 2013

Let’s start wide, and say that something happened, let’s say that two people (Sts Peter and Paul) saw something happen both close up and a ways away, and their lives changed in a way that turned them and the world in a revolution that continues today. 

Then let’s say a third person (St Mary Magdalene) went farther and saw more and we’re not even sure what happened to her. It’s a mystery! But let’s also say these three people; Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene (not to be confused with the twentieth century folk-rock group) are like us, can tell us something we need to know about how faith can come from doubt, hope can cast out fear, and new love can rise out of loss in light of the resurrection of Jesus. 

As a first century church teacher, healer, bishop, martyr, St Peter sounds pretty good; but he didn’t always. If you really look at the man as he appears in the early part of the New Testament, he’s… well, to quote a children’s sermon  I gave a few years ago. 

“Sometimes his mouth opened before his mind really thought of what he was going to say or do. He tried too hard. He talked too much. He would say he was going to do something and then not do it. But Jesus still liked him a lot and kept him around.”

That’s an informal but fair summary of how Simon Peter is seen in the Gospels. And there are three ways what happened to Peter then can inform us now.

First, To be fully human; second, to be ready to struggle with the life of faith and with doubt as well; and third; to be willing to change and grow beyond what you think you know about yourself and what you think you know about God as well. 

We’re so tough on ourselves, afraid that we are incomplete when the truth is that we are only unfinished, flesh and blood. We worry that we might be judged for being “incomplete” or for not having our answers right. But if Simon Peter ends a saint then maybe being “unfinished” is the right word for any human saint in process.. Not according to a prearranged plan or filling out an existing exam, less like marching and more like dancing. Two quotes fit here;  the hymn, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,” and a bumper sticker which said, “Be kind, God isn’t finished with me yet!”  

Second, Peter models wrestling with faith and doubt. Abraham Heschel writes: "Well-adjusted people think that faith is an answer to all human problems. In truth, however, faith is a challenge to all human persons. To have faith is to be in labor." And Peter labors on. He gets it wrong, he keeps going, he tries again, he comes ‘round right. 

For we learn how to live a life of faith by struggling with what it means to doubt, and Peter comes to believe something bigger than he knew. And that’s the third point. 

Peter’s faith become bigger than his life. He had to lose the doubt that he was not enough, and live into the faith that God believed in him more than he believed in himself! We can think of faith as a sort of massive self-improvement process; but Peter’s faith comes as a gift to take with an open heart and with empty hands. That’s a good lesson for some of us. 

Now St Paul’s path is almost the opposite of Peter; his Christ comes with a blinding insight; that Paul is to let go, unlearn all those clear cut laws and commandments he had leaned on in living as a Pharisee, a fundamentalist on the straight and narrow path for so long. He had to come to see law and grace in a new way in the wide and graceful light of Christ, in a growing assurance that fear can find hope; and that hope is wider than fear.

This is not easy for Paul (and I would wager it wasn’t too easy for some of the people around him), for this kind of insight can leave you in the dark for awhile, turning you around from following dead laws to living new life, from outer and inner darkness to renewed and inspired insight, a larger life and larger love with more room than you had thought.

And the second thing Paul sees is through his witness of that this new shared life of Jesus, this new spirit, brings together the body of Christ; people of different viewpoints, histories and hopes. So Paul’s grows to find a new harmony in this common way home: to love his neighbor as he learned to love himself, as beloved of God. As Peter had to take on a new faith, Paul had to leave off his old fear. That may fit for some of us too.

A 14th century book “Cloud of Unknowing” has a three bits of advice on meeting God in prayer that fit here. For Peter-type people it says; push upward beyond what you think you know, beyond who you think you are, into the place where God waits to surprise you! The advice for the Paul-people is; press down, leaving behind what you’ve done and who you were, what you believed and fought for, so God can meet you and renew you. 

There is a third way in the Cloud as well. The author says, and I paraphrase mightily here; If all else fails, just say, “Here I am, as I am, right, now. Please help! And that takes us to Mary, who must have been so important in Jesus’ community, and whom we know so little about; Mary with those two angels, messengers, and that mysterious gardener. 

For Mary, as well as for Peter and Paul, Jesus had opened a new way into the mystery of life, His life and deeds seem to speak a word, live out a way, to get past all dead ends and into something new --  more holy, and more fully involved with flesh and blood and community and relationship. More life. New life.

But here she in a dirty grey dawn, walking to a lonely garden where a closed tomb marked the death of the liveliest person she had ever known, the liveliest hope she had ever held, and all she could do is ask someone who looks like the gardener where the corpse of that love may now be hidden.

Gardens are as tough and as wonderful as life: unpredictable places where seed falls into mysterious ground: summers with rich harvest, years when fire and drought kill growth and the fields seem barren: autumn when the promise of rain gives us new hope, cold hidden winters, and warm springs when life bursts into sudden glory. They take time, show history, need much work, can cause calluses, break your heart and back, and yet we love them so.

But if you’ve ever planted seeds and waited for the harvest you know what a garden is worth. So does God. In Christ, God’s seed is planted deep in all that is around us: all that is reasonable, holy and living. Even now, God is casting it wide, letting the seed break apart in darkness, letting it be nourished over time, working the field, never ceasing to weed and watch, that nothing may be lost in life, not even death shall be lost in the light of God!  And in that garden Jesus defeated every falsehood with the power of the deepest truth of God’s love.

And Jesus comes to meet Mary, and us, there; love lives and speaks to her in a life that lives beyond death. Do not hold on to an old truth, Mary, meet the mystery of love in a new way,. Let love lost be born anew. For life is now forever new! 

And because she had followed him so faithfully to this dead end, he sends her as the first apostle to this new beginning, and she goes to the disciples with the Gospel news; I have seen the Lord. And it all begins there! 

Three witnesses, three ways three people responded to an almost unbelievable influx of new life, a new way of living, where doubt leads to faith, fear comes to hope, loss finds greater love. There darkness is overcome by a light shining almost two thousand years later, a light that has changed the world and will, make no mistake, continue to do so until Christ is all in all.

For Alleluia, Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia,

Alleluia, Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia,

Alleluia, Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia,